Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are good days at work and at home. Though I don't workout on Monday, I do work in the yard and work on the roses and am sweating a lot when I finish that task. And then I move on to others. Tuesday and Wednesday see very heavy workouts with the weights for the push and pull muscle groups, respectively. In fact, I'm close to the very heaviest ever weights from a few months ago when I was concentrating so much on lifting and eating the proper foods. After each workout I work on the carnations or clean the kitchen floor or repair some ceiling holes and just keep moving.
I do not know if Thursday is a good day at work or not. I just keep looking forward to leaving early and going to the dentist. I have a good visit with the dentist and she is happy with my hygenic habits. I mention to the dentist's husband (who is also her adminstrator/secretary) that I use an older Oral-B electric toothbrush. He says, "Wait a minute", and disappears for a while. I hear rummaging around and soon he is back with a brand new electric Oral-B toothbrush with extra batteries and extra heads. After I confirm that there is nobody that can use the new toothbrush more than me (or cannot afford it), I take the toothbrush and all of the accesories and figure out how to package it on the motorbike to get home. After the visit I get in a heavy push muslce group session with the weights and notice that it is a bit easier than Tuesday's session (with the same weights). After a walk to the store for supplies I watch the recorded stage of the Tour de France where they climb the Col d'Torumalet and the Col d'Ardninen. I am jealous of the riders and of being in the mountains and am entirely excited and enthused with the stage.
I am enthused to start the weekend, thus my Friday at work is not very productive. When I leave work I get in a heavy session with the weights for the pull muslce group, start a load of laundry, trim and water the roses, and mow the lawn. A cool shower gets me ready for the weekend. Person Ti_Ca calls and has seen a movie with a friend. So I pick him up, we grab dinner, and bring it home to eat while watching a great mountain stage of the Tour de France with a climb of the Col d'Aubisque. I can't wait for Saturday's mountain top stage finish!
Saturday starts with another disappointing MotoGP and Moto2 qualifying from Germany as my favorites are not doing well this year. I get out for the extended aquarium bicycle ride and find that the rapid-fire shifters have decided to quit shifting again. So I just treat the bike as a fixed-gear bike and have as much fun as I can. The 14th stage of the Tour de France is exciting but not decisive as they climb a number of mountain passes. In the afternoon Person Ti_Ca returns from visiting with his sister and we go to look at a used car (along with Person Ti_Ca's brother-in-law). Pretty soon the negotiating is going on and soon Person Ti_Ca has an older Honda Civic as his own car. And now he has to learn how to drive as he only has a learner's permit.
Sunday starts with an adjustment of the mountain bicycle rapid-fire shifters and then the extended aquarium ride. The shifters are almost right but will do for now. Afterwards I watch the MotoGP and Moto2 races from Germany and though both races are exciting, my favorites do not do so well. Though one of the riders that I am starting to like did win the Moto2 race and has won three races in a row now. At mid afternoon I vacuum and clean up the interior of Person Ti_Ca's new (but used) car. After I am finished it is starting to look really nice. We'll wash and wax the exterior next weekend. The rest of Sunday evening is spent relaxing and getting ready for a long week of work (even if it is a four day workweek).
Monday starts off very frsutrating as everyone is unprepared for the scheduling meetings with the customer. My boss makes some suggestions on my schedule and I go and work them. When I upload my schedule to a common area the business people cannot read them because they are using an old software version. I finally save to a lower version and the business people are tickled to death with the ease of import of my schedule. And they want everyone to follow my template. But its too late because our managers just let us do anything we wanted to at random and nobody else has anything like my schedule. I rush on home, work the abdominals, trim and water the roses, and then try to repair a weed wacker that has decided to quit. When I get it apart I see that a wire has come loose from a magnet and I try my best to solder it back into place. But it doesn't work so I'll have to try again in the next few days.
Tuesday and Wednesday are semi-productive days at work as we deal with our customer and working through schedules and handoffs. I mix up work between the big building where everyone is "locked down" and my home building. On each day when I can take it no longer I ride for home. On both evenings I get in heavy sessions with the weights for the push and pull muslce groups. Each night is a bit more of a struggle then it should be and some glands around my neck are sore - maybe I am coming down with somethings. After the workouts I watch the Alpine stages of the Tour de France and have tingles up my spine as I see the famous climbs. But Thursday and Friday's stages will trump these stages! I spend more than two hours with Ralph's daughter on Yahoo Messenger and on the phone helping her with a four bar linkage engineering assignment and Matlab code. I am happy to help Ralph and his daughter out!
On Thursday it takes 2.5 hours at work to update my schedule. I am frustrated because a lot of the work that we did is lost and has to be re-created or has been corrupted and needs to be fixed. Luckily I got started early in the day. When I leave work there are still people trying to talk with schedulers to fix their schedules. I get home and walk for almost an hour before cooling off with a shower and watching an exciting stage of the Tour de France. This stage features a favotie Col d'Izoard climb and my all-time favorite Col d'Galibier. I've loved the climb up the Col d'Galibier since my favorite bicycle racer in the 1980s, Andy Hampsten, won a stage up the Galibier in a blinding snowstorm and went on tow in the Giro d'Italia. Todays's TdF stage is decisive and I am in awe of the climbs and the scenerey and the massive crows lining the mountain passes.
Friday starts with an extended aquarium bicycle ride and a few errands. I pick up Person Ti_Ca who makes me get my blood test. And then we go to the Veteran's stadium parking lot and practice driving. I set up a course with wooden traffic blocks and make Person Ti_Ca practice parking, forward and backward zigzagging, and we try a few panic stops. After a few panic stops there is a guy who starts walking out way from the stadium so we decide to end the lesson. After a nap I get out and plant some new plants just purchased from the Home Depot and I mow the lawn. Late on Friday Person Ti_Ca and I drive up to West Hollywood to meet up with Person E_HK and Person T_U at a club.
We meet up with Person E_HK and go inside the club. At first Person E_HK is nervous and just stays close to us. But as the evening goes on he is able to be alone with being too scared and seems to have a lot of fun. I run into quite a few acquaintances and have small conversations with each. Person T_U joins the fun and we hang out and mingle with the crowd. Eventually the club closes and, since Person E_HK has ridden a bus to get here, we give him a ride to his UCLA student housing before we head for home. The lights go out for sleep just after 3 am on Saturday morning.
Qualifying for the German F1 race starts Saturday and my favorite driver ends up in his worst qualifying position in 15 races - third. He still has a good chance for the race win on Sunday. I drop Person Ti_Ca off at his house and then go for a good strong extended aquarium ride near noon. The sun is warm and the ocean breeze is cool and, despite just three hours of sleep, I have a strong ride. I watch the disastrous Tour de France time trial (for my favorites anyway) and then relax. Person Ti_Ca comes over and we end up taking a nap for a couple hours in the afternoon. Eventaully I drop Person Ti_Ca off at his home again and then head for home to read and go to sleep.
On Sunday I have a phone conversation with Tree in Thailand before I go out cycling. I'm tired today so I just put a little extension on the aquarium ride and call it a morning. After the ride I clean up and water the roses and carnations and water the new plants that Person Ti_Ca and I picked out. And then the disappointment begins. Watching and/or checking the results leads to disappointment for me in the Tour de France, the Formula One race from Germany, and the MotoGP race from Laguna Seca. All of my favorites underperform. On Sunday afternoon I relax around the house - its a warm day and I need some extra rest. I notice that my throat is starting to get a bit sore, so the extra rest should help.
I drag through Monday though, when I look back on the workday, it was fairly productive. The sore throat has expanded and when I get home I just do some gardening and some little tasks around the house. There is no real workout today because the sore throat is threatening to get much worse. I get down for sleep early and, unfortunately, do not sleep well as I keep waking up and tossing and turning throughout the night.