On Tuesday I'm a bit lazy to start the day but then get on the mountain bicycle for a shorter ride around the aquarium and back home. Today I continue to work on the roses and carnations. I also receive the two boxes of my brother's items that I wanted to keep so I unpack them and put them on the dining room table for now. I also receive forms to fill out for his life insurance policy. Just after noon I watch a fun and exciting Moto2 race and then bounce back and forth between phone calls, sorting through my own things and tossing out old, useless things, watching the ice hockey playoff games, and filling out the life insurance form.
I start Wednesday with a good road bicycle ride. Since I've returned home I've been having very deep sleep and waking up earlier than the alarm. I work on a mutual fund performance scraper and the next Python script to aggregate the results and plot them. I'm temporarily into portfolio management as I consider making some changes to my portfolio. Along these lines I meet with one (of my two) financial managers and tell him what's going on and what I'm thinking of doing soon with my portfolio. I owed this financial manager a bottle of champagne for his wedding (and later birth of his first son) and so he's surprised that I've remembered this and brought him a nice bottle of champagne below the ethical, legal cost limit. But I quiz him on the 256 bit AES encryption that his company uses and he almost passes the quiz - I help him remember the words so that he can feel confident if/when other customers ask him about this. We both have homework to do before I make some moves. On the way home I stop to pick up lunch and some grocery supplies and then continue pushing forward the mutual fund performance scraper. There are more than 25000 mutual funds n existence, so the scraping of their historical data certainly takes my computer some time to perform. Later in the day I trim roses and prop up some carnations an then have the ice hockey playoff game on the television as I work on other things.
I work on the mutual fund scraper first thing on Thursday morning. Near 8:30 am I start out on the mountain bicycle to meet up with my cycling friend Terry. As we ride I tell him about my brother and ask him to keep an eye on me for "abnormal behavior". DUring the ride we run into two of Terry's friends - one of whom is a MotoGP addict and the other knows a former officemate of mine from Hughes aircraft. So I give them my contact information and home to catch up with my officemate from 35 years ago. At home I've almost completed the mutual fund scraper and post-processor and I start displaying results. Person M_Fl comes to visit and I share with him the story of my brother's passing and I ask him to keep an eye on me for "abnormal behavior". Late in the afternoon I trim the roses and bring new ones into the house and then just relax.
I am lazy on Friday morning and do not get out cycling (which was pre-planned) or walking. Instead I keep pushing forward the mutual fund project and see a clear path to the end. It will take me a couple of days to finish up and another couple of days to wrtie up and publish. I ride the motorcycle to CSULA and meet with the team. They have generated some very good results and we just work on prioritization to the end of the semester and on their presentation charts for next Friday. I have a smooth ride home and immediately mow the lawn and trim a rosebush which is (technicall) on my neighbor's property but which I sometimes care for when it gets overgrown. And then I return to the finishing touches of generating the mutual fund data and cooking dinner.
I wake up on Saturday and I can barely move. I get up to go the bathroom and go back to lay in bed. Everything is sore now. These are not the symptoms of the measles which has seen an outbreak and quarantine on the CSULA campus. I jst think my body is about to get sick after the recent period of stress in which I was not allowed to get sick. I go for about an hour walk and get cleaned up. I stumble around the house for a while and watch part of the F1 qualifing, and then I go to meet my former co-workers Lori and Wes for Thai food. We have a two hour lunch and discussion and both Lori and Wes and I know that this is part of the grieving/recovery process. When I get home I climb up on steps of the ladder that I should not climb up on in order to trim a few trees. And then I trim from the ground and put the fallen limbs into the trash container. After a rinsing shower I answer the condolence cards and emails that I have received. I don't want these to be "cookie cutter', because my brother would have found it insincere, so each letter or email is written individually. And then I just relax as various bodyparts are still sore and I'm threatening to become sick (after the "not-allowed period").
I start Sunday with a good road bicycle ride. I run into another rider, Jan from the Netherlands, and we talk about his country since I'll be going there for the first time in June. After the ride I eat and watch the pre-race and start of the F1 race and then ride the motorcycle up to ThaiTown for the Songkran festival (i.e., Thai new year). I'm there early and before the big crowds, but I enjoy myself. I stop in at a haleth booth and the guy gives me some samples of CBD gel and CBD cream to try on my shoulders. I ride on home and then go to a Fair Trade Long beach meeting and then return home for the finish of the F1 race. And later I work on meeting minutes for the Fair Trade meeting.
I wake up early on Monday morning and hear some rain coming down. The pavement is wet. When I hear no more rain and get out and walk for about an hour. When I get home I trim the roses, though they are very wet, and then I shred a fair amount of older paperwork to put in today's recycling bin. I'm continuing the process of cleaning up old stuff and discarding properly. I get the laundry started and then work on Fair Trade meeting minutes and a poster to be displayed at an upcoming event in May. I continue on cleaning the bathrooms, cooking vegetables for the week, and writing up the mutual fund study to be published online.
I start Tuesday with a good mountain bicycle ride. Its a bit short of two hours, but a good ride nonetheless. After a shower I sit down and meditate to begin a stress reduction routine. I make a trip to the grocery store and run into the store manager (who knows me by face). I tell him that I love the cashiers and that Ricardo walked all of the way around the cashier stand and bagging attendant the other day to give me a hug when he heard that my brother had passed away. And I told the manager how much it means to me that his cashiers are so friendly to me and concerned with me that they give me hugs. He was happy to hear that and will go on to give words to Ricardo of his "special actions". I work on filling out paperwork for my brother's affairs so that when I go to a notary on Wednesday it is a one trip event with no returns.
I'm lazy on Wednesday and work on the demographic study for a potential Long Beach city council candidate. And then I get a second shingles vaccination, get signatures notarized, mail off the forms, stop in at a PC repair place to see if they can get around my brother's laptop password, and then return home. (I'm only trying to crack my brother's laptop because I see some retirement fund withdrawls and want to make sure that I've captured all of his assets. And its okay if he spent the money to enjoy himself, but I want to make sure.) AT home I trim the roses and go back to work on the demographic study. I'm within a few percent of "a parity check" on the data and I want to make sure that the few percent is a result of different timeframe datasets rather than an error that I'm making. I put ice on my shoulder from the shingles vaccine because this vaccine, unlike any other injections or vaccines, leaves my shoulder/upper arm sore for four days and I want to minimize that.
By Thursday morning my left upper arm is very sore from the shingles shot. Nonetheless I get out for a good road bicycle ride. After the ride I feel very cold, so I'm dressed in sweats and a hoodie as I eat some food and read the news. After 11 am I ride the motorcycle down to the monthly Long Beach Human Trafficking Task Force meeting. We have a good meeting and then I come home and mow the lawn. I'm feeling sore everywhere, so I lay down on the couch and read. I expected to get physically sick soon after all of the recent stress and activities, but I need to hang on for one more day for the CSULA Expo on Friday. Needless to say, I don't accomplish much on Thursday night except for updating some Long Beach crime websites based upon newer crime statistics.
I'm up early on Friday and riding the motorcycle to CSULA. Today I have an enfectious and positive attitude, and I pass this on to everyone that I come across - especially my senor design teams. My senior design teams do very well in their presentations and I certainly let them know afterwards! And then I sit back and enjoy presentations from other students or projects that I'm interested in. For the most part, the presentations are very good and professional (with only a few cases of nerves tossed around). I see CSULA faculty members who I am friends with and share good times with them but let them know that I may be missing for a year as I plan a "digital nomad" year. Finally near 2pm I am tired, hand in my scorecard for the presentations, say my goodbyes, and ride on home for the day. I have a long phone conversation with Ruby at home who is talking about a CSULA hackathon about child abuse and I get excited and already start to send out emails to my CSULA contacts to warn them of this upcoming event. And near 5 pm I crash and just become a vegetable with the ice hockey games on the television.
I start Saturday with a good road bicycle rid where I catch a cuple of riders going north on the San Gabriel river trail and pull them along at a good pace until I have to make my turn for home. I'ts good to push when dragging others along with you. After a shower, I stop at the ATM, stop at Staples, stop at Target, drop off a book at the library, and do some grocery shopping to complete my exterior errands for the day. At home I watch MotoGP Q1 and Q2 from Jerez, Spain with exciting sessions and a totally surprising pole rider and front row. Its now approaching noon and I haven't eaten anything yet today, so I sit back and watch some golf on television and replenish my energy supplies. In the afternoon I trim roses and carnations and bring some of each into the house. And then I work on the mass emailer and poster for Fair Trade Long Beach (as well as an introduction letter to potential retailers/organizations as we try to sign up busineses to carry Fair Trade products).
I'm lazy on Sunday morning and go for about an hour walk. Though it is early, I don't care. So I start trimming a Juniper tree and surrounding tree with a hedge trimmer. At times I'm stnading above the recommended step on the ladder, But I AM fairly carefull. And when I'm finished the Juniper tree and surrounding tree looks a lot nice though not perfect. I don't have anymore room on the trash bin for more triming. After a shower I watch a SUPEr MotoGP race from Jerez where there are many consecutive laps where the race lap record is broken (and not necessarily by the leader) as each rider finds his pace. In the end, my favorite rider gets second and I have tears coming down my cheecks and tingle up and down my spie at the excitement of MY sport. Its a slow and sunny afternoon, but I relax and write some Fair Trade copy as well as put together a Fair Trade poster for WOrld Fair Trade day on 11 May.
I start Monday just laying in bed for an extra 20 minutes and then I get on the mountain bicycle and ride for almost two hours. Its a good ride with the cycling trails fairly empty as is typical for a Monday morning. Before noon I drive to Cerritos to meet a former co-worker, Wen-Chi, for lunch. We have a very long lunch and leave an extra tip since we've occupied the table for so long. From there I drop off a poster to the brick and mortar store for the upcoming World Fair Trade Day and then I drive home. I straighten things around the house and make some more order of my disorder and get prepared to hit the ground running on Tuesday.