Tuesday is a great day because I get to ride the motorcycle again. The motorcycle has been ignored during the entire Christmas vacation and it just wants to run. So it feels great to ride to work both for the motorcycle and for me.
Tuesday is a semi-productive day at Northrop Grumman as people get back into the swing of work. Unlike other years where I had forgotten all of the passwords needed at work, I remember them all without prompts. After work on Tuesday I get in a great session of weights for the pull muscle groups, go for a 40 minute walk, dust off and polish a dining room table (that Person C_T and Person E_M brught over yesterday), and upload the Christmas 2005 pictures to this website.
On Wednesday, after doing core strength and stretching exercises and walking for 40 minutes, I trade time between reading, surfing the Internet, and watching the USC/Texas football game. I am absolutely bored with the game. I would rather volunteer to stand in line at the DMV or the post office rather than watch another college football game. This one is so incredibly boring. As you can tell, I don't actually watch much of it. But I do watch the last 7 minutes that everyone claims (the next day) was so exciting. And I just don't get it at all.
On Wednesday night I wake up just after midnight from a sound sleep with a bad dream. I dream that I have been stuffed into an old refrigerator - the kind that you can't open from the inside - and I realize that this is how it's all going to end. All's I can do is accept that this is the end and relax. When I wake up I have a bit of trouble falling back asleep, but it's not until the next day that I wonder if my dream was spurred by the coal miners in Virginia being trapped in the mine and suffocating.
On Thursday I discover that I am up against my vacation limit at Northrop Grumman, thus I'll be taking Friday off. After work on Thursday I get in a good "pull" group session with the weights, go walking for 30 minutes, buy a few supplies at the grocery store, and relax for the evening.
On Friday I stay at home and get out for the loop ride (just short of 30 miles). I struggle a bit because it seems that the Santa Ana winds are against me on all four legs of the ride. Is this possible? The rest of the day is very productive as I make the most of the bright and warm (79F) day. I get the car washed, replace a number of crawl space vents, clean up after the windy and rain of New year's day, clean the garage door rails, and lubricate the garage door rails. While taking breaks from these outdoor errands I work on some Perl scripts for work (related to prductivity enhancements). A bit after 2 pm I sit down to relax.
Near 5pm I head out to lift weights for the "pull" muscle group. It's a great session. Afterwards I go walking for 40 minutes and stop at the grocery store to buy supplies. The rest of the evening is spent reading, relaxing, and realizing how tired I am from all of the day's activities. It should be a good night of sleep and, hopefully, with no strange nightmares.
Saturday is a productive day around the house. After getting out for the aquarium ride, I do the laundry and start in on the errands. I make a quick trip to Home Depot for crawl space vent screens and avoid all of the crowd by parking a long way away from the door and by going to the checkout cashier at the far end of the store. After this trip and a stop at the ATM, I work on the crawl space vents on the addition. These involve some patching and priming and painting of wood, but by the end of the day I've made good progress. Thankfully it is a hot and dry day and the reapirs and the paint dry very quickly. After relaxing for a while I work on abdominals and lower back with weights and get out for an hour walk. A quick shower leads to more relaxation as Person C_T comes over and we watch one DVD and get started on another before heading for sleep.
On Saturday night (really Sunday morning) at 4:30 I wake up from another bad dream. I'm out with four other people and I'm riding in the backseat, We're in an accident and I'm trapped in the car and can't get out. It seems like forever for the firemen and police to get me out. I get very little sleep between the 4:30 nightmare and the 6:30 alarm.
On Sunday the chosen bathroom contractor comes over for a final meeting before the final contracts are drawn up and signed. Though the work will not begin until the middle of February. After the contractor leaves the morning fog has burned off enough for another bicycle ride. Another aquarium ride gets the blood pumping for the day. Person C_T and I have a Mexican lunch and then do grocery shopping before Person C_T lays down for a nap. I work on scripts for work and cutting down the last two crawl space vent screens. (The last two vent screens need to be modified to accept power or air conditioning lines that run through the crawl space vents.)
Later on Sunday I do some additional abdominal and lower back strengthening exercises, write some Perl code, watch some of the football game, and get out for a 40 minute walk. I'm laying down for reading near 9 pm and the lights go out near 10.
On Monday I get to work at 7:15 am. As each person comes to work they tell me, "Ray, you're in trouble. There were a lot of people looking for you on Friday and nobody knew where you were. We heard that there was a motorcycle accident on one of the freeways and we were trying to figure out which freeways you take to get to work. We thought that it might be you".
"But I told both my functional boss and my project boss that I would not be here on Friday because I was up against my maximum allowed vacation limit."
"We found that out at 4pm when Rob told us that you were on vacation. But he didn't tell us. So we were worried that you had a motorcycle accident."
"Well, if I ever have a motorcycle accident and the freeways are blocked, please just drag the lifeless carcass off the freeway and throw it in the nearby ditch so that traffic isn't held up. I wouldn't want to hold up traffic."