Tuesday is supposed to be another bicycle commute day to Northrop Grumman, but it doesn't happen. Instead I unpack my clothes in the morning and ride the motorcycle to work. I'm still a bit tired.
On Wednesday I get out for the loop bicycle ride. It feels great to be back on the road bicycle and I'm a bit surprised when I walk back in the door and see that it has been a quick ride with a quicker time than usual. Person M_Fl comes to visit late in the morning before he starts work at noon so we hang out for a short while. I get some errands run and work on building a set of shelves for a closet as well as a piece of exercise equipment. Near 3 pm I get down for an hour nap though I'm still groggy an hour later when I get up. Late in the afternoon I start in on a high repetition, light weight workout - the first with the weights in two weeks. Ruby stops by near the start of the workout and we have an hour long talk before she heads back to work. I restart the workout - it's a good one. I'm going to be sore for the next couple of days.
On Thursday and Friday I get in good bicycle rides in the morning, work on projects around the house throughout the day, and get in a good workout with the weights each evening. The Thursday project is washing and waxing the World Rally Car. The Friday project is some ResourceScout programming in addition to shelving work and mowing the lawn. Late on Friday I call Person T_U and head for a club in West Hollywood.
I get the herd/clone club wristband and head over to Club M for a while. I don't have a drink before heading towards Club A. But the line to get into Club A is so long that it covers the opening of the entire park. Thus I turn around and head back to Club M for a RedBull and 7-Up. The music is very good tonight and I even think about staying here and not returning to the herd/clone club. But I leave near midnight for the herd/clone club. I'm a bit bored tonight, but I hang out until closing and then head for home - the lights going off near 3 am for sleep.
Saturday is another day of cycling, relaxing, working on small projects, and the laundry. Tonight Person T_U is going out, so I meet him at a club just before midnight. I cannot quite see who the DJ is, but the music tonight is great - almost as good as it was before DJ Paulo was let go. Person C_K is present and he's been drinking more than he should (but at least he's not driving). Person T_U strikes up a conveersation with Person N_X and later introduces me to Person N_X. Person N_X has a sincere smile and he gets my phone number. Late in the evening but after last call I run into Sabrina, the HVAC, as I'm trying to get a final RedBull and 7-Up. Sabrina looks good and we have a brief conversation until I have to continue fighting in the line for a drink. This club is open until 4am tonight but I'm leaving near 2:15 am. Two incidents occur on the way home. The first occurs as I'm standing at a stop light waiting for the light to change: A fight breaks out and soon a few people are being tossed to the ground and rolling around and scuffling. "Come on light, please change quickly so that I can get away from this." And thus it does. The second incident occurs within 2 miles of home as cars are parked every which way on a major street near home. I slow way down and weave my way through all of the parked cars and it appears - I cannot be definite - that there is a body and and arm lying underneath a car stopped in the middle lane (of three lanes). This event must have just happened because there are no emergency vehicles present and I see a car in the distance making a U-turn as if to return to the scene and/or to lend assistance. I do not know enough first aid to help this situation and there are other cars/vehicles present, so I continue on home - the lights going off for sleep at 3:15 am on Sunday morning.
On Sunday I'm up near 6:30 am to water the roses and work on a ResourceScout cover letter and set of executive summaries. At mid morning I head out for the mountain bicycle ride around the aquarium. I'm a bit slow today as this is the fifth ride in five days, seventh ride in nine days, and coming off two consecutive nights of three hours of sleep. But I'm excited and enthused, as always, to be on two wheels. I watch the MotoGP race from the Czech Republic (that I was at three years ago). They announce attendance of 140,000 people - almost double the 80,000 that they've had recently. It's hard to believe. But when they show an aerial shot and I see the exact hillside that I sat on for the races and see people packed in shoulder to shoulder, I start to believe the 140,000 number. And I see the hiking trails just off the track that all of us used to get from public transport to the track. And, unfortunately, all of my favorite riders do poorly. One crashes, one finishes 19th, and one finishes 7th.
On Sunday afternoon and into evening I work on some ResourceScout stuff but I have a difficult time. Maybe it's lack of sleep, but I keep bouncing between mini depression and mini ecstacy. I'm in bed for sleep at 9:30 as I have to go back to work. Or do I?
Monday and Tuesday are hectic days at work dealing with upcoming trips. But I find time near noon to walk over to the liquor store and trade in the winning lottery ticket for $11 for 11 more tickets. On Tuesday night I get home and lift weights continuing with the high repetition workouts. And then life takes a turn. There are many phone calls, there's a helicopter overhead and a police car on the street, there's news that the club that Person T_U and I were at on Saturday has burnt down, there's news that a number of statewide agencies may be sending business towards ResourceScout, and there's packing for the trip to Colorado. I'm up late tonight dealing with the entire set of circumstances.
In the afternoon on Wednesday I meet with a Northrop Grumman lawyer. (Actually it's an outside lawyer retained by Northrop Grumman for a recent lawsuit.) The lawyer is very interested in what I have to say and wants to corroborate some of my facts. After the meeting I rush off to the airport and fly to Denver. It's getting late, thus I take my time driving the rental car to Boulder, Colorado. Note that the rental car, supposedly the small two door car that I requested, is a burnt orange Mitsubishi Eclipse that everyone throughout the next week teases me about. "You get sports cars from Northrop Grumman?" But the car isn't very good - the trunk won't close unless you slam the crap out of it (and it rattles partially open all the way from Denver airport to BOulder), the rapid shifter is really a torque converter, it squeaks and rattles, and just doesn't seemed finished very well. I miss the World Rally Car already.
We work hard on Thursday, Friday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday to get a good test off. My collegues again like the tools that I have brought to process data, overlay responses between runs, overlay directional responses, and compare overall responses. Because I'm an open souce type of guy, I give them all copies of the tools when the test is finished.
On each morning I get out walking and running near the hotel. The hotel is near a Wonderland Lake trail and I utilize the trails to do running away from cars, away from noise, along the side of the mountain, and on soft surfaces. On each morning I catch beautifull mountain sunrises over Boulder from the trails. At the end of Monday's morning run, as I'm walking back to the hotel and cooling down, I'm accosted by a family of three deer - two adults and a youngster. The youngster is startled and hops away, but the adult (probably the mother) stands her ground and actually takes a couple of steps towards me. (Maybe she thinks I'm a threat to the youngster and wants to defend her offspring.) I throw my hands up in the air and say aloud, "I'm sorry, but I don't have any food". The deer just watches me as I continue walking past.
On Friday night I get in touch with Mom and Dad's oldest son who is attending the university of Colorado. I pick him up and we go have a nice dinner on Pearl Street where street performers perform and people meander about. We have a great set of cnversations and I drop him off at home near 9 pm (since he has to wake up at 5 am the next morning for a long hike with roommates and friends).
On Saturday we don't work, so I take time to browse bookstores, get some recreational reading done, and relax. At lunch I look outside the restaurant and see money lying beneath a table. I walk outside and look around but don't see anybody around. There are no waiters or waitresses and no clients around. Thus I pick up the $8 and put it away for future use. Later in the afternoon I head back to Pearl Street to check out the Saturday night performances and crowd. I see a ChiChi walk back and forth twice but think nothing of it. Later as I'm wandering around I see the ChiChi with a guitar and he's playing the guitar and singing. I grab a seat and watch for a while until a number of the ChiChi's friends come along and the group of eight start singing songs for everyone. When there is a high pitched solo that needs being performed, it's the ChiChi that sings. I wait until the group finishes and the ChiChi picks up his guitar and heads away. I've pe-decided not to say anything to the ChiChi because I don't have any condoms with me. Thus I let the ChiChi go and just wander around some more until it is time to head back to the hotel for sleep.
During the trip, late at night, on one of the nights that I cannot remember which one it is, I say to myself, "I'm so f___ing tired of this sh__."
On Tuesday we finish testing in the morning. Thus I thank everyone for their hard work, their hospitality, and their patience with us. And then I rush off to catch an earlier flight for home. As I rush up to the gate and the gate attendant sees me coming she starts processing the request for another seat, gives me my boarding pass, and says, "I have to close the door in four minutes". Thus I stop in at work for a couple hours after landing at Los Angeles International airport before I head home to unpack, pay some bills, watch the Grand Prix of Turkey from Sunday, and work on the abdominals and lower back.