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

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

The Gang of Four’s post hike/BD breakfast

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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

Ellen’s for Breakfast then 42 miles to ride it off

 All Categories, Bicycling, Food  2 Responses »
Apr 142012
 

Cyn­thia, Tom, and I drove to Buell­ton where Cyn­thia and I had a won­der­ful break­fast at Ellen’s while Tom met his friend Matt and rode away 45 min­utes before we could stag­ger out to our bikes to follow.

We rode the usu­al Buell­ton, Fox­en, Drum loop. Cyn­thia and I had a great time. Arriv­ing back at the car we loaded the bikes on the Vol­vo then chased after Tom. When we caught him he had added anoth­er 27 miles to his fast ride for the day.

There are two ver­sions of our day. Num­ber one above is the slow, sta­t­ic slideshow with my inci­sive, inter­est­ing com­ments. Num­ber two below is a video cov­er­ing the same ground in 25 sec­onds, so very 2012.



 Posted by at 5:00 pm

Lobsters becoming endangered in Santa Barbara

 All Categories, Food  3 Responses »
Apr 042012
 

To cel­e­brate Carol’s get­ting an A+ on this morn­ing’s exam we trun­dled off to “The Enter­prize Fish Com­pany” so she could relieved­ly enjoy a favorite treat, LOBSTER. The video, I think, says it all.


 Posted by at 12:00 pm

Moto ride to San Jose for a Sharks game with Jeff

 All Categories, Food, Motorcycle Riding  2 Responses »
Mar 232012
 

Jeff and I have had the plan and tick­ets to see the Thurs­day, 3/22 Bru­ins Sharks game for a cou­ple of months so it was very excit­ing when the date drew near. After check­ing the weath­er I decid­ed to ride up on the Suzu­ki, leav­ing Tues­day around 2:00. I rode up to SLO on 101 then turned onto Hwy 1 stop­ping in Cam­bria for two small pies at Lin­n’s (one olal­lieber­ry for imme­di­ate con­sump­tion, one rasp­ber­ry lemon meringue for lat­er — see above) along with need­ed petrol for the bike. It was almost 6:00 as I left Cam­bria, my ener­gy ebbing so anoth­er four miles had me stop­ping for the night with­in the San Sime­on line of motels.

The next day held per­fect weath­er for a ride up the Big Sur coast­line into Carmel and Mon­terey then on to San­ta Cruz for a late Thai noo­dle lunch. After lunch I con­tin­ued north on Hwy 1 anoth­er 35 miles to Pescadero then turned inland and climbed through the inter­est­ing towns of La Hon­da and Wood­side to get to Sky­line Boule­vard for the scenic, ridge­crest cruise back south to San Jose. I had time for a renew­ing show­er and the rasp­ber­ry lemon meringue pie before meet­ing Jeff at 4:30. His and Carey’s high rise, “The 88” con­do com­plex, is only three blocks from my motel so we eas­i­ly joined, had a nice vis­it with Carey in their home then a tour of the build­ing, a walk around down­town San Jose get­ting to see some of Jef­f’s favorite haunts, favorite bike stores, and favorite bur­ri­to places with one each of same for dinner.

Game day I spent explor­ing more of the down­town area includ­ing vis­its to the “San Jose Muse­um of Quilts and Tex­tiles”, “The San Jose Muse­um of Art”, and “The Tech Muse­um of Inno­va­tion”. Jeff and I met around five, he wear­ing his #88 Sharks jer­sey. Then it was off to “Hen­ry’s World Famous Hi-Life” for din­ner and a start on the evening’s and jour­ney’s focus, The Shark-Bru­in ice hock­ey game.

Lots more images and expla­na­tions are in the slideshow.
Click on the mon­tage above to jump to its start.

Or click on this line to jump straight to the evening’s start at the famous Hi-Life

[slideshow­pro type=“video” url=“http://ashecoutts.info/ssp_director/albums/album-48/lg/MVI_0033__640-360__AndroidPhone-360p-Widescreen_29-97.mp4” preview=“http://ashecoutts.info/ssp_director/albums/album-48/lg/2012–03-21__PiedrasBlacasElephantSeals_Video-Image__640-360.jpg” width=“600” height=“337” controls=“true” autostart=“false” ]                A lit­tle video of the Ele­phant Seals fool­ing around at Piedras Blacas

 Posted by at 1:30 pm
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