[sic]

A Tortoise Is Never Satisfied

Will — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 19:55:00 +0000

All our animals are rescues in one way or another, whether we found them or they found us, our menagerie is all a matter of crucial timing and/or serendipity — and that includes our Russian tortoise Buster who my mother basically unearthed whiled gardening in the yard of her Sherman Oaks home back in October 2001 when the Buster wasn’t more than a year or two old and not much more than the circumference of a tennis ball… with legs, head and a tail.

Until a year ago last month, Buster lived in a succession of incrementally larger aquariums, the largest being 3 square feet. Even if it were triple that size, see-through barriers are pretty much the worst way to keep a tortoise contained because there’s little in their genetic coding spanning the hundreds of millions of years that they’ve roamed the earth allowing them to understand what glass is. To them it’s just something to incessantly bump up against trying to get to the over there beyond it.

I always knew this, but a combination of lack of space, materials, and motivation over the years precluded me from rectifying the situation — until June 2008, when I finally sketched out a hutch, bought the materials and built a 25-square-foot pen that Buster’s long deserved.

As you can see in the photo of Buster peeking out above the wall: it’s not enough (click for the bigger picture):

I don’t take it personally. The simple truth is that Russian tortoises are natural explorers and you can’t blame ‘em when they can poke their head out of their house and see a great big world full of sunshine and sunflowers and patches of grass and even bigger patches of dirt and all sorts of things to check out. Here’s the view from the other side:

Of course, I took her out for some exercise and kept an eye on her as she did a wide-eyed loop of the backyard, eventually ending up right back at her hutch. She hissed when I picked her up and put her back in it and battened it down, but she also wasted no time going back to her favorite familiar corner and tucking in for a nap.

Caught In A Trap

Will — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:25:18 +0000

After trying and failing a couple weeks ago with the old tilted-box-balanced-on-a-stick-tied-with-string trick to catch our long self-exiled Bink, I spent waaaaay too much money on what we hoped would be a more effective capture apparatus — and one that didn’t require us to stand around in the dark waiting for Bink to mosey on over for a bite to eat.

We set the trap up for a trial run, tying off the door (triggered shut when a plate inside gets stepped on) so it wouldn’t close just to give Bink a chance at a free pass to get a bit at ease with it in hopes of catching him up tonight — and also because we didn’t want to wake and find an angry raccoon or a skunk or opossum in there this morning.

Unclear on the concept, Pumpkin mistook the confinement for a new hangout:

And actually I think Pumpkin’s chilling inside a good stretch of the day and getting his smell all up in there may have helped our desired end result. Because after placing Bink’s dinner inside and focusing the PatioCam on it and going to bed, I awoke this July 4th morning to find this image captured at 5:01 a.m. of what I’m pretty sure is a motion-blurred Bink all the way in:

Trial mission accomplished! But now I’m miffed we didn’t just rig it to close, because it would have been nice to have Bink safe inside on what will undoubtedly be the snap-crackle-pop-boomingest night of the year. Hopefully this time tomorrow morning we’ll be cuddling with the old curmudgeonly cat.

Or figuring out how to let out any of several species of wild critter.

I Figured Why Not?

Will — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:48:02 +0000

Frankly though I’ve mourned the passing of a voice and talent that I literally grew up with, Michael Jackson’s public memorial madhouse service scheduled for Tuesday at Staples Center is so not a be-all/end-all event for me and I submitted my request for tickets rather sheepishly.

I’ll be veeeeeeeery surprised if my name gets pulled from among what will undoubtedly be the hundreds of thousands out of the proverbial hat. But if indeed I become the recipient of tix to the event and seeing as I have the day off I might just bike on down into the vortex of the grief storm to see what I shall see.

And if the scene turns out to be even more out-of-this-universe crazy than expected I can always adjourn to Wurstkuche or Blue Star and raise a glass in private tribute.

When Bad Things Happen For Good Reason

Will — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:28:18 +0000

On the surface I could bitch and moan about getting my 15th flat of the year thanks to this little fella picked up somewhere on the ride home that managed to make its way through the tire tread and tube just after I passed Hoover on Jefferson in front of USC:

But the fact is that little piece of glass helped me to do a good deed in reuniting a loose dog with its peeps. After the jump let me introduce you to Acorn the Jindo :

See, had I not had the flat I would have made the left on to Figueroa from Jefferson about 12 minutes earlier than I did and as such would probably have looked across the street from the left turn lane and not seen a slim brown stressed-out canine looking all alone and like it was getting ready to cross the thick traffic from the south side of Jefferson to the north side.

I have to admit I almost didn’t stop. I almost kept going. But I got a block north and told myself that dog needed my help and I yanked a right off of Fig across a side street to Flower and back down to Jefferson where Acorn the Jindo was now standing on the southwest corner with not a person anywhere in sight.

So I crossed to her and she immediately took off at a slowish trot south on Flower down the east side of USC’s Galen Center. As I was about to set off in pursuit I heard a desperate sounding voice of a woman behind me and a Korean lady came jogging around the corner from Jefferson.

“Is that your dog?” I asked. Much to my relief and surprise, she said it was. “We adopted her just today!” she yelled.

I pulled the never-bike-without-it bag of kibble and told her I was going to get ahead of the dog and try to drive her back north toward the woman, but I took off before I could see if she understood the plan.

I caught up to the dog just south of the Galen Center and shook the bag of food as I coasted along side in the street, which got her attention for she slowed long enough for me to see how emaciated the poor thing was. But the shucka-shucka sound of the food in the plastic wasn’t enough to get her to stop completely so I pulled up onto a driveway apron, opened the bag up and poured a little on the ground. She reversed course and tentatively started to come toward me, but stopped a few feet away. Bringing forth one of the jerky treats I offered it in my outstretched hand, but she wouldn’t take it. So I broke off a piece and tossed it to her, and as she bent to gobble it up, I dismounted and took a seat on the concrete next to the food, calling out to her that she was a good girl and to come eat. As she did, the woman arrived talking on her cell phone and passed the two of us giving us a wide berth to stand beyond us.

Focused on the conversation she was having, the woman didn’t notice that the dog had come up to me and was rapidly eating the food well within my reach and though I tried to get the lady’s attention to use the leash and secure the animal while we had the chance I couldn’t make contact and I knew in a few more gulps the food would be gone and so would the dog.

So I mad a judgment call and grabbed the dog by the scruff of the neck and of course the dog freaked out and tried to bolt and when it couldn’t get away it twisted around and bit my wrist two or three times, but more out of fear than out of any intent to hurt me. Still I wasn’t going to hang on and give things a chance to get more violent so I let go reluctantly, and she took off north back toward Jefferson.

The woman cried out and frankly, I cursed her out asking what the fuck she was doing on the phone when she had a perfect chance to get the dog under control — a chance whose odds of being repeated were now astronomical because the dog wasn’t going to allow me close enough to touch it a second time. All the woman could do was apologize and hand me the leash.

“What’s the dog’s name?” I yelled and the woman said something in Korean that I totally didn’t catch, so I hopped back on my bike and charged up the gutter against the thick one-way southbound traffic on Flower knowing it was going to take a miracle to catch this poor creature. And after shadowing her along Jefferson to Figueroa and getting ahead of her to drive her back onto Jefferson, that miracle happened.

Heading towards Flower, instead of a repeat chase downthe open sidewalk of that street, she dodged through a gate she was passing inside of which is a small courtyard and the north doors to the Galen Center. It turned out that the only way out was the gate she went in — one I was quick to close once I entered through it.

I don’t need to tell you that I’d probably still be out there had Acorn not made that strategic move — and I’m not against believing she did it somewhat on purpose to get us away from traffic and calm us all down.

After some trotting around and figuring out (or maybe verifying) she was trapped, a standoff ensued.

With the woman remaining outside the gate I took off my helmet and my backpack, sat down and poured out the rest of what little was left of the kibble and just spoke calmly to the dog who stood on her guard about 20 feet away. I flicked several nuggets over to her which she’d eat but come no closer. I debated calling animal services and enlist their assistance, but then just decided that unless Galen Center security (who I’m sure was watching on the surveillance camera over the doors) came out and forced some trespassing issue I felt confident that just chilling was the way to go.

Ultimately, the woman entered the courtyard by climbing over the east barrier and then proceeded to get low on her hands and needs and move slowly toward the dog while speaking reassuringly:

It wasn’t long until the woman’s husband showed up outside the gate and watched as we failed to corner the dog the first time, but on the second try Acorn must’ve been getting weary because when we backed her up against the wasll she stood there quietly and let me get up close enough to calmly slip the leash around her neck, whereupon the woman basically collapsed to the ground exhausted and relieved not knowing how to thank me enough.

“This happy ending is thanks enough for me,” I said, patting the dog’s head and apologizing for grabbing her earlier.

As her husband came in and over to us holding a green cup, she asked him if he’d brought any water, but he shook his head. I told him to use the water in the bottle on my bike and he did, bringing it over and setting it down before the stoic dog who sniffed the cup but didn’t drink — at least not right away.

Looking her over as she drank, with her severely scabbed-over ear tips and her prominent ribs I could tell she’d already had a hard young life where people have failed her.

“Her name, in Korean, means acorn,” the woman said. “Because she’s the color of an acorn.” Then she told me that they’d had to put their previous dog down last week because of bone cancer, and that she had just picked up Acorn from the pound today.

“I opened the car door and he ran out right away!”

I asked them what breed and they told me a Jindo mix, the same as their last dog, and I cautioned them to be patient with Acorn because she’s going to be an entirely different pet than their last one was.

And then the four of us sat in the late afternoon sun until they had thanked me more than enough and I said my goodbyes and got on my way home.

And I have to admit, I got a little choked up while getting there, with tears not so much of joy, but relief and pride in accomplishment. Rare are the loose dogs I’ve encountered that let me interact with them, but rarer still are the those I intersect with that result in the dog being reunited with its people.

Acorn the Jindo was the first, so you’ll have to pardon me if I feel a bit the hero for a little while.

Flats No. 13 & No. 14

Will — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 02:11:12 +0000

You might look at the numbers in that headline and wonder what kind of fail magnet I am for so many minor misfortunes, but in dealing with the amount of cycling I’m doing, my philosphy is simple: Flats Happen.

Some of them are not my fault as in this what-are-the-odds 3/8ths-inch metal splinter no thicker or stronger than an eyelash or a dog brush’s bristle that I chanced to roll over yesterday morning in the only way to allow the flimsy thing to impale my rear tire and puncture its tube (that’s a slice of nickel on the left for scale):

And some are almost entirely my doing (albeit exacerbated by the cheap materials used in cheap tubes) as in the dismemberment of my front tire’s innertube stem when I attempted to top it off with a few extra PSI after patching the rear tire’s tube before leaving the office yesterday evening:

I know some people who live in heightened fear of flats and I know some people who’ve gone years between them. With me averaging better than two a month year-to-date — or one every 316 or so miles pedaled — they are nothing more than minor and inevitable annoyances. And with all the practice I’ve had repairing them, pretty quickly resolved.

Kicking Curbed To The Curb

Will — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:21:35 +0000

Wowza! Via a post at LAObserved about a wholly defaming and highly suspect slammajam made by an unnamed source about a downtown restaurant on the Eater LA blog, I just learned about something called Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which apparently holds harmless from liability any “providers and users of an interactive computer service who publish information provided by others.”

So basically if some anonymous blogger with full intent to defame and malign however baselessly or biasedly writes that someone who we’ll call “Jonas Dough” is a “raging pedophile and serial killer” I am entirely under no obligation to verify and/or debunk or in anyway research such opinion and am at entirely protected liberty to reprint it verbatim as fact.

Not that I do much in the way of such ax-grindingly libelous and patently damaging garbage like that found in the above-mentioned post at Eater LA, but it’s really good to know I can if I want to.

And by “really good” I mean really lame.

And by really lame I mean that if this kind of full-assed, irresponsible reporting being condoned and allowed to stand by Eater LA’s overlords at Curbed Network simply because there is precedent to do so (and probably because the resulting increased traffic is a cha-ching) then the least I can do is wipe Eater LA’s sister site Curbed LA from my blogroll and delete my account as a commenter.

UPDATE (11:04 a.m.): Eater LA has offered the owners of the restaurant the opportunity to argue the unsubstantiated allegations presented in the post. That’s a bit like Salem giving its alleged witches the chance to argue against their guilt with nooses tightened around their necks.

It almost pains me to spell this out because it’s common fucking sense, but instead of “equal time” after the defamation (while also leaving it live), the simple and proper and legitimate and fair and ethical action Eater LA should have taken would have been to use the “tipster” accusations as a springboard to contact the eatery’s owners and get their responses to them and then post a balanced item about it. But instead Eater LA and Curbed Network is condoning laziness and irresponsibility and doing so from behind the protection afforded this indecent section of a so-called Decency Act, while snickering as it reaps the benefits from the increased traffic the controversy has generated.

Flashback: Black Rhino Of The Ngorongoro

Will — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:17:19 +0000

For no reason this morning I opened up a folder on my computer containing the thousands upon thousand of images from our African honeymoon that began four years ago next month. This is the first photo I clicked on of a solitary black rhino backdropped by the jawdropping vastness and grandeur of a mist-shrouded Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania (click for the bigger picture):

Susan and I have strung together a remarkable series of vacations beginning with this one in 2005. The following year we did our 4,500-mile Western states roadtrip, in 2007 we cruised all the way around Italy and visited Paris, and last year we explored the rich history of Central Mexico.

We hadn’t planned on a full-tilt vacation for 2009 primarily because of the work on the house (the last bits of which are being completed this week), and also in part because we’re going to Yosemite to enjoy the famed Bracebridge Dinner for Christmas with my mom thanks to her generosity. I also have hopes for a November excursion to Death Valley to bike the Racetrack Playa road and camp out on the dry lakebed.

But last night Susan wondered about doing something to get away. “I need some time off,” she declared imperatively.

Read ya loud and clear, sweetie.

So I’m thinking a couple options: a road trip up to Monterey and then a meander back down Highway 1 for stops at Big Sur and Hearst Castle. Or south for a long weekend in San Diego with a sidetrip to Tijuana.

Stuff to ponder.

The Tickets I Did Not Get On The Way To Work Today

Will — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:04:00 +0000

In light of the citation I received Friday evening in Larchmont Village I decided to show you what a flagrant lawbreaker I am on a daily basis by reviewing and cataloging every single one of the citeable offenses I committed on my 14.5-mile commute to work this fine Monday morning.

And while the haters will see the list as pure reason to pimp and perpetuate their position that cyclists think they’re above the law, it should be needless to say that the violations detailed below were done only when it was absolutely safe and entirely without impact to my fellow commuters. And what it shows me is I should not be at all surprised when the Officer Bookers of the law catch up with me every 36,000 infractions I make every year… give or take a few hundred either way:

Failure to stop - Marathon & Occidental
Excessive speed (33 mph in a 25 mph zone) - Occidental downhill between Marathon and Bellevue
Failure to signal right - Occidental & Bellevue
Failure to stop - Occidental & Bellevue
Failure to signal left - Bellevue & London
Failure to signal left - London & Reno
Failure to signal right - Reno & London
Failure to signal left - London & Vendome
Failure to stop - Vendome & Council
Failure to signal right - Vendome & 2nd
Failure to stop - Vendome & 2nd
Failure to signal left - 2nd & Dillon
Failure to stop - 2nd & Dillon
Failure to signal right - Dillon & Hoover
Failure to stop - Dillon & Hoover
Failure to signal left - 2nd & Commonwealth
Failure to stop - 2nd & Commonwealth
Failure to signal right - Commonwealth & 4th
Failure to stop - Commonwealth & 4th
Failure to stop - 4th & New Hamsphire
Failure to stop - 4th & Berendo
Failure to stop - 4th & Catalina
Failure to stop - 4th & Kenmore
Failure to stop - 4th & Alexandria
Failure to stop - 4th & Mariposa
Failure to stop -4th & Ardmore
Failure to stop - 4th & Kingsley
Failure to stop - 4th & Harvard
Failure to stop - 4th & Hobart
Failure to stop - 4th & Serrano
Failure to stop - 4th & Oxford
Failure to stop - 4th & St. Andrews
Failure to stop - 4th & Norton
Failure to stop - 4th & Windsor
Failure to stop -4th & Plymouth
Failure to stop - 4th & Lucerne
Failure to stop - 4th & Arden
Failure to stop - 4th & June
Failure to stop - 4th & Las Palmas
Failure to stop - 4th & McCadden
Failure to stop - 4th & Citrus
Failure to stop - 4th & Orange
Failure to stop - 4th & Sycamore
Failure to signal left - 4th & La Brea
Failure to signal right - La Brea & Redondo
Failure to stop - Redondo & Edgewood
Failure to stop - Redondo & 12th
Failure to stop - Redondo & Packard
Failure to signal right - Redondo & Venice
Failure to stop - Redondo & Venice
Failure to signal left during lane changes - Venice between Delmas & Hughes
Failure to signal left - Venice & Hughes
Failure to stop at yellow light - Hughes & Culver
Failure to signal right - Duquesne & Ballona Creek Bikeway
Failure to signal left - Ballona Creek Bikeway & Inglewood
Failure to signal left - Inglewood & Culver
Failure to signal right - Culver & Mesmer
Failure to stop - Mesmer & McDonald
Failure to stop - Mesmer & Port
Failure to stop - Mesmer & Beatrice
Failure to signal left - Mesmer & Centinela
Failure to stop - Mesmer & Centinela
Failure to signal right - Centinela & Sepulveda
Failure to stop - Centinela & Sepulveda
Failure to signal left during lane changes - Sepulveda between Centinela & Center
Failure to signal left - Sepulveda & Center
Failure to signal right - Center & Park
Failure to stop - Center & Park
Illegal u-turn - Park between Center & Howard Hughes
Failure to signal right Park & 6100 Center Drive service entrance

The Beetle & The Blossom

Will — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:56:56 +0000

Just me, a magnolia blossom and a hungry green June beetle on a Sunday morning in Silver Lake with me perched somewhat precariously atop our garage to get the shots and quick video that make up this Flickr photoset.

My Farrah Post on LA Metblogs Got Some Cyber-Ink In New York Magazine!

Will — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 06:27:45 +0000

Fellow LA Metblogger David Markland just hipped me to the fact that my post there yesterday remembering when I met Farrah Fawcett, was deemed worthy of inclusion in New York Magazine’s Daily Intel column featuring an online roundup under the headline of “Farrah Fawcett’s Touching Tributes.” Neato!