I lay in bed for a few extra minutes on Tuesday but then get up and go for a mountain bicycle ride to the old yacht club and back home (with a few extra miles thrown in to make a two hour ride). It is windy and chilly this morning, but I crank away. I'm happy to get home and take a warm shower and work on some paperwork before running errands. Today I go to the bank and get a safety deposit box - the first safety deposit box that I've ever had. This one is complimentary since I meet a minimum standard for banking and I only have a revocable living trust document to put in the safety deposit bank for now. But I see Dean, Shiela, and Stanley - my new friends at the bank - and we talk about Thanksgiving plans and they want to know all about the World Rally Car since they've seen me driving it. And I tell them, after they ask to be considered to buy it, to get in the line that stretches 4 miles down the street to the 605 freeway. Afterwards I recylce some cans, get to the library for three new books, and hit two grocery stores for supplies. When I return home I sweep up the remnants from our Sunday rainstorm and then relax in warm clothes.
On The Wednesday before Thanksgiving I go walking early in the morning to mail two letters and to pick up a last minute item or two at the grocery store. When the post office opens I go over and mail 9 international letters and return home. I get in a heavy session with the weights which feels good and then trim the roses and edge/mow the lawn. Seeingt hat I am sweaty, I pull out the axe and chop down the two small trees that Person Ti_Ca wanted to plant that I have quit watering. And after a warm shower I relax a bit before getting out and polishing two of the gold rims on the World Rally Car. The other two will have to wait for Friday or so.
Thanksgiving starts with a windy road bicycle ride. I want to ride extra long today, but I keep finding excuses to not go too far. And I end up with just a standard 48 mile ride. When I finish the ride I am not really tired, so why didn't I ride farther? Afterwards I do some computer backups and then watch the Detroit Lions game recorded so that I can fast forward past all of the commercials and television timeouts. I get through the football games and relax and talk with people voer the Internet and have a slow Thanksgiving.
On Friday I meet up with Terry and his freidns to go cycling. Terry fell back in March or April and broke his, but he's back riding carefully. The group is slow I treat it as a recovery day after yesterday's ride and as a social event rather than a serious workout. When I finish the ride I finish polishing the remaining two gold rims on the World Rally Car and clean up a report that I owe JPL. I think about raking or de-thatching the front yard, but I'm lazy and postpone doing it again. As the afternoon wears on I cook vegetables for the upcoming week - throwing in some red beans for additional iron this time.
It rains on both Saturday and Sunday. I start each day with a long walk and carrying an umbrella on Sunday. Later on each day I get in a heavy workout with the weights on Saturday and a "once per hour" abdominal and lower back workout on Sunday. I have some incredibly deep sleep on Saturday night and I make a note to myself that I need to start lifting heavy to rpomote deep sleep. After the F1 race on Sunday I watch the Los Angeles Rams get embarrassed by the New Orleans Saints. And I wonder if we can send the Rams back to Anaheim or Saint Louis where they deserve to be embarrassed - not like the old days where, win or lose, they were TRUE Los Angeles Rams.
On Monday and Tuesday I get in good cycling, walking, and lifting workouts. On Monday I pick up Scott, who I used to babysit many years ago, and we go to a cofeehouse to have coffee and lemonade and catch up on a whole range of topics. It is enjoyable to visit with him as an adult and to catch up. On Tuesday I'm supposed to meet up with Ellen, a business person, for lunch but she has a bad cough in the morning and we postpone until Friday. Ellen usually brings her service dog int raining, Rosie, to lunch and I miss seeing Rosie again. I also do a fair amount of clearing out closets, clearing out paperwork, and working on websites. I find old, trivial paperwork from 25 years ago or so that has been laying around in the back of a closet. It goes into the shredder.
It is cold on Wednesday morning and I end up on the mountain bicycle rather than the road bicycle. Why? I don't know. But I have a good ride with and against the wind and I have some small surges to yield a good workout. I get cleaned up and work on some scripts before riding the motorcycle to see the dentist. Today she is backed up a bit but I tell her all of my recent health history, including getting sick in Mexico and the lack of red bloods cells/hematocrit/hemoglobin, as I want to keep all of my health care providers aware of my complete history. There are a couple of areas for me to work on, but it is a good checkup and cleaning with no major issues. On the way back home I stop in at the Yamaha dealer in Long Beach that I spoke with a while ago and keeps calling me. The specific salesman, Anthony, is not available but I tell the other people that I will probably keep this motorcycle until it reaches 100,000 miles in 5,000 miles. Soon there is a crowd gathered around my motorcycle as they have rarely seen any Yamaha YZF-R1's with 95,000 miles (they usually get crashed long before this many miles). And I ride back home to take an online orientation for Long Beach Community College classes and to work on websites and databases.
I'm up early on Thursday to walk for an hour before getting cleaned up and riding the motorcycle to CSULA for senior design presentations. The presentations that I witness are very good and much improved from each team's first presentation. There is a lot of technical progress and the charts and presentation skills are already much better. When I get home I read for a bit and then have a good workout with the weights. The rest of the night is spent working on websites and occassionally flipping on the Kings' ice hockey game or the football game.
I'm up early on a cold and windy Friday to ride the road bicycle. The wind keeps shifting direction so its hard to know when to conserve some energy for later or burn it. But its a great ride! After getting cleaned up I ride the motorcycle to Manhattan beach to meet up with Ellen (and Rosie her in-training service dog) for lunch. We talk about potential business together and leads. She seems to be generating a few leads and I told her that I've lost my way a bit after coming back from Ecuador and Mexico but I feel like I'm gaining it back now. When I get home I switch to the car to get two new library books, drop off some winter coatds at Goodwill, and do the grocery shopping. Afterwards I another one of those "one set per hour" workouts for a few bodyparts that I feel need some extra work. Tonight is another First Friday event, but I stay inside and stay warm since Saturday will be a long day.
I get up early and go walk for more than 40 minutes before getting cleaned up and riding the motrocycle up to CSULA to help out the senior design projects. Today there are reviews for two big projects: one a drone for police, fire, and EMS personnel and the second for a solar power installation in a small village. Both teams do well but have more work to do. I rush on home after the two long reviews and have a great session with heavy weights. Since I upped the weights to the heavier range I have slept very well and not had any incidents of waking up and being unable to fall asleep. Maybe heavy lifting is the key for me.
Except that I wake up in the middle of the night on SUnday morning from a bad dream (where someone is trtying to break into my house and I'm on the phone with the police looking help) and I can't fall back asleep. Eventually I do fall back asleep but dismiss the alarm and sleep very late. I have a slight fever, so I take the mountain bicycle out and I do manage to get in a great ride by constantly pushing the pace. When I get home I clean up the roses a bit and rake leaves and then get cleaned up to relax. Late in the afternoon I egt in another heavy session with the weights in hopes of good sleep on Sunday night.
I have good sleep into Monday morning but still get out of bed at 6:15 am to go for an hour walk. When I get home I read the news and check the financial markets and work on some databases for non-profits. Near noon I walk to the grocery store for supplies and then have a very heavy session lifting weights. In fact, I look back through my records and see that is was February that I got anywhere near these weights. But really May of 2015 since I lifted THIS heavy. After cooling down and a warm shower I lay down in bed and read for a while. The rest of the day is slow with some more non-profit programming and I watch some of the football game.