Sierra Madre Fire Tour

On Sunday, my friends and I planned for a very early ride since temperatures were forecast to be in the high 90's or 100's. So, as I'm getting ready for the ride, I went out to my driveway to pick up the paper (gotta read my funnies first thing in the morning), and ash was everywhere. I noticed that the ash looked like the remainder of brush, so I immediately scanned the mountains for smoke, but didn't see any. I went back inside, and scanned the online news for headlines: Brushfire in Sierra Madre, 100 homes evacuated at 11 PM Saturday night. Whoa. I made a mental note to let the other guys know that we would not be going east today.

Bikes and Bricks

When we met up for the ride start, my friend Richard had all the news from yesterday. He had actually seen the smoke develop Saturday afternoon, but it didn't seem to be that serious. According to the news, the wind picked up after sunset, requiring the evacuation of the homes and the Boy Scout camp at Chantry Flats. And truly, the fire was worse that morning: whenever we crossed an open intersection, we got a face full of ash from a western blowing wind. Since we weren't going east, we went south and west, picking up another friend near South Pasadena, and then off towards La Cañada via the Rose Bowl. The light was eerie as we pedaled north of the Bowl, since a huge smoke cloud began to obscure the sun. We looped back down to South Pasadena and rested a bit. Interestingly enough, while sipping good iced coffee at Kaldi's, we remarked that that the best thing for Hillary Clinton and John McCain would be more Jeremiah Wright nonsense. Ouch for Obama yesterday, huh? Then it was time to climb back up the foothills to Pasadena to beat the heat.

Today, with news that the evacuated residents were allowed back home, and not seeing any new smoke (or smelling any!), I decided to take a little look, a little see at the hills of Sierra Madre.

Hazy view of the Sierra Madre hills from Sierra Madre Boulevard.

I turned up Baldwin, and got the clearest view of the fire damage and how close the fire actually got to the homes.

Burned out ridges north of Baldwin Avenue.

I turned right on Grandview, which happened to be the furthest north that non-residents could go up into the Sierra Madre foothills. Every intersection had at least one police car and barricades, making sure you showed your identification to let you onto the streets. The police were pulled from all the foothill towns. I saw Glendora, Arcadia, San Marino, Pasadena, and Monrovia. Today would be a good day for daylight neighborhood invasion robberies in those smaller towns, just sayin'. In fact, only one block north of Grandview on Santa Anita is the start of Santa Anita Canyon Road, which leads to the Boy Scout camp and all the major trail heads. Of course, that was blocked too.

The intersection of Grandview and Santa Anita: yes, it really is as steep as it looks.

You can't see it from the picture of the burned out ridges above Baldwin, but I saw a line of firefighters continuing to dig new firebreaks and tamp out hotspots. If you can make it out, one of the ridges is red-colored from the fire retardant that was dropped on it yesterday. I was out in east Pasadena yesterday afternoon, and I saw the big jets actually dropping the retardant on that smoking ridge. The firefighters did an awesome job keeping homes safe, and making sure the fire stayed in the hills, instead of beginning to jump from house to house. Heartfelt thanks go to them for their effort and dedication.

The Tale of Annandale Annie

At the bottom of the two mile descent down Glenoaks this morning, I stopped next to an elderly man walking his dog. The dog was a golden brown with some bull terrier traits in her, but I couldn't tell for sure what exactly. The old man was very interested in how I stopped right next to him, saw my deep breath as I flashed him a smile and a good morning, and asked,

"Did you just come down the Glenoaks hill?"

I smiled again and replied, "Yup. I went up it too!"

The old man's eyes twinkled, and that seemed to signal the next phase of a friendly encounter. The dog approached me as I straddled my bike and sniffed my proffered hand. There were just the beginnings of white hair around her mouth, which put her age around 7 or 8 years old. The dog accepted my petting and her owner said,

"Looks like she likes you."

I asked, "What's her name?" I continued patting the side of her jaw, something that larger dogs always seemed to enjoy.

"She's called 'Annandale Annie.'"

"Annandale Annie?" I asked, a smile beginning to pull up the corners of my mouth as I knew there was going to be a story involved here.

"Sure," he replied. "You know the golf course near here? Annandale? I used to golf there a lot." Indeed, the old man looked like he wished he were walking there at the moment, as he was wearing khakis, saddle shoes that looked like golf shoes with the spikes removed, and a light water resistant jacket. The story began to wind up... "Well, one day I came across this brown streak of a dog running all over the course, and I caught her!"

I looked down at Annie, who was now offering her paw, and resting it on my leg. She looked like she had never misbehaved in her entire life, much less tearing up a golf course and running amok. She and her owner were probably fixtures at the clubhouse for a few years before the old man had to give up the game.

"So you got her at the golf course and that's how she got her name?" I replied. I know how the give and take of an oft-told tale is supposed to go.

"Yep. We've been together ever since. Me and 'Annandale Annie.'"

We exchanged a few more pleasantries, as Annie seemed to really like me. I blame the sweat. I also related how I used to have a large dog who weighed more than I did, and how he died of old age. The old duffer told me how Annie used to walk with him and his other dogs, who were so much smaller than she was, and what an odd picture it made, this tall man, this large dog, and these tiny dogs all walking the road together. And then it was time to go. The old man had to climb up a little ways back to his house with Annie, and I had to negotiate a hairy left turn back onto Linda Vista. Perhaps I'll see them again, the old golfer and Annandale Annie.

Helmety Public Service Announcements

You wouldn't believe it, but I actually played some Halo multiplayer with my friends last weekend. It had been about 3 or 4 years since we had done this. Of course, we chose Halo 1, where the pistols still took you out in two headshots, not that "balanced" weapons crap that came in the sequels. So, while we were running circles around each other, wasting our shotgun ammo with all these glancing blows, I remembered that one of our regular players used a whole different strategy with shotguns, and we hated him for it. So we would make sure to send a pair to hunt him down until he would stop doing that. See if you can figure out what he was doing from the video below.

"Camping... It's a legitimate strategy!"

Helmety Gender Relations

If you've been following Helmety Goodness Fridays over the last few months, then you've become familiar with the mature, intelligent Arbiter and his stupid, rude roommate Master Chief. Of course, MC's lack of manners would extend to how he treats women, and is actually pretty indicative of how the mostly male online gaming community treats the few women who like to play the violent first person shooter games. In today's video, you'll see most of the common online stereotypes, like the notion that women always wear pink armor. Watch as we see that the possibility of a cross-gender online relationship is about the only thing that could motivate Master Chief to speak and spell correctly. lolwut? stru.

SECKS BALLOONZ

Blog Sprinkle

Just an update here for the lack of blog posts: still geeking out. Between cycling, Sam & Max, reading Star Wars novels, and the new anime season, I'm not spending that much time reading the news. I did catch up with BSG (see, now I can say that without pausing) right before the season premiere. Mind you, I had to watch the last three episodes of last season on the day of, and made it with a half hour to spare, but it was fresh, FRESH I tell you, in my mind. The anime stuff should clear my hobby schedule by the end of the week, because by then I will have sampled the new stuff, and found the three or four shows I'll actually watch. Unless there are so many good shows, that I'll have to watch them all... nah, that couldn't possibly happen.

Helmety Beginnings

If you've enjoyed the last few editions of Helmety Goodness Fridays, then you've enjoyed the hilarious bickering of Master Chief and the Arbiter. But how did they meet? Were they ever friendly, or did they always just offer grudging acceptance of the other's mutual presence? Let's just say, please don't use frying pans on collectible action figures...

BOOONNNNGGGG!

April Fools: Back to the Future!

After Velonews.com updated their website with a new look and feel, they got a lot of positive feedback. I can't find old Grand Tour stories as easily as the old site, but that's a minor gripe compared to the few, but vocal, negative responses. So, Velonews will launch a new beta site this year, using templates from 1996! Well-played, Velonews, well-played. Although, Mr. Internet himself might actually be interested in that concept of an Information SuperBikePath. Hey, if he thinks turning off the lights for an hour is the way to save the future of the planet, surely eschewing any kind of non-human powered vehicle is the best way forward. When asked to comment on the changes to the website, the two senior editors of Velonews, O'Grady and Pelkey, had this to say: “I view this redesign and management shake-up as a victory for the traditions of great journalism. I know this web thingy doesn’t have the impact of ink on paper, but Pelkey and I respect the hard-nosed approach real newspaper men bring to their work. We think we can bring that to the Internet, too. Now, get off of my lawn.”