On Tuesday I get out for another good road bicycle ride and am a bit tired, but not wiped out like yesterday. After a cooling shower I get a haircut, get a smog check for the car, drop off two books at the library and get two more, do some grocery shopping, and then settle in to watch a fun mountain stage of the Tour de France. It's a hot day, so I keep drinking water and read 60 pages of one of the new books that I just got.
Wednesday starts with an hour walk - a preplanned lower activity day. I water the roses to try and promote some summer blooms and then catch up on some paperwork. Late in the morning I watch what is supposed to be a decisive stage in the mountains of the Tour de France. At 6 pm I walk across Atlantic Avenue to the North Division Police station for a community meeting. There are two speakers about the new marijuana laws and the homeless issue. Just to stir the pot a bit, I ask the same question that I always ask at these meetings. Namely, "Commander Lauricella, is it true that being homeless is NOT a crime?" Of course the police commander answers that it is NOT a crime to be homeless and I get so many dirty looks from people in the meeting. They want homelessness to be a crime so that the homeless can be removed from the area. But that isn't fixing the problem, now is it? After the meeting I talk with the commander and the lady who spoke about homeless issues and offer my algorithm geek and data science geek services. They both take my card and will talk with their people to see where I might fit in.
I get in good bicycle rides on Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday to finish off the month. The weather has been very hot lately so each ride is followed by extreme re-hydration and some relaxing. Throughout this time period I do one task per day to clean up the house for Joe's visit next weekend. And I also finish up the draft for a grant responseto the New York Adminstration for Children's Services request for inforamtion.
Wednesday is a transition day. I go walk for an hour in the morning and then spend more than an hour trimming the roses and mowing, edging, and trimming the lawn. I have a cool shower and do some paperwork. The car is ready to be pciked up but they say the rear brake pads will need replacing in a short time. I check and make sure on youtube that this is as easy to do as other disk brake pads that I've replaced - and it is. No special tools needed. So instead of paying what I find out is almost $400 just to change the brake pads, I'll put it on my list and do it when the weather cools down. I pick up the car and drive to a coffeehouse in Cerritos and work away on some algorithms. Later I come back home and there is enough of a breeze by 4:30 pm that the air conditioning is not really needed at home today.
I start Thursday with a 40 mile road bicycle ride. It's already getting hot by the time that I finish the ride, so I cool down with a cool and cold shower and re-hydrate. Near 11:15 am I ride the motorcycle to the monthly Long Beach Human Trafficking Task Force meeting and meet friends and acquaintances and make contact with the head of the Long Beach Department of Health to see if there are things that the non-profit can help them with. After the meeting I take a detour to pick up lunch and then go on home. I update a website and have a slow afternoon since it is so hot - though I do continue a few tasks around the house to clean up for Joe's visit on Friday.
On Friday I go for a 90 minute mountain bicycle ride and then go pick up Joe from Boston at the train station near Los Angeles International airport. We stop in and eat Japanese food for lunch and then we go shopping for Joe for a suit for his Monday interview. Joe has now lived in Bostn for about a year away from his husband and adopted son and is trying to get a job back in California to re-unite his family. After the shopping we relax and catch up a bit before walking over to First Fridays to see what's going on. It's slow since they changed the format but we eat dinner and then walk back home.
On Saturday I take Joe out for a bicycle ride. Joe runs half marathons and marathons but wants to try some cycling. So we fit him with the extra bicycle, shoes, gloves, and helmet and go ride to the Long Beach pier and back. Despite a soar bottom, Joe enjoys the ride and has a smile on his face most of the way. We go meet Ally and Thomas for brunch down near Retro Row and have a great conversation and then Joe and I wander around the shops at Retro Row. By the time we get home Joe realizes that his WWF fight at Staples center is 7 pm Eastern time - not Pacific time. So I rush him to the train station and then relax. Later I go pick Joe up at the train station. In the championship fight, Joe's favorite fighter was knocked out in the first round.
On Sunday we both get up a bit earlier and go for a loop ride. I keep showing Joe different places to ride. After the ride we have just enough time to visit two of Joe's friends, Ron and Butch, at their condo. And later we go to brunch with other additional friends to celebrate Butch's birthday and Ron and Butch's 11th anniversary as a couple. It's a champagne brunch with other drinks being served, but I'm driving so I have orange juice and water and Coke. After burnch Joe and I go pick up his new suit which needed some alterations and then we stop in for an organic Japanese green tea. And later Joe finishes packing and I drive him o the train station to stay in a hotel near his Monday morning interview. When I get back home I watch a fun MotoGP race from the Czech Republic and catch up on a few things that I've ignored since Joe has been occupying my time.
I have a slow and relaxing day on Monday after Joe's visit. I get out walking and trim the roses, but then try and stay cool during today's oppressive heat. Tuesday is almost a repeat of Monday as I get out walking in the morning and clean the kitchen floor and do a lot of reading.
It is supposed to be hot on Thursday, my birthday, so I use Wedensday for my usual birthday ride - one mile on the road bicycle for every year old that I am. I get up to the Santa Fe dam and realize it is going to be a struggle getting back home. I'm just (relatively) crawling along for the last fifteen miles as my lack of longer rides this calendar year strikes me. I end up making the ride and taking a lot of time at home to re-hydrate and recover. By mid afternoon I am feeling good again but I'm still staying in the house since today turned out hotter than expected.
On Thursday morning the legs are willing to go cycling but the mind and will are not. Thus I go for an hour long walk/run (with walking being 90% of the effort as I continue to rehab my Achilles tendon) and buy supplies at the grocery store. After working a bit on a website, I go running errands including a trip to the library for more books and to pick up lunch. Today is very hot so I spend a quiet day inside the house. Late in the afternoon I start reading one of the books that I picked up and think it sounds familiar. When I'm a quarter of the way through the "punchline" that will run through the rest of the book is revealed and I realize that I have read this book before. But its a fun book so I keep going.
I get out cycling on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and try to stay cool the rest of the days as the heat sticks around for a bit longer than originally predicted. After Friday's bicycle ride there's a telecon with a potential teammate on a grant writing effort. We agree to try and write a response to the funding agency's request for information. And I await my board member's response to the teamming agreement. On Sunday there is a good MotoGP race from Austria and viewing the scenery around the trck makes me think about a trip to Austria.
On Monday I walk to the store and then clean up the roses. At mid morning I get in a good workout with the weights as I give the legs a day off for the first time in many weeks. After a cooling shower I watch a great Moto3 race where Jorge Martin, who broke his wrist and had surgery seven days ago, fights off the pain to finish in third place. Later I work on another bidding opportunity for the non-profit and put the CSULA ocean cleanup resources in one place so that we can get a fast start on the project when the semester starts next week. At 9 pm when I'm usually packing things up to go read in bed before sleep, Ruby and Joseph call and want to work on a grant response. We open Google docs and there are only bullet points. I tell them that bullet points will get thrown in the trash before even being read. Nobody wants to start writing so I just tell everyone to step away from their keyboards and I start writing. Before you know it there are two pages ready to go (following a re-read and edit). This is till not enough, but am I the only one doing anything? Finally I say I'm going to sleep.