Despite having a bit of trouble sleeping on Monday night, I have a very good road bicycle ride on Tuesday morning. I'm fast and I feel strong. After getting cleaned up, I go vote (a special election), stop at Target, get the car washed, and stop in at the grocery store. During the car wash a police offcier is having his patrol SUV washed so we have a discussion about crime rates and Proposition 47 and ways to deter people from committing crime without ruining their lives wit a long jail/prison sentence and a lifelong record. At home I start waxing the World Rally Car and stop after about an hour or so. I take some time to relax and check the news online, but I specifically stay away from any coding today. I need a little break to let good ideas simmer and bubble to the top. I do some bathroom cleaning and kitchen cleaning and grab a late lunch and then go wax the car for another 30 minutes. Just slowly work away until the entire car is waxed.
I'm a bit lazy on Tuesday and do not start the day with cycling. I open Monday's mail and the TT Circuit Assen in the Netherlands is asking for money for motorcycle racing tickets by 1 April or they will cancel my reservation. I quickly online arrange a wire transfer and then start to thnk, "Didn't I already pay for these tickets back in December?" So I look through my online credit card transactions and see that both the Netherlands and Germany seat tickets are paid for. I can't cancel a a wire transfer online, so I go through three telephone banking agents to try and cancel the wire transfer. They say it will be canceled on a "best effort" attempt. If nothing else, I'll end up with extra tickets for the Assen race that I'll have to try and sell at the track. Late in the morning I get out for a quick and cranking ride on the mountain bicycle for 70 minutes - it will have to do. When I get home and get cleaned up I trim the roses and take care of the carnations and then start brainstorming for the 6th district city councilperson that I agreed to help on her campaign. I have some ideas and start working on a white paper that she can choose from.
I'm a bit lazy again on Thursday and don't get out cycling first thing. After messing around for a bit and negotiating down my DirecTV price, I get out for a good mountain bicycle ride and fight agaisnt the wind for a great workout. I make a quick trip to the grocery store for supplies nad back the car into the garage for easier finishing of the waxing job. I cook vegetables for a few days and then finish waxing the World Rally Car - though the gold rims still need to be waxed. Today is opning day for the baseball season and I have a free preview of the MLB channel, so I watch a bit of some of the opening day games.
On Friday I get out for an almost hour long walk and then get cleaned up to go to CSULA. At first he motorcycle doesn't want to start again, but I force it. And then it runs well for the trip. As I'm riding up to CSULA, the first motorcycle ride since last Friday's trip to CSULA, I realize how much I enjoy and miss riding everyday. So hopefully with the rain gone I'll be riding more and enjoying myself more. The CSULA team has finally started to panic and we order parts and materials and we test a couple of pieces to see if they will work. When I get home I edge and mow the lawn and then relax. On a whim, I look for a free computer aided design (CAD) package and download one. There's a learning curve, but soon I've built a model of something that I want to build and I send it to one of he CSULA students to see if he is able to read the file and understand the pieces.
I sleep very late on Saturday but get out for a good strong road bicycle ride. Today everyone wants a tow off of me and so I just carry on at my pace and drag them along. After getting cleaned up i make a trip to the grocery store for supplies and watch qualifying for the F1 race in Bahrain and the MotoGP race in Argentina. I had considered going to the MotoGP race but the circuit seems like a pain to get to. I take care of a few small things so that my schedule is clear for later today and all day tomorrow. Near 5 pm I get on the motorcycle and ride it to San Pedro for the 1st "See It, End It" film festival to stop human trafficking. After meeting and "schmoozing" with people we all get into the theatre for the Saturday night feature presentation Of "Love Sonia". It is powerfull and moving. And when it is finished I leave as soon as possible to get home for sleep.
I'm lazy on Sunday morning since my legs are tired from Saturday's ride pulling people along. I go fo r a one hour walk as I drop two books off at the library and continue a circuitous route home. At home I get down on my heands and knees and wax the wheels of the World Rally Car and check the tire pressures. And then I trim the roses and take care of the carnations. After a shower I cook more vegetables for the week and watch the F1 race from Bahrain which is fun to watch but disappointing in the results. The afternoon passes and then I watch the MotoGP race from Argentina. The MotoGP is fun and exciting and my favorite rider makes a charge from 14th to 3rd but drops back off the podium to 4th in the last few laps. There is nothing like MotoGP and F1!
I start Monday with some programming tasks and then get out for a good road bicycle ride before 10 am. I push when needed and take my time when needed. After the ride I get a very short haricut for the upcoming warmer weather, but new printer ink for the nonprofit, and stop in for supplies at the grocery store. At home I watch the Moto3 race from Argentina and I cannot take my eyes off the race as there is a lot of strategy and super racing. It's a first time winner at the event and can't help but feel tears of joy welling up in my eyes as the race ends and the interviews occur. I go back to work on some minor tasks that I have as I continue to let the "BIG" ideas simmer as I expect a sudden breakthrough soon. There are certainly errands that I need to run but they can wait a few days or so.
I start Tuesday checking out the news and the markets and then have a great road bicycle ride. There's a nasty headwind all of the way down the San Gabriel river trail and each rider I pass I slow down and say, "Did you order up this nasty headwind?" They usually laugh and make some comment and then I continue onwards. At least I have a great tailwidn coming up the Los Angeles river and I must be going almost 30 mph on the way home. After a quick shower I get gasoline for the motorcycle, buy a new lawn edger blade at Home Deport, and stop off at the library for two new books. Today I pick up the Stormy Daniels book just for the heck of it. At home I watch an exciting Moto2 race from Argentina and then I catch up on more news and trim the roses and carnations.
I start Wednesday reading the news and the markets and and get in a workout for the abdominals and lower back. After a shower I ride the motorcycle up to CSULA for a build day. When I get there the team is in chaos. There are parts missing from our storage locker and nobody is able to access the CAD model. This is getting beyond ridiculous! After a couple hours of stumbling around we start building the storage bin for the debris that we will be collecting from the harbor or Port of Long Beach. The basic shape gets built and then I head for home - I'm realy frustrated with the lack of communication and "ownership" by this year's students. When I get home Karl's distributor wants another website, so I start working away on that.
I'm lazy on Thursday morning but only because I'm obsessive about this new website. (Which sometimes happens with me.) I make super progress and by late morning I send Karl and his distributor a link to a website which is 75% complete. I head for the Long Beach Human Trafficking Task Force meeting and talk with my friends and make a new friend who is a data science student but wants to work on social issues. So we have a good discussion and I give her a card so that we can communicate and maybe find common ground to work together. At home I edge and mow the lawn and work up a good sweat making the lawn look nice. And then after a quick shower I return to work on Karl's new website more. Today a package from Amazon arrives and I open it and it is a new Adidas backpack with no return address. It's only $18 but this is the second time that I've received an anonymous package who I don't know sent it (the other being a Renault cycling jersey).
I start Friday slowly with a few changes to Karl's new website and I notice that my Python 2.7 installation has had a critical mapping module deprecated that I rely on for demographic studies. I try to fix the problem but run out of time before I have to ride up to CSULA. At CSULA the team is again dis-joined and confused and I try to get everyone on track with my ctions and thoughts. Eventually I leave CSULA and try to run Python on my laptop and see that it has failed also - I'm glad it was not something that I did. So uninstall Python 2,7 on the desktop and finally reinstall Python 3.7 on Fridaynight and Saturday morning and everything that I need works again.
I start Saturday morning with an early morning road bicycle ride - before many other cyclists are out. But I do get a chance to pull along two cyclists the entire way up the San Gabriel river trail until I get off at Del Amo to go home. I finish the Python 3.7 install and everything works fine for my needs. I run off to a Fair Trade event and talk with people - I'm really just making an appearance. And then I return two books to the library and get one more new one and do some grocery shopping. At home I mix up digging up a sprinkler which has failed with trimming the roses with installing Python 3.7 and required mapping modules on the laptop. The rest of the day is slow as I update my to-do list and relax.
I start Sunday very lazy as I upate my Python and geocode some addresses and then get out for a very strong mountain bicycle ride. When I get home there is a phone call from a David, a friend of my brother's in Providence, Rhode Island, and I avoid returning the call until I trim some trees and take a shower. The phone call cannot be good. I call David and he tells me that my brother was riding his bicycle and probably collapsed and died (or less probably was struck and died). David and I have a nice conversation, considering the circumstances, and he gives me some phone numbers to call. I call the phone numbers and leave messages since it is a Sunday and then I notify people that I will be away for a while and then I go look through my archives to find older pictures of my brother that his Providence friends will not have seen. I've opened up a bottle of wine to deal with this but I'm productive at gathering things that I need to travel to Providence to deal with a funeral, a wake, a burial, an emptying of his apartment, the care of his cat, and dealing with his will. It's funny that it was just last week that he asked me for my address because he was writing a last will and trust. Did he know something? Had God given him a message? In the middle of the afternoon I watch the Indy car race because I'm helpless on a Sunday afternoon.
On Monday morning I continue preparing for my trip. At mid morning I start on a short "Memorial Ride" for my brother. I try to just enjoy the sites and their are tears at times during the ride. But it's good to get in some stress relief. After the ride I run some errands and fianlly arrange for a hotel and a car. Late in the afternoon I fix a sprinkler line that has broken because I'll be away and I better do it now. And finally at night I start packing for the trip to deal with burial, his life, and his estate.