Tuesday starts out well with a 45 mile road bicycle ride though I again lose steam towards the end due to the recent heat and humidity. After getting cleaned up I go open a bank account for the (someday) non-profit. And then I have a long phone conversation with teammates about tomorrow's meeting/presentation. Some team members want all sorts of changes made to the website and I just ask incredulously, "I told you about the things that could use work a month ago and you're just finally looking at the website and asking for changes now? One day before the presentation?" I have to temper back the team's expectations for tomorrow as well as the bigger meeting next week. Frustrated I go look for a coffeehouse to set up shop and work from. The first two are difficult to park at and crowded. So after a side trip to the library to return two books and get two more, I end up back at the coffeehouse near my house. I work away for a couple of hours and then return back home to open up the house and let the breeze go through. And I keep checking the website to make sure nobody else has made changes that could "break" something else. And when an email comes in later talking about a change of background color (which would be easy), it turns out they are talking about a different website and I finally send out an email to the effect that "Great - not one of us in on the same page. I'm going to go find a church now to pray that our demo tomorrow isn't broken and that there isn't too much post-demo yelling and screaming". I knew this was going to happen and I told the business person/MBA-type person that this would happen - nobody will look at the site until the night before and then want all sorts of changes.
Late at night on Tuesday (or possibly into Wednesday morning) I see another email exchange in which another mis-communication has occurred and there's another mixup in which websites are to which color. Incredible!
On Wednesday morning I get out walking and then work the abdominals and lower back. After a shower on another hot and humid day, I go check the website and see that the background color has been changed to a color just as un-appetizing to the eyes as the previous color. Oh well, if this is what they want to go with for today's 11 am meeting. Before 10 am I jump on the motorcycle and ride to El Monte for the meeting. This location is up near the Whittier narrows dam where I'm usually bicycle riding. By the time I've ridden up to the meeting the background color has been changed again - good, the old one was unreadable. But I take my own notes during the two hour meeting and it ends up taking 53 minutes for 9 people (across the two teams) to introduce each other. And then we try to make progress for the next hour. By the end of the meeting I have no idea where we stand and Joseph says that he willc all me when he gets home but he doesn't. Maybe we'll have a teleconference on Thursday to figure out what to do before next Wednesday's bigger meeting. You know the bigger meeting, the one we were supposed to prepare for at today's smaller meeting. Later Person H_CS comes over to hang out and I skip two other events that were possibilities for the evening.
Wednesday night is a horrible night of sleep. Oh it gets started well as I turn off the lights after reading and have very deep sleep until about 12:45 am on Thursday morning. But then no more sleep until almost 4 am. I read for a while, toss and turn, and even get hungry and eat something. But a horrible night of sleep.
Thus I wake up "hungover" on Thursday morning and water the lawn and do some grocery shopping. And then I go cycling at 9:30 am after interactions with friends in Myanmar and Thailand and when the heat is starting to rise up. I take the mountain bicycle and do the loop ride. It's a good ride despite a headwind all of the way towards the ocean. But the breeze and speed is good today. When I get home I get down on my hands and knees (in cycling clothes) and scrub/wash the kitchen floor. A cool shower feels good and then I relax for the majority of the afternoon heat due to both the heat itself and the lack of sleep on Wednesday night.
I start Friday with a long walk and mowing the lawn. When I start the bedding laundry I see that the mattress pad is worn out and flaking away so later in the morning I end up buying a new mattress pad, two new pillows, and a few other little things. I stop in at Togos to get lunch for later and then have a lazy afternoon due to the heat. It is supposed to be cooler starting Saturday so hopefully I can get back into activities that have recently been heat-affected.
I have a good Saturday. It starts with a long walk and an abdominal and lower back workout. After a cool shower I watch qualifying for the German Grand Prix from Hockenhiem. And then I drive to the main public library for a Hack-A-Thon Against Homelessness. Ruby and Ellen join me during the event. I'm able to return two books and get two new ones and participate in a collaborative effort to end (or start to end) homelessness. Unfortunately later in the afternoon the event starts taking a Drupal vs Ruby-on-Rails vs other programming languages debate. Finally I ask the moderator if I can hijack the meeting for one minute. I have the moderator go to one of my websites (dedicated to finding available shelter for homeless people) and in 20 seconds we have found shelter for a typical homeless person. The audience is silent. I've already built what the event was meant to build. There is silence. And then a break. People come up to me after the break with words of encouragement and amazement. And I get business cards stuffed into my hands. And the meeting starts back up with the Drupal vs Ruby-on-Rails vs other programming languages debate. Didn't you just see what I showed you? It's the framework for the solution already there! You're going to duplicate the effort because you didn't come up with the solution? Afterwards Ruby just says that my solution was amazing and perfect and she doesn't know how to respond about the entire hack-a-thon somewhat ignoring the entire solution placed in their hands. I eventually drive on home and start working on a separate website to help the homeless based upon an idea tossed out at the meeting. But I'm still disappointed that my solution was not embraced - rather dismissed - since others did not come up with the solution.
Sunday starts with a good road bicycle ride. I get out to a turn-around point and turn for home. There is a pretty good headwind and I drag one cyclist for 5 miles until he drops off and then I drag another cyclist along for almost 10 miles before he drops off. It is a good 48 mile ride. After cleaning the bicycle up and cleaning myself up, I call the credit card company because there are fraudulent charges on my card. This seems to happen about once every three years with this bank. But they remove the fraudulent charges and agree to send me a new card. What a pain! It's a regular three year occurance - why is this? I watch most of the German Grand Prix before I have to get to downtown Los Angeles for a meeting related to the child abuse/hospital network application. We are preparing our charts and presentor for the 3 August meeting. Eventually I get back home and finsih the German Grand Prix, clean up the roses, and just relax for a bit. Some of the new ideas to work on can wait for Monday which is pretty wide open.
I sleep a little late on Monday and then go walking. After a shower I start working on some new ideas as well as doing the laundry. Eventually near noon I drive down to the Library coffeehouse and work with my laptop. I get the first part of the foodbank map done and now have to work on the calendar view of it. Just after 3 pm I drive on back home with a stop at the grocery store for supplies. And then I get in a good session with the weights. It's a struggle because I haven't lifted in 2.5 weeks, but it feels good again. After a cool shower I relax and backup some data and get ready for an 8 pm teleconference and presentation review.
I'm tired on Tuesday morning so I just do the loop ride on the mountain bicycle.I work on websites and some finances throughout the day. Just after 6pm I ride the motorcycle down to the Work Evolution Labs (WE Labs) to join forces with other hackers against homelessness. There seem to be two factions tonight: one with the meeting leader who ants to start from scratch and program with Drupan, and the second who saw what I had and just want to build out from there. Nonetheless I get some work done and talk with people and get some new ideas to work.
Wednesday starts with a walk and a trip to the grocery store. After making sure the website is working, I ride the motorcycle to downtown Los Angeles for a meeting o demo/presentation on child abuse at the California Endowment center near Union Station. We set up and are all ready for people to arrive. Ruby and Joseph present and do a great job to cram all of the information in to a short time slot. Other people present their information and ideas and there is a lunch break. But nobody comes over to our table to talk with us one-on-one or to see a demonstration of the child abuse reporting software. We eventually close up shop and agree to a Thursday evening conference call de-brief. On the hot motorcycle ride home I'm thinking that this wasn't a waste of time because you have to be in front of people. But it wasn't the "let me get out my checkbook" thing that we had hoped for. When I get home I'm hot and sweaty so I lift weights (to get REALLY sweaty) and then trim the bush in the front yard and trim and water the roses. After a cool shower I can relax for the evening and skip any of the Wednesday concerts near home or in surrounding areas.
I start Thursday with a good 45 mile road bicycle ride. Afterwards I ride the motorcycle down to the monthly Long Beach Human Trafficking Task Force meeting. People are starting to recognize me now, but no real progress on getting rid of paper transmittal of information (rather than Web-based transmittal). Of course there are two people seated next to me who insist on making a comment after each sentence that a speaker utters. I try to whisper to them, "You're dis-respecting the speaker if you keep talking while the speaker is speaking". So they shut up for about one minute and then start commenting again at every pause in the speaker's presentation. This is just plain rude and inconsiderate. I get back home on Thursday near 2 pm and relax.
Friday is another Habitat for Humanity build in Montebello. I've missed a couple of weeks and some of the regular workers say to me, "We figured you weren't coming back". But I explain to them that I told them ahead of time that we had the child abuse roll-out on 3 August and that I might miss some weeks. Nonetheless they are a great bunch of people and I stay productive at the building site. At the end of the day when we are cleaning up I'm sweeping the scond floor with sweat pouring off of me and I am happy. It is the little things, even as little as sweeping the floor so that tomorrow's work can start quicker, that contribute to the project and hopefulyl provide a home for deserving people. When I get home I relax for a bit and have dinner and then drive over to the First Friday event. I catch the 8th district city counciman's chief of staff and bug him about the human trafficking effort that I sent an email about. And on the way home I stop in at the grocery store to pick up the heavy items for the next week or so.
I'm still hungover from the Habitat build on Saturday morning, but I ride 46 miles on the road bicycle at quite a rapid pace down the San Gabriel river trail (after it has taken me almost ten miles to get into a rhythym after yesterday's build). A nice cool shower feels nice and then I run some errands for myself and the non-profits before returning back home. Today is a spare day, but I catch up on a lot of paperwork and money transactions and finally watch the Men's Olympic cycling road race from Brasil.
I am still hungover from three good bicycle rides and a Habitat build in four days. Thus I have a decent ride on the mountain bicycle out to the old yacht club and back home in the morning. The "normal" temperature range for early August feels cool after all of the brutally hot weather we had for two weeks in July. I do some web programming, watch some of the Olympics, have a teleconference, have a visit from Person H_CS, do some reading, but generally have a slow day.
I start Monday doing some computer maintenance and enhancements on both the laptop and desktop computers at home. After a bit I walk to the grocery store for some supplies and then get in a good workout with the weights. Today I receive notice that the non-profit that I started has indeed been declared a non-profit from the state of California. But still waiting for the IRS ruling. I clean up some odds and ends around the house and again generally have a slow day. Monday's are typically slow days as there are no meetings to attend. This gives me a chance to do some advanced programming and try to get ahead of some of the processes and business models that we are working on. Or to catch up where I am behind.