On Monday night into Tuesday morning have trouble sleeping and turn on the light and read for an hour. And I still have trouble getting back to sleep. I wake up a little late and check the news and the markets and then get down on my hands and knees in the cool morning to deep deweed and deep clean the roses. By the time that I have finished about half the roses I'm really sweating, so I go in a take a shower. Throughout the day I just relax and tidy up things in the house. Near noon I want to go for a motorcycle ride to keep the battery charged and to get some gasoline. I have trouble pushing the motorcycle out of the garage and I wonder what the heck is going on. Though it doesn't look it, the rear tire has no significant air in it. I get out the hand pump and pump it up to 32 psi and let it set a bit and watch as the pressure slowly drops. I'm sure I could ride a bit, but I don't. The last time I rode was a week or so ago and I had no problem and I cannot find anything in the rear tire causing the flat. Back inside I watch some television and then near 3 pm I get back down on my hands and knees to finish deweeding and deep cleaning of the roses. Except for a little tidying up, they look good ad ready for summer growth. And then I get another quick shower and fritter away the rest of the day.
Wenesday is a weird day. I start by doing the grocery shopping early in the morning to avoid crowds of people. Back at home I relax for a bit and get out the door for about a two hour road bicycle ride. When I get home the power to the house is out. This was expected as SCE gave notification of a power outage from 9 am until 2 pm. I work on cleaning up the roses, watering them, and installing new parts into the weed wacker. I take a quicksponge bath since I only have cold water but this serves the purpose. And I relax and start reading. After 2pm I keep checking the power but see the SCE trucks at the end of the block so I know that they are still working on the upgrade. They finally finish the upgrade at 7 pm - 5 hours after scheduled finish time. This is consistent with an SCE emergency repair of a blown transformer from 10 years ago when they said it would finish at 7 pm and it finished near midnight. So I'll baseline a 5 hour pad the next time they have scheduled (or unscheduled) power outage.
I have a horrible Thursday. I'm lazy and do not ride or walk. At mid morning I spend time finishing the deweeding of the roses and some other trimming along the backyard. Afterwards I use the weedwacker battery to run the new big electric motor that just arrived for the Cat Blaster. It runs well, so now I have to get back to work on it. I tidy up the painting supplies in the garage and toss out extraneous stuff. And I take measurements of the free baby stroller in advance of the Cat Blaster build. After a shower I watch a movie from Brasil (with English subtitles) which kind of just ends with no real or extrapolated conclusion. Maybe they ran out of budget or film.
I wanted to go cycling on Friday morning, but I turn over and go back to sleep. At mid morning I mow the front and back yards and do some cleaning up
and trimming of the roses. Throughout the day I just ponder a few thoughts:
1) Seven of the eight older books, that I've kept on my bookshelves for 15 to 25 years, are now duds in my mind. I fully understood why I kept them from the old days, but now I find them
too typical. So they will be donated somewhere soon. Good. But what does that mean about me that I don't want to keep them anymore - have I changed that much?
2) I feel that I am sinking into a bit of depression now since I find myself skipping cycling which I was always enthusiastic about. And I'm anxious as to when Formula One
and MotoGP/2/3 will return. (As everyone who is missing out on their favorite activities or spectator sports.) What should I do about it?
3) Besides the Cat Blaster build, I'm a bit lost in terms of software or hardware projects to work on now. These are certainly driven by the lack of interaction with other
people as a result of Covid-19 restrictions. But I should be able to self-start and figure out some fun things to work on.
Late in the afternoon I get out for a good walk. Unfortunately I see a group of 15-20 men and boys in the park doing football drills and not wearing masks or practicing social
distancing.
Saturday is a good day that starts with a decent 60 kilometer road bicycle ride. Since Long Beach has re-opened the bicycle trails, there are a ton of people out riding even early in the morning. SO it's a bit dicey getting around people who aren't paying attention, but its a good ride. After getting cleaned up I run errands inclduing gasoline for the car, a stop at Home Depot for rose food and plastic storage bins, and picking up lunch for later/ At Home Depot there is a long line waiting to get in, but it moves quickly and was probably only a 15 minute wait. Back at home I sort and separate all of my electronics components, wires, and things and get them organized into the new plastic storage bins. Most of the Cat Blaster components have their own bin. And then I relax with another Brasilian film with English subtitles. And it also seems to end with no real conclusion. What is it about these Brasilian films? Late in the afternoon I feed and water the roses and carnations and expect to see many healthy blooms in the next few weeks.
My legs are tired on Sunday morning when I wake up - more tired than they should be after yesterday's 60 kilometer ride. So I read the news for a while and lossen up and then get on the mountain bicycle for a recovery ride. Just past the quarium another cyclists asks me how to get to Pacific Coas Highway because he used to make this ride all of the time but it has been a long time and he has forgotten. So I tell him to follow me and we make conversation at a "social distancing" distance. And when I get to my turn around point I tell him to make right at the next traffic light for Second Street and go about 2 kilometers and he can make a right turn onto Pacific Coast Highway. Hopefully he found his way to his turn around point and back home. I get cleaned up and other than trimming the roses and watching mvoies on telelvision, it's a slow day. No emails or Zoom meetings or any other requests of my time.
On Monday morning there is rain. A drizzle at times and fairly hard at other times. I work on things inside the house and lift weights with lowered weights since I had not lifted for about two and a half weeks. After a shower I drive the World Rally Car to the dealer for an additional airbag recall, to change the oil, and rotate the tires. And, as usual, I get many looks and offers to buy the car. But I just tell people that the line to buy my car stretches all of the way to the freeway (2 miles away). Since the rain has let up I walk back home (for which I brought an umbrella along just in case it decides to rain). Today's movie, taking place in Europe with English subtitles for Spanish, Arabic, and Serbian, is somewhat interesting and does have an ending. I keep having good ideas for the next build of the Cat Blaster and I work to make some small pieces that I'll need. But I need to put the thing together soon and test it - rather than continuing to think about it and incrementally improve it.
I stay in bed for a bit on Tuesday and then jump out of bed and get on to the road bicycle. I feel strong today and complete 60 kilometers with no problem and wishing that I had brought a second water bottle to farther. Back at home I protein load and then set up to do some minor trimming. I trim the neighbors' bushes on one side of the house to get it away from my Internet cable line, trim the neighbors' violet bush on the other side since it is getting close to my garage roof, and then trim my juniper trees at the back of the property since I want to continuously trim them so that I can do it and not rely on calling expensive professionals. All three operations involve getting up on the ladder and I take great care to be safe at mounting the ladder and climbing on the ladder. I put everything away and look around and see that tree and bush trimming is finished for a few months. After a shower I'm happy that I've ridden and done the yardwork and I contine to make progress on my stock fund sector analysis that I've been working on for a while. (What fund sectors should I be in now? How cyclical or contra-cyclical are some sectors? When should I expect to make trades amongst sectors?) Later in the afternoon I watch another couple of recorded or Netflix or Kanopy films.
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday pass quickly with very similar events. Cycling or walking or lifting weights, working in the yard, making progress on the Cat Blaster, and catching up on films and Netflix shows. Most of the films and Netflix shows are non-standard or non-mainstream, so some of them are winners and some of them are losers. It's okay. And now I'm re-reading a book from 1996 called "Virus Hunters of the CDC". It's very appropriate in today's Covid-19 environment as it talks about on-sight testing, diagnostics, and prevention of Lassa fever, Ebola, and HIV/AIDS (mainly in Africa).
I start Saturday's road bicycle ride near 6:30 am. Though it is early, it is still windy as the last of the onshore breeze comes in before a Memorial Day high pressure system. So I'm tossed around on the bicycle a bit but get in a decent 60 kilometer ride. After a shower I grab some food and then get notified near 10 am of two Zoom teleconferences today at 12pm and 2pm. I ask for the agenda for both meetings are this none. So at noon I sit through three hours of babbling with nothing concrete at the end. I keep trying to cut the last meeting off and I finally succeed and go work on the Cat Blaster for about an hour. And then I grab dinner and watch the last half of El Camino", the follow-up movie to the Breaking Bad series.
I start Sunday lazy and trim the roses and bring new roses into the house and water the vegetables. I take some time to work on the Cat Blaster before doing some coding. After doing some coding I get on the mountain bicycle and get out for a good recovery ride to the end of the beach trail. I push on the way home since there's a tailwind and I can crank along nicely. After a shower I watch The Laundromat again about offshore shell companies and watch a few other television programs.
My legs are tired on Memorial day Monday so I deposit a check and do some grocery shopping. Then I work on the Cat Blaster and some coding. Near mid mornong I get in a good workout with the weights and spend time dweeding the vegetable gardening. Throughout the day I watch a movie about fashion trends, Trend Beacons, which is just horrible and completely redundant (if you heard one designer interview, then you;ve heard them all) and a movie about hacktivism, We Are Legion, which I can idenify with and is interesting. Here the different interviews sound individualistic except the mantra that "the Internet should not be censored". I don't know where the rest of the day goes.