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On Tuesday I drive to downtown Long Beach and participate in the Civic Innovation Summit 2017. There is a keynote address by a Virgin Galactic guy and I see my neighbor's son, an architect, there. I meet a lot of interesting people, exchange contact information with people, and manage to corale the mayor of Long Beach for a picture with me. When I get home I relax and work on a few software projects.
I want to ride on Wednesday morning but my body tells me not to. I get up and do some grocery shopping, get the car washed, do some schoolwork, wax about half of the car, mow the lawn, water the new carnations that I am trying to grow, and finally grab a shower. In the afternoon I continue to plug away on some work for school as well as some of my own projects of interests. I'll send out re-introductory emails on Thursday from the people that I met at the Civic Innovation Summit yesterday.
I wake up on Thursday morning with a sore throat, a 0.5 degree fever and feeling horrible. Nonetheless I get on the mountain bicycle and do the loop ride and feel somehwat better. After a warm shower I put on warm clothes and work on homework and some other small computer things. Later I do more homework, finish waxing the car, do some other cleaning around the house, and that's about it. This after I just finished telling someone that I couldn't remember the last time that I had had the flu or a cold. Though this doesn't seem to be severe enough to be classified as either one.
My throat is still scratchy on Friday but I feel better and have no fever. I work on homework and get in a session with the weights where it doesn't seem as if I'm sick. After a shower I ride the motorcycle up to CSULA and meet with two teams and an advisor. Besides working on the school projects were trying to put a paper together to help the students get exposure at a conference. On the way home there is a very nasty accident on the freeway where we're being diverted off the freeway and at least two cars look mangled beyond recognition. I relax with a veggie burrito for dinner and watch the movie Blow again - one of my favorite movies.
I spend all of Saturday and Sunday on the couch and in bed with a nasty fever. I see 101 degrees F a couple of times, every bodypart hurts, and I'm coughing up a storm. Fortunatelty I have a free weekend of HBO and can just be a vegetable on the couch with the television going. Though I probably won't remember any of the movies that I watched.
I sleep fairly well on Sunday night and do a fair amount of sweating also. And by Monday morning by body temperature is down to just 0.5 degrees above normal. I'm still sore and achy, but I'm hoping the worst is past. Unfortunately my body says different and I spend another day flat on my back for most of the day.
On Tuesday I start to feel human though I still have more than a 1 degree fever (i.e., 1 degree F above my normal body temperature). Near 11 am I put on cycling clothes and give it a go. It turns out it feels super to be out in the warm sun spinning along. I make it to the old yacht club and turn around and even think about going up a gear on the northbound Los Angeles river trail to chase down a cyclist I see at a distance. But discretion wins out over valour and I maintain a good cadence and get home with a time that is about the usual time. After a shower I lay on the couch and watch a 1 hour recording and then work on my geospatial analysis homework. The subject matter interests me so much that before I know it I've been sitting at the computer for three hours doing the special project. I take a break and put the homework away and then just relax for the rest of the evening.
On Wednesday my body temperature is normal and I start the day with some homework. At mid morning I walk to the grocery store for supplies, lift weights (where my strength has not diminished at all due to the flu), trim the rsoes, tend the carnations, and then rake leaves. Raking leaves in November reminds me of being a kid when my brother and I would have to rake leaves into November in the chilly weather (though we're having a heat wave now with temperatures 40 degrees F higher here than back in Michigan as a kid). In the afternoon I get addicted to my school homework and work through lctures, laboratories, and quizzes and finally realzie a few hours have passed. So in the evening I relax and hope for a good night of sleep. I feel physically pretty good now but I have no voice and there is still some occasional coughing.
I do not know where the next few days go. I'm waking up earlier each day (to show that I'm recovering from the flu and needing less sleep) and feeling better each day. I alternate good, solid bicycle rides with good workouts with the weights. Along the way there is homework for my classes, other fun work, and relaxing. When I get a free preview of SHowtime I record many episodes Of "Weeds" and work my way through that series slowly. It's fun and funny. As Sunday evening approaches I'm pretty much done with homework until Wednesday, so I trim a bush and poke around at some other projects. And look forward to the end of the semester in a couple of weeks. A while ago I looked at the LBCC spring semester schedule and could not find anything that interested me, but I should go look again and make sure. Otherwise I'll find some fun projects to continute/start work on.
There is a light rain or drizzle on Monday morning, so I get up and work on a few things until mid-morning. At mid-morning I take the mountain bicycle out for a very very windy loop ride. I'm being tossed all over the place with the wind - I'm glad that I'm not on the road bicycle with light, high profile wheels. But it's a great workout fighting the winds. After a shower I finish up the schoolwork for the week, talk to Ruby about financing a hackathon, and work through some other little things that I'm working on. I continue binge-watching recorded episodes of Weeds from the previous free weekend of Showtime. SOme of the episodes are hilarious and some get deleted as soon as they complete.