The cooler weather finally arrives. It is even a bit chilly to ride the motorcycle to work in the morning with the summer jacket. I put my head down, take some cognitive enhancers, and have a super productive day. I manage to finish everything that I had to finish and I sent documents and emails out to the customers to get their concurrence. And I start to crash a bit after 3 pm and leave for home. I take a short walk to the grocery store and then watch a good Moto2 race from Australia.
On both Friday morning and Saturday morning I have a slight fever, so I stay in bed for an extra hour or so each morning and end up just riding the mountain bicycle for two hours each morning. I certainly push the pace at times, but I can tell there is something missing. On both days I run a few errands and try to relax. On Saturday I decide to give up on the potted impatiens on the front porch. I wrestle the heavy clay plots with soil to the backyard and sand the wooden crate a bit for some repainting. I'll just start with new impatiens in the spring assuming that we have a good El Nino rainy season this winter and have some water next year.
On both Monday and Tuesday at work I have horrible days. I keep making errors in my own work that require me to repeat work and re-do work. At least I caught the errors and it didn't impact anybody else, but I don't like repeating work. At the end of the day on Tuesday we receive word that we are the winners of a HUGE Air Force contract. I am happy that it will improve the health of the company. But sad that I will not be asked to take a "voluntary layoff" which would involve a fair amount of money. I get in a good workout with the weights on Monday and blah through a Moto2 race where my favorite rider crashes out halfway through. And on Tuesday I go to the store and buy a bottle of wine and drink it while waiting for Person Ti_Ca to get home to help him with his homework and while I just give the last few days of setbacks and imprecision a long think.
Friday is Steven's birthday. Steven is a friend of Person Ti_Ca's and I have agreed to go out clubbing with them to celebrate. And I have not been out for a long time. Because it is the day before Halloween I check some of the club's websites where we typically go and I see that they have all jacked up their entrance prices (or added entrance prices where they used to be free). Thus at the last minute I beg off from the trip because I don't want to spend the entire time at the one herd/clone club that te group is going to (that tends to play top 40 remixes and hip hop crap).
I start north on the Los Angeles river trail on the road bicycle. I've been chasing another cyclist for many miles and finally catch him a few miles from the dam. He has latched onto another rider and it's Ted - the older Polish rider that I know. So I ride with Ted to the dam and meet up with Derrick. We ride back down to the ocean and take a break and then start back towards home. On the way we see Terry so we make Terry turn around and ride with us for a while until my final turn-off point. It's a good 48 mile ride in cooler weather. I am a much happier and faster rider in cooler weather as opposed to the hot (and sometimes humid) weather that we have had since August. Late on Sunday after watching F1 from Mexico (after a 23 year absence) and doing landry, I pack for the work trip to Pasadena.