Content-type: text/html Ray Manning

Monday, January 30, 2006 9:00 AM

Just Regular January


The workweek is a good pattern of being productive at Northrop Grumman during the day, coming home and working out with the weights, and then reading or attending ResourceScout meetings. The sessions with the weights are still higher repetition sessions but I'm slowly increasing the weights. There is no joint pain as I make slow but steady progress.

Though my time for sleep varies each night by about an hour, each night I wake up within a few minutes of 3 am and note the time. For the few minutes that I am awake I note how quiet my neighborhood is and I am happy small improvements to my neighborhood and house are improving the quality of my life.

On Thursday night Person C_T visits and we talk about the remodel and a few other things. It is a short visit as Person C_T aarives near 6:30 and is leaving at 10:30.

On Friday I stay away from Northrop Grumman. I get out for a reasonable (almost) 30 mile bicycle ride during the morning. I follow this up with a nice warm shower, the laundry, and buying some shower and lavatory faucets from a place in downtown Long Beach. (Really ordering the hardware for later delivery.) I make a couple of stops on the way home to pick up community literature and a submarine sandwich for lunch. After lunch I edge, mow, and trim the lawn for the first time this year. As I finish I start to feel a collapse, so I get down for a nap at 3:15 in the afternoon. I'm more or less awake at 4:40, though everything hurts and I feel incoherent. I make a trip to the ATM for cash and an old time hardware sore to look for doors and doorknobs to match the existing ones in the house. I get some leads on interior doors, but the doorknobs are going to be problemmatic. (I want this entire remodel to use "period appropriate" fixtures.) The rest of the evening is spent relaxing and reading and drinking fluids as I feel like something is coming on.

On Saturday I get up and read and waxthe motorcycle before heading out for a bicycle ride. This is another loop ride but I ride it clockwise today (instead of yesterday's counter clockwise ride). Towards the end I crank along quite nicely and pass a number of people who just seem like they are standing still. After a nice warm shower I grab lunch, wax the rims on the motorcycle, spray the shrubs in the front yard for spider mites, and relax. At this point I have caught up on my reading and I only have the UNICEF "State of Children 2006" report left on the reading pile.

Late on Saturday afternoon I call Person A_B to discuss his politcal asylum case and other things. Person A_B had an interview at the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) office and he was complaining that the INS officer was Indian and that he couldn't understand his accent. But the interview went okay and Person A_B will hear about the outcome of his case on February 2nd.

I finally get to review the Environmental Impact Report that my city councilwoman has alerted me to and I provide comments to her and to the city. I suggest a more integrated plan of reviewing particulate pollutants produced by the two ports, the airport, and other mobile and stationary sources of particulate pollutants. We'll see what happens. Later on Saturday Person C_T comes over and we watch a movie about Thailand from 500 years ago (when it ws still Siam). I fall asleep during some of the movie, but it's still interesting and enjoyable. The sleep was brought on by my fighting something off more than my interest in the movie.

On Sunday it's a bit wet and foggy in the morning so I walk over to the grocery store to buy the newspaper and supplies. Later, when Person C_T has to leave, I head out the door for a good mountain bicycle ride around the aquarium and back home. I can feel my legs are a bit tired from the two great rides on the two previous days, but I crank along nonetheless and have fun. After a shower and some lunch I take some things back to Home Depot for a credit card credit and head back for home to read the newspaper and relax. I lay out in the sun for a short time in order to get some Vitamin D (to go along with the extra Vitamins C and E that I've been taking the last few days).

On Sunday night I catch up on more reading and relax. I also make sure that there is no junk or harmful food left in the house as it is time to cleanse my body.