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On Tuesday I start slow with finishing up homework for the week. Near 1 pm Karl finally gets to my house and we immediately put on cycling clothes and go ride for a bit more than two hours. Its a bit windy and even has a few raindrops, but its a fun ride. After we get cleaned up and take care of some logistics we go over to Person T_U's house where he is passing out candy for Halloween. And we've just missed Metta World Peace who has befriended Person T_U and some of his friends. When Person T_U runs out of candy, we force him to turn out his porch light, change his clothes, and go eat dinner with us at a Thai restaurant in Cerritos. And then we drive down to 2nd street in Long Beach. Second street is very dead and we end up at one of our haunts and the place is very empty. But we have a good conversation and then end up back at home for sleep near midnight.
Karl leaves for the airport on Wednesday morning, so I go get passport photos taken, do some grocery shopping, lift weights, clean and lubricate the garage door, clean the roses, and water the carnations that I'm trying to get started from seeds. After a shower I sit down and work on the mapping homework assignment and get that 90% done before relaxing for a while. And later I work on the monthly financial market modeling and predictions that I've been playing with for a while now. Game 7 of the World Series with the Dodgers playing is on the television but I just turn it on and watch for a few minutes and then turn it off and do other things - the Dodgers having been down 5-0 right out of the game's starting gate.
After feeling cold and with a scratchy throat on Wednesday night, I stay in bed on Thursday for an extra 30 minutes. When I get up I start in on homework and then start a "Shredfest". Last week I looked through closets and started removing old clothes for delivery to Goodwill (including a $169 Pittsburgh Penguins ice hockey jersey that somebody gave me over the last 15 years that was never worn and had the original price tags on them that I sold on eBay for $100). Well, today I start in, folder by folder, and start shredding all old documents. It's good to keep receipts for many purchases, but I was a bit overboard and soon I've shredded three baskets full of documents and emptied the shredder into the recycling bin three times. After a good mid-morning session lifting weights and wetting down the carnation seeds, I grab a shower and continue with homework for a while. And then I start in on old income tax returns. The rule is to keep your returns for 7 years, but I have some from 1991. So I glance through each one to see if anything out of the ordinary occurred during those years and then start shredding them up to about 8 years ago.
I start Friday with just a 30 mile road bicycle ride. I've been unmotivated the last few days. I ride the motorcycle up to CSULA and meet with the team. They are making great progress but now we have to shift gears a bit and focus on an upcoming early December review. I rush on back home after the meeting and pick up some grocery supplies and work on homework. Tonight there is a First Friday event but I skip it because, again, I am feeling a bit chilled.
On Saturday I stay in bed until 7:20 am. This only happens when I am sick. But I don't feel that bad and I don't have a fever. I do some homework and then get in a good session with the weights with no indiciations from the workout that I am sick. After lifting and a shower, I go to the post office to send off my passport for a trip to Vietnam. Of course there is a Vietnamese lady who handles my transaction and I've greeted her in Vietnamese with a standard Vietnamese greeting and soon I've asked her and her husband to come with me to Vietnam and she's invited me back to the post office to learn more Vietnamese words and phrases. I get to the library to get two books and stop in at the grocery store for a weekly shopping trip (as opposed to yesterday's quick trip). And then I do more homework and paper shredding and organizing. At this point, the entire recycling bin is filled with shredded paper from the last few days. I'm not a pack rat, but I did keep too much paper and too many things around for too long. But sentimental things, family things, and other things which have significance to me are kept. Oh boy, it's going to be a mess for someone to run through my house when I die and distribute assets and stuff. Stuff!
It's raining on Sunday morning! So I get up at 5:30 due to the time change, I shouldn't get on the bicycle and ride because it is wet and slippery. Thus I get up and do homework for my classes and continue on to an epidemiogical study that I am interested in related to diseases and death rates. At a convenient stopping point I go and lift weights and have a good session with some struggles and some easier lifts. While I take a shower I wash down the glass shower and it is sparkling clean! After getting dried off and clothed I work on school homework and the epimemilogical study with a lot of statistics gathered to make this a robust study. In the early afternoon I cook healthy vegetables for the week and then relax for a bit as I try to decide the next course of action for the epidemilogcal study. There is some EDM music played that gets me dancing as I cook vegetables and think about the health study. There are some football games that I flip through - but this is not F1 or MotoGP racing so it is very secondary to life. I should menton the conversation that I have with Person Ti_Ca, but it it is not worth mentioning as I try to be nice and get entirely rejected. Not a problem - that was the distant past.
I get out the door a bit after 6 am for a good 48 mile road bicycle ride. Past the first dam there are some rain drops but nothing of significance. And I'll save a longer ride for another day this week. When I get home I have a nice warming shower and then start in on schoolwork. I work a better part of the day on my network security class and just a bit on the geographical information systems class. It's approaching the final push for these two classes. I look through the schedule of spring classes but don't see anything that stands out as exciting for me. But I'll go back and check it out again later. And at night I watch some of the Detroit Lions football game but, again, football isn't F1 or MotoGP.
I have a productive day on Tuesday and a slow day on Wednesday. On Tuesday I wake up early and work on homework for the week as well as the special mapping project that is due at the end of the semester. I've sent a draft to the instructor and he has responded with some good clarification. I get in a mid-morning workout with the weights which energizes to get my homework done. On Wednesday, on the other hand, I get up a bit late and clean the house and try again to fix the pump to flush the tankless water heater. Today I manage to get the pump working and I let it run for 10 minutes or so to make sure the flow is good. Maybe it was a bit "sticky" from not having been used for a couple of years. Since I didn't ride the bicycle on Wednesday as planned I work the abdominals and lower back and call it even - a semi-rest day. And I spend a lot of Wednesday just tidying up the house, doing some low level work, and not being intense at all - maybe I needed a slow day.
On Friday morning there is a mis-communication as originally Karl is going to take Uber to my house. But I tell him that today is observed Veteran's day and there is no traffic, so I rush on up to the train station near Los Angeles International airport to pick him up. Karl is jet-lagged horribly, but we go to Cerritos mall for lunch and pick up a pair of shows for karl that started at $60 and ended at $18 because of all of the Veteran's day discounts and a $10 coupon that I have. When we get home Karl gets down for a nap. At 3pm we head out the door for a good but windy bicycle ride. We make it to the old yacht club and barely make it home before it gets too dark to ride. After getting cleaned up and relaxing a bit we go down to Second street and wander around and finally have a good Indian dinner. And then we wander some more until Karl is dropping off and is ready for sleep.
On Saturday morning I do some homework and then drive old electronics to an eWaste event. Typically there is about a 20 minute line, but today there are only two cars ahead of me because of Veteran's day. When I return home Karl is working on emails and stuff and eventually we go to a nearby Japanese restaurant for lunch. Karl works on his son's homework and then we go out cycling. We're starting late again and we ride farther than yesterday, so it is very dark for the last 5 miles of riding - pretty much to the unsafe state. After getting cleaned up Karl and I have dinner at home and watch a couple of Netflix series episodes and then Person T_U picks us up to go hang out. We go to an Irish pub and the crowd is not my desired demographic, but I make the best of it. Person T_U is interested in hearing the band play but they don't seem special to me so I just kinda exist. Person T_U has told us ahead of time that he's tired, so he drops Karl and I off on Pine avenue in downtown Long Beach and he drives home. Karl and I wander around a bit and finally go into a latin club. We get in and tell Karl a time or two throughout the night that we're the only two white people here (which doesn't bother Karl or me) and that I'm the oldest one in the club. Anyway, the music is good to start with so I just dance along to the music and have some conversations with people - including a guy who is pretty interested in me that I talk with in Spanish. (Or at least the best that I can do in Spanish.) Later the music turns lousy and I'm getting bored, so I drag Karl and say we're leaving. He grabs a hotdog from a street vendor since he's hungry and we get an Uber ride home - the lights going off for sleep at 2 am on Sunday morning.
I'm awake at 6:30 am and Karl gets up at 7:30 am to get ready for me to drive him to the airport. When I return home I watch the MotoGP race from Valencia, Spain and then go lift weights. Operating on so little sleep makes the lifts more difficult, but I do my best. After a shower I watch the F1 race from Brasil and then get dressed up for a funeral. It is the funeral of a cycling friend's partner of 16 years. I've been offering a listening ear to my cycling friend for the last year or so as his partner has underwent all sorts of different experimental cancer treatments. The funeral is at St Lukes Episcopoal church in Long Beach and this is the second time that I've been in this church - the first time for a Long Beach Symphony Sites and Sounds concert a few years back. The church is completely full! My friend's partner and my friend were both very active in this church and made a lot of friends. The funeral service and reception take about 2.5 hours when I decide to go on home and relax and do some homework. I tell my cycling friend that we'll see each other riding soon and we'll catch up more (and he can have my shoulder to cry on again).
Monday is a slow day. I don't get out riding a bicycle like I should. Instead I lift weights, work on homework for school, and work on some other projects of interest that I have been thinking about and framing out.