I take Tuesday as a pre-planned day off from any leg work. Instead I get up and get coding on the scraping and follow-up analysis for this new project. Before I know it, I look at the clock and its 10:30 am - I've been at it for four hours. I take a break to lift weights and its a good session. I don't even ice the shoulders afterwards because they feel good. After a shower I take the motorcycle out for a ride to keep the battery charged up and to circulate the lubricants and to pick up lunch. At home I watch a fun Moto2 race but one of my favorites is out with Covid-19 and the other is in a slump after crashing out on the last lap during the previous race and today fading badly in the race after a nasty morning crash (that sees him walk to and from the motorcycle on crutches). I watch some documentaries, do some more coding, and touch up some grout work in one of the bathrooms. For the coding, I'm almost finished with the prototype but I've hit a limit on geocoding and have to wait until tomorrow to finish them off. I hope that I don't get another nasty letter from my ISP provider about my geodocing and web scraping volume.
Early on Wednesday morning I keep waking up and falling back asleep in 20 minute intervals. Finally I get out of bed at 5:35 am and go for a 70 minute walk. After a shower I do some grocery shopping, clean the bathrooms, finish the actual web scraping (with final processing and display to be done later today), and have a meeting with CSULA students. I put together the methodology that I usd for this latest website with scraping and search and it off to the requestor. And late at night I get a phone indicating that a company that I sit on the Board of Directors for was mentioned in Lady Gaga's book that just came out yesterday. Interesting.
When the alarm goes off I cannot quite answer the call and turn over and sleep for about another thirty minutes until 6:35 am. I get out of bed and get out for a mountain bicycle ride to the old yacht club and back home. On the way back home, near the pier, I see the pink-haired roller skater lady and so I slow down and start talking with her. We proceed slowly all of the way to Alamitos beach with a nice conversation. And when she has to turn and go to work I give her my number to socially-distanced hang out. I ride home quickly since there's a bit of a tailwind. At home I pull out the lawnmower and trimmer and take care of the lawn and rosebeds and sideyard. Finally I cool down with a shower and catch up on the news and markets. I don't have the motivation to code the last of the nonprofit effort so I grab lunch while watching Netflix.
Friday is a blah day. I go walking for short of an hour, cool down with a shower, check out the news and markets, and do some small grout touch-up in one of the bathrooms. At 11:30 I have the CSULA Zoom call and we try to gain speed on the project. I take the time afterwards to finish the latest website that involved the scraping and processing effort. This last fix is inelegant, to say the least, but it will do for now. Afterwards I watch FP2 for MotoGP from Barcelona, Spain and then watch a movie about bicycle racing and the way bicycles can transform the lives of women in Afghanistan. Late in the evening, as I'm doing some reading, I feel Covid-19 taking its toll on me mentally. I have to do something.
I start Saturday early with a road bicycle ride that starts in the dark. I do a good loop ride and continue up the San Gabriel river trail and finally turn back for home to complete 65 kilometers. It's a start to overcoming Covid-19 fatigue. I do some grocery shopping and watch the F1 qualifying session from Sochi, Russia where some red flags interrupt the normal proceedings and theaten to have a very distorted starting grid. Though typical order is restored but teammates will be on different tire strategies for Sunday's race. I go ahead and touch up some small "marks" or "missed places" from recent painting (that nobody else would notice but bugs me). And then I watch a wild qualifying for the MotoGP and Moto2 races from Barcelona, Spain.
I'm tired on Sunday morning and assume I'm going to skip cycling today. But after about fifteen minutes gathering my thoughts, I feel guilty and get out for a good mountain bicycle ride to the old yacht club and back home. After trimming the roses I grab a quick shower, cook spicy Thai curry, and watch the F1 race from Sochi, Russia. In the afternoon I watch another wild MotoGP race from Barcelona, Spain where my two favorite riders both get on the podium. Later I update a couple of websites and get ready for a monthly update of the finanical prediction software that I've been playing with for a few years now. Just before read/sleep time, I order some new running/walking shoes because I'm tired of pre-bandaging my feet where the current running shoes tend to give me blisters.
I start out the door at 6:05 am for a walk. I'm trying an older pair of running/walking shoes to see if they will cause blisters. The troublesome spots by the heels of my feet feel okay but it almost feels like the balls of my feet are becoming a hot spot. So I cut the walk short at 45 minutes or so and eliminate this pair of running/walking shoes from further consideration (except to lift weights in). After a shower I check the news and markets and then ride the motorcycle to my healthcare clinic for a flu shot and to refill a presription. I'm thinking it might be kinda busy at the clinic, but it isn't bad at all and each task only takes ten minutes or so. Back at home I continue working on a new voter demographic effort and watch the Moto3 race from Spain where my favorite riders do poorly.
Tuesday's bicycle ride starts a bit late on the mountain bicycle. As I approach the beach trail I see some cyclist up ahead so I push to catch up with them. As I'm pushing, I see the Czech guy waving at me again and so I turn and wave back and yell "dobry den". I do want to stop and talk with the couple, but not today. I catch up with the group ahead and it is a group of Phillippino riders - one who I've ridden with before. So I ride with them to the old yacht club where they stop to take a break and I continue back for gome. There are Santa Ana winds coming in to make the next few days very hot, so I face a strong headwind all of the way up the Los Angeles river trail. So I get a chance to push again. And along the way I see another cycling friend, Rudy, going the other way so we exchange greetings. I finish the ride and realize I rode with Phillippino riders, yelled at Czech people, and saw a Mexicano rider friend - I love this city! I take some time to water the roses and carnations since the next few days will be very hot and then cool down with a hower. I start in on pre-computing overlapping districts between Long Beach city council districts, zipcodes, census tracts, voting district, and police reporting districts. This will make future predictions run faster - why did I not do this two years ago? Later in the day I go back and check my records and realize that this was the best September of cycling with both more total rides and more total time cycling than the past. And there's still one more day to go in September though that is probably a pre-planned day off from cycling.
On Wednesday I sleep a bit late and then build somee Python tools to make easier breakdown of demographics and geographic areas easier. Near 9 am I get in a session with the weights where I struggle and then trim the roses - noting that the neighbor's violet bush is coming over the fence again and I'll have to trim it soon. After a cooling shower I run errands including getting three more books from the library. In the afternoon I just stay cool since today (and tomorrow) will be very hot. Except that I go on a bit of a spending spree for new running shoes and more protein powder as I vow to get healthier and try to lose some of my Covid-19 weight gain.
I sleep a bit late on Thursday and almost give up on cycling. But then I decide to take the mountain bicycle out and before I can do that, I change my mind and take the road bicycle out. It's not a great ride, but its still 60 kilometers. Is it the sudden heat that caused me to struggle with the weights yesterday and have a blah ride today? I check the news and markets and don't have information about an intended conference tonight at 7 pm yet. I just take the afternoon to stay cool and watch some the free Showtime channels that I have for the next few days.
I get out walking in a new pair of running shoes on Friday morning. Because they are new I develop some blisters on the back of my heels but the previous blister troublesome spots are okay. I trim the roses and grab a shower to cool down. Later this is a CSULA Zoom meeting and contribute where I can. Later in the afternoon I get out and lift weights in the heat. I'm sweating like crazy, but it feels good to lift, ice the shooulders, pull some weeds out of the carnation bed, and then cool down with a shower for the evening.
Saturday is very foggy but I get started on a road bicycle ride anyway. It's hard to see anything as I ride down the Los Angeles river, across the ocean trail, and start back up the San Gabriel river trail. Halfway up the anGabriel river trail the fog dissipates and you can tell it is going to be a hot day. Nonetheless I get in a good 65 kilometer ride. Back at home the road bicycle is very wet and sandy, so I wipe it down and take the time to clean up the gears and other mechanisms that should be cleaned occassionally. There's no racing of significant today so I spend a lot of time on the couch watching news, the free Showtime preview, and Netflix. And I lack motivation to work on the demographic/voting process today.
Sunday is foggier than Saturday! I just cleaned the road bicycle, so I take the mountain bicycle and get down to the old yacht club and back home for a good ride. And now I wipe down the mountain bicycle and clean all of its mechanisms before trimming the roses and cleaning up. Another day without racing so I flip between the news, football, and Netflix. Late in the afternoon I work on the demographic/voting process na dmake good progress. And get more good reading done on the four books that I have checked out from the library. Today is about as hot as yesterday and I use the air conditioning today though I didn't use it at all yesterday.
On Monday I get out for a walk/run in the morning, work on the voter demographic study, watch a good movie that takes place in Peru, and get in a decent session with the weights. I'm trying to get in two workouts on the days when I don't cycle.
I sleep very late on Tuesday. I sleep until 7:25 am. I don't know why I needed the extra sleep. I get on the mountain bicycle and ride down to the old yacht club and back home. Today I do no coding to give it a break - I'm really close to being finished I'm just missing one polygon intersection somehow (to map between census districts and voting precints). Early in the afternoon I take the motorcycle out for about a 25 mile ride to keep the battery charged and the lubricants moving around. Late in the afternoon I start in on Wednesday's tasks around the house to give me more time to trim bushes in the next couple of days. I get a text from Ashley asking if I know Python and I respond that I do depending upon what needs to get done. But I never hear back from her.
Wednesday is a pre-planned day off from cycling or walking/running. I get up a bit after 6am and start coding. I want to solve this problem that I've been struggling with for a while - missing census tracts. Today I discover within the first hour where the missing census tracts are (they were truncated from a Python DataFrame) and very quickly I have the program working. Throughout the morning I keep adding features such as correlations and color coding (minus a short trip to the grocery store for supplies). Near noon I get out and lift weights with slightly increased weights. I'm worried about the increased weights so I maintain as strict as form as possible for each lift and the session goes better than I expected. I pull out the hedge trimmers and ladder and trim the neighbor's violet bush overhanging my fence on one side of my yard and then move to the other side to trim a different type of bush of my other neighbor's that is getting sort of close to my Internet line. When I finish the trimming I don't want to go inside the house, so I find a few other little trivial things to do to stay outside. After a cooling shower I go back to coding for a while until I run out of steam and watch the Fox network show that premiered last night about artificial intelligence. And then I watch the vice presidential debate.
I have a horrible time sleeping on Wednesday night into THursday. At first I can't sleep, then I sleep for an hour or so, then get up and surf the Internet, then go back to bed to read, and finally sleep. I don't know how much sleep I had, but it wasn't much. I'm out the door at 6:50 am on Thursday morning on the mountain bicycle and I get in a good ride to the old yacht club and back home. I then mow the lawn and trim the bush in the front yard that always needs trimming. After a shower I cut up vegetables and bake potatoes so that I can make Thai curry later in the day. The rest of the day is slow since I had very little sleep.
Following Wednesday night's horrible sleep, I sleep well on Thursday night. Too well, in fact, because I don't "answer the bell" to get out walking/running on Friday morning. Instead I get up and add some crime statistics to the voting/demographics algorithms that I've been working on. Now that this tool is ready, it's time to figure out where to go next. At 11:30 am I have the CSULA Zoom call which goes okay and then I watch FP2 for the MotoGP weekend in LeMans, France. For Formula One, both FP1 and FP2 are rained out in Germany.
I get out for a good 65 kilometer road bicycle ride on Saturday morning. I'm done for the rest of the day. Today's ride took a lot out of me. I catch the F1 qualifying from Germany and wild MotoGP qualifying from France. And catch an interesting movie from Poland on Netflix later in the day.
On Sunday I wake up at 7 am and stay in bed until 8 am just thinking about things. Eventually I go trim the roses and then start in on the final painting task of painting internal doors. I get two doors painted and later when they have dried they look great. After a shower I watch a wild MotoGP race where it starts to rain with the bikes on the starting grid and they declare it a wet race so that the riders can change to wet tires. Unfortunately my two favorite riders do not do well, but its still a fun race. I feel guilty for not cycling today so I get out for a rare afternoon ride to the end of the ocean bicycle trail and back to home. There are many, many people out cycling, skating, running/walking, and recreating but not many people are wearing masks. Really? So I try to stay as distant as possible and then get a cooling shower in.
I start Monday, National Indigenous People's Day (formerly known as Christopher Columbus Day), with a good walk/run. I'm still running gingerly since the nasty fall back in March. Hopefully I will get back to free-spirited running as opposed to "don't fall" running. After a shower I drop my ballot in a ballot dropbox, return a book to the library, buy another gallon of paint (hopefully the last), and do some grocery shopping. Back at home I immediately start painting two more doors since this entire week is supposed to be hot and I don't want to paint in the heat of the day. After cleaning up I finally sit down and read the news and check out the markets. I settle in for a wild and fun Moto3 race (which finishes before the rain arrives as noted in yesterday's MotoGP viewing). I go check out the doors that I've painted and all four doors (two from yesterday, two from today) look beautiful! I can put the door hardware back on and get ready to paint a few more when the weather cools down. I finally watch Sunday's Formula One race and feel blah about it. And that sums up the rest of the day.