On Monday and Tuesday I have good sessions with the weights again - on Monday after work and on Tuesday before work. These days are a-typical because it is raining and I have to drive to work rather than ride the motorcycle.
At work on Tuesday I'm called to a co-worker's office for help with a presentation for our customer. The four of us spend two hours making 4 charts. By the end of this little meeting I'm throughly frustrated with the act of taking up 4 people's time for two hours to get 4 charts done. After work, with frustration fresh in my mind, I drive to a ResourceScout meeting where we spend another hour or so working on a one page letter to a California Assembly member. I cannot win today!
The rain clears and Wednesday is a nice sunny day. I get out for a 4 mile run before the long day at work. As I'm riding to work in the carpool lane there are quite a few California Highway Patrol cars on the 405 this morning. And pretty soon I'm just daydreaming along. Until traffic stops suddenly and I'm not going to be able to get the bike stopped in time and not hit the truck in front of me. Thus, senses jolted back to the present, I make a sharp swerve to the right from the carpool lane onto the double yellow diving line - missing the truck's bumber in front of me by the width of an atom. I'm not sure, but I may have even felt the truck's rear bumper against my left knee as I make the maneuver. I proceed cautiosly along to work and when I get off the bike I see that my left turn signal is bent and does not function anymore. I must have had slight contact between the truck's rear bumper and my left turn signal during the maneuver. Oh well - minor contact, no harm, no foul.
On Wednesday I continue a running battle with the managers of my flexible spending account. They don't want to reimburse me for drugs purchased over the Internet from the United Kingdom. It takes a number of phone calls over the month of February and some additional documentation indicating that the drugs are imported for personal use only, but they finally relent and agree to pay. The lady finally says, "Wow, you're the first person that we've done this for. We'll make a note in your file for future reimbursements and alert other people of this new ruling." Finally!
On Thursday I get in a good session with the weights as I am able to get the last repetition that I haven't been able to get for a while. After dinner I set about fixing the left turn signal on the motorcycle. When I take the cover off I see that the impact that the turn signal had with the truck bumper was hard enough to knock the bulb out of the socket. Though the bulb appears still intact. When I put the bulb back into the socket it works. That must have been a hard impact even though I didn't feel anything on the bike. Hmmmm.
On Thursday night (really Friday morning) at 1 am I wake up and cannot fall back asleep. After tossing and turning for quite a while I get up and watch television. I eventually go back to bed but I see 4 am on the alarm clock and I am still not asleep. Though I do hear the alarm go off at 5:30 am to start the day.
On Friday it is raining again so I have to drive to work. When I get to work a few people today ask if I rode my motorcycle. When I tell them that I did not ride it, they just shrug there shoulders and say, "I can't imagine you driving a car."
After work on Friday I drive down to downtown Long Beach and pick up the long-awaited faucet handles and anti-scald valve. After that I get blood drawn for a doctor's appoitnment in two weeks. And then I get in a good session with the weights. Having fully recovered from the cold/flu I get in the last few repetitions that have been missing lately. After a quick dinner I do the laundry and some grocery shopping and relax for the remainder of Friday night. I fall asleep early on Friday night and only wake up once throughout the night - at 4am. And fall immediately back to sleep.
I get an early start on Saturday with a 4 mile run. But my left calf starts acting up again to put a damper on the day. After a shower and breakfast (of bread, cheese, and diet Coke), I paint a small hallway ceiling and then start the serious errands of the day. I load the two damaged boxes of tile in the car and drive to Anaheim to exchange them for undamaged boxes. Everything is going well until the lady brings out the replacement tile and says that something is wrong because the box isn't heavy enough. We open the box and realize that instead of sending 29 square feet of replacement tile they have sent 29 pieces of replacement tile. After some discussion I tell the place that I'm taking the 29 pieces and the old broken tile to make it work. But they are still going to order more replacement tile. Josh is accomodating and agrees to work with me on this one. After two more unsuccessful trips for moulding and replacement doors, I head for home and jump on the bicycle to work off frustration. This is a great day to work off the frustration on the bike because there's a head wind against me the entire way down to the aquarium. Thus I crank along passing people and dropping other riders to get the entire shopping experience out of my system.
In the afternoon I do some painting around the house and some reading. Seeing that I am tired late in the day and there are no phone calls to go out clubbing, I go to bed by 10 pm.
On Sunday I get up early and get out for the aquairum bicycle ride. As I'm passing the Catalina landing I slow down to get a good look at some ChiChis who have arrived for a boat to Catalina about 45 minutes early. As I slow down I almost get hit from behind by a cyclist who has been following me. He just says, "I've been holding on to your wheel". And we ride together for a short while until it is my turn to turn around. He's a nice guy from the Phillipines and we have a good conversation as we ride about bicycles and stuff going on in the Phillipines. On the way home I ride my bicycle into a liquor store to pick up a newspaper. After a shower and reading the newspaper, I do some more painting before I head out skating right near mid day. It's another good skate to get the season off to a rolling start.
Late on Sunday I hear that Person A_B has won his immigration hearing and has a permanent visa. I tell him that we'll have to celebrate if I eve make it up to San Francisco. (And, of course, I owe many people a visit up there.)