Here's another blur of a work week. After last week's productivity I go back and clean up loose ends, work on documenting and configuring items, and generally convince myself that the results are believable and error-free. I'm assuming that I am going to have to convince a skeptical audience of my results soon and so I continue to check every nuance and anticipate every question and poke that can be taken. On Tuesday and Thursday after work I get in heavy sessions with the weights and on Wednesday I just go walking. I manage to find some time on Wednesday evening to visit a coffeehouse with Oliver and have a strawberry smoothie while reading.
On Thursday night, after the good workout with the weights there is an 8 pm teleconference. Which becomes 8:30 pm because people are late. There is a desire to completely change the adoptions website. This is the site that was built up quickly after everyone had consented on the look and feel. This is the site that we showed at a previous investor's meeting as well as at the Chadwick Conference. And now they want everything re-done before the February 15th investor's conference. I can only say, "This is the fourth time we've re-done the look and feel of the site. If we keep changing it due to somebody's whims after they saw a website that they like better then we are never going to get in front of investors. And we are certainly not going to be ready for the 15th". I am frustrated and head for sleep before 10 pm.
Besides a very strange dream where I receive a jay-walking ticket for merely stepping off a curb, I sleep well. I head north on the Los Angeles river early and meet up with Derrick. We get turned around and ride to the east end of the Log Beach bicycle trail and then head for home. My ride is near 45 miles and Derrick's is closer to 55 miles. I get home and mow the lawn, deweed the front yard, try a spot repair of a crack in the driveway, and then get a nice long shower. In the afternoon it is already 2:18 pm and the 1 pm call that was supposed to come hasn't come. It's a slow afternoon and later Person Ti_Ca and I go down to 2nd Street to eat at a mediterranean restaurant. We've been here before and liked it. Today the food is good but the service is lousy. We make a note of it to ourselves for the next visit.
On Saturday morning I wait for the morning to warm up a bit before going out for a mountain bicycle ride to the pier and back. Today there are many runners out but less cyclists than usual. When I get home I pull the road bicycle out and wash it. As it dries I take a shower and then go adjust the front brakes of the road bicycle and do some minor cleaning of the roses. I take the rear wheel of the road bicycle to the bicycle shop and ask a favor: Can you true up the rim and put a new tire on today so that I can ride tomorrow morning? Josh (I never knew his name until today) recognizes me and says he can get to it in 20 minutes after he puts my wheel in the trueing stand. Person Ti_Ca and I go off to eat Japanese food and I drop Person Ti_Ca off at home because he is having a hard time getting rid of his cold or flu. After a few minutes at home Josh calls and says that my trued-up wheel is ready with a new tire also. When I arrive I re-inforce, "If I ever ask for anything unreasonable, you should laugh in my face and tell me it can't be done. We'll still be friends." He says that it was good that I left because the wheel needed truing and had a hop to it that needed extra work. Everyone involved is all smiles as I walk out the door with a trued-up wheel. When I get home I relax for a bit and then keep working on the "obsolete" website since it might actually become the official site when the team realizes they cannot make the 15 February deadline with a completely re-styled website.
I leave the house north on the Los Angeles river and meet up with Derrick. On today's ride we see the kid we see running all of the time (that I've stopped to talk with before), we see the old lady riding her bicycle (after not seeing her for a couple weeks), and we drag another lady with us to get her to Pacific Coast Highway where she will continue riding down to Huntington Beach. When we ride past the aquarium on the way home we see the group of "Rad Racing" people and we stop and I ask "Wehre's Michael?" Micahel is a guy I've ridden with a time or two from Rad Racing. The group says he rides just occassionally rather than regularly. The group gets up and starts riding and so Derrick and I ride with them. They are riding fairly fast but I have to peel off and head for home just was I'm having fun. On today's ride I solve a state maintenance problem that I've been having with the websites that I'm working with. I've been having trouble setting and reading cookies and as Derrick and I are riding, I realize the solution. Sure enough, when I get home and program the solution it works perfectly. Another reason to spend so much time on a bicycle - we solve our problems! I watch the Super Bowl and enjoy the game though I would have preferred a different winner.
On Monday through Wednesday I have productive days at work and after work. At work I keep building models and simulations that are very flexible and will allow trade studies and perturbations to designs to be evaluated. It is going to be fun! After work I have heavy workouts with the weights as I've increased the weights and dropped the repetitions. And after my workouts I continue working on the adoptions website even if the team has possibly decided to start all over. I'm going to have a showable almost-Beta site available by the 15th of February whether anybody else wants me to or not. By Wednesday I share the site with the team as I have one last feature to add (allowing reservations of facilities from a popup off a Google map). And I wait for the fallout of people finding out that I'm still working on the old (mid-January 2013) site (because nobody has given clear direction for what they want the new site to look like).
On Friday I ride the motorbike to work. At mid morning I hear the sound of heavy rain and hail on the roof of my building and I'm just hoping that the hail doesn't damage the motorbike. Thrity minutes later the sun is shining. EVentually I leave work after a fairly productive day. The bike is wet but it isn't currently raining. I get in a very heavy workout with the weights and protein load afterwards. These heavy lifts are getting easier again from before I took the time off to leave the country. Later in the evening, as Person Ti_Ca and I are driving to Souplantation for dinner, it is raining again.
Saturday morning is very cold so I wait for a while for the morning to warm up before going out cycling. All of the gates are open so I ride down to the pier and back with the mountain bicycle. I put in a few good surges in order to get in a better workout today. I spend the day with just a couple of errands but doing some house cleaning, helping Person Ti_Ca with homework, and just relaxing. I've been tired lately so a slow day or two this weekend will be good for me.
On Sunday morning, having wedged the Ciocc road bicycle into the trunk of the World Rally Car, I drive up to Derrick's house. I reassemble the bicycle and we start riding north from the Whittier Narrows Dam (where he lvies) past the Santa Fe dam until the bicycle trail ends. Its a great ride because there's a strong headwind for the entire way out as well as a gradual and steady climb. I do most of the pulling up the hill and we share the pulls back (though Derrick probably did more). I'm mentally spent when I'm driving back home but is was a very satisfying ride. The last time I did this ride I had a flat tire and lost my legs and didn't enjoy it at all. In the afternoon, due to the hard ride and various substances, I stagger around the house and run into walls a few times as I try to clean the house in between periods of relaxation.
Monday is a good day at work and is follwed up with a very heavy session with the weights. The weights are back up to pre-vacation levels.