Tuesday is also a productive day at work on other people's problems as well as part of my own. After work I lift heavy for the pull muscle group and even do some rowing (with lightened weights). It still hurts the ribs a bit to do the rowing exercise, but I have to start back in sometime. After lifting I lcean up the roses and sweep the driveway which littered with all sorts of stuff from last night's strong winds.
On Wednesday Person Ti_Ca takes two buses to come to my house. He's left his jacket on one of the busses wo se find a lost and found telephone number that he will have to call in a few days. We start a run/walk whuich turns into more of a walk and end up eating Japanese food before walking home. Evetually I drop person Ti_CA back at home but note before noticing that my left rear tire on the world rally car is flat. So I pull out the bicycle pump and though it takes more than 200 pumps, I manage to get the pressure of the tire to 32 psi and vow to check it out on Saturday at the tire dealer. (Knowing that I might have to pump it up another 200 times by Saturday in order to drive to te tire dealer.)
Thursday is a productive day at work because many people call me and ask for help. They ask the difficult questions that only the "grey beards" would know the answer to or the questions that an "algorithm geek could put together. The day goes by very fast and I'm happy with my efffort. After work I lubricate the motorbike chain and then lift heavy for the pull muscle groups. Despite 5 weeks off from lifting during the Thailand/Cambodia trip and another 5-8 weeks lost from the bicycle accident, I'm close to lifting as heavy as I did before the Thailand/Cambodia trip. Another month and I'll be there.
Friday is a productive day at work as I help other people out. When the questions quit and I run out of steam, I tell my boss that I'm going home. When I get home I lift heavy for the pull muscle group, drop in a load of laundry, mow/trim.edge the lawn, and take a nice soapy shower just in time to fold the laundry and conclude my Friday errands. And here's another night where I fall asleep while reading, wake up in the middle of the night with the book on my chest, and not able to sleep again. What's going on here?
On Saturday I get out on the road bicycle for the loop ride. I feel good today and seem to be up one gear through most sections. I grab a quick shower and head to the automobile tire store. My left rear tire, with about 1200 miles on it, has a slow leak and some metal in it. They put the car up on the hoist and re-torque all of the bolts (from the original late December installation) and then tell me that they cannot repair this leak because the object is right at the intersection of the tread and sidewall. (Recall that a few years ago I bought brand new tires for the motorbike and had to completely replace the rear after 100 miles for the same type of reason.) I call the Internet-based tire dealer and they do sell me a replacement tire at half price. I just have to keep the pressure of the left rear tire up for a few days until the replacement tire arrivs (which isn't a big deal because its only losing about 2 psi per day). On the way home I stop in at the grocery store and then have lunch.
I pick Person Ti_Ca up near 4 pm and we hang out, do laundry, and watch telelsvision until it is time to go skate. Since the skate party is sponsored by some of my former ice hockey teammates, I run into quite a few people that I used to share the ice with for once a week for many years. Now I only see them once a year. Person Ti_Ca gets a pair of figure skates (I note that the rink has ne figure skates since the old ones were very old and broken donw)) and starts skating. THis is the first time that Person Ti_Ca has been on ice skates and he does very well. WIth very little help he's getting pretyy comfortable on the ice skates and I leave him alone to go help other people who are struggling or to go help pick other people off the ice who have fallen. In the middle of the skate Person Ti_Ca changes skats to a larger size and now his feet/ankles don't hurt as much (as one would expect for your first time on skates). By the time that we are leaving, two hours after starting skating, Person Ti_Ca has had one minor fall when he was actually trying to do a tight circle that involves re-positioning the skates on the ice. But it's a fun evening and I rush on home to drop Person Ti_Ca off at thome, drive home myself, and then change clocks for daylight savings time.
Sunday starts slowly since their is a lot of fog. I read the neighbor's Los Angeles Times since shes on vacation again and specifically asked me to bring the paper in and then I take the mountain bicycle out (with new rear tire) for the extended aquarium bicycle ride. After I finish off the ride I put on old clothes and spray some nasty chemical on the juniper bushes in the front yard to protect them from spider mite damage. I notify the neighbors next to me not to breathe too deeply and to keep their dogs away from my bushes for 24 hours. A couple hours later I'm moving the trash bins to the street and the neighbors across the street tell me that they've called the Long Beach Gas Department because they smell a gas-like odor. Of course I confess that I've sprayed (rather heavily, I might add) some chemicals on my front junipers and it actually could smell like natural gas. Pretty soon the Long Beach Gas department truck is pulling up and he's taking reading along the streets and not finding any gas odors. But I flag him down and tell him that I've sprayed my junipers rather heavily and he says "That does smell more like a chemical odor than a gad odor". So eventually everyone in the neighborhood knows that I've created a toxic odor in the neighborhood and that their pets shouldn't come near my bushes for at least 24 hours. But there are no natural gas leaks.
The rest of Sunday is pretty slow with some relaxing and reading. ANd I notice that when I go to drop two last empty items into the trash been on the street I can still smell the anti-spider spray. This stuff is nasty! I hope not to see a multi-colored map of the city of Long Beach on the news with a toxic cloud centered over my neighborhood.
Monday is a blah day for everyone since we've all lost an hour. After work I do a great abdoinal and lower back workout before walking for 30 minutes and stopping at the grocery store on the way back home.
On Tuesday I get on the motorbike and ride 100 miles down to Balboa avenue near the 805 for a meeting. The meeting and side meetings end up taking 4 hours though good decisons are made and progress is made. Seeing that my motorbike is not made for comfort on long rides and there isn't a lot of traffic, I get home rather quickly so that I can get off the bike. When I get home the new microwave oven has arrived, so I change into running clothes, install the microwave oven, finish attaching the new shelves to the walls, and get out for a 33 minute run/walk. It turns out I end up doing more running than walking when I'm alone when compared with run/walking with Person Ti_Ca. After a shower I microwave some vegetables and enjoy the quick dinner!
Wednesday and Thursday are not very productive days as I sit through meetings and hand-hold people. But Wednesday kicks off a period of "extra special" workouts and proper eating. Wednesday and Thursday are extra heavy days and I feel good about the workouts and the results and the pumps that I get afterwards. On Thursday night Person Ti_Ca calls and I pick him up and we hang out until it is time for sleep.
On Friday I sleep in until 7 am and then check out the world happenings, stock markets, financials, and practice sessions from Qatar before going for the extended aquarium ride. On today's ride, in conjunction with the "extra special" workouts I do a series of intervals down and back up the Los Angeles river. As I'm approaching home the lower back is hurting (as tends to do when I do intervals. I haven't figured out if its from the lactic acid buildup in the kidneys or a muscle thing.) Person Ti_Ca is a bit surprised at how beat-up I am from the workout, but I get a good shower and some food (to raise the blood sugar levels back up) and we're off on errands. The first stop is the tire store and they replace the nail-damaged tire. Since the car is up on the lift I point out to Person Ti_Ca some of the highlights along the bottom of the car. Afterwards, with a brand new left rear tire, we head to the Irvine Spectrum mall and SOuth Coast Plaza mall for shopping. I'm dragging the entire time because I am absolutely out of blood sugar and who knows what else I've screwed up with the intervals. Eventually we finish the shopping and stop in at Togo's for dinner because it's on the way home. When we get home Person Ti_Ca drops off to sleep at 7 pm and I read for a while before going to sleep before 10 pm.
On Saturday I'm up again at 7 am to follow the qualifying sessions of MotoGP, Moto2, and 125cc racing from Qatar. Eventually Person Ti_Ca wakes up and we hang out and do little errands around the house. Early in the afternoon I go to lift weights (extra heavy push muscles) while Person Ti_Ca goes to run/walk. We finish at the same time and I grab a quick shower and catch some tree trimmers in the neighborhood to "top off" two evergreen trees to get them away from power lines. After a slow afternoon Person Ti_Ca return his books to the library and go eat Japanese food. And then I drop Person Ti_Ca off at his home. I get in some more reading and am dropping off to sleep before 10 pm.
On Saturday night (really Sunday morning) I wake up at 4 am and have some difficulty falling back asleep. The sleep that I've had has been very deep, but now I cannot fall back asleep. Eventually, though, I do fall asleep and wake up after 7 am. It takes me hours to actually gain coscisousness despite being out of bed and wandering around. Sunday is a miserable, windy, and riany day, so I get in a very heavy session with the weights for the pull muscle group. Despite being worn out from the workout it actually energizes me and I run a few errands to get out of the house for a while despite the nasty weather. When I return home I watch the MotoGP race from Qatar and then do a lot of reading. It's a good day to just stay inside and stay warm and dry.
On Monday the rain is coming down hard so I drive the car to work. I have a fairly productive morning and then the productivity drops off. When I go to the company cafeteria after noon for lunch there is a lady passing out samples of the the 5-hour ENERGY drinks. I've been meaning to try one, but this is the perfect opportunity. AFter she gives it to me I say, "I'll see if this will replace my Red Bull". When I get home I have the single best workout with the weights that I've ever had in my life. I've increased the weights to new highs and I do some breakdowns after the last reps (at maximum poundages). After the workout I can only rest on my hands and knees for a few moments until I can get up and protien load with a protein shake.