Driving museum

The Automobile driving museum is in El Segundo, just a few blocks south of LAX. Admission is a donation of your choice to this non-profit operation.

I had a guided tour with young docent Alex, whose enthusiasm matches his extensive knowledge of the cars on display. He’s 15 years old and worked as a docent for the past two years!

The collection is mostly vintage American — Packards, Lincolns, Model T’s and more along with some 60’s and 70’s classics. I saw a couple of MG’s and a Morgan as the extent of their foreign cars. They have more cars than they can display at once and most are owned by the museum.

What makes this display extra special is that you can touch and sit in any of these cars. On Sundays the docents select three or four to give visitors actual drives in! Very unusual considering most of their cars are in either concours or unrestored condition.

Highly recommended!

It glows!

Today is the Smithsonian free museum day, where most of their affiliates accept a free voucher you can print from on-line. I decided to go check out the Neon Museum of LA, downtown on 4th near Spring St. Very cool neighborhood and someone was filming a major feature while I was there. Had to be 100 people scrambling around with film/light equipment.

The Neon museum is moving soon to a larger location so check their site if you go. The current exhibit is small but neat, featuring Albright, the fellow who popularized plasma balls in the last 20 years.

They also offer a tour bus experience at night, showing off the neon “in the wild” in Los Angeles. I’ll have to try that.

Maybe not everyone would have been as fascinated as I was over the small display. I had a good time not only inside but also walking that oddball neighborhood. It reminds me of similar arty locales in SF and NYC but so much smaller and surrounded by utter crap.

Makes me want a plasma ball and some neon around the house!

You call THIS art?!

I went to the LA County Museum of Art today. Very nice multi-building facility with attached parking. $7 to park and $12 gets you admission to all but a specialty exhibit.

I need to take an art appreciation class. I “get” a lot of traditional painting and sculpture but modern art generally flies right over my head. I don’t see the art in most of it, excluding a few groundbreakers like Warhol. Too much of it looks less artistic, contains less meaning or emotional impact, than barf on pavement.

They have a cool exhibit of a dozen current Korean artists in the modern section though. That was worth seeing.

OC Labor Day Cruise

I went to the OC fairgrounds to check out a car show and cruise event. I think this is annual event. I seem to recall going to this two or three years ago.

The eyecandy was endless. Customs and original classics for miles. They set up a cruise path around the parked cars so you get to see them on the move too.

I think my favorites are 60’s and 70’s muscle cars — Camaros, Mustangs, Challengers, and the like. But there are some fiercely cool pure customs too.

Where there is smoke there is fire

I haven’t updated in a while. Not that I haven’t been busy. Sorry, to my two or three readers!

This week I ate some of an amazing cake at work. A friend of a coworker is taking an advanced cake class. This was a full woodland scene, with a waterfall and animals. See crappy photo below! Tasted as good as it looks.

The post title is because the Angeles Forest has a major brush fire and the smoke is thick in old town Pasadena, where yours truly is eating a burger and beer at Jake’s Cafe. One of the best burgers, built to my specs, I’ve had in a LONG time. Stop by if you are in the area. Though my eyes are tearing from the smoke and I’m dripping sweat from the heat! I feel okay though. I suspect the schooner size glass of hefeweizen is to blame for that.

Festival of Speed

Today was the Porsche Club of America’s “California Festival of Speed” event. Great name, eh? I’m not a Porsche guy so what was I doing there? This was my first oppotunity to check out Italian Joe’s GT3 Cup car. He was racing in one of the club classes, not one of the formal GT3 Cup races. Gary was pit crewing for him. I brought a real camera so that’s where all the pics in this post came from.

The entire door of this car is lighter than my windshield. You have to feel it to believe it. They have built-in air jacks for quick work in the pits. Only one seat though, so no passengers. These Cup cars mean business!

That’s enough words for the entire post. On to the race car porn!

How about this carbon fiber surround on the headlight?!

My hands hurt just looking at this cramped engine compartment.

Topdown

I went to a local gathering of Honda S2000 enthusiasts last night in West Covina. This is a group named Topdown that meets regularly. There are other similar large groups that meet in Irvine and Torrance. Always neat to see what other guys do to their cars.

Honda recently announced 2009 is officially the last year for the S2000, after 10 years of production. It had one major change and numerous smaller changes. My ‘08 is noticeably better as a daily driver than my ‘01 was.

I got to check out others’ stereo systems, GPS installs, roll cages, exhausts (duals and singles), suspensions, hard tops, wheels, and body kits. Several had forced induction, turbo or supercharger. Didn’t spot any nitrous. I counted 30 cars when I left and people were still dribbling in.

I wasn’t the oldest guy there but I was definitely near the top end of the distribution. Most are 20-somethings, some women but mostly boys’ night out. We stood around and gabbed for a few hours but these kids were just getting warmed up by 10 PM! When I left they were planning to roll out to their “second location” for partying. I’d tell you where that is but then I’d have to kill you.

Unfortunately the iPhone camera is especially weak in low light so here’s what you get –

No soup for you!

That’s a line from a famous Seinfeld episode. BMW Joe and I went on the SC-MA’s annual Soup Run today. His shoulder was okay to ride, just barely.

We started at the Harbor House Cafe in Oceanside. Up at the crack of dawn and 75 cold dark miles just to get to the start! The ride passed through some neat roads near Santa Margarita County Preserve we never saw before. There were too many lights and cars though. My GPS said we spent five hours in the saddle. My butt told me that louder!

We ended at Ganesha Park in Pomona. Here’s the deal with the Soup Run. Everyone brought two cans of soup. Joe found a sale and brought ten! Anyway, one of each our cans was donated to a women’s shelter. The others were mixed together into two pots, red and white, to be served at the end of the ride.

Now I understand that sounds nasty, mixing unrelated soups, but it always turns out awesome. It doesn’t hurt that we’re ravenous at the end of the ride.

As usual, we experienced wide temperature swings across CA, from a low near 50 degrees to a high of 86.

Rock Inn redux

Gary, Italian Joe and I rode to the Rock Inn for lunch. They had a better route getting there. 210 to Osborne and up Sand Canyon. BMW Joe is having trouble with his OTHER shoulder, so did not come.

At a tee intersection Italian Joe was waiting on traffic to turn right as Gary and then I pulled up. Gary expected him to go so he was still looking left as he ran into Joe’s mirror! Fortunately Joe’s Ducati ST3 was unscratched while Gary’s ST1300 mirror was knocked off. It comes tethered from the factory for just such occasions. I recently added tethers to my RT’s mirrors since BMW doesn’t think to use those. Anyway, Gary’s mirror popped back on in ten seconds and we kept going.

Remember kids, don’t assume the rider (or car) ahead is going to move just as you expect so keep those head-checks short and assume the worst. Similar situation to an on-ramp to a crowded highway behind another vehicle. They just might stop.

I would rub this in indefinitely but Gary was there last time I dropped my bike (at zero speed) and, along with BMW Joe, helped me pick it up. Not much is more embarassing than dropping your ride in front of two buddies. I guess I’ll leave the rubbing in to Italian Joe. I did notice after that he was careful to pull out at stops before Gary arrived!

The day was cold, 40’s to 50’s, and we saw snow on the side of the road. The canyons had a lot of sand and gravel from recent rains. We even passed a patch of ice on the road at one spot. Slowed us down considerably!

I had a Twilight Zone moment after lunch. Five miles down the road my dash alert symbol lit up. I’m scanning the displays looking for the trouble and I see my gas gauge reads empty. Not a single pixel of gas! Now I knew I had over half tank when we stopped I’m wondering if I could have such a big leak somewhere. If so then siphoning from Gary or Joe wouldn’t help. As I’m riding along and fretting about this, the gauge goes back to normal and my tank is suddenly over half-full. Yikes! I hate electrical gremlins. If it happens again it’ll be a trip to the dealer to chase an intermittent problem.

Here’s a photo of helmet & coffee mug at the Rock Inn. The ride was fun and captures our mood nicely.

Rockin’ at the Rock Inn

I put Julie on the back of the bike for a lunch trip to the Rock Inn. This was our longest two-up two wheel jaunt so far, about 170 miles going up 5 and out Lake Hughes Road, coming back through Spooky Canyon Rd (real name, no joke) and Bouquet Canyon to 14 to 5.

The day was cold. Hovered around 50 F all day. I had my insulated pant liner and electric jacket liner. Love the heated grips. Would have loved the seat heater but I was on my Airhawk cushion. I can’t move around as much for comfort with a passenger. Julie was freezing. She may enjoy the summer with that half-helmet and vented lightweight gloves but today was an I-told-you-so day. She enjoyed the neck gaiter I bought her at the show and HER heated seat.

And I finally got the VOX settings almost right so her mic doesn’t trigger from highway wind. We have to speak up now but that’s better than a dead battery and antisocial non-duplex bike-to-bike radio. We still haven’t ridden with Joe or Gary yet so I’m not certain if they can hear the passenger. I seem to recall not hearing Mary when she rode with Joe but my memory is crap these days.

I forgot to take a photo from outside the Rock Inn but here is the band whose amps were turned up to 11. I liked the tunes but just not SO loud in a little place!