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Tuesday is a weird day. It starts with a phone call from a friend (Tao) in Thailand at 4:30 am. He doesn't realize it is so early and we both laugh with each other as he starts to understand the time zone differences. I'm awake now, so I get up and start my day. And then Myo calls just before 6 am and we have a nice conversation also. I wait for the light to shine and get out on the mountain bicycle before 7 am. It is supposed to rain but I have a great ride and only get a little bit wet at the three-quarter mark of the ride. After a shower I keep watching the weather but it doesn't look like it is going to clear. So I pull out the World Rally Car and drive to El Segundo to return my NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory badge (that everyone has been calling me about). The rain was supposed to have stopped by now, but it is coming down pretty hard at times. I also stop in to REI Co-Op to buy some cycling supplies with a gift card that I still have from my May 2016 retirement party. And then, after a stop at the grocery store with more sudden changes between rain and sunshine, I get back home to relax.
Both Wednesday and Thursday see rain throughout the days. On Wednesday I get in a good session with the weights and lose track of the rest of the day. On THursday I spend a fair amount of time at home and at a coffeehouse cleaning up the desktop computer and laptop computer with updated anti-virus and updated anti-malware programs. On Thursday I also stop in at the main branch of the library and pickup three books to read. When I get home I have a good workout for the abdominals and lower back even though I have tweaked my mid-back somewhere along the way. I just have to wait out both Wednesday and Thursday for the rain to clear before I can get back to sanity and cycling.
On Friday morning I get out for a semi-wet mountain bicycle ride to the old yacht club and back. There is no rain coming down but the streets and trails are wet. But always good to ride again. When I get home I wipe down the bicycle before putting it away and run some errands. The afternoon is slow though I try to work on some non-profit grant proposals. At 4 pm I jump on the motorcycle and ride up to CSULA for a team meeting. It's great to be back on the motorcycle and carving through traffic without a care in the world. We have a good meeting and by the time that I am riding home at 7:15 pm the rush hour traffic has died down and I have an easy ride back home.
Saturday starts with a grwat 48 mile road bicycle ride. There is a ton of water at the dam and at the watersheds and reservoirs! And there is a fair amount of debirs on the cycling trail. But I just keep cranking along nicely and finish a bit tired. After a shower I load up the car with electrical and chemical waste for recycling and run another errand. When I get home I clean up the rose beds and put the car away and watch the two football games.
On Sunday I am lazy and just ride the mountain bicycle to the old yacht club and back with a few extra miles thrown in. The ride starts with calm weather but the wind picks up throughout the ride giving me a good opportunity to push. As I return home my neighbor has AAA visiting because she has a dead battery. She had mentioned it to me just before she left for a week. AAA gets the car started but tells her the battery won't hold a charge even though it is only one year old. So I'll help her return and replace the battery on Monday. I get out and trim and mow the lawn after all of the rain - some parts of the lawn threatening to become a jungle. A nice warm shower gets me ready for a relaxing afternoon.
I start Monday with a long walk. I check the Internet for a while and then go walk to the grocery store for supplies. At mid morning I call the neighbor and we remoce her old, dead battery, drive to Costco to get it replaced, and then come back home to install the new battery. As were finishing up her daighter-in-law stops by and we have a fun time as I install the new battery and now her very old Ford Crown Victoria starts and runs again. I go back home (next door) and work the abdominals and lower back before taking a shower and then dealing with the DirecTV technician who has come to give me a new receiver. It turns out his father is from Mexico and his mother is from Ecuador, so we have a lot to talk about since I visited both of these countries this past August and September. At mid afternoon Person H_CS comes over for a short visit. And then I spend the rest of the day reading and relaxing.
Tuesday starts with a good mountain bicycle ride to the old yach club with a few extra miles thrown in. These rides, by the way, are exactly two hours long. I grab a shower and then recycle cans, buy some supplies to clean up the motorcycle, and buy some more groceries. After a short break I pull out the heavy rake and start de-thatching the front yard. I haven't raked out and cleaned out the front yard of dead growth for a while, so it is heavy going and a great workout. I'm about half way done when I call it quits and vow to finish on Wednesday. This will be perfect timing if I finish the de-thatching and lay some fertilizer down in anticipation of heavy rains for the next five days.
I am out of control on Wendesday. Despite missed phone calls from Vietnam and two from Thailand, I get out the door for a good 45 mile road bicyce ride early in the morning. It is chilly throughout the ride but a few times when I look down at the gear that I'm in I'm up one gear. After a shower I walk to the grocery store for supplies. (The grocery store is about a 1/4 mile or 1/2 mile from home, so I can decide what to eat for the day and walk over and get it with no difficulty.) When I return home I get out the heavy rake and de-thatch the rest of the front yard. I then mow the lawn to pick up anything debirs and then lay down some fertilizer for the upcoming rains. I grab the second shower of the day, talk with an investment advisor, fix a toilet, vacuum the bedroom carpet, tidy up the kitchen, pay bills, and do the laundry. It is now a bit after 2 pm and I can be a vegetable for the rest of the day owing to the accomplishments of the first part of the day.
I'm slow moving on Thursday morning - being hungover from all of the activities of the last two days. EVentually I go out to the garage and take the fairings off the Yamaha YZF-R1 to clean then up and install new heat resistant tape. This is a job that I usually dread because the plastic fairings are sometimes a pain to get off (and I'm afraid to force them too much for fear of breaking off some of the small tabs). But today as soon as I've released the fasteners and bolts, the lower fairing drops to the ground. I clean up the insides of the lower fairing and add a new layer of aluminum tape tp help prevent the heat from damaging the fairings. And then, almost as easily, the lower fairing fits right back into the bike. During a break in the rain with the sun shining a go for a walk and stop in at the grocery store. Though I have vowed to not use cough medicine again because of the way it makes me feel, I HAVE to try something to eliminate this cough. So I buy some Robitussin cough medicine and have already downed a dose as I'm waiting in line at the checkout counter. For the rest of the day my cough is gone.
On Thursday night into Friday morning I wake up once to the pleasant sound of rain coming down. When I wake up I take a dose of cough medicine and work on paperwork and other things. As the morning progresses I feel the haziness/fog/imbalance from the cough medicine coming on. At some point I go lay down in bed and possibly fall asleep for a bit. When I get up I try to regain some sort of consciousness and coordination to go lift weights. The weights are a struggle but it feels good. AFter a shower I'm still foggy from the cough medicine but drive to a grocery store where I run into an co-worker. We have a brief chat about his work and my retirement. And then I home and pledge to possibly use the cough medicine once before bedtime but to throw the rest of it away.
I get up late on Saturday morning and get on the mountain bicycle since the roads still seem wet. As I'm riding past the Blue Line train station I see a lot of women carrying signs - I assume they are going to some sort of protest in downtwon Los Angeles about our new president or something. I have a good ride though it is very windy and I get an extra good workout fighting the headwinds and crosswinds. After the ride and a shower I run a few errands and then return home. Though it is bright and sunny today, it is also chilly and windy. Perhaps a good day to stay bundled up at home and not let the lingering cough turn into something worse.
On Sunday I relax a bit before lifting weights. Today is a rainy day for the entire day, so the lifting session will have to do for today. I also do some bicycle maintenance and changing of tires. Otherwise I stay inside, stay warm, watch football playoff games, and don't really do anything productive. These rainy days are slow for me but required for our state which has had many years of drought in the past. But by the end of today's rain we are already at a typical season normal of rainfall.
There is more rain on Monday. I find a time to go walking when I won't get too wet and I have a blah session with the weights.