Archive for February, 2008
Nancy’s Baby Shower
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Today was Nancy and Steve’s baby shower. The afternoon tea was sponsored by the Tea Rose Garden in Pasadena. Well, not actually sponsored but held there you see. The sponsors were the members of the LAC-USC anesthesia team organized by Monique. It was a great turn out despite the wintry weather, showers and wind. A perfect day for an afternoon tea.
Debby and I arrived early coincidentally. It just so happens that the Tea Rose Garden is just across the street from Lucky Baldwins British Pub in Pasadena. As luck would have it the Annual Belgian Fest was going on so you know what that means. Deb and I spent the next 40 minutes sampling the Belgian beer in our own take home special event glasses. Just the perfect way to set up an afternoon tea! By the time we had chatted and talked our way through a glass of Leffe Brune, an Ale made in a Belgian Abby by real Monks, it was time to go. Now what more God like thing is there than to brew and enjoy well made Ale? Nothing except our tea was waiting so we moved across the street to the Tea Rose Garden for our party.
Nancy and her husband Steve were there as were a great representation from the USC Nurse Anesthetist group. Charlotte brought her camera too so we drank tea, ate sweet cakes and took pictures of Nancy opening her Baby Shower gifts. What a great day! Kari was even demonstrating her Black Belt moves in preparation for her 3rd Dan. I know that is stretching it a bit but thats what it looked like to me. You can be the judge of that yourself by checking out all of the pictures uploaded to flickr here.
All of us wish Nancy and Steve a wonderful experience with the upcoming birth of their first child. The due date is in March so the child should be a Pisces Earth Rat. Now that is East meets West in Grand style.
Point To Point Wiring
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Maybe there is some of you that do not know about guitar amplifier design or the history of how Rock and Roll’s sound has evolved through amplifier design. Your favorite Rockers used old Tube amplifiers constructed in the good old fashion way before circuit boards and micro technology were ever dreamed of. The modern era has brought so many innovations that to think that the old technology is good or even better than what is mass produced today is counter intuitive. Yet, it is true that the old Tube driven amplifiers that created the “sound” or “tone” of the early innovators of Rock and Roll still rule! Just listen to an old recording of The Shadows and Hank Marvin and the sound that comes from the old tube point to point wired Vox amplifiers. Now those guys still Rock On. Just listen to the promo from the Guitar Man album that Hank Marvin put out last year. Love that guitar and the hand wired all tube amplifier that make the tone.
Super Tuesday?
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Well Super Tuesday has come and gone and the Potomac Primary votes are in. Barack Obama sweeps Hillary in Tuesday’s primaries in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia while McCane does the same on the Republican side.
So who to vote for is the question of the day. I will leave that up to you but I’m waiting it out. Thanks to Daryl Cagle Comics for the cartoon.
Kimball’s Last Ride
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You have all heard the stories of the Texas Rangers and their demise during the outlaw days of the Wild West. The Hole in The Wall gang supposedly killed them all including Dan Reid the brother of the leader of the Texas Rangers. “Who Was That Masked Man“. The Lone Ranger of course, thought to be dead and nursed back to health by Tonto his future side kick, to ride and fight injustice where ever it may be found. Charming story. Todays Lone Ranger is riding off to Greece to spend some time with his “side Kick” Diva! Now that is much better than any old Indian I’m sure. So Kimball is leaving us for several months, leaving for Greece to play in the Parthenon and ride the hillsides of the Greek Isle.
His last day here was spent riding along the Rio Hondo bicycle trail to the constant crooning from Stan, “I Love Riding My Bike” to the tune ‘Oh Give Me A Home……Buffalo’s Roam’ or something like that. The weather was fabulous starting out a little cool and ending up in the mid 70′s. You can still see the snow on the San Gabriel Mountains and the run-off from the hills is still brisk. The water ways are full giving the water foul plenty of room to play among the reeds.
I used this as a little warm up ride after a hard Sunday jaunt to South Pasadena and back through Sierra Madre. I did check out the Chantry Flats road and its open now all the way to the top. Cool, that means I can beat myself up on this hill any time I want.
The Dean custom El Diente titanium frame I ordered a couple of months ago with S&S couplers should be done by the end of the month. This will be my travel bike which I will take to RAGBRAI this year. The cool thing about the travel bike is that it fits into checkable luggage. No added expenses for shipping the bike. How SWEET is that. The cost of the frame will be covered after several trips just in the recovery of shipping costs. Well maybe more than a couple trips but thats OK. Its the prinicple of the thing. Last year I spent almost $300 dollars in shipping costs for bikes traveling around. Now I will have a bike to take to China the next time we go. Now that is something I am really looking forward to.
BTW, I have a new camera. Maybe this is the inspiration to get me to start posting more often. Its the Nikon CoolPiX P5100, a 12 mega pixel wonder. All of the new photos from this little baby can be seen at flickr.
RAGBRAI For Dummies
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This year we did it! The Cycling Pigs are registered as a Group yipppppeeeee! After last year’s misadventure in getting our Cycling Pigs group signed up I figured it out finally. You know it always makes sense to read the directions carefully especially when doing something new for the first time. You see I did not do that last year and we all ended up registered as individuals. Not a good thing for the group. We all had to scramble to get week long passes which did take a little toll on our patience.
This year we may have eight. Exactly double the number of riders that went last year. Will Eight be enough? We will see in Michael comes on board for the ride of the summer. Now we have other worries like who is going into what tent! If this is all that we have to worry about then we are Golden! So follow along with us and check out last years pictures. I will try to get Russ’s photo collection up to flickr soon so there will be more to drool over.
The last few days have really been warm and the riding great. Juli and Michael did the Palm Springs Century and had a blast while I was tied up with home chores. I did get out for a great ride Sunday and today rode with Stan around the Santa Fe Dam so the training has started! Stay tuned.
Patric O'Brian
Radical Brewing
