Tuesday morning is very cold and windy, so I do not go out cycling. I keep using the antiobiotic/anit-inflammatory ear drops, go for about an hour walk, and paint some interior door frames. I'm three quarters done with all of the door frames. I take the slow day opportunity to download updated crime levels for Long Beach and re-run the training/predicting methodology that I've developed. I'm tring to keep this up to date in case somebody wants to see it.
I start Wednesday slow because it is 39 degrees outside. I fill out two forms required by the state of California for a non-profit agency and the, near 10 am, I start out on a mountain bicycle ride. I make a quick stop at the post office to mail the non-profit forms - riding into the actual building, stopping at the internal delivery box, and then riding out. I feel good on today's ride but I hold a bit back in order to ride again tomorrow. After a shower I pick up some supplies at the grocery store and then continue painting door frames. I finish yesterday's half finished frame, do one more complete door frame, and then start in on another to get a jump on tomorrow's painting effort. It's approachinng late afternoon before it will get cold again, so I take the opportunity to deweed the carnations and deweed the roses. I see that the neighbor's gardeners have trimmed their violet bush with clippings coming over on my side, so I pull out my hedge trimmers and try to cut the violet bush away from the garage roof. Throughout the day I continue to pause and put the antibiotic/anti-inflammatory ear drops into my left ear and I'm not really getting any response from the BS treatment plan - as I expected.
Thursday is cold so I do some coding before getting out on the mountain bicycle near 9:30 am. It's a good ride just short of two hours. After a shower I paint two iterior door frames and can see the end of the "door frame tunnel". In the afternoon I watch "American Factory" about a CHinese company tat comes in and starts plate glass manufacturing in a former autombobile factory. Its an interesting movie and a serious version of "Gung Ho" from the 1980s.
I start Friday slow and ride the motorcycle up to CSULA. The team has started to make some good progress - maybe as a result of panic setting in. After the meeting I ride on home and continue to use the antbiotic/anti-inflammatory ear drops, walk to the store, and do some coding of an expermental idea that doesn't seem to be working out yet.
I start Saturday with a ver foggy 65 kilometer road bicycle ride. WIthin 8 miles or so of the shore it is very foggy but semi-clear farther inland. After a shower I ride the motorcycle to go for an urgent are checkup since my ear is not getting better and now I have pain the left jaw. The nurse takes my vitals and says that the 102 over 73 is too low for my blood pressure so she makes me stand up and takes it a few more times. Everytime she takes my blood pressure it gets lower. The nurse gives up and records a 90 over 60. I end up seeing the same doctor as I saw this past Monday. We agree that since the infection did not respond to ear drops, it is not an outer ear infection. And we need to resort to oral antibiotics to treat an inner ear infection. We disagree on the antibiotic to use, but I relent and let the doctor have her way. And she says, "You shouldn't be riding 65 kilometers on the bicycle if you are sick". And I certainly disagree with her on that one, but I just let it go. Back at home I start the oral antibiotics and prepare a doorway for painting. But I can't bring myself to open up the paint can and start painting. Instead I relax on the couch and wacth various television programs. I'm a bit physically tired from the bicycle ride and certainly mentally tired of being sick.
Sunday is a horrible day. I sleep very late - in fact, I only sleep this when I'm sick. Which I guess that I am. My left jaw hurts and even the left side of my throat and neck hurt. I eat breakfast and then paint a door frame. I have two large door frames and one smaller one left to do. After painting I lift weights, today increasing the weights a little bit. It feels good to struggle to make some of the lifts. After a show I'm pretty much a vegetable for the rest of the day. I stay away from coding since my last effort was probably a dead end and need to gather my thoughts for the next good idea. Near bedtime I dread going to sleep for fear that I will not be able to sleep since I haven't done much of anything all day.
I sleep well on Sunday night into Monday morning and get out of bed about 30 minutes after the alarm went off. I look out and see wet pavement and winds. There will be no morning bicycle ride. And this would be consistent with the doctor's orders. Instead I wake up and prepare a doorframe for painting. This door frame has had a door on it for 60 years and not had a door on it for 10 years. I make the decision that it will not have a door on it again and I remove the very old door hinges and strike plate. And start filling them in with scraps of wood glued in before later spackling and painting. At mid morning, with no callback from the health provider for another appointment, I go out walking in the sunshine for almost an hour and stop off at the grocery store for supplies. After a shower at home I paint the inside frame of an external door because it is easy. I just have two large internal door/hall frames (and spackle/prep) to go.
Whether it is permitted by the doctors or not, I get out on Tuesday morning for about a two hour mountain bicycle ride. I keep reminding myself to take it easy. After a shower I run errands for more vitamins, more painting supplies at Home Depot, and more books from the library. I relax in the afternoon and then ride the motorycycle to see the doctor. There is one accident and one broken down car on the way that slow things down. Why don't the two large people in the broken down car push the car down the slight grade and around the corner - off the main road? The ear specialist looks at my ears and runs an informal hearing test and says, "Except for this blockage, you have very good hearing". Hmmm. But he tries to suction up some "goo" that is blocking my eardrum and he can't. So he sticks a "wick" in my ear with anti-inflammatory gel on it to let it work away on the ear canal for 24 hours. And I get a different set of anitbiotic/anti-inflammatory drops to use once I pull out the wick. The doctor isn't sure when my hearing will come back, but he says that evrything looks healthy except for the inflammation and I only need a small path through the goo to get the ear drops to destroy the bacteria AND to restore, for the most part, the hearing in my left ear. And now I'm optimistic that my hearing will be back in a few days and that all of the nasty diseases that were running through my head yesterday are just thoughts to be ignored. (Of course I'm now TOO overly optimistic about when my hearing will be restored, but who knows?)
I have a fairly lazy day on Wednesday - the ear infection getting me down. I start painting a door frame and finish it and it looks great. And then I continue working on the last door frame to be painted with its hinges replaced with wood. Afterwards I spend a fair amount of time in the sunshine cleaning up the roses and re-staking the carnations for good growth. AFter a shower and a trip tot he grocery store, I re-organize a lot of electronics and wires in the garage and find that I have more space now. And the rest of the day is spent reading and watching television - a day of disillusionment.
I start Thursday with a good two hour mountin bicycle ride. There's a headwind all of the way from the ocean to home and I pushagainst it and later see that my "gifted" fitbit says that I was in the redzone most of the way back home. After a shower I go to the bank and stop off at the CVS pharmacy for supplies. Back at home I paint half of the remaining door frame - the other half not sanded down and ready for painting yet. And I also paint the chair rail in the dining room. ANd I finally get down for some relaxation and lunch. Later in the day I try to find a website from 2011 that we worked on, but cannot find. But it was so simple it would be easy to reconstruct of that's what our friends want.
I want to go walking before going up to CSULA, but it's cold and I don't feel up to it. I ride the motorcycle up to CSULA with the new helmet and meet wth the team. The team made some progress but are spinning their wheels on other facets of the design. So I nudge them to possible solutions. After the ride home I edge and mow the lawn and it looks nice. I also work on smoothing out the areas of the last internal door frame that had hinges removed and needed some local reconstruction work. This smoothing activity is not one that I'm good at so I'll just take my time and slowly get to "the disappearnace" of where the hinges used to be. Later in the day I work on a sphere of influence Python script where ou determine the circle radius needed to engulf a desired population level. This little task has been on my list forever and I almost finish it on Friday night.
Saturday is a blah day. It's foggy in the morning so I go for a more than one hour walk. After a shower I do some painting and then go meet a Little League representative to sponsor a kid playing baseball (as I did last year). The Little League tells me how the season went and promises, this time as he did last year, to send me a schedule so that I can come and see the chaos of one of their games. Back at home I do a bit more painting and watch television ad just have a bad day. I can't wait for reading and sleep time to come because I'm just down and depressed.
I get up early and start out for a road bicycle ride. It's a bit foggy to start, but I don't care. And the fog goes away when I get away from the Los Angeles river. The farther I ride the better I feel. So I get in 70 kilometers. At home I deweed and trim the roses and carnations and get in a warm shower. Throughout the day I watch some television and do little cleaning, sorting, and organizing things as well as putting the small cabinet doors back on (after I painted them yesterday). It's been a good day though my ear still hurts and I cannot hear anything, but I have this feeling of optimism throughout the day. Late in the day I start itching and am curious as to what is going on, but it isn't severe.
I start Monday slowly to let the fog die down before a bicycle ride. Near 9:30 am I get out for a two hour ride on the mountain bicycle. The legs are not tired at all after yeaterday's ride. I have a nice warm shower and paint the last half door frame and a closet baseboard. If you know there was a door on this door frame, you can probably see where the hinges were. But you have to look closely. After painting I have lunch and then start in on the taxes for the non-profit. I make good progress using last year's return as a template and after a couple of hours I'm printing the returns off for a final check and signature. Later in the day I toss around some new ideas for code but don't start in on anything. The itching gets worse and when I look in the mirror I see a rash forming. This piece of crap antibitoic amoxicillin, which does nothing to help out my ear infection, is causing an allergic reaction. It's the 9th day out of 10 for taking the antibiotic and I read that the allergic reaction can even come on AFTER you've finished the medicine. I should have argued harder against this antibiotic.