The week of work is just horrible! On both Tuesday and Wednesday the networks that we use to transfer files and perform simulations over are so slow, that it takes me 8 hours of work each day to accomplish 3 hours of real work. I fill out IT help tickets in the hopes that they will recognize the problems with the netowrk and fix them. I email my boss and say, "If I have to fill out one more ticket, I'm going to ask who's paying for my waiting around because it's taking me 8 hours to do 3 hours worth of work". When I go home on Tuesday I am so mad and frustrated at the entowrk at work that I go walking and try to calm myself down.
Wednesday is another bad day of network traffic at work. I try to make progress on my own work but there are many people who come to see me today for help. At one point the people are lined up four deep to come and talk with me and get my "expert" opinion on certain tasks. And again when I go home I am so mad at work and at the IT people that I am planning my strategy of how to get things to work properly at work. I just want people to do their jobs so that I can be efficient at mine. At home I lift weights heavy and feel better than Monday and then I help Person Ti_Ca with his philosophy essay. And then collapse into bed.
Without hearing a word, the IT help people have "closed" my help ticket by Thursday morning. I notice that the network is running at its standard rate and I make progress on work. But today is filled with a number of meetings that interrupt my work flow and rhythym, but I do the best that I can. At the end of the day I have been walking all over campus to attend meetings, so I don't get in a workout at night. Instead I have another 50 minute conversation with Person T_U who is struggling with some of his friends' financial decisions and I keep saying, "You've offered your best advice and they have to live with the consequences of their decisons in the future. But you have to say NO to them if they ask you to bail them out".
I have a productive Friday as I put my head down and work through some problems. The netowrk is running adequately - not great - but adequately and I have calmed down some. But I'm still disappointed in my company and the support that they give for us to do our jobs. In the afternoon our team has a Halloween party so I close the door to my office and put on my hazmat suit costume and then open the door and work for a while. I get some shocked looks and and a lot of laughs as people walk past my office as I'm working away in my hazmat suit and then I join the Halloween party. Not many people are dressed up, but we eat some food and share stories and then it is time to go home. I get in a heavy session with the weights and then start digging a trench to re-route the backyard sprinklers. And I put some hangars up in the garage to hang an extra bicycle and two extra road bicycle wheels. I'm hoping to tidy up the garage between now and the end of the year.
It is raining on Saturday morning and I'm getting irritable that I won't be able to ride today. I keep walking outside to see if it looks like there is a break in the clouds. Finally when I see a break, I jump on the mountain bicycle with a water-resistant jacket and start riding. It is dark and by the time that I am halfway down the Los Angeles river trail it is raining pretty hard. But I am rewarded with a big flow down the Los Angeles river which is pleasant to watch and listen to and there is a very pretty double rainbow. In fact, I cannot recall a prettier rainbow in my life. I keep riding and everything is wet except when I get to the eastern end of Long beahc - past the pier and headed towards the yacht club - it looks like it hasn't rained at all. Everything is dry. I get to the turn around point and head for home and get caught in a few more raindrops just as I get home. After a shower I hear nothing back from Person W_HK about lunch, so I get to the library to get two books, do some grocery shopping, watch qualifying for the US Grand Prix, wash the mountain bicycle (though I had just washed it last week), and I spend a few more minutes digging another 6 feet of trench for the sprinklers.
My knee has been hurting somewhat throughout the night and I wonder if I wrenched it while digging trenches. But I get out the door before 7 am and ride up to the Whittier Narrows dam and back down the San Gabriel river trail. The knee only feels weird for the first mile of the ride, so I'm happy to keep going. I'm pulling and being pulled by another rider at the Del Amo turnoff (to go home for a total of 40 miles) so I keep going down to the ocean. I ride across the ocean trail and back home for about 55 or 57 miles. As I'm riding near the small amphitheater I see Terry riding and I call his name twice, but he doesn't hear me. Since I'm ready to go home, I don't turn around and catch him. But I do text him later and give him heck for ignoring me. (In reality he didn't see me or hear me yelling at him, though I don't know why because we passed going in opposite directions within 5 feet of each other.) THroughout SUnday I "feel" the right knee a bit when I'm standing or walking, but I'll just assume it will get better in a day or so.
On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I make a lot of progress on some difficult tasks. Finally on Wednesday, when I've spent the entire day trying to figure out solutions, I get a solution towards the end of the day and email my boss to the effect that "OMG - I just found the solution and I can script it so that is becomes easier for all of the other events that we have to analyze. But I'm going home now". I have great workout with the weights on Monday and Wednesday and even increase the weight levels of Wednesday. These are the heaviest weights that I've used since May and I'm taking my time getting back up to those levels so that I don't run into anymore joint or shoulder pain.
I keep making good progress at work on Thursday, though I'm running out of steam. At 3:30 I leave work to go see the dentist for a regular cleaning. She says that some gums seem wavy and my bite seems tense as if I'm under stress. I confess that I'm under stress due to thoughts of retiremet and the usual relationship stress. But my teeth are good and sturdy and clean. After work I ride on home and skip the workout for the day - tomorrow will be a long day of riding and yardwork and other activities.
Saturday is an incredibly productive and restless day. I start with a two hour mountain bicycle ride to the Long Beach yacht club and back home with a slight extension. Then I mow the lawn, trim the edges, and clean up the roses. My yardwork is done soI take a shower and get to the ATM and do the gorcery shopping. Now I'm dragging so I lay down and don't fall asleep but rest for 30 minutes unitl Person Ti_Ca decides it is time to do homework. We work away for more than an hour and than stop. I go to to lift weights (heavy again), do some maintenance in the garage, and try to straighten up some of the garage. Near 5:30 pm I get some dinner of pasta and the I'm restless again, so I go back into the garage and finish off straightening up the items that I wanted to clear up. Some of the items are very old, so I strip them down to parts that might be fun to work with in the future and I toss the rest in the trash. After 7:30 I just relax and talk with some friends on the Internet.
I get out on the mountain bicycle on Saturday morning. On the way back home I see Terry - who rode right past me last Sunday without hearing me yell at him - and I try to hide behind another rider. I plan to jump out and yell his name at the last minute. But he's already seen me. So I turn around and ride with Terry and we meet up with Kin and ride together for a while. Today there is a big paramedic, fire, and police presence atthe Pacific COast Highway bridge and when we stop we see a guy lying on a stretcher board in the Los Angeles river. He either jumped intentionally or fell. After the ride Person Ti_Ca and I go recycle a number of cans and than have a Thai lunch. I love Thai curry vegetables! When I get home I try to tackle a little plumbing problem and get half of it fixed and we'll just have to live with the other half until something bad happens. As Person Ti_Ca gets down for a nap I go out and use the shovel and pick/axe to dig the trenches for the new sprinkler routing. I''m working up a big sweat but I make good progress. I get within one foot of the fence and I'm out of steam. I go inside and take a quick shower and cook lunch (vegetables and potatoes and tomato soup and rice) for the week and not that after the heavy workouts of the week and digging the trenches, my right shoulder will probably hurt on Sunday. The rest of the evening is quiet as I prepare for a long road bicycle ride and a rare weekend of both F1 (from Brasil) and MotoGP (from Valencia) on the same weekend.
Sunday blooms very foggy and I consider what to do about riding. Finally I put on a shell and go riding. The first half of the ride to the dam is in thick gof and I have to keep wiping my cycling shades so that I can see. When I get near the dam the weather clears up and is bright and sunny. As I slow down to make a sharp downhill turn their are other riders coming the other way and it turns out it is a group that I rode with last week. They say to me , "We're riding the loop the opposite way today" and we fist bump and wish each other luck. Today I am tired from previous activitiesover the last few days and take the Del Amo turnoff to end near 40 miles. I also note that the weather is clear and sunny into until I et within two miles of home and it is wet and foggy again. I watch both the MotoGP race from Valencia and the F1 race from Brasil throughout the day and then make the mistake of reading through the Internet and finding out who the Moto3 world champion is (though I don't knowthe final results of the race). I ruined it for myself.
I start with a productive Monday morning, run into the blahs just before lunch, and then pick up momentum again after lunch. I'm chasing down problems now but making good progress. When I get home I lubricate the chain of the Yamaha YZF-R1 and then lift weights heavy. And then I sit down and try to figure out some of the web programming problems that we haven't been able to figure out. I feel like I'm getting closer, but can't quite get the finishing touches done.