Content-type: text/html Ray Manning

Monday September 4, 2017 8:02 PM

Labor Day


I start Tuesday with a good mountain bicycle ride where I feel strong throughout - the extra day off helping. After a quick shower I run some errands as I'm returning, the fence guy is at my house. We talk about the new fence and new gate, the construction, the costs, and the logistics. Hopefully they will start later this week.

As I'm getting ready to ride the motorcycle up to Los Angeles for a child abuse conference, the fence guy shows up and is ready to start work. We have a brief conversation and then I have to. The ride is uneventfull and I sit through 5 presentations (of which two are off topic and a waste of time) before we give our presentation. I give a reasonable presentation though I missed a point or two that I should have made (and had practiced the night before). Nonetheless the presentation is well received. But it doesn't seem like anyone is goign to act - they just want to talk about problems but never try new things. I ride the motorcycle home and fortunately get in a heavy session with the weights - heavier weights but less repetitions. It went easier than i thought, but was still a good sweat-producing, heavy breathing workout. Half of the old fence is gone and holes dug for the cement footings - good progress for the day. And I note that almost all of my pain is gone - just a little bit of right abdomen pain left. Hopefully one or two more days and it will be gone. But then do I disconitnue the strong anti-inflammatory and see what happens? Fortunately I'll see a doctor tomorrow afternoon and talk with a physical therapist and we'll put together an action plan.

I start Thursday with a very good 56 mile road bicycle ride. I feel strong throughout and notice that I am up a gear for a lot of the second half of the ride. I get home and deal with the old fence demolition and new fence construction, grab a shower, relax a bit with the news, and then ride the motorcycle over to the medical facility for a physical therapy evaluation. I meet with a spinal doctor and he says there was a mis-diagnosis but the medicine treatment plan that I am on is still good. He has some additional x-rays taken and two additional blood tests. When I get home the fence posts are set in concrete and drying so there is no more fence activity for the day. Later Ruby and I have a long conversation and she is not happy with me because I told the truth to a partner that we are bringing in? What? Not tell the truth to a potential partner so that they know the true story of what they are getting into?

I'm on the mountain bicycle on Friday and the first 5 miles are painful (in terms of tired legs). But then I get cranking along nicely and have a good loop ride. At home the fence work has started back up again and progress is being made. In the morning I tie up a lot of loose ends with a few websites and tie up loose ends withschool registration and books for the semester that begins on Monday. After noon the fence people come and tell me they are quitting for the day because they have completed the backend of the fence and need to let the forward cement fittings harden. Specifically I told them to quit because we want to let the cement fottings harden well before moving on. The back fence is looking super! But some material increases have increased the price by a trivial $100. In the afternoon I do a lot of reading and thinking about some future projects that I want to work on. And I hope that the network security class will address these - I'll spring these on the instructor at Monday night's orientation.

The entire organism is tired on Friday so I walk to the grocery store for supplies and watch a dry qualifying session for F1 at Spa, Belgium. Afterwards I get in a heavy session with the weights with an extra set thrown in for each exercise. I think I will be increasing the weights again for a bigger challenge. After a cooling shower I discuss the fence with the neighbor and then go meet Ruby and Joseph for lunch and work. We lay out some plans to advance the child abuse program and we talk about the 211 Executive Director's overtures to me, an algorithm geek, to come and work for her. It could be fun to work a bit each week and contribute to providing resources to people in need, but I don't want another full-time or stressfull job at this time. I have a slow late afternoon and turn down an invitation to go watch the Mayweather/MacGregor fight at a sports bar that is charging $30 for admission.

I start SUnday stronger than I expected since the sleep was not great. But after a short warm-up I'm riding the road bicycle one gear up towards the dam and show no signs of slowing. I continue past the Whittier Narrows dam and go halfway to the Santa Fe dam where I turn around and head for home. I ctach up to a number of riders and go past them. One rider stays with me for a few miles and pulls for a bit. But I don't know where this came from, but I'm feeling strong. So I up the gears and the speed and pretty soon I am all alone again. It's a super 48 mile ride. When I get home I pull out some trimmers and trim the roses and trim some tree branches that are sort of getting close to the fence that was built for me in 2013. I want to keep the branches away from the fence so that the fence lasts a long time. After a cooling shower I watch a very close and exciting F1 race from Spa, Belgium where, everytime they show the cars go through Eau Rouge, I have tingles up my spine. I can see that my favorite driver, who finishes second, is disappointed as I am also. What happened to all of the long run pace? I've decided that today is my last day on the strong anti-inflammatory and I add a single opiod for fun and put the medicines away and we'll see how I do over the next week without medicines. Later in the day I watch a very exciting MotoGP race from Silverstone but am again disappointed as my favorite rider only gets third place.

I start Monday with a good mountain bicycle ride to the old yacht club and back home. Again the first few miles are used getting the legs ready to go and then I have a good ride. After a cooling shower the fence guy stops by for some extra measurements and an inventory of what he needs to buy to finish the job. Hopefully the fence will be finished on Tuesday and then we have to wait for when the gate guy can get me scheduled in. I spend most of the day setting up computer accounts for the two classes that I'm taking. And then I ride the motorcycle to the bookstore to pick up a previously purchased book and to a 6 pm orientation for the network security class.

On Tuesday and Wednesday I am a bit blah - is it due to the heat or coming off the strong anti-inflammatory. Near noon on Tuesday I take Person T_U out for lunch for his birthday, run some errands, and lift weights (heavy) in the heat of the day. I'm dripping sweat all over the place but it feels good and I'm able to cool down later with a cool shower and the air conditioning running. I start in on some of the class lessons for the two classes that I'm taking and I've jumped one week ahead to work on two short essays that are needed for each class. On Wednesday morning I'm blah again, so I walk and drop off a library book ands top in at the grocery store for supplies. After some efforts at home, I get out lift weights again heavy near 11:30 in the morning. And again I'm sweating profusely. But I cool down and turn the air conditioning on again. (Generically I only use the air conditioning about ten days out of the year because it usually doesn't get that hot here in Long Beach.) And in the afternoon I do some reading for classes. I start drinking some wine and take an Uber ride to Person T_U's house which is only two miles away - he's having a party for his birthday. There are 10-15 people at the party and all of the people are very nice and I keep drinking wine as the party progresses. Finally one group of people announce that they are leaving, so I ask them to drop me off halfway to my house and on the way to the freeway, and I am barely able to stumble home from there.

I have a small headache on Thursday morning but I get in a decent 48 mile road bicycle ride. I run into another rider that I've ridden with before, Allen, and we ride together for 6 miles or so before our rides deviate. He's an older rider who happens to know a neighbor of mine through cycling. I get home and cool off with a shower since today is supposed to be very hot. And I start in with schoolwork and an 11:30 meeting with the Executive Director of a government agency who wants me to work for her because she needs "an algorithm geek" to get their projects on track. I need to think about this. And I continue the afternoon with some schoolwork and some wine and just relaxing since the day is very hot and I've already had a long bicycle ride under partial hangover conditions.

The next few days are very hot - above 100F in Long Beach. It has been many years since it has been this hot here. On Friday I ride the motorcycle up to CSULA, listen to the Dean of Engineering make her presentation, and then we break up into senior design project teams. This year the senior design profesor has picked up my ocean debir cleaner project and assigned three teams of 5 students each to sub-portions of the design. So I stand up and give a speech to the three teams to give them background and context, and then we split into three separate teams and think about our portions of the project. I've already created a website, a Facebook page, and a Twitter page for the project, so the students are excited. And when they suggest a Kickstarter page for the project, I know what I have to do on Friday evening. I think if I can maintain some control over the overall process, we'll be able to make progress and have the students learn a lot about a typical design process AND get a scaled prototype built. I rush on home - sweaty on the motorcycle since the day is very hot - and relax for a few minutes before having a "best effort"lifting session with heavy weights. I think the two previous workouts and the heat have taken a fair amount of strength out of me. I cool down and try to stay cool for the remainder of the day and work on the Ocean Debirs Cleanup project kickstarter page and my own classes at LBCC.

I sleep late on Saturday due to a warm Friday night and have a decent mountain bicycle ride to the old yacht club and back. I notice that the new front derailleur has quit working and I'm jumping chain links, so this bicycle will need a tuneup very soon. When i get hoem i clean the roses and pact the garage stucco where the old fence was reoved and cool down with a shower. I run two errands for a Subway snadiwch (for later) and grocery supplies. The F1 qualifying from Monza is washed out during the television broadcast due to torrential rains and ends up later well after the television recording has finished. I go to work on school work and then watch a mountain stage of the Vuelte de'Espana. I make a lot of progress on things throughout the day staying inside the air conditioning.

On Sunday I get up and go for a 55 minute run/walk. This is the first running in about 6 weeks. I feel no pain in either calf and hope to slowly work back into running. The Italian Grand Prix is a sleeper after the first few laps when the rain-jumbled starting grid made the race interesting. I continue making indoor progress and sending out emails to people for information or to inform them of upcoming things. Early in the afternoon I watch a brutal mountaintop finish in the Vuela de'Espana.

On Monday I want to go cycling but the heat has taken a lot out of me. Instead I walk to the store and come back home on start working on the neural networks that I've wanted to work on for a long time. I put my head down and start grinding away and have the basics running. And I look up at the clock and it is noon. I get in a good heavy session with the weights and find it easier today - perhaps the two days off for recovery helped. And then I get down on my hands and knees and clean the kitchen floor - wow is it dirty!. And then grab a cooling shower. Person W_HK is bugging me about going to a friend's party and I finally just tell him that I don't feel like going anywhere today. He's probably disappointed, but I'll make it up to him in the next couple of weeks when he is staying in the spare bedroom before he moves up to UCLA. I start in on the mapping class homework and it appears that I downloaded the wrong mapping software. So I email the professor and I'm stalled out. I go back to the neural network program and before I know it it is 4 pm. I grab some pasta for dinner. And I'm feeling a bit sad today - I don't know why. I've accomplished a lot today, but I'm just feeling down. Hopefully a long Tuesday morning bicycle ride will clear things up.