I start Tuesday on the road bicycle expecting to get up near 80 kilometers. When I get down towards the aquarium I make a turn to catch up to a rider I've seen before just tosay Hello. We speak for a few minutes and then I turn back to go on my way. Except that my rear tire is flat. I find a convenient place and change out the rear inner tube and kinda mess up inflating the tube with the CO2 inflator. So I pull out a small, reserve hand pump and to get enough pressure to make it 10 kilometers home. Another rider stops and offers me the use of a better pump and I try it but it's not much better than mine. But I get to a pressure and say that I can make it home from here. I thank the rider, Alex from Colombia, and hope to see him out riding again under different circumstances. I ride slowly the last 10 kilometers home because I think the rear is going to go flat again at any minute, but it holds up well. At home, to work off some frustration, I clean up the bike and pump up the rear tire to the full 110 psi to see if my "on the road" repair is going to hold. After a shower I get to the library and pick up two books and do some reading and watch some US Open tennis.
I ride the motorcycle up to CSULA on Wednesday morning to meet with the students (and sponsor) of my team. We're working on a spacecraft separation system tool that will help analyze and optimize the separation of a satellite from the upper stage of a launch vehicle. Three of the students seem raring to go and two maybe will have to be encouraged and/or nurtured. THis is just a first impression. There's no traffic on the way home on a Wednesday near 11 am. I think I like this time slot for regular meetings! At home I grab lunch and clean all of the marble in the house and also repair the punctured inner tube from Tuesday's ride and shove it into an extra rim and tire out in the garage to see if my patch will hold. And the rest of the day is lost to US Open tennis and reading.
I start Tuesday with a mountain bicycle ride out Del AMo and up the San Gabriel river trail. When I hit my turn around point I start reversing my path. On my mountain bicycle I catch up to a road bike rider and I ride alongside hime and we chat. He's from Mexico but in here for almost 40 years and lives in Downey. He's riding an expensive bicycle with super expernsive wheels and not going faster than me (i.e., an old ox) on a mountain bicycle. Nonetheless, we're all out riding either faster or slower depending upon our capabilities and fatigue levels and ambitions for the day. Back at home I water the roses and carnations in advance of the next few hot days and Zoom in to a Long Beach Human Trafficking Task Force (LBHTTF) meeting. Today, the Long Beach city prosecutor Doug Haubert is speaking. I like Mr Haubert - he spoke once before for the LBHTTF and I've spoken to him personally about crime and trafficking at other events. The rest of the day is spent working on some Python code and with the US Open tennis and some football.
I get out for a walk/run on Friday morning. I can tell that the running portion of these workouts is slowly increasing because the time it takes to run the same distance is going down. Just slow and steady to avoid injuries or falls. Back at home I trim the roses and mow the backyard, grab a shower, and pick up some supplies at the grocery store. There's a very long phone all with Person HA_KY and then I get to the Formula One qualifying from Monza, Italy and the FP2 sessions for MotoGP and Moto2 from Aragon.
I get in a good road bicycle ride on Saturday and there's a stretch where I've caught another rider and go past and he jumps on my wheel. So I increase the pace by one gear and he sticks with me but its a good 5 mile stretch before the last 5 miles home. After a shower I go get a flu shot (the quadrivalent m-RNA shot this year), get to Home Depot, get to CVS and practice my Thai with the Thai cashier, and get t the library to p[iock up two more books. Both F1 qualifying from Monza, Italy and MotoGP qualifying from Aragon are fun to watch but not the results that I wanted. As is the US Open tennis women's final not the results that I wanted.
I start Sunday with a recovery mountain bicycle ride to the old yacht club and back to home. After trimming I roses I grab a shower, do some grocery shopping, and watch a processional Italian F1 race from Monza where the results do not go the way that I wanted. I record and fast-forward through the Detroit Lions horrible loss and I watch the IndyCar race from Portland. At least the US Open tennis men's final goes the way that I want it to go. Late at night Person C_Ch comes to visit and we have good talk and cover a wide range of topics.
Monday starts slowly since Person C_Ch kept me awake so late last night. I work on the Python simulation and think of a user-friendly way to get data into the simulation and have that working by 2pm. I go lift weights, do some maintenance on the garage door, grab a shower, and watch a very close MotoGP race where the results are acceptable. And later in the day I watch the football game because I'm bored. And get more reading in.
On Tuesday and THursday I get out for good bicycle rides - 80 kilometers on Tuesday and 30 kilometers on Thursday. Sandwiched between is a slow Wednesday up at CSULA and then a lot of lawn care. I keep poking around for new ideas to work on as well as reading and watching Netflix and the Moto3 and Moto2 races from Aragon.
I start Friday with a good 80 minute run/walk where the running is becoming a sizable part of the effort. I get out and trim the roses, grab a shower, read the markets and news, and babysit the Internet guy when he comes over. My Internet provider has called me and said they are seeing an imminent failur on my line and want to fix it. I tell them that I still have good speed, but they are seeing problems. So the guy comes over and fixes it at the pole. (Atter hanging up the phone I started to question if this was going to be a scam and somebody would try to rob me. And I make sure the service van has the appropriate markings on it before I open the door to the service technician.) I go see the dentist for a quick follow-up checkup and things look good and, besides the ongoing white spots on the gum that the maxillofacial guy will work on next week, I'm good to go for six months. Early in the evening as I'm watching television there's a decent sized earthquake - it feels sharp so it must be nearby. Maginute 4.7 earthquake 5.9 miles away is the final score.
I start Saturday with a decent 65 kilometer ride - it wasn't my best effort and it wasn't my worst. After a shower I start in watching Moto3, MotoGP, and Moto2 qualifying sessions from Misano, Italy. My neck has been hurting lately, so I ice the nexk and spend a fair amount of time on the couch watching Netflix and college football.
I get in a good recovery mountain bicycle ride on Sunday out to the old yacht club and back to home. I clean up the roses and that the rear tire on the motorcycle is losing air pressure a lot quicker than a few weeks ago. I know it has a slow leak and I have to keep pumping it up before I ride it, but now it loses all of its pressure in 24 hours. I've vowed not to put anymore money into this motorcycle, but since I keep the battery topped up now on a battery tender, its running well. So maybe I'll go but two new tires. After a shower I watch a good MotoGP race with same close battles throughout the field - though my favorites do not do well. I watch a bit of football and then watch the processional Laguna Seca IndyCar race. Why do they ever go back to this track?
I'm out running on Monday morning at 6:25 am. I keep increasing the proportion of run to walk during these runs. But today I stop short at 65 minutes. After a shower I check the news and markets and then turn most of the electrical stuff off because the electric company will shutdown the power to the neighborhood to do some maintenance. I get on the motorcycle and ride to CSULA since they have electricity and WiFi to use. In today's email I receive an email from a guy for the first time in three years saying, "Can you put that medical website back up because there might be some interest from people with funding." I had just taken down a few experimental websites last week to clean up the servers. I look through my older files and find most of what we need to I put it back up and then spend most of my time at CSULA getting it to a demonstratable functionality. Really? After three years somebody wants to fund this? This is ancient history. Nonetheless its functional. I stop at Subway on the way home to pick up lunch - my first time in a restaurant for take-out in many months. Maybe since the Super Bowl. And I spend time reading while the electricity is out. For once, the electric company completes their effort ahead of schedule and I can watch my Detroit Lions get slaughtered on Monday Night Football.