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.
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.
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 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.
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.