I start the first day of retirement with a 45 mile bicycle ride during which I see very few other riders (because it's a Wednesday morning and everyone has to work). When I get back home Person Ti_Ca has left for work and I notice he's pulled his luggage and coats out of a common closet as if he is leaving. I go to banks and the post office to make some financial transactions and then continue to sort through things from work and home - deciding what to keep, what to donate somewhere, and what to toss out. The neighbors come by and sit and talk for 30 minutes about retirement and I can tell that they are happy for me. Person Ti_Ca comes home after work and we have "the talk" where he is disappointed in our relationship and he will be out of the house in a few days. He declines to answer where he will be living or if he will be continuing school for one more year to finish his degree. I try to point out that we've been growing apart for two years now but he just pushes it all back to moving in together because "He knew it was a mistake". But neither of us had a choice at the time because his family was going to be having him live in the garage. Regardless we are done and the home situation will be more comfortable in a few days when he has moved out.
Thursday starts with an hour long walk/run where I'm going to try and slowly run again without re-injuring the left calf. I hope the visits to the acupuncturist has helped. I work around the house a bit, but some steal-toed work boots for future Habitat for Humanity work, and then go to the monthly Long Beach Human Trafficking Task Force meeting. I have a few discussions with people - mostly social worker and law enforcement people - and I might be lined up for some more tech/geek work. I cut the meeting short and meet with a member of the Long Beach Human Relations Commission (from two weeks ago). We have a good discussion about various things and it looks like his company, not related to human relations/human rights, might want me to hel out with data analytics and rules-based decision making from big data. This could be cool! And later I go to the public library to get two books and then go to the Library coffeehouse, an old haunt, and work on the human trafficking task force and make it responsive to all different sizes of devices. I finally go home after 6 pm to relax.
On Friday I start north on the San Gabriel trail. I don't usually go north on this trail so it's new and good to have a different viewpoint of the river, the washes, the dam, and other objects of interest. I continue past the Whittier Narrows dam to a convenient turn-around point and then go down the Los Angeles river trail. I go past home a bit to stop in to Long Beach Cyclery (where I buy everything) because they are giving away free donuts for International Donut Day (I don't take one) and because they were recently broken into and I want to offer moral support if nothing else. I end up near 52 miles for the ride. Friday is a slow day recovering from the ride, recovering from the shocking death of Moto2 rider Luis Salom in Barcelona, and continuing to go through things and sort them out for recycle, re-use, or trash. Later on Friday evening Person Ti_Ca and I go over to a First Fridays and see a couple of bands that are decent and just do some walking around. ANd then I go home and he goes out with his sister.
I start Saturday with a foggy mountain bicycle ride to the old yach club and back. I'm still a bit tired from Friday's ride. I do some financial calculations and relax a bit before heading to Inglewood to work on a Habitat for Humanity project. I'm just on clean-up duty for this effort rather than the actual construction which was geared towards a women's construction day. But I meet some good people and the project leader, Caitlin, finds out some of my background and wants to up me on the priority list for some future work. And I'm happy that there will be a big 44 home/condominium project in Long Beach starting towards the end of the summer. I go home and recover from a hard day thus far and then go meet Person Ti_Ca at a coffeehouse in Long Beach where one of his co-worker's is playing in a band. I oly catch a song or two from Person Ti_Ca's friend's band. But they are decent. We stay for some other musisioans as tonight is an "open mic" night. WHen we leave a very old bluegrass "picker" ctahces me and starts talking my ear off. At one point he asks me "Are you a record producer" because I'm dressed kinda nice compared to everyone else. And finally I have to lie and say "I have to catch up with my friends and maybe I'll see you next week" at the open mic event.
I head north on the Los Angeles river on Sunday and have a good ride. When I turn around and head for home there is police action on the San Gabriel river trail and a police officer admits it is a dead body on the bicycle trail. So all cyclists are routed around the trail through Santa Fe Springs park. But it's a good ride. I watch an exciting MotoGP race from Barcelona and text some of my friends to watch it if possible. ANd I text my cycling friends about the dead body. A CSULA professor who I contacted "kinda" rejects my suggestion for glucose monitoring help but offers up a kinesiology/biomechanics effort that she iw writing a grant for. So I offer to help because I've helped UCLA and USC biomechanics and kinesiology students/postdocs and may be able to contribute. Otherwise Sunday is a slow, recovery day as I clean the kitchen and get ready to scrub the bathrooms on Monday and fix the sprinkler system that has catastrophically failed on Saturday.
I get up and start scrubbing the tile in the bathrooms. After an hour I rinse myself off, have a breakfast muffin, and go to Home Depot for supplies to fix the sprinkler. I get home and fix the sprinkler (main line) and let the glue set and dry as I go scrub more tile. Just before noon I try the sprinkler and realzie there is another hole in a hose and I have no replacement. So I go back to Home Depot and get the replacement hose and get it installed. It looks like the sprinkler main line is fixed. I take a break to watch a somber Moto2 - the excitement muted by the death of one of the riders from Friday. My favorite rider leads for most of the race but loses the lead and holds on for second place. I clean up a few more items for the bathroom before getting down for a nap. The bathroom scrubbing will resume and finish on Wendesday. After the nap I work on the glucose monitoring website and also note a couple more opportunities directed my way from Cal State Los Angeles related to kinesiology/physical rehab and senior design projects. In the evening I continue to work on the glucose monitoring site and take a mild interest in the ice hockey game.
On Tuesday I'm a bit lazy and water the front yard before getting out for a two hour loop ride on the mountain bicycle. I scrub my shower as I take a shower and then go vote, drop off a book at the library, and pick up other supplies for the day. In the afternoon I have some child welfare conversations with people and work on a search logging process for one of the websites. I get down for a nap after 3pm and then go back to the search logging programming.
On Wednesday and Thursday I go about my business of scrubbing the bathroom, lifting weights (on Wednesday morning), and going cycling for 45 miles on Thursday morning. I have some web tasks to work on and I try to make progress on them but get stymied. On Wednesday afternoon Person Ti_Ca and I meet up at the Library cofeehouse and he announces, despite us calling it a separation, we are over. He claims that I cheated on him in him in Thailand with an ex-love, but this is not true at all (unless you count ONE SINGLE kiss on the lips cheating). Person Ti_Ca then goes to my house to clear more stuff out with the understanding that he will finish on Friday or Saturday. After Thursday's good bicycle ride I recycle cans and do some grocery shopping, cook vegetables for the next week of lunches, clean up the roses, and relax a bit. I'm a bit surprised at how quickly this whole relationship broke up (though it had been a long time coming). And I try to stay positive and recall the good things that we both got out of the relationship. Though not related to any sort of business venture, I keep working on some web programming of football and baseball statistics just because I am interested in it and it is fun to learn new things.
On Friday morning I go walking/running for almost an hour and then get on my hands and knees to scrub the kitchen floor. After a shower I take my first Uber ride to the motorcycle dealer to pick up the motorcycle. Since it has a new rear tire with the slippery surface on it and because I haven't ridden in almost two weeks, I ride like a sissy on the way home. At mid-afternoon I drive again to the Library coffeehouse to work on websites. Person Ti_Ca is supposed to clear a few more things out and I'm not sure if he wants me around to help or just to get the heck away. Later when I get home I get in a good workout with the same weights as on Wednesday.
I get ready to ride the road bicycle on Saturday morning but it is wet. I switch over to the mountain bicycle since the roads will be slippery. I get out for the loop ride with a few extra miles thrown in. Around every corner there is rain, a 5k neighborhood run in the Wrigley district, another 5k run down by the aquarium, a traffic accident with the police and fire trucks present, and another event of some sort in El Dorado park. At every turn there is a distraction and set of circumstances to deal with, rather than just getting on the bicycle and cranking along. I'm all wet when I finish and I hope that Sunday morning is dry.
As I'm going to bed on Saturday night I see a police car in front of the next dorr neighbor's house. They had been having a fairly quiet party for kids. I'm not sure what happened, but I spy-in on the conversation and hear the police officer talking to a teenager about "what all teen boys want" and "not being ready to have kids" and other similar topics. I read for a while and go to sleep but am awakened by a text message near midnight and cannot sleep. I do some more reading and who knows when I actually fall back asleep.
I get out the door on SUnday for a road bicycle ride. Along the Los Angeles river I catch up to a rider and we ride together and talk for a bit. He is from Panama and we talk about his country, the new canal, and a Panamanian professional cyclist who was banned a few years ago for doping. My cycling friend turns south on the San Gabriel trail while I turn north towards the Santa Fe dam. I just go halfway to the dam and turn back south. On the way back home there are two separate intervals of rain but it is a good 48 mile ride. The Canadian Grand Prix is enteratining for the different strategies. And late in the afternoon I get down for a nap before doing some web programming.
I start Monday with an hour walk/run and then dust all of the baseboards in the house and dustmop the hardwood floors. After a shower I run some errands including getting the World Rally Car washed. When I get home I open up a bottle of wine, get down on my hands and knees, and clean every inch (almost) of the hardwood floors. They certainly were dirty! Now I'm tired so after lunch I lay down for about an hour. When I wake up I start putting a claybar to the World Rally Car because I haven't done it in 18 months. THough as I am claybarring the roof and vertical surfaces the clay isn't that dirty - indicating not much surface oxidation or roughness. During the day I get a phone call from Ellen who I met at the basic Income Hack-A-Thon a couple months ago. She tells me that they need something completed by August 3rd to present to hospitals (related to child abuse). I tell her that, based upon her description and assuming the basic html forms are all ready to go, I could have it going in 10 days with another 10 days to get the search filters implemented. I can hear Ellen fall out of her chair because she was expecting a much longer timeframe. Nonetheless we'll meet up on Thursday afternoon in neutral territory to discuss the project along with the front end developer.