I skip the bicycle ride on Tuesday and get out walking for more than an hour. After a shower I mask up and go to Home Depot to buy enough paint to paint the ceilings in the house. I'll take my time doing this and probably be done by the end of April. Throughout the day I just keep jumping around between little maintenance things around the house, the market sector strategy algorithm, and some television.
I start Wednesday with a shorter but good mountain bicycle ride. I go down to where the beach trail is closed (due to Covid-19 restrictions) and turn around and go north past my turn-off for home. And then I turn around and come home. I do some small trimming around the backyard and realize the trimmer needs some replacement parts. (This cordless trimmer was bought in 2011 and except for replacement batteries and now a couple of broken plastic parts, has done well.) After a shower I pay some bills and half-heartedly work on the market sector optimization problem.
I awake and start coding at the computer early on Thursday. This day reminds me of my working days when I would get into the office by 6 am, put my head down at the job, and be astounded when I look up at the clock and its noon. Since everything is closed and I haven't had a haircut since November, I pull out the trimmers and take a shot at cleaning up my hair. Today I sneak a few earlier looks at the clock and grab food, but by 3pm I've been at it all day and completed a lot of work. I take a break at 3pm to mask up and go for a 65 minute walk in the warm sunshine. I work up a decent sweat and stay at least twenty feet from anybody else. I do more trimming of the roses since they are growing wildly and then cool down with a shower. After a shower I look at my hair and, as expected, I'll have to clean it up more. But it's looking better. For the most part I'm off the power curve now and watch television and relax for the evening.
I start Saturday with a good solid mountain bicycle ride north on the Los Angeles river to a convenient turn around point. There is a headwind on the way home but I keep pushing. After a shower I check my FitBit app, whether I can believe it or not, and see that I was in the red zone of heart rate all of the way down the Los Angeles river for the last half of the ride. I was pushing and it felt great! I relax for a while and take care fo some small items and late in the afternoon I get out and mow the front and back yards. And then I don't know where the rest of the day goes.
I'm just plain lazy on Sunday and start with reading the news. Eventually I get restless and walk to the grocery store for some supplies and then open up one of the brand new cans of paint and paint the edges of ceiling in three rooms and around light fixtures and air conditioning/heating ducts. These three rooms, really two rooms plus a short hallway, are ready for the roller tomorrow or later. I take my time and trim roses, bring new blooms into the house, and bring new carnation blooms into the house. I love the smell of the carnations and still wish that I could get them to bloom year 'round. Later I hear that one of my friend's friend, Bobby, has passed away from Covid-19. He was Cambodian and probably near 50 years old and I'm shocked and surprised at this outcome. Throughout the day I keep stretching my legs and back for a Monday morning bicycle ride and for heavy weight lifting sessions and ceiling painting.
I skip the bicycle ride and walk for more than an hour in the morning. I'm not sure where the day goes - these days of Covid-19 self-quarantine and "stay at home" orders all start blending into each other. But I do work on the roses and carnations and do more work on the pumping mechanisms for the Cat Blaster Model 1. There's a 1:30 pm Zoom teleconference with a CSULA professor and a medical student who is trying to develop an app to detect if pneumonia is getting worse or subsiding in a Covid-19 patient. We have a good discussion and I offer my opinion as to what could be done algorithmically with various pneumonia indicators that could be measured with a smart phone. WHo knows what will come of this?
I start Tuesday with a good mountain bicycle ride north on the Los Angeles river to the convenient turn-around point. I realize this should be the last day of cycling with a shell and long finger gloves since the mornings are finally warming up (after the last few weeks of colder weather and rain). I spend another day on the roses and carnations, the Cat Blaster Model 1, reading, and television. Late in the day I get a voice mail from Bob James from Flint, Michigan. He was one of the people we would play sports with and do all sorts of things with. It's probably been more than 40 years since I last saw him. I'll call him on Wednesday. Later in the evening I just seem both bored and tired, so I'm in bed by 8:30 pm and eading until 9:30 before sleep.
On Wednesday I get up and get to the grocery store just as they open to try and avoid people. When I return home I paint the ceiling edges of the hallway and my bedroom in preparation for rolling on the rest of the paint soon. Maybe I'll just keep edging around the whole house before I roll the paint on various rooms. I take a quick break and then I have a good session with the weights. It might be time to increase the weights again. (Though I continue to lag way behind on biceps as I try to slowly increase the weights from a very low starting weight since the inner left tendon was hurting about two months ago.) I trim the sideyard and cool down with a shower and attend to app matters and relaxation.
I intended to go cycling on Thursday morning, but instead sleep late. I feel guilty, so I do "edge paint" two more rooms and trim the roses. I really just have one more room to "edge paint" before I can start rolling the ceiling in earnest. And I'm thnking I might possibly get all of the ceiling rolled on one day - if I'm energetic. But I do want to take my time and do it right. I update a couple of websites and then watch a documentary on Netflix called "Circus of Books" about a reasonably conservative couple who ran the Circus of Books book/video store in West Hollywood during the early HIV/AIDS years. As the sun is starting to set I gt out for a one hour walkand work up a decent sweat during our heatwave.
I'm on the road bicycle before 7 am and heading north on the Los Angeles river. I go past the first dam and turn around for home at a convenient point. I'm just cranking along nicely. Only when I get to Del Amo to go west towards home do I start to tire a bit. It's a great 80 kilometer ride. After a quick shower I go to the grocery store for supplies and the checkout lines are long. The lady ahead of me is getting disturbed and makes it a point to tell the checkout lady, who I've seen at this store for many years, that is slow: "You're the slowest cashier ever", and "You're the worst", and "I can't believe that you are allowed to work here". The cashier has heard enough from this lady BEFORE she even gets to the checkout stand, so the cashier asks for a one customer relief from another a cashier (most likely to avoid a confrontation and not have to put up with this lady's crap). The lady gets checked out and the previous cashier is back. And I tell her, "When you hear these idiot customers saying bad things, you just ignore it. You and I know that these are difficult times and we're all doing the best that we can. And it wasn't your fault that the previous customer (ahead of the mean lady) had an accident and spilled stuff that made a cleanup necessary. So when customers are idiots, you just let it go in one ear and out the other". The cashier knows me somewhat and she keeps thanking me for understanding and for making her feel better. At the end she says, "You made my day with your thoughts". These are tough times and we have to be patient - maybe that virtual Easter service that I attended is having an effect on me. It's been a very hot day so I put the fan in the window of my bedroom for sleep. This is earlier than I usually would need it.
I sleep past the alarm but get out for a good mountain bicycle ride. I just keep telling myself that this is a recovery ride and there's no need to push anything. After a shower I go and "edge paint" the living room. Now all of the rooms to be painted have been "edge painted" and I'll try and decide what day to start rolling based upon the temperature since we're expecting some unseasonably hot weather for the next few days. I guessed that I would be finished painting the ceilings by the end of April and I'll be close enough. After the painting I take a cool/cold shower and then start catching up on email and other web tasks that I should do.
Sunday and Monday are slow days though I go walking on Sunday morning and lift heavier weights on Monday. Otherwise I just stay safe from Covid-19 and keep plugging away on projects that I'm working on.