-type: text/html Ray Manning

Monday, April 4, 2022 8:02 PM

The Start of April


Tuesday starts at 6:28 am out the door for a road bicycle ride. Its a good ride of seventy kilometers or so and only in the last few kilometers do I want it to be finished. I think this "last few kilometers" needing the ride to be over is more of a psychological thing than physical. After a shower I run errands and watch a fun Moto3 race those, uncommonly, the winner gets away from the pack early and stays away for the win.

I start Wednesday out the door at 6:21 am for an eighty minute run/walk. Today nothing hurts or threatens to hurt, so I'm back to a better split of running rather than walking. At home I trim the roses and mow the front lawn, grab a shower, and start laundry as I read the news and the markets. In the afternoon I watch the Moto2 race from Indonesia in very hot conditions but rain coming in from the distance. It's an okay race but it marks the first win ever for a Thai rider on the worldwide GP scene.

Thursday starts with a mountain bicycle ride down to the old yacht club and back to home. It's a slow day for various other activities and finally I ride the motorcycle down to the acupuncturist late in the day. I tell her, "This is the first week in a long time that I haven't had the dull ache, discomfort in the neck, so we're making progress". And she gives me a high five to get things rolling. We find some very tight areas in the left region of my neck near the base of the skull, so we were on those regions and I promise to give extra self-massage in those regions.

Friday,as usual, is a slow day. I walk tothe grocery store for a few supplies and get in a workout with the weights where I've dropped the weights a fair amount since my right shoulder has a little problem now. Later in the day I have the CSULA weekly meeting and though we're making progress, there are still team members who are probably not contributing as much as they should be. How to rememdy this even at this late stage of the senior design year?

I start Saturday a bit unmotivated but on the bicycle despite the fog. Thinking the fog will be less if I start riding away from the ocean, I'm fooled by nature as the fog remains throughout most of the ride. Since I'm a bit unmotivated I stop at a convenient turn-arounf point short of the Santa Fe dam and return to home. I'm not feeling physically tired of riding but more mentally tired. Nonetheless I'm cranking very well and finish strong at eighty kilometers - in the last ten kilometers wondering if I should add an extra loop to get to ninety. But I'll stick with eighty kilometers today. After a quick shower I run a few errands and return home to read the news and then work on many different coordinate transformation matrices between body-fixed coordinates and interial coordinates in Python so that I have them available. I take a break to watch F1 qualifying from Saudi Arabia that involves a long red flag due to a nasty crash (the driver is okay) and a surprise pole winner. Later i Just catch up on the news and watch some Netflix.

I'm out the door at 6:34 am for a recovery mountain bicycle ride down to the old yacht club. Today is very windy as a strom is coming in. So I fight a slight headwind going down the Los Angeles river trail and a big headwind going east to the old yacht club. This is my penance and then I repeat the rewards with a strong tailwind west and a slight tailwind up the Los Angeles river trail to home. Back at home I wipe the chain clean, as I always do after every ride of any bicycle and then I work in the yard. With rain coming in on Monday I drop fertilizer in the front yard and at some troublesome spots in the backyard. And I also trim the roses and spread a pellet weed killer that wants to be followed by a soaking (which Monday's rain will provide). The warm shower is welcome and then I work on the various coordinate system transformation matrices from yesterday as I want to plot the results to make sure they make snes (before moving on to their utilization). Near noon I start watching the F1 race from Saudi Arabia and work my way through it. The rest of the day is slow as I wait for the sound and smell of rain very late tonight and all throughout Monday.

The rain doesn't come until after 8am on Monday morning. I work on the coordinate system transformations and a few other rigid body dynamics problems of interest to me. Just after noon I get out and lift weights and though it is still with the lighter weights, I get in a good workout. We get a lot of rain today which is good for our water shortage and for everything. There's still wet pavement and puddles on Tuesday morning so rather than ride I get out for an eighty minute run/walk. Its a good run with much more running than walking. I get in a warming shower and dress warmly since its a bit chilly still from yesterday's rain. I update a couple of websites and just have a low day with a bit of coding.

I start Wednesday out the door near 6:25am for a road bicycle ride. When I get to the San Gabriel river trail I hear my name called out and it is Archie my Philippino runner friend. So instead of going north on the San Gabriel river trail I ride slowly alognside Archie south as we catch up on what's going on in our lives. I do this for two miles and then we go our separate ways. This little episode throws off my intended ride so I make the ocean loop and add on some kilometers at the end to get near 60 kilometers. Shorter than I wanted but good enough. After a shower I make a trip to the grocery store and to Jersey Mike's for a later lunch pickup (since Jersey Mike's is donating every dollar of income today to Special Olympics). (Jersey Mike's is not my favorite place but this is for a good cause.) Back at home I trim the roses and bring blooms inside the house and continue to work on the rigid body dynamics code for fun. After working on this for a while and obtaining simulating results that are believable, I go outside and mow, edge, and trim the lawn. The lawn is growing well after repeated fertilizer applications and Monday's rain. The second shower of the day occurs near 2:30pm and then I start the laundry and combine rigid body dynamics simulation coding with some television - the television viewing happens as I start a rigid body dynamics simulation and let it run.

Monday's rain and Tuesday's wet pavement have thrown my cycling schedule out of normal, so I lift weights on Thursday and get in eighty kilometers on the road bicycle on Friday morning. There's a visit to the acupuncturist, working in the yard, CSULA Zoom meetings and other things to occupy Thursday and Friday.

On Saturday morning I'm a bit hungover from Friday's good ride, but I get out the door on the road bicycle anyway at 6:28 am. On today's ride, after getting warmed up for 5-10 kilometers, I start cranking away. And I start running into acquaintances. First is Archie, The Philippino marathoner, who I just blow past and wave and yell at him. Then I catch up to the man from Portugal and his cycling buddies. I had not seen the man from Portugal for a while and it turns out that his radiation seed therapy for prostate cancer is going well and is finished and he's allowed to ride a bicycle again. So I give him and his buddies big greetings and encouragement. And then farther along I catch up to a rider, Ken, wearing a promisechild.org jersey. So I slow down and we ride together for a long way as I learn that promisechild is similiar to World Vision in terms of sponsoring children. And we talk about Formula One events in the distant past in Long Beach and France and Las Vegas. When he reaches his turnaround point I stop with him and give him my number. After I've given him my number and ride away a few kilometers I start to think that this might be the same man who helped me and Derek out when Derek ran his front tire into my rear tire and fell a few years ago. At that time I ended up riding home and getting my car to drive Derek home. But a third rider, who i think might be Ken, stayed with Derek as I went and got my car. If Ken emails me or calls me, I'll ask him if he remembers such an incident. And then I continue along to finish today's "social ride" near 65 kilometers. I get in a quick shower and get to the grocery store for supplies. I've been thinking about the CSULA issues all along, so I sit down and get back to basics and try to help the students debug their effort. The team is VERY close to having things squared away. But there's one last thing we want to include that has managed to elude us for a while. So I need to put in the effort to push them along.

I start Sunday with a recovery ride down to the old yacht club and back to home. My legs are tired as its the third ride in three days, but I ride well, After a shower I ride the motorcycle down Cambodiatown in Long Beach and watch the Khmer new year's parade. When I greet a lady in Khmer and ask her how she's doing in Khmer, she becomes my friend and teaches me how to say happy new year in Khmer. Back at home after the parade I work more on some CSULA issues and watch an exciting MotoGP race where its the veteran rider's first win ever and the manufacturer's first win ever. There are a lot of tears to go around.

Monday is a slow day. I'm out of bed at 5:35 am and working on some coding projects and later get out to the grocery store for some raisin bran muffins (and a few other supplies). Before noon I get in a good workout with the weights where nothing hurts and I'm regaining strength (after a very sudden and strange loss of strength). The rest of the day is filled with a fun Moto3 race from Argentina, some CSULA work, and some Netflix.