Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Today we took the train down to San Diego to visit Grandpa Schwarz. Riding the train is a pleasant way to go there, and it’s an arduous trip by car. The only bad thing(s) that happened were that we missed the first two trains. When we got to the Gold Line station in Pasadena, the train left just as we were coming down the stairs. We had to wait for the next train, and then when we got to Union Station, we looked out the window and saw the Amtrak Surfliner leaving for San Diego. So we had to wait for the next one.

Once we got there, we had a nice time. Grandpa picked us up at the train station and we all went to lunch. After that, we went back to his apartment. He played computer games and music with Lucinda, while Cathy and I looked through piles of old photos. I found a lot of pictures from my bike racing days back in the late ’70s, which was fun. I’ve scanned some of them for my photo album already, and I’m going to see about getting the slides scanned.

After a fun and relaxing afternoon, we got back on the train for the trip home. The train was crowded, so we ended up in the front car, which turned out to be entertaining. The engineer had the door to the cab open, so we could look out the front window. He also let Lucinda blow the train horn. So we had a fun trip back.

When we got home, we were all tired, but it was a fun day.

I’ve been playing some more with Google Maps. I made up a little script to create the xml file for listing the photos on a bike ride. So I tested it out with the pictures from the ride to Encino from a few weeks ago.

Here are the pictures

I guess the next step would be to plot the route on the map…

Note: I’m doing some experimenting with Google Maps to show the locations where the photos were taken. Here is a map showing the locations of today’s photos. Click the markers to get the caption and a link to the full-sized photo. And let me know how it works and if there is anything else I should add.

Today’s ride was out to Larchmont Village for a bagel at Noah’s.

We started out going west, across Pasadena and down into the arroyo. We went down past the stables at the bottom and then up the other side into Highland Park.

Going down York Blvd, we passed the Los Angeles Police Department Museum. This has been on my list of things to see for a long time. It sounds interesting.

Turning south on Eagle Rock Blvd, we went down to Ave 36 and then Fletcher. We passed the old Van de Camp’s bakery, which has been saved from the wrecker’s ball and is now slated to be a new L.A. City College campus.

Crossing the Los Angeles River, we passed into Silver Lake. We went around the Silver Lake Reservoir and then down the hill. That was where we saw Mom’s Donuts and Chinese Food. Yikes.

A few turns later, we were in Koreatown, where we saw a very strange sign with a gorilla on it. But since the signs were all in Korean, we have no idea what they said.

Crossing Western Ave, we passed the event horizon that divides the mansions of Hancock Park from the barred-window liquor stores of Koreatown. We went west until we got to Larchmont Blvd.

At the corner of 2nd St and Larchmont, we passed the former home of Adriana Caselotti, who was the voice for the original Disney Snow White, back in 1937.

We stopped for a bagel at Noah’s on Larchmont Blvd. We got lucky, and there were tables and enough chairs for all of us right out in front.

Leaving Larchmont, we went north to Melrose, and then took a quick right and then left to get to Gower St. We went up the west side of Paramount Studios to get to Santa Monica Blvd. Then we went right to get to Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

At the cemetery, we stopped to see Mel Blanc. We also went and had a look at the rocket monument we saw last time. I went over to get a closer look and found out that it was indeed an Atlas rocket, and that the monument is for Carl Morgan Bigsby, who died in 1959.

Leaving the cemetery, we went north on Bronson through Hollywood. We turned right on Franklin Ave and went east. We passed the Dearly Departed Tours van, which sort of fit in with the cemetery visit. Then we crossed the Shakespeare Bridge and headed back across the river to Highland Park.

We went up Burleigh Road and La Loma to cross the hills and get back to the Arroyo. Then Gene and most of the riders went east on California, and just a few of us went straight up Arroyo to the Rose Bowl.

From the Rose Bowl, we went up the little hill at the end to get to Linda Vista, and then went north to Highland and the bridge across the freeway below Devil’s Gate Dam. Then we took Windsor Road north some more and then Altadena Drive back across town and back to the park.

50 miles.
see the route
cycling

This weekend is the big Body Art Expo at the L.A. County Fairgrounds. This is billed as “The World’s Largest Tattoo and Piercing Convention”. I don’t doubt that. They spend a lot on promotion to make it so that pretty much everyone in Los Angeles knows about it. So the sheer size of it is impressive. Still, perhaps I’m getting jaded in my old age. It’s just not as much fun as it seems like it should be.

I got there around 3:30 or so. I stayed until about 9:00. I had an acceptably fun time. Highlights included the girl with the corset piercing. She had one of the best outfits there. I also enjoyed seeing my friend Rick at The Mermaid’s Tale booth.

There was a barbershop booth there that was doing a brisk business with hot towel shaves. That was a bit odd. One funny bit was the massage booth with the big banner announcing “MASSAGE CONFORFAblE”. That looked like something straight out of engrish.com. And call me old-fashioned, but I still think The Jerky Hut looks strange at a tattoo convention.

Anyway, it was an amusing afternoon and evening.

Keith Alexander, an old online friend died yesterday in a bicycle accident. The witness said that he wasn’t hit by a car, and if he’d been wearing his helmet he would probably still be alive. Keith, I can’t believe that you were riding in NYC without a helmet.

Addendum: Here’s Dee Snider’s eulogy for Keith.

This evening, our dog Buddy was barking out the front door at something, so I looked out the window and saw a supremely weird sight.

There is some group that does a ‘fitness boot camp’ thing at the park down the street from us. They run around the park and do calisthenics and such. Apparently, this evening the instructors decided to take them out of the park. So I looked out and saw a whole bunch of people lined up down our street, all holding poles and doing calisthenics. So I grabbed my camera and went outside and took their picture. They thought this was funny, but I told them that I thought it just looked supremely weird. Then the instructors barked something at them about not talking, and they all jogged off down the street.

Now I’m not one to shy away from exercise, especially when it involves a bicycle. But this sort of thing, and especially paying for it, just strikes me as weird. But whatever. After all, I used to be an aerobics instructor, and that struck most everyone who knew me as weird. Anyway, it’s just all part of the stuff that goes on in our neighborhood.

Since Grace and Beth have been posting pictures of their cute dogs, I decided that the whole dog thing is just an elaborate blog meme. So I thought I’d play along. Our dogs are not special breeds or anything like that. But they’re still very cute. Especially when I have their full attention. Like when I have a bowl of ice cream on the table. They are very attentive until I finish and let them lick the bowl.

This afternoon I took Lucinda to the L.A. Zoo. We walked around and looked at both the animals and all the construction going on there. The new entrance is close to being done, and they had a surf band playing by the front gate. Inside, a large part of the zoo is torn up. They are rebuilding the Gorilla and Elephant exhibits, which are a large part of the center of the zoo. We had nice time, including finding a feather from an ibis on the ground in the aviary. Lucinda also got a new toy on the way out. She really liked the kangaroo, so I agreed to buy it for her if she would pay for half with her own money.

Pictures are in her photo album.

Today’s ride was a nice ride out through Glendale, with a stop at Paradise Bakery.

The morning was kind of gray and hazy, but the weather forecast said that the haze would go away.

We started out heading west. We skirted the Rose Bowl and headed up into La Cañada. Then we took Chevy Chase up and over the hill. On the downhill side, we got going fairly fast. I saw my speed get up to 38, which is probably the fastest I’ve gone in 20 years. Back when I was young and fearless, that was no big deal. But now that I’m older and more cautious, I tend not to go so fast down the hills. But every time we do a fast downhill, I think of the day back in 1976 when I was riding down a big hill in Harriman State Park in New York. I had an old analog speedometer on my bike that had a little plastic wheel that read the speed off the front tire. Going down this hill, the speedometer pegged at 50, and then the little plastic wheel couldn’t handle it any more and broke off and flew into the woods. And all I could think was, “I broke my speedometer – Cool!” Ahh, youth.

At the bottom of the hill, we headed down through Glendale for a bit, and then came back north to Glenoaks Blvd. We took a left there and rode a bit to get to Paradise Bakery. They have the best eclairs there, so I always get two of them.

After that, we went south on Sonora, where we passed Jimmy’s Super Lunch. We have no idea what’s so super about it, but it was funny. Continuing on, we passed the Bette Davis Picnic Area and headed into Griffith Park. We did one loop around the park, going up the hill behind the Zoo and down past the golf course, and then out to Los Feliz Blvd. Then we went back, passing the Autry Museum and the front side of the Zoo.

From there, we went back up Sonora to Kenneth in Glendale. By this time, the sun had burned off the early-morning clouds and it was starting to get hot. We continued on Mountain back to Verdugo Blvd. Then it was time for the long climb up to Hospital Hill.

When we got to the top of the hill, it was all downhill from there. We went down Descanso and Chevy Chase, and then crossed the freeway to get back to Woodbury Road. Then we took Woodbury and New York back to the park.

52 miles. see the route map
cycling

Saw this today:

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2005-07-07T140454Z_01_N06702090_RTRIDST_0_SCIENCE-SCIENCE-MEAT-DC.XML

The best part:

…scientists could grow cells from the muscle tissue of cattle, pigs, poultry or fish in large flat sheets on thin membranes. These sheets of cells would be grown and stretched, then removed from the membranes and stacked to increase thickness and resemble meat.[emphasis mine]

Actually, I don’t think this is such a bad idea. It’s just a way to get processed meat without having to go through the intermediate stage of having to grow an actual animal. Then there’s less waste, since you don’t have to grow bones, beaks, and hair. And then there’s less temptation for the processors to try and stretch the meat by grinding up skin and such. So, even though I’m sure the organic-food-types would recoil in horror, I actually think this might be a Good Thing for the average person’s diet.