Ashe

Eric flys out to Santa Barbara for a visit

 All Categories, Bicycling, Food, Movies  2 Responses »
Nov 102012
 

The last few years Eric has flown out on the week­end of the San­ta Bar­bara Marathon for a vis­it and to run the marathon. This year it was the won­der­ful vis­it only as he has an acute heel prob­lem that pre­vented his run­ning. So we were free to play more and eat with­out restriction.

He arrived on Thurs­day after­noon. We dropped by for a vis­it with Phyl­lis before grab­bing some sup­plies at Whole Foods, some intend­ed as part of a nice long vis­it into the night at Ralph’s. Fri­day we had lunch with Tom at Stack­y’s and ran around look­ing at a few hous­ing options for me. Sat­ur­day Eric, Tom, and I went on a 30 mile bike ride that includ­ed many stops and starts that con­sumed two or three times as much time as either of them take to reach that dis­tance. Tom final­ly had to bid our tor­toise selves good­bye and speed off to get home, cleaned, and ready for a 12:30 show at the OUT­ra­geous film festival.

Eric and I slugged on to Cody’s for lunch then a great vis­it with the own­er of a beau­ti­ful 1964 Bianchi bicy­cle in fan­tas­tic con­di­tion that we spied out­side. Sat­ur­day evening we took in Den­zel’s new movie “Flight”. We both liked it but not­ed the inter­est­ing choice with Eric fly­ing home on Sun­day. Some of this is doc­u­ment­ed in the avail­able slideshow that starts with a sim­ple click above.

Eric, Phyl­lis, and I had a nice Skype video chat with Car­ol P in Eng­land on Sun­day and anoth­er Skype video chat on Sat­ur­day with Jill in Mysore, India dur­ing which Jill asked that we water her Mey­er lemons, took us on a vir­tu­al tour of her digs in India, and intro­duced us to a curi­ous new Russ­ian acquain­tance of hers, Vladimir. This is some­what doc­u­ment­ed in the video below (which we are pre­tend­ing to be a Skype chat with Jill) but what is most doc­u­ment­ed is the won­der­ful, fun time we have when we get togeth­er.

 Posted by at 7:00 am

The Dual DeepWorker Submersible in SB

 All Categories, Bicycling  1 Response »
Oct 112012
 

I was bicy­cling down to Sum­mer­land for lunch today and hap­pened upon the unload­ing of this inter­est­ing look­ing sub­mersible as I passed through the har­bor area. So I stopped and took a few lit­tle videos and still images. Click on this first image for the videos.


The Waitt Insti­tute was found­ed in 2005 by Ted Waitt. For those of us old enough in com­put­er his­to­ry this is the man who found­ed Gate­way Com­put­ers, you might remem­ber their box­es as the ones that looked like cows.

From their web­site: The Waitt Insti­tute Dual Deep­Work­er is a one-atmos­phere, two-per­son manned sub­mersible with a max­i­mum oper­at­ing depth of 2,000 feet and life-sup­port capa­ble of sus­tain­ing two per­sons for a total of 92 hours while under­wa­ter. It weighs 6,000 pounds, is 8.5 feet long and 5.75 feet wide.

The sub was deliv­ered from its man­u­fac­ture in Van­cou­ver, Cana­da in 2006 after which it went to the large salt water tank in Rosar­i­to, Mex­i­co that was used to film Titan­ic and Mas­ter and Com­man­der. Since the train­ing in Mex­i­co, the sub has par­tic­i­pat­ed in two sur­veys off the coast of Ven­tu­ra, Cal­i­for­nia work­ing for NOAA Nation­al Marine Fish­eries Ser­vice and Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San­ta Bar­bara. Last year the sub took a long trip to the shores of Ire­land where it par­tic­i­pat­ed in an expe­di­tion to map the famous ship­wreck Lusi­ta­nia. Click here to be tak­en to the Waitt Insti­tute web site for much more infor­ma­tion. Quite the serendip­i­tous pre­lunch break.

 Posted by at 1:00 pm

Great Norteño music at UCSB with Cynthia

 All Categories, Food, Music  1 Response »
Oct 102012
 

Cyn­thia sent an email yes­ter­day announc­ing that the UCSB Free Noon Con­certs Start this Wednes­day. That turned out to be today and the band for the first con­cert plays one of my favorite styles so I rode out to the U on the Express bus and had lunch with Cyn­thia accom­pa­nied by some won­der­ful music. Click on the image to see and hear a lit­tle of what we enjoyed. Very nice that the band is all fam­i­ly. Next week it’s the UCSB Mid­dle East Ensem­ble, anoth­er favorite of mine and oth­ers so get your bus tick­ets early!

Latiga­zos del Norte is a norteño or con­jun­to band that plays region­al Mex­i­can music, includ­ing rancheras, cor­ri­dos, hua­pan­go, pol­ka, redo­va and shotis (north­ern whips). Con­sist­ing of four fam­i­ly mem­bers, the band plays the four most char­ac­ter­is­tic instru­ments in norteño music: Ernesto Bel­trán plays the accor­dion, Agustín Lara the bajo sex­to, Víc­tor Bel­tran­the elec­tric and acoustic bass, and Víc­tor Bel­tran Jr. the drums.

 Posted by at 12:00 pm

Cynthia & Ashe ride the SLO Lighthouse, slowly

 All Categories, Bicycling, Food  2 Responses »
Sep 292012
 

As we did last year Cyn­thia and I drove up ear­ly for the San Luis Obis­po Bike Club’s annu­al Light­house Bicy­cle ride. This year there was a new start­ing point in Mor­ro Bay at the high school. We arrived in the midst of lots of oth­ers get­ting set and rid­ing off so we felt right in the mix. It was a brisk morn­ing with some clouds and fog, a nice start to the day.

SLO BC had lots of food/rest stops and the new route allowed us to get far enough north to pass and see the ride’s name­sake light­house as well as Cam­bria, Hearst Cas­tle & Beach, the ele­phant seal rook­ery, and the mag­nif­i­cent north coast of SLO Coun­ty. The weath­er, scenery and vis­its with oth­er bik­ers and sup­port staff made for a great day of rid­ing. It was a cap­i­tal out­ing. I thought we’d be rid­ing around 60 miles today but I end­ed up with 74, which felt fine.

Click on any of the images of us to see us enlarge.

 Posted by at 5:00 pm

Back to Brent’s for more deli

 All Categories, Food  2 Responses »
Sep 192012
 


Car­ol came over this morn­ing at 11:15 and we jumped in the Vol­vo for anoth­er trip to Ven­tu­ra to vis­it Nan­cy before she resumes her nor­mal work life next week.

After a chat and guid­ed tour of her toma­to and egg­plant crop we all decid­ed that a trip to Bren­t’s would be next on the agen­da. We had a fun vis­it on the way down, a con­tin­ued chat­ting dur­ing lunch (includ­ing CSI Miami’s David Caru­so in the booth right near us and right behind Car­ol’s head in the shot above), and a stop on the way back through Camar­il­lo at an organ­ic fruit and veg­etable stand that was sell­ing won­der­ful look­ing toma­toes for fifty cents a pound.

Anoth­er day in the life. Click on the image above to see what we each ordered.

 Posted by at 1:00 pm

UCSB for a fun visit & lunch with Cynthia

 All Categories, Bicycling, Food  5 Responses »
Sep 182012
 


I rode my bike out to Car­ol’s then we rode over to the UCEN for a won­der­ful vis­it and lunch with Cyn­thia. Right out­side Cyn­thi­a’s office is a row of six old audi­to­ri­um chairs which prompt­ed me to coerce my com­pan­ions into a few iPhone shots (shoul­da cleaned the dirt off the lens first). Click on our hap­py selves to see a big­ger ver­sion of us.

 Posted by at 12:00 pm

Deli lunch for two at Eighty Five Dollars?? YIKES!

 All Categories, Food, Motorcycle Riding  2 Responses »
Sep 102012
 

Post lunch at Bren­t’s in West­lake — Nan­cy with her award win­ning home grown tomatoes

I rode my trusty motor­cy­cle down to Nan­cy’s in Ven­tu­ra late this morn­ing. After a nice vis­it with she and her sweet­heart Lar­ry, Nan­cy and I drove on to Bren­t’s in West­lake for a fan­tas­tic lunch of Ruben’s all round.

Post lunch Nan­cy ordered a bunch of stuff to take away, hence the $85 total bill. Bren­t’s has a spe­cial menu with lots of check­box­es for just such occa­sions but one thing that need­ed to be hand entered was Lar­ry’s request­ed slice of choco­late cake.

Not famil­iar with Bren­t’s? Click here to see what they have to say for themselves.

 Posted by at 1:00 pm

Authors on Bikes

 All Categories, Bicycling, Reading  1 Response »
Jul 252012
 

Link the names below with the riders above
  • Leo Tol­stoy, 1895 (Leo learned to ride at 67!)
  • Jef­frey Eugenides, 2007
  • Ernest Hem­ing­way, 1919
  • Hen­ry Miller, 1952
  • Pat­ti Smith, 1999
  • Sylvia Plath at 18, 1950
  • Thomas Hardy, 1888
  • Arthur Conan Doyle, 1892
  • Ten­nessee Williams, 1970
  • Ray Brad­bury, 1975
  • Philip Larkin, 1973
  • H.G. Wells, 1905
To check your identifications click on the montage.
 Posted by at 12:00 pm

The Gang of Four’s post hike/BD breakfast

 All Categories, Food  1 Response »
Apr 292012
 


Car­ol, Mar­garet, Ralph and I met at D’An­gelo’s Bak­ery at nine this morn­ing for a won­der­ful vis­it and yum­my break­fast as part of the week­end long cel­e­bra­tion of Car­ol’l birth­day. It was very nice to catch up and have a pro­longed vis­it with old and dear friends. Click on the din­ers to see five nice enlarge­ments of our get together.

 Posted by at 9:00 am

CB’s annual Sage Hill BD Hike

 All Categories, Hiking  3 Responses »
Apr 282012
 

It being the 28th of April and a Sat­ur­day into the bar­gain many of the “Usu­al Sus­pects” met at Sage Hill camp­ground for the annu­al Aliso Canyon Trail hike. It was a warm and beau­ti­ful day and a very nice out­ing. At trail’s end Cathy O popped some won­der­ful choco­late cup­cakes out of her cute new Fiat and we all enjoyed a birth­day treat with the birth­day girl. Click­ing on the mon­tage above dis­plays some nice shots of our day.

In addi­tion here are two videos from our out­ing. In the first you can view an enact­ment of one of the sev­en dead­ly sins. In the sec­ond I demon­strate prop­er hik­ing tech­niques in the back country.




 Posted by at 4:00 pm
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