Mountain Views News, Combined Edition Saturday, August 10, 2019

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Mountain Views-News Saturday, August 10, 2019 


TABLE FOR TWO by Peter Dills

thechefknows@yahoo.com


SAY IT ISNT SO !!!!

You are hungry and you want something different, and this writer 
tells you to go to Robin’s Woodfire BBQ on Rosemead, you say “ I 
have driven by that place a thousand times and I thought it was just 
a coffee shop”. 

Do you have kids? I do, anyone 
need one until the economy picks 
up again, she is well mannered? Just 
kidding honey, but I will need 
that iPhone back, with the receipt. 
A certifiable winner on every 
Wednesday and Sunday Night is Robin’s 
where the Kids eat for free!! I have a 
feeling we can all afford that one. With 
each adult entrée your child can eat 
for free from the kids menu. No kids, 
you say, well they also offer all you 
can eat Rib Tips for ($13.95). Wow!!! 
Now let’s review an American favorite!!! 
It is also one of my personal favorites, 
BBQ, not the oven roasted version which 
Tony Roma’s panders. No, Barbeque is 
made low and slow. Low heat and slowly 
cooked. There is only one authentic 
BBQ in The San Gabriel Valley; you 
guessed it, Robin’s Woodfire BBQ and 
Grill in Hastings Ranch.


Owner and head politician Robin Salzer has perfected the BBQ 
at his name sake. Robin, will readily admit it took a few months 
to perfect the BBQ at Robin’s. Robin hails from Milwaukee and 
opened Robin’s 38 years ago this month. The original menu had 
everything from breakfast, to pizza, nachos and little bit of the 
BBQ. About ten years ago Robin made the decision to go strictly 
BBQ. “Everyone in the neighborhood, thought I was crazy,” Robin 
recalled. But, “I decided to stay the course”. The result is some of 
the best BBQ in all of Southern California. The awards in the past 
five years include: Best of City Search, numerous Best of Awards 
by local newspapers, write ups in the LA Times and a feature in 
Westways Magazine. 
Depending on the meat, each entrée is cooked between 4 to 6 
hours on wood. The sauce is then put on the meat about twenty 
seconds before meat is done. This is done to avoid burning the 
outside skin of the meat. 
Prices range from ($8.95) for salads to ($35.95) for the ultimate 
Garbage Can Combo. 


What to order: The Beef Ribs are a must!! Four rib dinner 
($19.95) and the six Rib dinner is ($29.95). Robin tells me the ribs 
are notched, thus insuring extra meat. For dessert order the peach 
cobbler, its house made.
What to avoid: Mondays & Tuesday, the restaurant is closed. They 
don’t take reservations on the weekends, so I suggest making the 
visit on a Thursday Night. No separate checks. 
Four Stars. Worth the drive from anywhere in Los Angeles. 
Check out the website. Robinsmenu.com for updated prices and 
hours.

395 N. Rosemead Pasadena. (626) 351-8885

Check out my radio show on Go Country !!!

Listen and call in to Dining with Dills this Sunday Night at 4 PM. 
KLAA AM 830 my blog www.peterdills.tumblr.com

THANK YOU, FOOTHILL UNITY CENTER: 

1100 STUDENTS READY FOR SCHOOL By Joan Schmidt 

CHRISTOPHER Nyerges


THE ZEN OF PAINTING

 30 Years Later and the House Demolished, Did It Matter 
if We Used Glossy or Flat?

[Nyerges is the author of Enter the Forest, Guide to Wild Foods, and co-author of Extrreme Simplicity. 
He has led wilderness trips since 1974. He can be reached at the School of Self-Reliance 
(Box 41834, Eagle Rock, CA 90041); or on-line at www.SchoolofSelf-Reliance.com.]

I attended Foothill Unity Center’s 
annual “Back to School” event at 
Santa Anita Park and was totally 
blown away. It’s been ten years 
since I last attended; the event 
has GREATLY expanded, beyond 
belief. 

When I first arrived, I walked past 
so many happy families waiting 
in line for the event to begin. 
I proceeded to the Chandelier 
Room for the Welcoming 
ceremony, and met Mo and Lydia 
from Lyd&Mo Photography who 
do all the Event Photos free of 
charge! (See photo above.) Visit 
info@lydandmoc.com.

The “Welcoming Ceremony” was 
a wonderful reunion of tri-city 
friends still working and volunteering to help those 
in need. They included current Executive Director, 
Betty McWilliams; past Director Joan Whitenack; 
DUSD Superintendant Dr. Gordon Amerson and 
Board Member Reyna Diaz; MUSD Superintendent 
Dr. Katherine Thorossian; Host city Arcadia Mayor 
April Verlato, City Council Member Peter Amundson, 
former Mayor/ Foothill Unity Center’s Board 
President, Gary Kovacic , also Master of Ceremony; 
Monrovia City Council Member Becky Shevlin, past 
Mayor/ Foothill Unity Center Board Member Mary 
Ann Lutz, Board Member Ulises Gutierrez, Betty 
Thomas, Susan Motander, Jennifer Stone; Duarte’s 
past Mayor/ Board Member Lois Gaston, City 
Council Member Liz Reilly, and Deputy City Manager 
Karen Herrera; Kristi Lopez from Senator Portantino’s 
Office, Vicky Paul from Supervisor Barger’s office; 
Board Member Eric Bell; and Penny Arroyo, Volunteer 
Center Of San Gabriel Valley.

After the welcoming and introductions, I went 
downstairs to Santa Anita’s Club House area. I have 
never seen so many HUGE displays of clothing 
(Uniforms, socks, underwear), and school supplies. I 
met Lois Gaston down there and she said, “Joan, can 
you imagine all the planning that went into this”? 

There was an area for haircuts, manicures, and 
Monrovia Reads had several tables of brand-
new paperback books, like Scholastic-one per 
student. This event was TK- College, so there were 
representatives from the armed forces and college 
info. A totally awesome event: 1100 children now start 
school prepared. Outside were Dental and Vision 
screenings; the Fire Department had a truck and the 
CHP provided infant child seats.

Thank to the 100’s of Volunteers and Community 
partners for this event: Santa Anita Park Racetrack, 
Party Works Interactive, Volunteer Center of the 
San Gabriel Valley, Eastern Star, South Pasadena # 
21, Eastern Star, Arcadia/Pasadena# 108, Monrovian 
Family Restaurant, Western University, Herman 
Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC, Chap Care, Panda 
Restaurant Group, Citrus College Cosmetology, Elks 
Lodge of Arcadia #2025, E.L.S. Outlet Store, Georgina 
Frederick Children’s Foundation, Starbucks, Monrovia 
and Sierra Madre, Double Tree Monrovia, Wendy’s 
Monrovia, Embassy Suites Arcadia, Double Tree 
Monrovia, Monrovia Transit, Lyd & Mo Photography, 
Pacific Pace, California Pizza Kitchen, Big 5 Sporting 
goods and Monrovia Reads.

There is not enough space to share ALL the wonderful 
services/ assistance provided by Foothill Unity Center. 
Please visit www.foothillunitycenter.com


It was the summer of 1973 when 
my brother and I lived on my grandfather’s farm 
in Chardon, Ohio. One day, we decided to paint 
the kitchen a beautiful shade of light turquoise. 

We turned on the radio, and began our task. We 
opened the windows, and I did the trim while 
my brother rolled. We listened to the radio as we 
busied ourselves with our individual tasks. We 
worked the corners, the edges, the front surfaces.

There’s something about painting -- perhaps it’s 
the fumes, perhaps it is the long quiet times of 
many little tasks. Painting requires no moral decisions, 
no great choices, no necessary pontifications 
about the meaning and purpose of life. And 
yet...

And yet, there you are, with your self, and the 
task before you. For me, painting time has often 
been a time to re-enter the inner I, to think, to 
remember. In many ways, it is the ideal task for 
self-enlightenment.

When we were done, we felt we’d accomplished 
something, and felt we’d given something back to 
the old farmhouse. 

When the weekend came, another uncle came 
to visit us . He strode into the kitchen, looked 
around at the paint, and simply said “you didn’t 
use glossy!” 

Glossy? We were teenagers from California, visiting 
the home where our mother grew up. Though 
it may be second-nature to us today, back then 
we had no sense that a kitchen should be painted 
glossy. Glossy vs. flat were not issues that we 
thought much about. We didn’t think it mattered 
all that much?

But Uncle Joe seemed to think it was a big deal, 
and just one more bit of evidence that teenagers 
from “the big city” were a bunch of dimwits 
who wouldn’t know a cow from a goat. Uncle Joe 
shared it around to family and friends that we’d 
painted the kitchen in “wrong” paint, so we heard 
about in the weeks that followed. Some relatives 
didn’t care, but others would comment as they 
came in, “Oh, so there’s the flat paint job,” instead 
of, “Hey, hello, long time no see!” 

Dumb city boys who don’t know the difference 
between flat and glossy paint, who actually had 
the stupidity to paint a kitchen in flat paint.

Of course, our intent was to make the family 
happy that we’d improved the old farmhouse. We 
wanted the relatives to comment that we were industrious 
nephews who proved that all city boys 
were not idiots.

Today, while I was painting my own bathroom -- 
glossy paint, white -- memories of the summer of 
1973 in Chardon began to play again in my mind. 
Perhaps it was the paint. Perhaps it was the cool 
breeze blowing fresh oxygen through the room . I 
heard the chickens out back and it reminded me 
of my brief period of farm-living.

I began to think about how Uncle Joe responded, 
and how he could have responded. I realized then 
the great truth in the phrase that WHAT we do is 
of little or no importance, but HOW we do it is 
everything. 

Uncle Joe died over 10 years ago, and when I visited 
the old farm site in 1999, the entire farm house 
and barn had been torn down and were now just 
a field. None of it mattered anymore in the world 
of physical reality. Joe was gone, and the entire 
farmhouse was simply a memory, glossy or flat.

Joe could have congratulated us on taking the 
initiative to paint, and could have explained why 
kitchens are always painted glossy. He could have 
told us that it was a great primer coat, and enthusiastically 
offered to drive us right then to the 
hardware store to get glossy paint, and we’d all 
do the final coat together. That would have been 
something. Our memory would have been profoundly 
different had Uncle Joe taken that route 
of inclusiveness, familyness, and helpfulness. 

 I do not fault him for what he did do -- he probably 
knew no other way. In fact, from what I 
knew about his father (my grandfather), his father 
probably would have beaten him had Joe painted 
the kitchen with flat paint. So to Joe, that was just 
one of millions of automatic reactions to things 
in his world. He probably forgot about in a few 
years, after the novelty of talking about Marie’s 
silly nephews wore off.

I realized then how important such “little things” 
can be, and I wondered how well I would do when 
my next opportunity arose. It is especially important 
with impressionable youth to do the very best 
we can to be a good example.

It seemed like an important insight, that the 
“how” is more important than the “what,” and 
that flat or glossy really doesn’t matter. Perhaps 
it was the paint. Perhaps it was the cool breeze 
blowing fresh oxygen through the room....

‘Optometrists’ Verify Mars 2020 Rover's 
20/20 Vision

 Equipped with visionary science instruments, 
the Mars 2020 rover (https://mars.nasa.gov/
mars2020) underwent an “eye” exam after several 
cameras were installed on it. The rover contains 
an armada of imaging capabilities, from wide-
angle landscape cameras to narrow-angle high-
resolution zoom lens cameras.

 “We completed the machine-vision calibration 
of the forward-facing cameras on the rover,” said 
Justin Maki, chief engineer for imaging and the 
imaging scientist for Mars 2020 at JPL. “This 
measurement is critical for accurate stereo vision, 
which is an important capability of the vehicle.”

 To perform the calibration, the 2020 team 
imaged target boards that feature grids of dots, 
placed at distances ranging from 1 to 44 yards (1 
to 40 meters) away. The target boards were used 
to confirm that the cameras meet the project’s 
requirements for resolution and geometric 
accuracy. The cameras tested included two 
Navcams, four Hazcams, the SuperCam and the 
two Mastcam-Z cameras.

 “We tested every camera on the front of the rover 
chassis and also those mounted on the mast,” said 
Maki. “Characterizing the geometric alignment 
of all these imagers is important for driving the 
vehicle on Mars, operating the robotic arm and 
accurately targeting the rover’s laser.”

 In the coming weeks, the imagers on the back 
of the rover body and on the turret at the end of 
the rover’s arm will undergo similar calibration.

 Mounted on the rover’s remote sensing mast, 
the Navcams (navigation cameras) will acquire 
panoramic 3D image data that will support route 
planning, robotic-arm operations, drilling and 
sample acquisition. The Navcams can work in 
tandem with the Hazcams (hazard-avoidance 
cameras) mounted on the lower portion of the 
rover chassis to provide complementary views of 
the terrain to safeguard the rover against getting 
lost or crashing into unexpected obstacles. They’ll 
be used by software enabling the Mars 2020 rover 
to perform self-driving over the Martian terrain.

 Along with its laser and spectrometers, 
SuperCam’s imager will examine Martian rocks 
and soil, seeking organic compounds that could 
be related to past life on Mars. The rover’s two 
Mastcam-Z high-resolution cameras will work 
together as a multispectral, stereoscopic imaging 
instrument to enhance the Mars 2020 rover’s 
driving and core-sampling capabilities. The 
Mastcam-Z cameras will also enable science 
team members to observe details in rocks and 
sediment at any location within the rover’s field 
of view, helping them piece together the planet’s 
geologic history.


Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com