Content-type: text/html Ray Manning

Friday, December 22, 2006 9:00 PM

End of Work


The week is a blur as there are tests to oversee, meetings to attend, and other work to deal with. Each night I get in workouts with the weights as I approach the maximum weight for the higher repetitions and I get in occasional walks. On wednesday night I get out to the Library Coffeehouse and do some reading. My acquaintance who works there is present and we talk about goth and industrial music for a few moments. It's kind of a slow night and I handle a single call from Person C_T during the evening.

During The Thursday workday one of the big big bosses catches up to me and congratulates me for the performance award that she has given me (and that I heard about on Monday). She sees in my eyes that I am not buying it. (This has been a difficult year at work and I, personally, have not felt that I've been that productive nor done that great of a job.) The big big boss keeps getting closer with each sentence that she uses to convince me that I am deserving of the award. Though she is not a touchy-feely person, she soon has both hands on both of my shoulders and is trying to convince me that I am deserving. She can see that I am resigning myself to the fact that I have to accept the praise and the award. Whereas other people crave the awards and are saying, "Bring 'em on!". I'm trying to find ways to decline the awards and saying, "Please don't let them hand any over to me".

On Thursday night, after the weights workout and a 40 minute walk, I handle calls with Person Joe, Person J_T, and Person A_B.

Friday starts off as a productive day as a test is finished even though I make them do one more run. ("You need to get a uniform 6 g throughout the structure - not just at a few points".) But the afternoon is very unproductive as a number of people are looking forward to the holidays after a long year. I leave work and get in another good session with the weights and a 40 minute walk. When I call Person T_U, he says that he is heading for West Hollywood, so I agree to join him.

I get a wristband for free re-entry into the herd clone club that Person T_U wants to meet me at. I then wander between two other clubs for the next couple of hours. I run into a co-worker crossing the street so we have a brief discussion before we go our separate ways. Being friendly, I smile at a guy at the first club who seems to be smiling at me and then see him later at the second club, so we have a nice ongoing discussion before I eventually leave near midnight to meet Person T_U at the herd clone club. Across the three clubs there has been some good music and a few acquaintances present. But the crowds are down a bit - probably for holiday season reasons.

At 1:50 am as Person T_U and I are leaving the club, a guy stops me and, rather than make an offer such as "Let's go see a movie" or "Let's have lunch", this offer is for right now for a number of...um...more physical and explicit acts. I decline and see that Person T_U is still waiting for me. So we walk out and Person T_U asks me, "Are you crazy?", when I tell him that I declined the offer for right now. And Person T_U tries to pull me back into the club to rescind my declination. But I just let Person T_U that he can take the offer if he wants.

The drive home is uneventfull and I'm laying down for sleep just before 3 am on Saturday morning.

Saturday is a sorta lazy day, though I do the laundry, mow the lawn, clean the bathrooms, and do some Christmas shopping. I get down for a two hour nap late in the afternoon and finally lift weights late in the day. There is no cycling today because of the continued threat of rain (though in hindsight I could have made it out). Phone calls with Person T_U, Person T*, and Person J_T are handled before heading out to meet Person T_U at a club in Long Beach.

Because of the rain and the holiday season the crowd is again down today. But a number of friends and acquaintances are present. I see the DJ early in the evening and go tell him, "More techno. More trance." And he realizes that I've told that to him a number of times (including last night when he was not DJ-ing) and he smiles. I ask him if he has an mp3 file of a specific song and he agrees to email the song. But he also gives me a CD of some of his mixes. So I stuff it into my pocket make some idle conversation throughout the evening and try to enjoy the mixture of techno and hip-hop. (Though I cannot enjoy hip-hop.) Person T_U introduces me to Person K_J and we have a little conversation and then we each continue mingling. Later Person K_J comes over and we spend a half hour hanging out and talking about kids and school and stuff. I also have a short conversation with Person G_G and note the very cool streaked hair. I'm leaving the club before 2 am and laying down for sleep at 2:15 am on Sunday morning.

On Sunday morning I wake up with a slight sore throat. But I get up and lift weights (hoping to get a bicycle ride in later when the weather is warmer and the streets are dry). As I'm eating bread and cheese and diet Coke for breakfast, I'm finishing up the last of cleaning up paperwork a well as converting the DJ's CD to a more usable format. It turns out the entire CD has only one song that I want - but it's the perfect mix of the song that I've wanted for a while.

Near noon I get out for the aquarium bicycle ride. It's a cold windy ride and I'm glad that I wore my riding jacket because it would have been very cold without it. Of course the cold doesn't help my sore throat, but it had to be done. After finishing off the paperwork cleanup for the year and watching some football, I get out for a 40 minute walk to the ATM machine. On Sunday night I take a Kava root extract fairly early and just relax a bit - hoping to get extra rest and sleep and head off any major illness as our Christmas vacation nears. Throughout the day there are good phone calls from Dad, Person C_T, and Person T_U.

On Monday I wake up with a sore throat again - this one a bit worse than the morning before. Thus I jump on the motorcycle with frost on the ground, 39 degrees out, and head for work near 100 mph (at times). What is the wind chill factor for 39 degrees and 100 mph? At work I am elevated by tacking my favorite picture on my wall and continue to look at it often. The picture and discussion can be seen

On Monday night I get in a great session with the weights ("Make it hurt!") and then walk for almost an hour.

It's still cold on Tuesday and Wednesday, but I still ride the motorcycle to work and spend the next hour at work trying to warm up. The days are not extremely productive. Each night I come home and lift weights ("Make it hurt!") and go walking for an hour or so. Wednesday and Thursday are 5 repetition sessions and I'm not quite ready for it, but I make it through.

With all of the typical year end errands and tasks almost finished, this holiday break will be spent visiting people and spending time with people that I don't often spend time with. I'm looking forward to it!

On Thursday I get in a good session with the weights and a long walk and head over to visit Person T* and her son. We watch television for a while and just talk about stuff. Before you know it we are all asleep.

On Friday Person T* and I drop her son off at school and continue for a long long walk. Eventually we drop off a rental van at the airport and I give her a ride back home before I turn around and come home. When I get home I work the abdominals and lower back, go walking for 45 minutes, and then get cleaned up to do some shopping. I manage to sneak into and out of three stores with minimal delays for Christmas shopping and grocery shopping. And later in the evening I start writing a letter to the editor of newspaper as well as reading newly-arrived magazines. The sore throat is almost completely gone in time for the Christmas vacation.