Content-type: text/html Ray Manning

Monday March 27, 2017 8:02 PM

New Start


Tuesday is my new start. It is time to take one more step in getting in rid of junk food. I get up and take care of business around the house before going to see a LBCC counselor and then attending one of my classes. When I get home I have a decent session with the weights, clean up just a part of the downed trees (because I'm limited by the size of my trash bin), and work on the data mining program. I do not do as well as I wanted on this first day of eliminating junk food, but now there is no junk food left in the house to tempt me starting tomorrow.

Wednesday through Thursday are tired days. I don't know why, but this year the time change has affected me more than in past years. I'm a bit tired and lethargic this week. I get in some decent weights workouts on Tuesday and Thursday and long walks in on Wednesday and Friday, but the energy is lacking. On Thursday night I ride the motorcycle up to the Venice Google office to meet with investors/backers. Except it turns out it is more of an advertising campaign for Manos and Google looking for start-up mentors rather than trying to match start-ups with investors. Nonetheless I make some contacts and eventually send them emails on Friday (after I visit CSULA as usual to mentor senior design students).

I started Saturday riding north on the Los ANgeles river bicycle trail. There is an organized ride going on today so I have to share the trail with the slow riders who ride once every two months. I grab hold of some non-organized riders and we pull each other past the Whittier Narrows dam up to the Santa Fe dam. At the Santa Fe dam I run into my riding friend Ted, so he and his neighbor and I pull each other back down to the Whittier Narrows dam. These paces are pretty fast so when we split routes for home I am tired and just keep peddling away until I get home. It's a good, hard ride and I am tired the rest of the day. After a shower I run errands and load up[ on supplies, have two phone calls with Ruby and Joseph to keep things on track, and then just become a vegetable for a while. I've, again, let my blood sugar drop way too low and have no energy in the middle of the afternoon. And even when I restore the blood sugar levels I am still dead.

On Sunday I get out the door as the light comes up near 7 am for a two hour mountain bicycle ride. The legs and organism are slow to get started but gets moving well after a while and I finish feeling good. After a shower I ride the motorcycle up to Glendale and have lunch with Person A_K. This is my first in-person meeting with Person A_K and I find him knowledgable about many things and polite and with a good attitude. Lunch turns into a very long affair and I realize that I left the house at 11 am to meet Person A_K and I get back to the house at 5 pm. When I get home I prepare myself for a few questions that my old workplace, Northrop Grumman, has for me and we will discuss on Monday. And then I finish off writing some "sales" emails for the non-profit to various people that I've recently met or agencies that I've been given contacts for.

It's a typical week. Classes on Tuesday through Thursday and volunteer work with senior design students at CSULA on Friday. I get in bicycle rides on Tuesday morning and a very windy ride on Thursday morning. On Monday and Wednesday I have good high repetition workouts with the weights as I'm trying to keep joint inflammation down. Since I've set up a meeting with the Long Beach COmmunity College Board of Trustees regarding putting their student resources online, I put together a quick demo of how it would operate and I'll be able to show them via mobile phone. My workout for Friday is interrupted/cancelled when the tree trimmers are able to squeeze me in on Friday morning before I go to CSULA for senior design work. And the work lasts longer than expected and I'm lazy when I get home.

Saturday is a weird day. It starts with a road bicycle ride during which I see a dead possum and a dead small dog on the street in the first mile of riding. I get past the Whittier narrows dam and run into my cycling friend Ted. He is going up to the Santa Fe dam so I slow down a bit for him and he speeds up a bit for me and we ride together to the second dam. Ted always takes a break to stretch out his muscles, so I continue on alone without him back towards home in Long Beach for a 56 mile ride. I have some good periods of riding and some slower periods of riding but I note that nobody has overtaken me in either direction today. After the ride and a shower I run some errands and, after a long winter, I get enthused by qualifying at the the Australian F1 race and the Qatar MotoGP race. Life is so good right now! Except that my upper right teeth hurt and the top, right side of my head hurt and I wonder what the heck is going on. I have a slow afternoon relaxing except that I am asked to lead a group of homeless advocates for which the leader has decided to step down. I do not know what to do. Person T_U brings his doggie over for a visit and we have a 40 minute discussion before he has continue on running errnads. At night time I do some homework, send out a survey to the members of the homeless advocates to see if they want to continue, and skip The Potential Lunatics concert (with three other groups) which is occurring very close to my house up Atlantic avenue.

I'm lazy to start Sunday and watch the Australian F1 race where my favorite driver wins. After the race I get out on the mountain bicycle for a two hour ride. I do some minor things around the house and catch the MotoGP race from Qatar, but otherwise it is a slow day.

I get out for a long walk on Monday morning and stop in at the grocery store on the way home. When I get home I review emails and check up on the stock markets and check some websites. There are conversations also with Myo from Thailand and Ninh from Vietnam. Before 10 am I have a good workout with the weights as I keep the weights lower and the repetitions high to minimize joint stress. After a shower I watch an exciting Moto3 race from Qatar with the typical slip-streaming going on for every lap and for the win. As the day progresses I do some minor cleaning around the house and start planning out the next couple of weeks - including the Long Beach City College spring break where I hope to catch up on things and meet up with newer friends. There desn't seem to be anough critical mass to keep the homeless group going, so it looks like it will drop. But I continue to get ready for a meetin with the LBCC Board of Trustees and and end of April hackathon for foster care youth. Mondays are my "alone time" where I can catch up on things and just do what I want to since I have no committments on Mondays.