It's a blah week. It's made even worse when I have a hard time sleeping on Thursday night and have a 2 degree fever on Friday morning. In any event I still get up and go to work and struggle through the day. At the end of Friday's workday I lift weights with a great workout, clean the roses, and get down on my hands and knees and clean the kitchen floor.
On Saturday I stay in bed until 7 am. I finally get up and take care of a few things before jumping on the mountain bicycle and going to the old yacht club andback home. At one point some lady, who is participating in a walk to end Alzheimer's disease, lets her pitbull on its leash make a lunge for my feet as I'm pedalling past. I can only turn around and yell at her, "Idiot! Stupid idiot!" When I get home I wash the mountain bicycle and then grab some lunch. I meet up with Person Ti_Ca and a number of Cambodian friends at a park for Kim's birthday party. I introduce myself around and lament that Person Ti_Ca has never helped me to learn to speak Khmer. Afterwards a number of people comoe voer to the house and play the card game (where the rules seem to change every hand). But I just relax on the couch with some silly movies on the television.
Sunday starts with a road bicycle ride where I head north on the Los Angeles rvier trail to the WHittier Narrows dam. When I get to the dam I keep going north and almost get to the Santa Fe dam before cooler heads prevail and I decide I better head for home. Today I am pretty fast down the San Gabriel rvier trail and end with a 50 mile ride. After the ride and some cleaning of the roses and impatiens, I watch the MotoGP and Moto3 races from Asutralia.
Tuesday, Wednesday, and THursday are long days at work as we're testing the unit that was just handed off to me on Monday. We make great progress on two of the axes - the test article behaving very similarly to the simulation results that were also handed to me. Since we work late, I don't get in workouts on Tuesday and Wednesday and instead help Person Ti_Ca with homework and buy a Halloween costume. (It has probably been 30 years since I actually paid for a Halloween costume.) On Thursday afternoon we are ready to start the thrid and final axis of testing when somebody notices that a bolt is missing. There is no way you can get in there and there is no way the bolt came out during testing. So it must not have been installed when we started. Sloppy workmanship! Nonetheless we have to stop testing and have the resposnible people depressurize the unit, take some pieces off, install the bolt, re-install pieces, and the repressurize the unit. This will take all weekend and we won't resume testing until Monday. I go home on Thursday and have a heavy session with the weights and wash the Yamaha YZF-R1. And then I relax from all of the stress of the unit handoff and testing and bad assembly job.
On Saturday I want to ride long, but I stay in bed for an extra hour. Instead I get out for a mountain bicycle ride and ride with a guy named Mundo from Mexico. We talk about various things ntil he turns around and I keep going. Today the legs feel strong and pull some riders the entire length north on the Los Angeles river against a moderate headwind until it is time for me to exit and go home. They thank me for the pull - which is always nice to do. I grab a shower and my friend Person W_HK has to cancel our lunch plans. SO I relax a bit and then clean/wax the rims of the Yamaha YZF-R1. It mus have been a long time since I waxed the bike and rims because the rims are dirtier than I can ever remember. But now they lok bright and shiny. I finish up my Halloween costume and later in the evening go over to Frank and Jeanine's house for their annual Halloween party.
On Monday I have a decent day at work making progress in my tasks. I also get piled on with some more work and I feel slightly overwhelmed and wonder how I am going to accomplish this amount of work to my high standard of quality. When I get home I work off some stress with a heavy session with the weights. Though the weights are the same as last week, I struggle just a bit - probably due to the extra day off and the cycling.