On Tuesday morning I have exited the carpool lane in order to exit the freeway. Over in the far right lane I see a guy who isn't paying attention to traffic and he has to slam on his brakes and get sideways in order to avoid rear-ending the car in front of him. And now, well, it's my turn. He decides it is time to try and hit a motorcycle so he makes an erratic lane change into the lane that I occupy. I am able to get on the brakes as hard as I dare and with the bike a bit sideways manage to squeeze to the left side of the traffic lane and avoid contact. During the evasive action I actually have my foot and leg out towards the car and manage to make contact with the car's door. I sure hope it made a dent. I give the erratic driver the famous one finger salute as I yell at him through the helmet, "You f*#^&@# idiot!" He looks at me as if he hasn't the faintest idea what is going on.
The Tuesday afternoon 6.5 mile run goes well before the ResourceScout meeting. A telephone conversation with Person T_V ends the day.
Wednesday sees re-contact with Person M_USC (I hadn't heard from him since September 2002.), attempted contact with Person M_C (who had a doctor's appointment on Tuesday), a long conversation with Person J_VKPI, a longer conversation with Person T_T, and a day-finishing conversation as I'm dozing off to sleep with Person T_V.
On Thursday morning I am tired, but I know what I have to do. I put on the cycling clothes and do the bicycle commute to Northrop Grumman. The cycling commute is a tribute ride day to who has perished following a recent crash. On the way home the cycling neighbor sees me and I pull alongside his truck and we have a ten second conversation until the light turns green.
When I get home the neighbor across the street stops me and tells me that his house has been broken into and things are thrown all over the place. I offer to buy dinner and to lend them the digital camera - their's was stolen. Later in the evening they borrow the digital camera and get photos of the crime scene. I download the photos and burn a CD for them as evidence. It is time to keep Nopey revved up and brutal to protect the neighborhood.
I wake up on Friday morning to no electricity. I do my morning preparations for work in the dark and head out the door on the motorcycle (figuratively). I notice that nobody on the street has any lights on. When I turn the corner to get onto Del Amo towards the freeway I see two police cars "securing" the area around a downed power pole and a destroyed cinder block fence. Seeing that it is "Friday morning light" on the 405 freeway, I have a small microburst of speed up to 139 mph on the way to work at Northrop Grumman.
When I get home from work on Friday I see my alarm clock flashing 12:15 - this indicates that the power was just turned back on 15 minutes ago. The neighbor confirms that we had no power for 12 hours.