Ashe

My new favorite rodeo event: Open Ranch Class

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Aug 062011
 

After a very nice lunch at “The Nat­ur­al” with Eli, Car­ol, Shel­ley, and NANCY I walked home through the Earl W. show­grounds enjoy­ing all the hors­es and rodeo activ­i­ty. In the are­na itself I dis­cov­ered a new (to me) rodeo event, “Open Ranch Class”. Below is a mon­tage show­ing some of today’s teams in action.

The event is struc­tured thus: A fence runs across the are­na about 40% in from the west end. There is a fenced chan­nel thru the mid­dle of this bar­ri­er (image #1). 36 cows are inside this 40% area divid­ed into groups of three and so numbered. 

To com­mence the event two rid­ers enter this 40% area thru the chan­nel (image #1) and are simul­ta­ne­ous­ly giv­en a num­ber from the announc­er. Their goal is to cull out the three cows with the giv­en num­ber into the 60% emp­ty space of the are­na with­out let­ting any oth­er cows out of the 40% space (images 2 & 3). Next the two rid­ers have to dri­ve only two of the three cows back to the herd in the 40% area, open the gate to a pen in the far east end of the 60% are­na and dri­ve the one remain­ing cow into the pen, ride in them­selves, and close and lock the gate. To stop the clock the two rid­ers then have only three trys to las­so the cow, one over the head and the oth­er the hind leg or legs (image 4).

Lots of rid­ing skill, horse train­ing, and team­work are need­ed as well as some luck with hav­ing cows behave as wished. All in all very fun and inter­est­ing to watch. It takes sev­er­al hours to have the 30 or so teams com­pete in this event as well as three herds of cows so it is not done dur­ing the night time per­for­mance of the rodeo which explains why I have nev­er seen it.

There is a larger/clearer mon­tage you can view by click­ing on the one above.

 Posted by at 6:11 pm

Katrina gets handed off to her rightful owner

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Aug 022011
 

My sis­ter Michele saw and fell in love with a very won­der­ful Deo de los Muer­tos sculp­ture in San Luis Obis­po a cou­ple of months ago. After she returned home to Poway she decid­ed she did indeed want it so I offered to dri­ve up to SLO and pick it up. I kept her (she now has a name, Kat­ri­na) here until today when we made the plan to meet half way at the Green Street Restau­rant in Pasade­na for lunch and a hand­ing over of Katrina.

Car­ol Pre­ston offered to ride along as shot­gun and gen­er­al guardian of Objets d’art. We arrived at the appoint­ed high noon hour right in front of the Green Street Restau­rant and were lit­er­al­ly behind Michele in her car, so it was easy to park togeth­er and walk to lunch. In the mon­tage above: Michele and Car­ol just after park­ing, the two of them at our table, the three of us with the dregs of lunch, and final­ly Michele and I with Kat­ri­na hav­ing just exit­ed the Vol­vo on her way to the back seat of the Cam­ry. It was a beau­ti­ful, hot, nice­ly cloudy, mid west­ern feel­ing day com­plete with a few rain drops. (A big­ger ver­sion of Kat­ri­na can be seen my click­ing on her to the left and a big­ger mon­tage ver­sion by click­ing on the mon­tage itself.)

On the way back to San­ta Bar­bara Car­ol and I drove from West­lake to Leo Car­il­lo State Beach through the beau­ti­ful San­ta Mon­i­ca Moun­tains, up the coast to Padero Lane where we paused for a dip in the ocean, then on to Bro­phy Both­ers for din­ner. Quite the fun outing.

 Posted by at 2:00 pm

539 miles in July, my most bicycling in 5 years

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Jul 312011
 

A mon­tage of my won­der­ful bicy­cling and birth­day month. Start­ing in the upper left: Olympia, Washin­gon — Seat­tle, Wash­ing­ton (a nice day of rid­ing with Scott) — Bend, Ore­gon and envi­rons — Chico, Cal­i­for­nia and near­by grain ele­va­tor — some around the world cycle tourists Quan and I met and vis­it­ed with as they passed through San­ta Bar­bara — Tom and I on one of our Sun­day morn­ing rides, my bike along the Rin­con — a stop at Lane Farms for Straw­ber­ries — cool Bud­da in Sum­mer­land — a stop at the end of wharf — Stack­y’s for a Fies­ta wrap (a reg­u­lar lunch des­ti­na­tion) — at the “end” of Gole­ta stop­ping for a recent­ly pur­chased Star­buck­’s reduced fat turkey McSand­wich and O.J. (A larg­er mon­tage can be viewed by click­ing on the one above)

 Posted by at 11:59 pm

Great breakfast, beautiful 53 mile bike ride

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Jul 262011
 

I rode down to the East Beach Grill and met Car­ol C. for pan­cakes, hers with blue­ber­ries inside, mine with bananas. We brought along our own Trad­er Joe’s dark real maple syrup to com­ple­ment the yum­my ‘cakes. We were hav­ing such a good time no record­ed images of the event were tak­en. After break­fast I rode down through Carpin­te­ria and along the beau­ti­ful Rin­con Park­way, decid­ing to turn around after 27 miles right here at a nice surf­ing spot.

Sev­er­al of the folks camp­ing along the Park­way have cre­at­ed some very fun rock sculptures.

On the way home I picked up some water to mix with my pow­dered Gatorade at the nice foun­tain adjoin­ing the Rin­con fire sta­tion (left), stopped for an inter­est­ing shot of an oil pump­jack (I just learned this word from WikiPedia), then encoun­tered a slight block­ing of the bike path 1/2 mile fur­ther along.

Back up the rise from Bates Road to the Hwy. 150 over­pass I’m all set to cruise back thru Carpin­te­ria and on to Sum­mer­land for a deli­cious turkey burg­er at Stack­ys. (I wish I could keep remem­ber­ing to keep my fin­gers away from the iPhone’s lens, note fin­ger in upper left cor­ner of image).

A final stop at Tom’s office for a nice leisure­ly vis­it and it was home and into the cap­sule to pre­pare this entry. A won­der­ful post birth­day day.

 Posted by at 3:00 pm

Carol and Ashe at Whiskey Richards

 All Categories, Music  1 Response »
Jul 242011
 

Alis­tair Greene was play­ing from four to sev­en at Whiskey Richards on State Street so since it was my last day at 66 Car­ol came along to enjoy (and with­stand) the LOUD Blues and R&R for two hours! It was mid­way through all the fun and her doing lots of danc­ing that we ven­tured into the Whiskey Richards pho­to booth for these shots. (Do you think any places oth­er than bars still have these?)

After the sec­ond break for the band we walked up State and had a nice din­ner at the very British fish and chips place. A very fun pre-birth­day outing.

 Posted by at 7:00 pm

Spectacular day in North Cascades National Park

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Jul 062011
 

I left the Allens this morn­ing around nine and head­ed north on Inter­state 5 then east on Wash­ing­ton high­way 20 to and through North Cas­cades Nation­al Park. The weath­er was sun­ny and clear and in the 80’s and the scenery won­der­ful. A bill­board near the entrance to the park described this area as the “Amer­i­can Alps”. Hav­ing dri­ven through it I can none but agree.

After leav­ing the park and pass­ing east of the cas­cades I drove for sev­er­al hours along­side the mighty Colum­bia Riv­er, what a treat. Decades ago on a bicy­cle adven­ture I sought out the source of the Colum­bia in Cana­da and camped overnight there.

Tonight I am holed up in Ellens­burg, Wash­ing­ton, the home of Cen­tral Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty. It was grant­ed the site of CWU in 1891 as a con­so­la­tion prize when Ellens­burg lost out to Olympia as Wash­ing­ton’s cap­i­tal. The his­toric part of the city is high­ly tout­ed so I shall be check­ing on such in the morning.

 Posted by at 10:04 pm

Wonderful Lake Washington Bike Ride

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Jul 052011
 

Scott and I went on a spec­tac­u­lar 48 mile 5th of July bike ride today, most­ly skirt­ing around the shore of Lake Wash­ing­ton but also through UDUB, very fun. Temps in the 80’s, just like SoCal 🙂

I start gen­er­al­ly south tomor­row for Sat­ur­day in Sacra­men­to to see and cheer on Ralph at his foot race there. But first a north­ern jag up to North Cas­cades Nation­al Park (get­ting with­in about 15 miles of Cana­da) then maybe over to the Grand Coulee Dam before actu­al­ly start­ing the move SOUTH.

We rode by an inter­est­ing amphibi­ous plane lot/launching area.

The bike trail had a cou­ple of detours along the route. Here’s Scott com­ing down one with the very nice bike trough beside the stairs.

Scott and I with a very inter­est­ing sculp­ture along the way.

And at the point of need­ing to turn around after we had pressed our luck head­ing a cou­ple of miles down the signed as closed path.

 Posted by at 7:32 pm

Bike ride around the Washington State Capital

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Jul 022011
 

I awoke in Olympia, Wash­ing­ton and after the motel’s break­fast rode down to explore the area around the state cap­i­tal build­ing that I had noticed when arriv­ing last night. The upper left image is the view over to the Olympic Peninsula.

Sev­er­al shots of parts of the Cap­i­tal and some near­by sculptures.

 Posted by at 10:25 pm

A fun day of jury service in the city of my birth

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Mar 292011
 

I was sum­moned for jury duty at the Fed­er­al Dis­trict Court in Los Ange­les for two weeks of ser­vice com­menc­ing on March 22nd. As direct­ed I called the court hot­line on the 21st and found I was off the hook for that week. Call­ing again on the 28th I was told to report to the jury room at 7:45 the fol­low­ing morning.

So I left home at 5:00 a.m. and zoomed to the court park­ing lot in down­town Los Ange­les arriv­ing at 6:30, per­fect. It was a nice 1/2 mile walk in the awak­en­ing city to my favorite break­fast spot in that area, Phillipe’s (upper left pho­to, 7:05 on the clock there­in) to eat and read all the inter­est­ing his­to­ry on the walls about steam trains and oth­er fas­ci­nat­ing top­ics. After­ward it was back to the car to grab some stuff I want­ed to have with me then over to the cour­t­house (left build­ing in the upper right pho­to — that’s me in the third floor window).

By 11:30 half of us had found out that “our tri­al” had been con­tin­ued but that we need­ed to stay until the jury selec­tion process com­plet­ed for the oth­er half. So back to the car to switch into more com­fort­able clothes and back to Phillipe’s for a lamb sand­wich, baked apple, and glass of lemon­ade. After lunch it was a great walk through Chi­na­town (very nice ban­ner above), Oliv­era Street, the beau­ti­ful Union Sta­tion (image 4), and the Pueblo de Los Ange­les before the return to the cour­t­house where at 1:20 p.m. we were told that the oth­er jury had com­plet­ed selec­tion and our jury ser­vice was fin­ished, finis. By then I was feel­ing pret­ty tired so I hopped in the Vol­vo and bee lined for home, arriv­ing just eight hours after I’d left.

For ver­i­fi­ca­tion, reim­burse­ment, and/or cred­i­bil­i­ty here is my juror badge.

 

 Posted by at 3:00 pm

The Hole in the Wall Gang in Santa Barbara

 All Categories, Food  6 Responses »
Mar 112011
 

Car­ol sug­gest­ed an out­ing to the Vedan­ta Tem­ple and Bocal­li’s (that got my buy in) so we first head­ed over toward Vedan­ta to enjoy the grounds when, along the way, I spied Butch and Sun­dance comin’ right through the wall of the Sheffield Reser­voir, too fun! Well I just had to yell whoa to all those ponies under the hood and pull over to say howdy and ask, busy as they were, if I could have my pic­ture tak­en with them.

Then it was back on task and on to the Vedan­ta where we see Ms. P pos­ing by bell and boul­der along with a nice, split panora­ma of the tem­ple itself.

I just don’t under­stand these uptight med­i­ta­tive types, chill it’s only a brief call.

So, after we were asked to leave we sailed on over the dual Casitas Pass­es enjoy­ing the fan­tas­tic day with lots of ear­ly bird wild­flow­ers and end­ing up at Bocal­li’s in Ojai for lunch and cer­tain­ly not for­get­ting their sig­na­ture dessert.

 Posted by at 12:00 pm
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