Biking: Hollywood to Manhattan Beach

I started off yesterday pretty lazy, just working on some stuff on the computer. I felt like I wanted to go for a ride, but didn't really have a destination until I found out a friend's birthday party was happening in Manhattan Beach. I needed to go to Hollywood first, though, to check in with Hollywood Pro Bicycles. So I decided I would take the subway over to Hollywood, and then ride to MB from there. Kathy would be meeting me at the beach, so I'd stick the bike in her car and only have to ride one-way.

The ride took me the length of the Ballona Creek Bike Path and then from the airport down to Manhattan on the beach bike path, so of the 20 miles I would put close to two-thirds on bike paths. That makes for a nice trip. I think it took me an hour and fifteen minutes, including hitting seemingly every red light on La Brea and riding into a headwind approaching the ocean. My ride was slightly different than that shown in the map -- instead of starting out by going east over to Vine only to come back west later I just went straight down La Brea to Jefferson. That worked fine (other than the lights).

The bike shop's going to order a tribar (vaguely like these, but differently shaped) for me to try out, which I'm looking forward to. I really want a grip position that'll keep me low and leaned forward for speed and power.

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Mmmm... e17

I set up enlightenment 0.17 on my laptop today (click on the image, and then all sizes to get the full sized image).

Wow.

Since I last took an e17 screenshot in December, they've added multiple desks, key bindings, and a whole host of other things that make e17 into a very usable window manager. It's still under heavy development and probably not even close to a release, but in my playing around it's working just fine. It still just supports one background on all desks and there isn't any true support for transparent terminals yet, but I think it's close enough that I'll use it on the laptop.

There's so much movey-goodness that you can't see in a static screenshot, but I still think the shot looks great.

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Time to Buy a GPS Unit

I'm about to set off from JPL to Kathy's new apartment in Studio City. Roughly that means taking this route, though obviously being on a bike I won't be hitting up the freeways. bikemetro gives me a route that's 16.68 miles long, and overall drops 518 feet. In between, though, it first goes up 200 to 300 feet, then drops 900 or so, and finally rises back 150 - 200 feet. That should make it a bit of a workout.

I'm more worried, though, about the fact that there are 24 steps to the directions. I wrote them down on an index card, now we'll see how I do at reading the card and road signs while negotiating traffic. This is one of those situations where a GPS unit would be mighty handy.

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It's Hot Outside

I'm about to head out on my bike ride back from JPL to Downtown. The JPL Weather Station says that the current temperature is 88 degrees. That's down only two or three from today's high. The solar raditation, though, is down from close to 100 watts/sq. foot to 48.6. I guess that means that while I'll still sweat on my ride, I won't get too burned. I am getting a sizeable farmer's tan, though.

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LA Weekly Writes about Red Line; Still Doesn't Check a Map

The LA Weekly cracks me up. In March they asked us

Ever wonder why a leg of the Red Line ends at Wilshire and Normandie, miles short of the museums and office buildings that would make it worthwhile to thousands?

I said that no, I hadn't wondered that, seeing as the line actually ends one stop later at Wilshire/Western.

And now in this week's issue they tell us where to drink along the Red Line. But again something funny caught my eye.

The Powerhouse, across the street to the east from Hollywood & Highland, the Red Line’s penultimate stop, deserves the honor of your visit if only for its dive-bar tenacity amid rampant swankification.

Hmmm... My dictionary tells me that penultimate means next to last. And my handy Red Line map tells me that there are in fact two stops past Hollywood & Highland. And just a bit before this we read

Traxx has a timeless romanticism about it; it also has great crab cakes (although you might have to eat them standing up). When you’re done, take a calm walk among the train-runners past the many numbered tracks toward Vignes Street, make a right at the end of the tunnel, and board the subway for central downtown.

I know, they probably just wanted an excuse to talk about tracks and numbers and such, but if you're giving people directions, don't make them walk more than they have to. The Red Line entrance before the train tunnel is much closer to Traxx.

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