On Tuesday I do not go cycling in the morning. Instead I ride wth Person Ti_Ca to Cal State Long Beach and I wander around the campus while he has his clsses. I'm wandering around one of the engineering buildings when I hear my name Called out "Ray!" It turns out it's the co-worker intern who has the office next to mine. He certainly didn't expect to see me on campus and I didn't expect to run into him. We have a brief little chat and he finally says, "So you really are looking for a job here" I don't really answer his question but we each continue our days. When I get home I get on the mountain bicycle for a very windy ride to the old yacht club and back. The legs (and entire organism) are tired but I crank along the best that I can. Late in the afternoon Person Ti_Ca and I go grocery shopping because he wants to have people over for a Thanksgiving dinner and "I'm not going anywhere near a freeway or a grocery store on Wednesday". When Person Ti_Ca leaves for his night class I do some of the early cooking and watch the Kings' ice hockey game.
I start out Thanksgiving with a long road bicycle ride. I go all of the way past the Whittier Narrows dam to the Santa Fe dam and turn around and go back to the ocean. This streatch - from the Santa Fe Dam to the ocean - is a 30 mile stretch of trail with no reason to stop or slow down. AT times I find people to draft from or pull, but for the most part this ride is a loner ride. I keep saying, "You ought to stop for some gel and electrlyts", but it never happens. And in the end I just crawl on home for 72 miles. After a short recovery period I fast forward through the Lions' Thanksgiving day win and then do some cooking for Ti's Thanksgiving dinner. He wanted a real Thanksgiving dinner and its his first turkey, so we'll see how it turns out. (Not that I eat meat at all, but we'll see how it turns out for the guests.) The turkey turns out undercooked so people have to pick from the parts that are fully cooked. Later the guests play cards and Person T_U drops by for a few minutes after he has his Thanksgiving dinner with his sister.
A number of people come over to the house and start drinking vodka and Smirnoffs and playing cards before going to the club. I am one designated driver and Stephen is another. We meet up at the herd/clone club and dance for a while ebfore heading to another club. I likethis club because the techno/trance/house music is addictive. I just cannot stand still. The place is crowded and I'm bumping into people (or vice versa), but nobody cares as we are all having fun. A couple of people want to meet me and start conversations,but I just lose myself in the music. Most of the group goes back to the herd/clone club before midnight and I tell them that I will be back there in 30 minutes. At one point I actually take a selfie of myself with an weird set of ox playing on a flatscreen in the club. (Because I've nicknamed myself "old ox" and this fits in perfectly.) I eventually make it back to the herd/clone club 45 minutes later and regret it the moment I walk back in. The music is horrible top 40/hip hop/ I tolerate the last hour or of the evening and then we head for home (but with a stop at a MacDonalds drive trough for some people in the ar who are hungry or thirsty). We drop Lida off and then Panath off and then, in thick Long Beach fog, make our way home. And my light is going off fo sleep at 3:11 am.
I don't feel well on Sunday morning, but I start out on the road bicycle. It's obvious that I don't "have it" today so I ride 30 miles and head for home. I put on dirty clothes and finish the last of the cutting of pipe and gluing for the sprinklers. Since this went quicker than expected I rake some leaves from the large tree in the backyard (to really make it feel like football season) and then I take a shower. When I take the recently claybarred World Rally car out for errnds it starts to rain. The rain was not supposed to come until later in the week. I run my errands, put the car in the garage, and wipe it down so that it looks new and fresh again. And as I start the laundry I start my official relax period with some football games and some small tidying up around the house. Later at night I watch some Aerosmith videos on youtube (since I'm reading the book by the Aerosmith guitarist) and I also watch the Nobel Peace prize acceptance speech from a few years ago of Aung San Suu Kvi (accepting it 20 years after the award since she was under house arrest for that 20 years).
On Tuesday and Wednesday we have heavy rain and I have to drive the car to work. I have good days archiving models and simulations and creating a library for future use from them. But both days are painfull driving home - both days taking an hour to get home whereas the motorycle is usually 20 or 25 minutes. On both days I start lifting weights again by lowering the weights near the bottom of the 5 repetition capability and lifting slowly and with strict form.
On Friday I get up and check the markets and then ride the motorcycle to Cal State University, Los Angeles. I have an ex-boss who retired three years ago and is now part-time teaching at CSULA. He has been trying to get me to join the faculty, so I figured I would go check out the reviews of the senior design projects, talk with my ex-boss, and try to see Derrick, my cycling friend's senior project. (Derrick and I and Ted coincidentally know each other.) I'm late to the reviews because my ex-boss changed the rooms and buildings on me and didn't tell me. But I track him down and surprise him when I show up. And I also surprise the students by passing out assorted candies, chocolate bars, and sweets that I bought on Thursday night. I contribute to the reviews as best as I can and try to encourage the students and ask questions to make them think about the future direction and builds of their projects. And then I ride the motorcycle on home. It turns out the commute from home to CSULA is about 18 miles compared with my current commute of almost 16 miles, so the difference in commute is small. When I get home I eat lunch and then mow the lawn, clean the roses, and do some grocery shopping. I relax for a bit and then lift weights (since I didn't cycle this morning) and then I relax for the rest of the day.
When the alarm goes off on SUnday morning I keep hitting the snooze button and even stay in bed for a while deciding whether to ride at all today. I have a slight headache and I'm being lazy. But I get out of bed and start out on the road bicycle to the Whittier Narrows dam about 35 minutes later than I would normally be out. There is a strong headwind up to the dam and I pull a guy along. When I cross over the dam and start down the San Gabriel river trail I don't quite get the tailwind that I wa shoping for. But I just keep pushing on. And just as I'm thinking, "There hasn't been a single ride or group of riders pass me yet today - maybe I'm not that slow today", a rider passes me and slowly but surely goes off into the distance. Nonetheless I stop at about 40 miles. When I get home I clean up the roses, lay down some anti-weed grains, and finally dispose of a very small Christmass tree brought over by Person C_T back in the 2006 timeframe that I've kept alive by watering and nurturing. As I'm approaching retirement, I'm cleaning house of things that I have no need of and I've made a tasklist of things to accomplish over the Christmas holiday that suppor this goal. And the tasklist inclue some minor house fixes that I should be able tot ackle myself. After a shower I do some cooking for the week's lunches and make some spaghetti for today's lunch.