On Tuesday I get out for a long walk int he morning and no other workout. I just have the blahs today. I organize some pictures for this website and get started on putting them up.
Wednesday starts with a good road bicycle ride. I get to the expected turn-around point but continue on all of the way to the Santa Fe dam and turn around and head for home. I feel strong throughout and end up at 56 miles. After the ride I trim the front lawn and cool down with a shower. I work on websites some more and do some other organizing. Late in the afternoon I get on the mountain bicycle and ride over to the park to meet up with Person T_U for another minicipal band concert. I like these events because people bring their dogs and I'm able to stop and play with all of the golden retrievers and try to decide when to get another one.
I start Thursday with the loop ride on the mountain bicycle. The legs know that they had a hard day the previous day but it is still a good ride. When I get home I mow the lawn, trim the roses, trim the bush in front, spray the juniper bushes for spider mites, and water the roses. Now I'm tired so I take a cool shower and start some laundry. After a bit of a rest I go to the library for two more books, drop a 23" monitor off to Danny for his use, and then do some grocery shopping. I relax in the afternoon with some reading and then drive to downtown Long Beach for a meeting of the Long Beach Heritage Society. The organization's meeting is being held at the neighbor's son's architectural studio so I get to kill two birds with one stone.
I start Friday on the motorcycle up to CSULA where I'm sitting on an Industrial Advisory Board for the college of engineering (even though I'm retired). I offer my opinions and observations where I can contribute and we get to meet some students and encourage them on. I pass on a tour of one of the biomechanics/bioengineering professors (who moved here from Michigan) where he tests motorcycle helmets. "I'll be on campus a lot again this academic year and I hope I can see the lab at that time. And I want to beat traffic home." I rush on home and then relax for a bit. I finally get up the energy to lift weights and it's a decent session. And then I cool down with a shower and do some reading and web programming throughout the day.
Saturday starts with a morning road bicycle ride. I'm a bit slow getting started but then start moving along nicely. I again go all of the way to the Santa Fe dam and back home for 56 miles. Though my legs were worn out near the end of the ride. I watch a good qualifying session for the Hungarian Grand Prix and then catch up on a recorded television program and read. At 3:30 pm I drive to the memorial service for my neighbor just a couple miles away at the Forest Lawn mortuary. As they call for people to share remembrances and thoughts of my deceased neighbor, I amone of two people who give thoughts. Afterwards people thank me for the thoughts and think that I should be a professional speak - though I felt I was out of practice and didn't do the best job possible as a remembrance for my neighbor of 30 years. And afterwards I drive to her son's house for the celebration of her life and enjoy conversations with many people including a Czech lady who I can speak a few phrases in Czech with. I'm home by about 8:30 pm and just watch a few minutes of the news before reading and sleep.
I am so hungover from events on Saturday but I still get out for a two hour ride on the mountain bicycle on Sunday morning. When I start down the San Gabriel trail towards the beach I can see the shadow of a rider behind me and I just keep cranking away. At the end of the trail, eight miles down the road, the rider on a road bicycle thanks me for the pull as I turn right for a loop and he heads somewhere else. Couldn't he have helped me? Nonetheless I continue for my loop ride and only at the very end are my legs tired and "finished". I get in a qucik shower and watch a close but "team order driven" Hungarian Grand Prix. I don't agree with the team orders but I'm happy with the final result and the sportmanship exhibited by a championship rival who I don't care for (but don't dislike either).
I start Monday slowly with a 45 minute walk and a stop at the grocery store for supplies. I change into "expendable" clothes and start digging zone 2 of my sprinkler system to see why it is is not working. It turns out a PVC pipe has torn away from a T-section. Just for debugging, I push the pipe back into the T-section and I'll see on Tuesday morning whether this cures the problem (and I canglue it back together) or it is something more. I work on websites in the morning and have conversations with people in Thailand before getting in a pretty decent session with the weights. After a cooling shower I trim the roses, cook vegetabales for the week, and then go back to a number of different websites - one my personal websites with pictures of travels and one for a non-profit. In the afternoon I am shocked at another personnel change in the Trump adminstration but I keep plowing ahead on website work and picture archival for viewing.
Tuesday is the start of August and there are drops of rain falling as I start out the road bicycle ride. There is a monsoonal flow bringing moisture and some rain to the atmosphere near Long Beach. As I ride I go through periods of slightly heavier rain and lighter or no rain. I get to a convenient turn around point and head for home for 48 miles. I wipe down the bicycle since it is dirty from the rain and road grime and then have a cool shower. I watch an hour long special about spies and drug/gun running and then work on websites and picture archival from my travels.
I have silenced the alarm and I stay in bed until 6:25 am on Wednesday. I just felt I needed a bit of extra sleep. I walk to the store for groceries and trim the roses. Then I start geeking-out with updating some predictive algorithms and preparing/uploading photos to this website. Late in the morning I get in a good session with the weights, cool off with a shower, clean the glass in the shower, and start the air conditioning - it is very hot and humid today (and tomorrow). There are even a few drops of rain again today from the monsoonal flow. In the afternoon I continue geeking-out with the algorithms with a couple of breaks to just veg in front of the television.
I sleep horribly on Wednesday night into Thursday. I turn on the light to read after 1 am for a while and I see a bug crawling across the carpet floor. But it runs behind the dresser when I try to capture it. This spooks me out so even when I do turn out the lights to try and sleep I have trouble sleeping. The alarm goes off at 5:55 and I get up and see the bug. So I grab a glass and capture it. And then I put on some shoes and go way to the back of the yard and toss the bug near the big tree. I don't really want to kill anything (in case it is somebody that I knew re-incarnated). I take the mountain bicycle out for the loop ride and the legs feel very strong despite the lack of sleep and the already rising heat and humidity. When I get home I get down on my hands and knees and glue the sprinkler line back together - this gives it 48 hours to dry before it will get exercised. And then I scrub my shower tile to get rid of the soap scum before keeping the water on cold and taking a shower. I start in on the mapping website for the Long Beach Historic Society and by 2pm it is good enough to show. So I notify the organization that they can play with it but I still have some geocoding to do. I've finished reading a book about the AirBnB and Uber startups and this has given me some ideas, so I put those on the list of things to work on.
I sleep well into Friday and get up at 5:55 am. It is a rest day from cycling, so I check on the news and work on the Long Beach Historic society website and solve a little problem that has been bugging me. I grab a quick shower and, with everything going my way, get a haircut, get three books from the library, buy sunglasses for the upcoming solar eclipse, and do the grocery shopping. When I return home I lift weights and sweat like crazy in the heat. And then I spray on some sunscreen and edge, mow, and cleanup the front lawn - the back lawn not needing any mowing. I'm sweating like crazy so I take a cooling shower and finish a bit of scrubbing of the inside of the shower before I finish the outside later. In the afternoon I turn on the air conditioning and catch up on the financial and world news. And read almsot one half of one of the three books that I got from the library.
As I'm starting out on my road bicycle ride I see two riders going down Long Beach blvd ahead of me. They keep making all of the same turns that I am making and I catch up to them on the northbound Los Angeles river trail. One of the riders lives close to me and so we ride along. They are going a bit slower than I would prefer, but I just relax and stay with them. When we cross over the Whittier Narrows dam the two riders head south and I head north for the Santa Fe dam. Now I can stretch my legs and I start gathering riders up and pull them up to the dam. I then turn back south towards home but add an extra loop of miles to get to 63 miles for today. Since I'm having a visitor for the coming week and may not be able to get in my traditional "one mile for every year old" ride on my actual birthday, I'll just use this as my birthday ride (with the 3 extra miles a penalty for it not being my actual birthday). When I get home I don't feel that tired and do some tidying up around the house for my visitor, Person W_HK. Person W_HK needs a place to stay for a few days in between his living in Irvine and Connecticut and starting on his PhD up at UCLA
I'm lazy on Sunday and go for a long walk and stop off at the grocery store for supplies. When I get home I watch a good wet but trying MotoGP race from the Czech Republic. Then I go lift weights. It is a good session. After a cooling shower I catch up on some paperwork. I consider which of my geek efforts wo work on today and decide to go back and look at some of the stock market algorithms I've been working on.
I sleep exceptionally well on Sunday night into Monday morning. And get out for the two hour loop ride on the mountain bicycle. There are very few riders out at the start of the ride but more as my ride ends. I trim the roses and another bush over-hanging from the neighbor's yard and then cool off with a shower. I don't have the motivation to tackle one of my tasks today, so I watch a fun Moto2 race from the Czech Republic and do a lot of reading. I'm through 1.5 of the three books that I picked up on Friday. I also get a text message from Person W_HK that his first flight is delayed 1.5 hours and he may not make his connecting flight to Los Angeles - so my evening is up on the air. Since last Wednesday or so I have been having some pain/discomfort/soreness on the right side of may abdomen (both front and back). I never feel this while cyclign or liftign weights or doing something active, but it somewhat bothers me to sit. I try to think back and remember if I did anything to hurt myself, but I cannot find anything in memory. And this does not necessarily feel like the pain/soreness from an accident or overdoing something. I'll keep an eye on it and if it is still around when my visitor leaves on Thursday or so, then I will go in and get it checked out. It turns out there is a later flight that Person W_Hk can catch (after missing his connecting flight) so he arrives near 11 pm. But his musical instrument does not arrive so we spend time making a claim. It is 2 am before I get down for sleep.