I'm lazy on Tuesday and use the grant writing to use as an excuse to not go cycling this morning. I add another page or so of text to the grant proposal and I notice that the document is exactly the same as when I went to sleep last night. After a while I go for an hour walk. On the way back home I stop in and pick up groceries. After a cooling shower I start to put the finishing touches on the proposal for the New York city adoptions agency (which is different than the other grant proposal). I watch a fun Moto2 race and do some reading, but generally have a slow day.
I start Wednesday with a good road bicycle where I feel strong throughout. After the ride I mow the lawn and trim the roses before having a cooling shower. I check out the news an markets and then ride the morotcycle down to the main branch of the public library to find more books - two of the three that I picked up last week aren't doing it for me. Later there's a telecon about the grant proposal and I'm almost embarrassed to note that my teammates haven't contributed anything for two days (and it's due on Friday).
I'm lazy on Thursday and go for a long walk in the morning. Eventually I ride the motorcycle to CSULA for the senior design kickoff. I run into a former co-worker for many years and give him a hug and hope that he participates. I rush on home - taking a few too many chances on the motorcycle - and then work on the grant proposal. Mainly I just try to stay cool throughout the day as it is fairly warm.
I start Friday under overcast and morning low clouds with a good road bicycle ride. I feel strong throughout and add a few miles to the end of the loop ride. After trimming the roses and a cooling shower, I return a book to the library (which I've already finished), get to the ATM for more cash, and do the grocery shopping for a while. When I get home it is already starting to get warm to I start the air conditioner as well as the laundry and cooking vegetables for the week. In the afternoon I just relax and enjoy the cool inside temperature. (Last month's electric bill was the third highest I ever had in 31 years in this house, so I'm trying to minimize the air conditioner usage.)
Saturday starts with a good road bicycle ride and then a few small tasks around the house. Later in the afternoon I stop by the neighbor's house for a house warming party. The couple is into EDM and house music and are actually going to an underground rave tonight. So I tell them that I cannot make it tonight, but I ask them to hook me up with the events. At 4pm I get on the motorcycle and ride all the way up to La Canada north of Pasadena for a meeting. It is a frustrating meeting because it has to do with contractual terms. And after that part of the meeting, the funder springs a surprise and wants more things done. I just try to keep my patience but inside I'm thinking, "This is never going to happen". I'm frustrated so I'm up over 100 mph for a fair amount of the 38 mile motorcycle ride home. And the fast speed makes it a cooler ride.
I start Sunday with an hour walk and a quick trip to the grocery store. I start in cleaning up my old laptop of files and programs in anticipation of doing something with - maybe donating it somewhere or maybe installing Linux on it. At mid-morning I get out and lift weights. By the end of the day I don't know where the day has gone. And I'm a bit disappointed in myself when I review the day (as I typically do before sleep) and cannot list some good accomplishments.
I change up my Monday by being lazy. I read some websites and see a web template that I like, so I scrape the assets for the website and start making a CSULA Harbor Team website with the template. After a few hours of work I just need to drop in some figures and text and it will be almost ready for viewing. Late in the morning I get in a good workout with the weights and cool down with a shower. I drive and have fast food for lunch (because I had a craving), size myself for some new running shoes, and go to the Fair Trade Long Beach Fair Spirits happy hour on 2nd street. Since I'm driving I just have cranberry juice, but I enjoy the couple of hours that I spend with friends and meeting new people. When I get home I relax for a bit and then get on the second call of the day with Dr Durfee - a reknown child abuse and infant fatality expert. I'm trying to keep this child abuse reporting tool moving forward.
I have a decent road bicycle ride on Tuesday morning. At first I'm a bit lackluster but I keep feeling stronger as I go. I trim and water the roses when I get home and cool off with a shower. Today is an average August temperature day - finally after all of the nasty heat that we've had. I get to work on finalizing the CSULA Harbor Team website and I just pound away at descriptions, figures, and finally getting the scroller to work properly. It's after 3pm when I quit for the day. I review in the next couple of days andget it to CSULA personnel one week before its needed (for las minute revisions). As I take a break to watch news on this earthshattering day of guilty verdicts and plea deals, I wish the child abuse work could be as dependent on me as the CSULA website was - I can just pound away and make a lot of progress. Instead of trying to get everyone on the same page via meetings and phone calls.
I'm a bit bored on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I keep up with the walking, cycling, and lifting weights, but I've lost a bit of direction after the grant proposals were turned in. I do get to a Service Provision Area (SPA) 7 meeting regarding the homeless issue and how to spend a lot of the money coming in. I suggest a simplied/automated intake procedure where a homeless person can almost "self check" themselves in. I explain that it certainly wouldn't apply to people facing mental health issues, but many people could use it to simplify the intake process. I can see some strange looks but I go on to explain that it would make the social workers more efficient at heir jobs and we could better capture the data to track and predict outcomes. I see a few people coming around to my thinking.
Iget in good bicycle rides on Saturday and Sunday - Saturday on the road bicycle and Sunday on the mountain bicycle. There's a flurry of racing this weekend between the F1 race at Spa and the MotoGP race at Silverstone. Unfortunately there are torrential rains at Silverstone and eventually the MotoGP/2/3 races are cancelled. Late on Sunday afternoon I go to the board meeting for Fair Trade Long Beach (because I did their website, I've been hanging out with them lately, and its a good cause). As opposed to other efforts I've been involved with recently, the Fair Trade people are actually doing something rather than just talking about something or wishing for something. When I get home I recover from archives a vehicle dynamics simulation that I worked on a long time ago and I want to convert it from Fortran to Python. As I'm working away - and this is going to take a week or two to complete - I see a note in a file that I last worked on this on August 26 1993. I think that is 25 years ago. And I think about it some more and realize it is 25 years TO THE DAY that I last worked on it. Really? After procrastinating for a few weeks on this I actually start on the 25 year anniversary of when I last worked on it?
I start Monday with about an hour long walk/run where I'm starting to run a bit more now. I trim the roses and cool off with a shower and then continue the vehicle dynamics simulation conversion. Before 11 am I get out and lift weights and take another shower to cool down. Late in the afternoon there's another hour long phone conversation with Dr Durfee and its as plain as day that the five people involved with this project are on 10 different pages. Later I have a telecon with two of the team members and tell them we're headed for a disaster.
Tuesday starts with a decent road bicycle ride. After I get a shower I take the mountain bicycle to buy some supplies. As I'm riding I hear someone call out my name. I stop and recognize the voice, but can't recall the name. When George tells me his name, I remember that it is my postal carrier from a while back. He's been retired for almost ten years and still remembers my name. We catch up a bit and he finally says, "Ray, I remember you 'cuz you would give me cold sodas and drinks on the hottest days". I'm glad I helped him out.