Content-type: text/html Ray Manning

Monday, February 13, 2006 9:00 AM

Bathrooms and Blah!


Monday and Tuesday are, again, productive days at work as well as productive days with the weights after work. I have a meeting with the NPOESS Program Director on Tuesday and everyone involved realizes how dire the situation is. We realize that we have our work cut out for us over the next couple of months.

The weights sessions on Monday and Tuesday see increased weights again. They are good workouts and I have no joint pain. I guess the 10 weeks of high repetition lifting helped strengthen the soft connecting tissues, such as tendons and ligaments, such that my joint pain is gone.

On Tuesday night I cancel my participation in the ResourceScout meeting because I get home from work late. And my throat is getting sore. I guess the slight feeling of "being under the weather" that I've felt for about two weeks is finally hitting me.

On Wednesday I have an unproductive day at work. None of the models or simulations want to run properly. And my throat is getting worse. When I leave work for the day I tell my boss that I'll at least be late on Thursday morning or maybe not be in at all. I'm going to turn the alarm clock off and just sleep and see how I feel.

On Thursday I sleep until 7:30 am. My throat is sore, my nose is running and stuffed up simultaneously (How can that be?), and my teeth hurt. But today will not be a restfull day at home anyway because of the noise and commotion from the bathroom contractor, so I go to work. On the way to work there are two accidents - one is a big rig that has almost overturned and one is another fender bender. Because the big rig accident is near the freeway entrance ramp where I get on, traffic is backed up on the entrance ramp and onto the streets. Instead of waiting, I maneuver through traffic as usual with the motorcycle. In some situations I even ride over on the paved drainage ditches in order to make progress. Add to this "little detour" is that it is a bright day and my eyes keep tearing up from the cold. So at times I can't see a thing and at times I pop the helmet shield up and wipe the tears away from my eyes with my left motorcycle glove. Regardless I eventually get to work in one piece. At work on Thursday I try to avoid everyone so that I can be productive and not spread my head cold.

On Friday I have a 2 degree fever. But I get out of bed and get to work. It's a fairly productive day as there are a lot of people missing and I'm left to myself. I believe that I have helped solve one of our onorbit performance problems. Thus I am feeling pretty good about things by the afternoon. I leave a bit early on Friday (because I already had two extra hours from earlier in the week) and get out for a 40 minute walk to the ATM and the grocery store. The bathroom contractor is just finishing up for the day and we conclude the day with our usual status discussion.

On Saturday my fever is gone and my temperature is slightly below normal. Thus I get up and do the laundry, pick up my bicycle wheel (which I have them re-do while I am there to even out the tension on the spokes), stop by a bathroom supply store, pick up free community literature, and get the car washed. When I'm at the car wash a number of people keep looking at my car including a kid who is with his father. His father is getting irritated that the kid is enamored with my car instead of the piece of crap car that he drives. I can only laugh. When I get home I relax a bit and then head out in the midday sun for a bicycle ride. There's a rider ahead of me as I enter the Los Angeles river trail and I chase him down quickly even though I have the low pressure mountain bicycle tires and he has the high pressure road bicycle tires. Thus we have a little conversation towards the aquarium about our favorite rides in the area. And then he turns for home back towards Vernon as I circle the aquarium - past the overpainted giraffe - and head for home. It's a good ride even though I felt a bit weak at the beginning of the ride. When I get home I clean up the roses a bit, take a shower, and read during the rest of the afternoon.

On this Saturday there are phone calls from Person T_U, Person J_VKPI (who is enjoying his new life in Palmdale/Lancaster), Person T*, and Person C_T. But I'm in bed just after 9 pm to catch up on sleep.

I sleep late on Sunday. When I awaken I walk to the grocery store to buy the newspaper and other supplies and read for a while. Person C_T and I have a telephone discussion and now I have to exchange a toilet bowl and tank for another style. So I load the bowl and tank in the car and head for Home Depot. The returns lady asks if there is anything wrong with the merchandise and I just say, "My designer changed his mind". And the returns lady nods her head knowingly. I walk over and find the desired one piece toilet. There's a sign that says, "Danger - Do not attempt to lift with just one person. Ask for help and use at least two people". But there is nobody around so I grab the one piece toilet and drag it down from the shelf and into (or on top of) the shopping cart. I pay for the merchandise and, as I suspected, the one piece toilet will not fit in the trunk or the backseat of my car. So I take the toilet back and the same returns lady is asking, "What happened?". When I explain that it will not fit in the car she offers alternatives but I finally just return it. When I get home from this experience I am in the house for two minutes to change into cycling clothes and go work off the stress of shopping and returning crap.

There are a few snaps and pops from the newly aligned and fixed rear wheel as I ride out the driveway and down my street. That's expected as the tensioned spokes re-seat themselves for their operating environment. The wheel is good and I feel strong to start so I'm cranking away. Halfway through the ride along the ocean I see a coworker inline skating towards me with his family. I give out a quick wave and yell, "Hey Dave", as I go past. He gives a quick yell back, "Hey Ray", as we continue on our ways. I don't want to interrupt my cranking and don't want to intrrupt his family's inline skate. Towards the end of the ride I start tiring from the cold/flu or whatever I had. But I struggle along and continue passing people as they struggle with the headwind (up the San Gabriel river trail). When I get off the bike I notice how nasty my shirt and sweat smells as I'm sweating out the toxins and poisons that made me sick.

After a shower and relaxing I decide that I need some pesticide to kill the spider mites and a quick trip to Target for stuff. The people at this garden center (or nursery) help me out and I'm on my way. At Target I pick out a few things rather quickly and get the heck out of there. I hate shopping. I may need to go ride another 30 miles to get rid of the stress of a 10 minute trip to Target. I hate shopping.

Later on Sunday afternoon I certainly feel the hung over affects of the good hard bicycle ride in the sunshine. It takes all of my energy to spray the front shurbs, take out the trash, and relax. As I'm reading the newspaper and slowly moving around the house, Person A_P contacts me and says that he has moved back to Long Beach from his little sortie to Florida. We have a pleasant conversation.

And then, as I'm getting ready for bed, Person H_V contacts me. I haven't spoken with Person H_V for years. We do a brief catchup on our friends and acquantances and then it really is time for sleep.