Content-type: text/html Ray Manning

Monday, November 1, 2021 8:02 PM

Start November


Tuesday starts with a good 65 kilometer road bicycle ride. It turns out the rear tire is not fully repatched and I'll have to go replace the patched inner tube with a new one. Back at home I work on the motorcycle and finish the second third of scraping the back of the house. I wirebursh it and rinse it down for painting on Wednesday. The very top of the house is out of reach with this ladder so I'll be stuck with peeling paint for a while until I find someone that I can borrow an extension ladder from. After a shower I catch up on the news and the markets and have a long phone call with a former co-worker about our retirements and Medicaire and IRA withdrawls and stuff. And then I just relax.

Wednesday and Thursday are slow days. I get out running on Wednesday morning and cycling on Thursday morning. And continue to paint the exterior of the house where it gets beaten up by the sun. By Thursday near noon I'm done scraping and painting because I don't have an extension ladder to reach the top of the house that needs painting. I also spend time helping the CSULA students out as they continue to come to grips with their senior design project. In the afternoon I note that the kitchen sink is draining fast again. For the past month or so it had been draining slowly and after plunging and chemically attacking it, I was resigned to calling a plumber to snake it clear. But now it is draining fast regardless of how long I run the water.

Friday is a slow day. I get out walking for more than hour - not feeling into running today. I trim the roses and grab a shower and later ride the motrocycle down to my health facility for a blod test (which requires eight vials of blood). The pharmacy has messed up and does not have the new prescription for a seventh anit-fungal. Later in the day I have a Zoom team meeting with the CSULA students.

I wake up a few times in the middle of Friday night into Saturday night because there is a light rain. It feels good to listen to the rain come down. But I'm saddened that I won't be cycling on Saturday morning. Eventually I'm out the door at 6:35am on Saturday morning to go run in the light rain. The rain comes and goes but is not heavy enough to prevent a decent seventy minute run. After a nice shower to warm up I run errands to the CVS pharmacy, Staples, Trader Joes, and the auto store. Since this is the first rain of the year, I've discovered that my windshield wiper blades are old and falling apart and I buy new ones. At the CVS pharmacy I run into my Thai cashier friend and we speak some Thai and I let her know about SCCA and Cal Club solo events since she's mentioned time trial events before. THe rest of the day is spent with MotoGP qualifying from Misano Italy and F1 qualifying from the circuit of the Americas.

I start Sunday with a mountain bicycle ride up towards the Whittoer Narrows dam. And turn back to finish. Before the expected Monday rain, I trim the roses and lay down some weed preventitive powder. I watch a good MotoGP race where another first time World Champion is crowned. There are all sorts of stories throughout this race where riders and teams can be exhuberant over the weekend results. Person Ch_C comes over and we have a nice visit. And later I work on updating Python scripts since my stupid web hosting company is "not playing nice" right now. And I watch a rain-soaked football game.

I have trouble sleeping Sunday night into Monday morning and keep wondering where the rain is. I eventually get up after turning off the alarm and sleeping for almost an extra hour. I start in on the Python problems adn my web hosting company is still not being helpfull. I also take the time to check out other web hosting companies though I've been with this company for twelve years. At mid morning I get in a workout with the weights and then do the laundry. In the afternoon I have a telephone call with one of my doctors over the eight vial blood test results. And still don't have the latest anti-fungal prescription filled. There are certainly roadblocks being put in front of me right now. And as I should have known, the 6am rain doesn't start until noon. And then is not as heavy as I wanted and we needed. I catch up with the Formula One race from the Circuit of the Americas (COTA). As is typical it is not the most exciting race from COTA, but it's an interesting race.

I start Tuesday on the bicycle at 6:35 am at 51F. I've put on my long fingered gloves and have a good mountain bicycle ride to the old yacht club and back to home. The nice warm shower afterwards feels good. I charge up the motorcycle and near 11am I ride to my pharmacy, the library, Subway (for later), and the liquor store. The pharmacy finally has my seventh anti-fungal. At the liquor store the lady ahead of me runs out of money, so when she goes back to her car I tell the cashier (who knows me) that I will pay her $9 since she isn't buying any alcohol (as I am). It's just the right thing to do. Back at home I watch a good Moto3 race and then the day is slow as I ponder, what I hope is my last anti-fungal treatment, the positive effects and the side effects of this fourteen day treatment.

I'm late getting started on Wednesday since I can't get out of bed. Was it the first dose of anti-fungal that made my sleep so deep? I get out for a seventy minute run, trim the roses, mow the lawn, and do some edging around the backyard. I finally get in a nice warm shower. The day is fairly slow with just a trip the grocery store and fixing flat bicycle tires and tubes and replacing tires.

I start Thursday on the road bicycle with an (accidental) old rear tire and new tube. As I ride I keep imagining that the rear tire is losing pressure and going flat. But I continue on and finish with 65 kilometers and a full pressure rear tire. But it's odd that in the last 10 kilometers of riding, starting near Rosecrans, I keep hitting little debris with either the front or rear tire and hear it squirt out to the side and hit something. Including a little rock that squirts out and hits a car that I'm riding alongside. Why did I start hitting all of the debris in the last 10 kilometers out of 65? But no harm, no foul. Back at home I get in a shower and continue my day. The day includes updating a website and just being a bit of a vegetable.

Friday starts slowly as I need an extra 40 minutes of sleep. I work on some algorithms and at mid morning I get in a good workout with the weights. After a shower and lunch, I eventually ride the Ymaha YZF-R1 up to CSULA. I arrive very early, as planned, and work on a few things before my students arrive. Two of my students had "emergencies" that they had to take care of, but I lecture and draw out the equations of motion that we need for the three in-attendance students. I see both undertanding and puzzled looks, so we talk about things and all agree to go away and think about the derivation. As I start to ride home I realize that I am still very good at standing in front of an audience and working problems "on the fly". So I'm glad that I have not lost this talent. The ride home has less traffic than expected and I cang et up to about 100 mph in various stretches to get home quickly.

On Saturday I'm not feeling a long bicycle ride. So I take the mountain bicycle north on the Los ANgeles river trail to avoid a planned "Wrigley District Fun Run" that always wrecks havoc with cyclists south of me. I get to my designated turn-around point just past the Burlington Northern Santa Fe traintracks, and turn around for home. It wasn't the long ride that I wanted, but a good ride nonetheless. After a shower I pick up supplies at the grocery store, start working on a Python matching algorithm, and clean the hardwood floors. It turns out that one of the supplies from the grocery store included a bottle of wine and once its opened I'm cleaning the hardwood and kitchen floors. This is still a genetic thing since my Aunt, on my Mom's side, would come home from work, pop open a beer, and start cleaning the whole house. I just cannot escape that genetic trait that I've inherited. After all of the floors are cleaned, I have a slow day as I'm not ready to concentrate and debug the Python matching algorithm.

I start Sunday in the dark on the mountain bicycle. I've put a bag of candy into my cycling jacket to pass out for Halloween in case I run into familiar cyclists or my third cousin. I get out to the old yacht club and turn back towards home. I'm not having much lucking seeing people that I know, so I end up carrying the candy all the way back home. I trim the roses and sweep the driveway and then grab a nice warming shower. I start the Python process with debugging prints and plots embedded, and let it run as I watch some football and prepare lunch. Later I hear trick or treaters in the neighborhood, but my porch light is off and I have no candy so none of the trick or treaters come to my house.

I start Monday a bit slow. I work on some CSULA stuff. Late in the morning I get down on my hands and knees and clean the rosebeds and carnations. It feels good to get down and play in the dirt. After a break I go lift weights with increased weights and have a good workout. A warming shower is welcome and the rest of the day is just caught up emailing people.