I start Tuesday with a bicycle ride. Again it takes me a few miles to get going and from there I have a great ride. But I call it quits at 60 kilometers again. After a cooling shower I grab brunch and work on the crime statistics. Today is a weird day in that it is cooler than the recent days have been but the sky is very gray from both clouds and the fires. And there's light specks of white and gray ash floating around in the air. At 1:30 I start in on painting the living room. I move enough furniture around and paint in the corners of two walls and around the door frames, window frames, and fireplace. Another cooling shower gets me to dinner time and relaxation.
I get out for a Wednesday morning bicycle ride to a bright orange sun and gray/brown sky. The color of both driven by ash and smoke in the air from all of the wild fires burning in California. When I get home I trim the roses and fix cracks in the living room walls and then cool down with a shower. I sit back and watch a documenary "The Social Dilemma" about the bad things that social media and social networks are bringing into people's lives. I don't particularly care for the people telling the story, but I agree with the messages.
I wake up on Thursday morning well before 6 am and everything is still dark. So I turn over and sleep for another 30 minutes. When I get out of bed I see that the day is very foggy but I get on the mountain bicycle and have a good ride to the end of the ocean trail and back home. I note that the brakes are starting to grind and when I get home I check and see that this mountain bicycle was purchased in 2003. Can I still get replacement brake pads? After relaxing and doing some small things around the house, I get out and edge, mow, and trim the lawn. As I'm finishing I am tired and so I cool down with a shower and then lay on the ouch and watch television. Just before sleep I move the rest of the unmoved living room furniture to the center of the room so that I can paint the living room over the next few days.
On a planned day off from cycling, I'm painting the living by 7 am. I'm still drawing edges around the ceiling and baseboard, but by the time that I finsish at 10am, all of the walls are ready to be rolled. I take a cooling shower and start working on flight scenarios for the CSULA UAV project. Starting a 11:30 I have more than four hours of Zoom meetings with the students and fellow advisors. At the conclusion I change clothes and get in a good session with the weights - not any indication of shoulder or joint pain. I get another cooling shower, watch an exciting mountain stage of the Tour du France, and go back to work on the flight scenario maps and writeups to help the students get going. I promise the students that I'll re-read the writeup on Saturday and send it to them.
I sleep horribly into Saturday morning. Why? I was doing a lot of moving around painting on Friday and lifted weights, but maybe I did too much sitting while working and meeting with CSULA students. I skip the Saturday bicycle ride and gather things together to run errands. I get to the ATM, Trader Joes, the library for three new books, and the elecrical/chemical recycling place. And other than fun qualifying sessions for F1 and MotoGP, the day is a blah.
I get out for a decent mountain bicycle ride to the end of the ocean trail and back home on Sunday morning. But except for a few small things, I'm a vegetable for the rest of the day with F1 from Italy, a mid-Ohio IndyCar race, and a decisive mountain stage in the Tour du France.
I should go ride on Monday morning but I don't. Another blah day. I'm ready to paint the living room, but I don't. I'm ready to lift weights, but I don't. I watch an exciting MotoGP race from Italy with another new winner - MotoGP is so unpredictable this year. On Monday night I'm talking with Ralph, a former competitive swimmer. And I ask him about blocked ears and ear infections. He mentions the use of sudafed for blocked eustachian tubes so I vow to get some sudafed and give it a try - what do I have to lose?
I start Tuesday with a good mountain bicycle ride to the end of the ocean trail and back home. During the ride I run into my fourth cousin Kyle and we ride for a bit and catch up on recent happenings. Back at home I put together the painting supplies and equipment for the final living room push. And I also swap out all of the old mountain bicycle brake pads for the new ones that arrived yesterday. I take the bike out for a trial run or two down the street and get the brakes adjusted so that they are not dragging yet they are "instantaneous on" as I like them. I cool down with a shower and relax and then run some errands - the CVS for sudafed and other supplies and Togos for lunch/dinner. Back at home I read the news and check the markets and then watch a fun Moto3 race from Italy as well as a Tour du France stage in advance of tomorrow's wildly difficult mountain stage. Nonetheless I do not get to work on painting the living room and the so the living room furniture remains piled up in the middle of the room (so that I have access to roll the paint on the walls when the weather cools a bit and when I do get the motivation).
On Wednesday morning I get out for a 75 minute walk. Back at home I trim the roses and take a paint inventory to see what paint I have left. I'm a bit puzzled because I don't seem to have an interior semi-gloss white paint. Did I use an exterior semi-gloss white paint on all of the interior window and door frames? That would be okay, but I'm puzzled (as I get ready to paint internal doors). I spend some time updating and improving the Python web scraper that I worked on a few weeks ago but I'm still not happy with the results yet. I watch the most exciting mountain stage of the Tour du France and though the results aren't what I hoped for, it was exciting nonetheless. At times I'm standing up and yelling and cheering the riders up the monstrously difficult final climb (after an earlier climb up the Col du Madeleine). I also watch the Moto2 race from this past weekend where my favorite rider has worked his way to eighth place and then crashes on the last lap. Later in the heat of the day I get in a session with the weights which is a bit of a struggle. Same weights and reps as last Friday, but today's effort is a struggle. And then I cool down with another shower and relax with television and Netflix.
I sleep a bit late on Thursday and finally jump on the mountain bicycle (with new brake pads) and ride to the end of the ocean trail and back home. Under certain circumstances the front brakes drag a bit, so I'll have to re-adjust them. During the ride there's a couple who are pointing and waving at me as I ride by. I figure they are pointing at my Czech Republic jersey so I yell out "dobry den" - the standard Czech "good day" greeting - and they yell back "dobry den". As I continue riding I realize that the lady may have been the one that I spoke with a while back when I had the flat tire and she asked me about the jersey. Later in the ride I hear my name called out and it's my fourth cousin Kyle who is on the phone and cannot ride or even talk with me. After a cooling shower I run some errands and then get ready for the final mountain stage, if not a severe mountain stage, in this year's Tour du France.
I start Friday with a pre-planned day off from cycling to paint the living room. I go ahead and make good progress and finish well in time for my CSULA Zoom meetings. I move some furniture back into place and sort/dispose of painting equipment and get a shower to cool down. The CSULA Zoom meeting takes place and I contribute where I can. After the meeting I lift weights and have approximately the same workout was Wednesday - same weights and reps and same struggles on certain lifts. But I feel energized after the workout. I get in another shower to cool down as today is probably our last hot day for a while. Throughout the afternoon I watch the US Open in golf and put the living room back together and move furniture around.
At 11:30 pm on Friday night there's a strong earthquakethat wakes me up. THe whole house is shaking for a while, but I don't hear anything falling or any obvious damage. So I turn over and go back to sleep - finding out later that it was a 4.6 earthquake about 20 miles from Long Beach. I get out the door near 6:30 am on Saturday for a road bicycle ride. Today I'm feeling good so I extend out to 65 kilometers. After getting cleaned up I watch MotoGP and Moto2 qualifying from Italy and then trade off between golf and the individual time trial stage of the Tour du France. The second place rider, who I'm cheering for, starts the ride off 57 seconds behind and does a monster time trial ride while the first place rider just doesn't have it. The second place rider takes over the yellow jersey on the next to last stage before tomorrow's finish. Later in the day I work on scraping non-profit names and addresses for a project we're starting.
I get out 60 kilometers on the road bicycle even though my legs are a bit tired. After a cooling shower I start cutting vegetables for a curry later this week, bake potatoes, and settle in for a fun MotoGP race. This season is so unpredictable! And I don't quite understand how a rider can be fairly dominant and win with ease one week and come back to the same track and struggle with grip (even with similar temperattures). I spend the day relaxing and watching golf and a bit of football and watching some "dirty money" documentaries. It gets to 8 pm and I haven't worked on reformating the scraped data from yesterday, but I'll get to it on Monday and Tuesday.
On Monday I get out the door early for a recovery ride down to the end of the ocean trail and back. It takes a couple of miles to get the legs going and then they fall off at the end (from the two good rides over the last two days). Back at home I trim the roses and cool off with a shower. I work a bit on the web scraping in the morning but make great progress later in the evening. The Moto3 race from Misano, Italy is as fun as ever and then, after hlping the neighbor again with her laptop, I watch more documentaries and part of the ice hockey game.