On Tuesday I lift weights in the morning for the pull group using high repettitions and low weights. I notice that I'm very slowly starting to increase the weights and still doing high repetitions, but I feel no joint pain. This is good. The tendons and muscles and joints are catching up in strength. Later I get out for a windy, blustery aquarium ride and I just crank along quite nicely on the way home (up the Los Angeles River trail). Person C_T comes over and we go shopping at Home Depot to start buying bathroom remodel supplies and go shopping at Vons to stock up on good, healthy foods. In the evening we watch a DVD that Person C_T has brought over and I know from the title that I'll be catching up on my sleep during the DVD. But we watch it and, yes, I do catch up on my sleep. Person C_T leaves before 9pm and I get in some reading before dropping off to sleep.
Wednesday starts out as a gloomy day. I get up at a reasonable time and lift weights. After relaxing for a while I take the road bicycle out for the loop ride. I realize that it was near Christmas in 1985 when I bought this bicycle - paying more at the time for the bicycle than I had for my used car and new small motorcycle. People thought that I was crazy to do that. But I officially declare today the 20th anniversary of this bicycle purchase. I celebrate the Ciocc frame and the limited edition (Italian Olympic team edition, that is) Camapgnolo groupo. It is a decent ride until the home stretch as I'm heading west on Del Amo. At that point it gets interesting because I start playing leapfrog with a Long Beach Transit bus. The bus will get ahead of me but then have to stop to drop off or pick up riders. I'll sprint ahead and try to get a lead, but then the bus will catch up and get ahead again. This continues for the majority of Del Amo until the end where I put in a long continuous surge starting at Paramount Blvd and manage to stay ahead of the bus all the way home. This last part makes the entire ride worthwhile!
After lunch and some rest I trim the bushes in the front yard, mow both the front and back yards, sweep up the spillover, and spray the junipers in the frontyard for spider mites. For the rest of the afternoon and evening I make some phone calls, do some reading, do some programming, and relax. As I watch VH1 Classic a video from an old Lou Reed song comes on. I remember hearing it for the first time in 1988 when the disc jockey, Jim Ladd, was talking about "Get those G*$D@%$ assault rifles off the street". I quickly hit the "record" button on the VCR and replay the video a number of times over the next few days.
Give me your hungry, your tired your poor I'll piss on 'emThursday starts off slow as I stay in bed very late. Am I coming down with something, trying to fight something off, or just being lazy? After getting a number of things done off the "to do" list, I get out for a bicycle ride. I want to head north on the Los Angeles river, but the wind is blowing north. So I head south around the aquarium so that the north wind helps blow me home. I get in a fair amount of reading throughout the afternoon before lifting weights and going for a 30 minute walk. For the weights I do the higher repetition, lower weight routine, but I do extra sets to make the workout more challenging. And I have a great pump in all of the "pull" muscles after the workout but I know that I'll be sore on Saturday.
Person C_T comes over and we have dinner and watch two DVDs. Both are reasonable even though we almost quit watching the first one in the first 20 minutes.
On Saturday it is wet and dreary. I drag Person C_T along for a 55 minute walk as we cash in a winning lottery ticket for another ticket and get fairly wet during the walk. I do some reading throughout the day as Person C_T works on other things. I feel the depression weighing me down, so I read and stay out of the way and the limelight. We get to a 4:55 showing of Syriana at my insistence. Though written by or directed by the same screenwriter as Traffic, this one is not as cohesive and is harder to follow. Is that because it's easier to follow the drug trade then the oil trade? Person C_T and I relax and watch television and read. I am tired so I head for bed at 11:15 pm. Just after midnight Person C_T comes to bed and wishes me "Happy New year".
Later I hear that the GiantVillage new years rave from 9pm on Saturday night until 6am on Sunday morning did not happen. It turns out the promoters, at the suggestion of the Los Angeles Fire Department, cancelled the event. It would have been a waste of a train ride to go up there and find out that it was canceled due to the bad weather. Maybe next year!