On Tuesday I have a good day as I prepare simulations and PowerPoint charts for two branches of NASA and a teleconference today. At the end of the teleconference everybody says, "These are the data and results that we expected to need and see." So I feel good...until a voice mail is left for me. I get a voice mail from special projects security who wants me to come to a security audit by our customers (i.e., various government agencies) about my foreign travel. Oh crap. I schedule the appointment for Wednesday morning and let my project and functional bosses know what is going on. My project boss, Dr Amy Lo, is afraid that I am going to be carted off to jail since she's heard of my foreign travel exploits (and begged me not to go on various trips). Person Ti_Ca, after he hears the voice mail, just asks me where all of the money is since he thinks I'm going to jail also. But I do pack my last two passports into my backpack to take to work on Wednesday in case I have to leave the country suddenly. After work I have a good walk/run and eat healthy food again.
I get through the Thursday workday with some decent production. At 3pm I leave and ride the motorcycle up to Cal State University Los Angeles to work with a student to try to get an analysis and software package working. We run through a number of test cases and artificial cases where we know the answer. And we just plain experiment with parameters to try to debug the software. After 4.5 hours we've made some good progress and had some interesting little discussions about life and "what do you WANT to do?" I make a rush for home after 8:40 pm and find the freeways very clear of traffic. Its dark, but the roads are clear of the traffic that makes riding dangerous.
Saturday starts with me riding up the Los Angeles river past the Whittier Narrows dam (just fora mile) and then back as I pick Derrick up to ride with. We ride down to the ocean and take a break and start back for home. I go past my stop a bit as usual and end up at 50 miles. With the lack of calories lately and the ride I am very tired. But Persin Ti_Ca and I try to get an oil change for his car but it is an hour wait so we drive to Verizon Wireless to get our bill reduced. Afterwards I get to the library for another book and do some grocery shopping. And then I just sit back with an episode of Lilyhammer, an episode of the Blacklist, and some of the Kings loss to Vancouver.
Monday morning rolls around and my blood pressure is approaching normal. I have to be diligent. I get to work and make good progress on two upcoming tests and then I stall out. I keep pounding away on this one puzzling problem and cannot seem to make progress. One of our new hires, who has been asking me questions regaularly as he comes up to speed, asks me another set of questions and while answering his questions I stumble upon the solution for my problem. I try it out and it looks good. So I finally leave work on Monday having solved a problem that has vexed me for almost a week (in between other work). I get home and have a good session with the weights whee they feel easier than they should seeing that I'm restricting my calories a fair amount. Person Ti_Ca's car has a warning light on the day after JiffyLube touched the car. They had filled the rear tires up to 40 psi when it says to fill them up to 29 psi. What were they thinking? I equalize the tire pressures and reset the warning light. Now Person Ti_Ca is cleaning the hardwood floors and so I have to get down on my hands and knees and clean the kitchen floor. And later I relax and don't even make progress on the encryption that I was supposed to work on.
Wednesday is a blah day. I'm in a bad mood for having to cover these tests because the responsible people won't step up and be responsible. I tell everyone that I will working on Thursday at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena and I wish everyone a good weekend. When I get home I increase the weights a bit and have a great workout with no joint pain. Later, when Person Ti_Ca wakes up from a nap, we talk about his seeing blood where it shouldn't be and we try to diagnose what it could be. But I tell him, "If you see it again, then you have to go see a doctor immediately".
Friday starts with a good 40 mile bicycle ride. Near mile 5 or so I see 10 bicycles on the road and another 3 bicyclists down with an ambulance present. I don't know the story, but the cyclists were appeared to be not-experienced and this probably caused a problem. When I finish the ride I edge and mow the lawn. After a shower I recycle some cans, go to the ATM, and do some grocery shopping. Today is supposed to be near 90F so I take the afternoon to relax a bit with recorded television shows or other little efforts. I get down for a 90 minute nap and then handle phone calls. Person T_U wants me to come over and watch the UCLA basketball game but I cannot take basketball. So I relax around the house.
For the third day in a row I have trouble sleeping throughtout the night. Nonetheless I get out and crank out 40 miles on the road bicyle at a good pace. When I get home I watch a shocking win for Sebastien Vettel in only his second race for Ferrari. It is an emotional win. I relax a bit and do some minor house cleaning before watching the MotoGP race from Qatar where my favorite battles hard to win the race. I do some reading and get prepared for another workweek.
On Wednesday I start work in my office and then ride the motorcycle up to JPL for more testing. The test team sits around for a while because they are not ready for us. But once we get started near noon we get into a good rhythm and finish two axes (of three). Today I take a different way home that has more carpool lanes and decide that this is the way to go from now on. When I get home I run/walk for 40 minutes with running increasing its share. After a shower I send out a work status email to let everyone know the progress that we made and then I relax.