Tuesday starts with a good 35 minute walk before 6 am. I then get cleaned up, have a light breakfast, and ride the motorcycle to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for a presentation. When it is my turn, I connect with the audience, explain the rationale for out testing in logical detail, and then relay some lessons learned that will prevent us from doing something stupid during the test. It is one of my better presentations. Afterwards I try to get badged and credentialed for future meetings and test support in Pasadena (where JPL resides) and then I go home. I take the road bicycle to the shop because the rear brakes are messed up and then I walk home. No time for relaxation - I ledge and trim the and mow the lawn and get it looking as best as it can considering that we have no water. After a cool shower I relax for a bit after a productive and good day.
I don't sleep well on Wednesday night because I keep waking up thinking about work problems. When I get to work I find that the one problem with the programming language that I don't like goes super smooth. In fact, it goes so smoothly that I am able to generate some videos also to explain the measurements and the problems. And then I turn my attention to the other problem and I make slow but steady progress understanding the results. I am not finished by the end of the day, but I am close enough. They day has gone by fairly quickly because I've been engaged in solving my own problems for the entire day (except for a couple of meetings). When I get home I go for a long walk and stop at the ATM and the grocery store before relaxing at home and preparing for Friday's day at CSULA where I will meet the new team of students that I will be helping out.
I start out on the road bicycle on Saturday morning. I struggle to get going a bit against a persistent headwind out of the northeast. I cross over the Whittier Narrows dam and start cranking along nicely with a bit of a tailwind. And then I start to lose energy. A couple of groups of riders pass me at 23 mph but there is no way I can stay with them today. Eventually I make it home and wonder where my energy went. I grab a cool shower and get a new windshield wiper blade, fill up the car with gasoline, and buy groceries. ANd now I'm losing energy even more. So I watch qaulifying for the Russian F1 race and then get down for a 90 minute nap. When i wake up I am disoriented, but perhaps I feel a bit better. I work on some paperwork and help Person Ti_Ca with some homework. And that's all that I am up for today.
I start Monday with a 52 minute run/walk. I want to give the legs a bit of a break from cycling and this is a planned week off from work. After a shower I go return books to the library, get the car washed, and try to get an oil change at the Subaru dealer. But after I've checked in the service manager says that I don't have enough miles for an oil change and I might was well wait for a while. So they get my car out of the service line while I look at a limited edition version of my car. But the service manager talks me out of buying the new car because "You're car is lighter, faster, and more desireable because of the colors and wheels". But the usual crowd of mechanics, technicians, and sales people come by to see my car because it looks like it just came off the showroom floor (at 12 years of age). Thus I take my car home and start waxing it and get about halfway finished before it is too hot to continue. I watch a very fun Moto3 race from Japan in the wet conditions and do trivial activities around the house for the day. And then I watch the Moto2 race where the wet weather tires aren't going to last on the drying track. And it is also a fun race. It is only 2pm but getting hot, so I close the windows, turn on the air conditioning, and start washing the inside of every window in the house. I finish 12 of the 16 windows and think that I will finish tomorrow. But what the heck, I continue on and finish all of the inside windows (except the glass on the back door). I still have energy and keep walking around the house like a caged lion (or caged old ox) but I finally just grab some food and relax and watch the news and the football game.
Wednesday is a very humid day. I get out for a 56 minute run/walk and am just dripping with sweat even when finishing near 7:15 in the morning. As person Ti_Ca goes off to school I fix a light switch in the house that has failed and run a few errands. By 11 am I back at home and just relaxing - and sweating. It is cooler than the last few days, but very humid. EVentually I get out and down on my hands and knees to wax the gold rims of the World Rally Car. And then I take a cooling shower and have a quiet day at home.
I sleep horibly on THursday night into Friday morning. I'm awake from 2am until after 4 am. Nonetheless I get up just after 6 am and gor another good run/walk for 52 minutes. It feels pretty good and nothing hurts. When I get home I take out a heavy rake and de-thatch about a third of the backyard. My clothes are completely drenched in sweat when I call it quits, so it was an additional good workout. For the rest of the day I do some grocery shopping and reading and vegging out in front of the television and web programming and updating finances. I hope I am ready for a good bicycle ride on Saturday morning.
I take the mountain bicycle out on Sunday though I am not lazy. I ride for two hours and push the pace nicely - down the San Gabriel river trail, across the ocean trail, and back up the Los Angeles river trail. When I finish I wipe the bicycle down, cool down with a shower, relax, and then watach a tremendously exciting Australian MotoGP race. As usual, a pigeon/seagull it sitting on the track in a blind corner and gets startled and killed when the riders come up on it and hit it in midflight. Nonetheless there are passes and wild action on every lap. It's a low Sunday as I get ready to go back to work, so I do some cleaning of the bathroom and prepare lunch for Monday. And doze off in front of a football game on television.