Stan’s Obligatory Blog

…isnt’ going to happen. It’s raining here in L.A. for the first time of the season. Auuggghhh! I’m melting! I’m melting! Ohhhhh, what a world, what a world.

Oh well, there’s always next week.

I gave a short talk today at the Earthquake Research Affiliates meeting. The subject was the electronic mailing lists that I’ve set up for earthquake notification. Specifically, we have a set of mailing lists that people can subscribe to for notifications of earthquakes in California. Also, I’m working on a Virtual Mailing List that will use a database to allow people to select custom notification formats, thresholds and geographic boundaries. So I got to get up and talk about all this today. Fortunately, I don’t have a major fear of public speaking. I got over that years ago when I worked as an aerobics instructor and also when I took the ‘How to Perform Stand-Up Comedy’ class at UCLA Extension. So it was a fun time.



Also, I noticed that there is now a marker on the outside of the building commemorating the invention of the pH meter. I never knew that the American Chemical Society placed markers for stuff like this.

Lucinda has her first loose tooth. She noticed it today, and she’s quite excited by it.

Also, she has been taking an art class on Thursdays after school. Here is a sample of something she made there today:

I checked, and my I Hate Texas page is number one in a Google search for “I hate Texas”. Heh. It’s kind of fun having the number one result for something.

We took Lucinda to the Altadena Library this evening for a chemistry and magic show. He showed various chemical reactions that change color or make gas. The climax of the show was when he made ice cream with a jug of liquid nitrogen. Lucinda enjoyed watching the show and at the end she got some of the ice cream.

Also, Lucinda found another praying mantis in the back yard, so today I got another bug cage and some crickets to feed both of them. Here’s one of them chowing down.

It seems that every town has an ‘Old Town’ these days. And Glendora is no exception. Today’s ride went through Temple City and Irwindale to Glendora, where we stopped for a snack at the Classic Car Gallery coffee shop. On the way back, we went through Azusa, Monrovia and Sierra Madre. The ride was 39 miles, and with my ‘warmup’ beforehand the total was 51 miles.

We went over to West Hollywood today to DiRT Gallery to pick up the two collages we bought. They are part of the “Art Hysterical” series by Jeff Gillete. The two we got are “Brice Marden and embryo” and “Odd Nerdrum and Little Mermaid”.

We went to Back-to-School night at Don Benito this evening. This is our first time being parents of a school-age child, so it’s all new to us. We didn’t realize that public school is a lot like public TV. A good bit of the evening was devoted to begging us to donate money. Apparently, the school doesn’t pay for classroom supplies, so the teachers end up spending their own money to get the classrooms outfitted. This is pathetic.

On the plus side, Lucinda’s teachers seem very capable and nice. So we will likely pony up some cash to help out with the supplies.

Today at lunchtime I rode my bike over to the old Kresge Lab in the San Rafael hills in Pasadena. This is the old seismo lab, and I’d heard that there are deer that graze on the property. So I wanted to take a look. When I got there, I could see lots of trails up and down the hills, and lots of little hoof prints on the trails, but no actual deer. Still, it was interesting to see the place again.
 
And just to prove that there are deer there, here are some pictures of them that my friend Anthony took yesterday: http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~aguarino/

Later on in the day, I had to fix one of the computers, and while it was self-testing I had a look in the Media Room. The Parkfield earthquake last week had made for a busy time here, and there were still signs of all the activity.
 

Today’s ride was through Highland Park and Los Feliz to Griffith Park. Then we rode up past the Greek Theater and over Mt Hollywood Drive until we came out by Travel Town. We had a snack stop at Priscilla’s in Burbank before coming home through Glendale and La Canada, complete with the climb up Hospital Hill. The main ride was 45 miles, and I did a short 10-mile warmup before the ride, so the day’s total was 55 miles.