It sure is cold on Friday night into Saturday morning - or at least it feels cold after I've been in the hot humid weather of Cambodia. I'm out the door at 6:11 am to go walking. I've bundled up because I'm not used to the 45F cold. I get in a 75 minute walk and have a warming shower. I start running errands: Home Depot,the ATM, the grocery store, Trader Joe's, and the library. When errands are finished I put the motorcycle back together and start it up, tidy up the bathrooms, trim the roses, change out some burnt out light bulbs, and transfer travel documents from my laptop to my desktop. Everything is back toa state "as if I had not traveled" and I can turn to more important matters. I work on the Smary City challenge proposal which is due on Friday. When I hit a writer's block, I work on the annural reporting forms required for a nonprofit corporation.
On Sunday I wake up before the alarm goes off and hear rain coming down. Probably no bicycle ride today, so I reset the alarm for later and go back to sleep. I'm still out of bed at 6am and I take care of paperwork and tidying things up before I go for an hour walk at mid morning when the threat of rain has passed. At the end of the walk the sun is shining brightly. After a shower I run through a couple of files of paper and shred unneeded paper. And I relax with some golf from Pebble Beach and a free HBO preview.
I wake up before my alarm on Monday morning. Since it is very chilly, I take my time working on some paperwork for the nonprofit and filling out the required annual paperwork. At 7:35 am I am out the door for a mountain bicycle ride to the old yacht club and back towards home. After all of the cycling in Thailand and Cambodia, I feel my legs stronger and I crank along nicely. On the run up the Los Angeles river towards home I keep up with a rider on a road bicycle and feel good about today's ride. After a shower I call the dentist to forward x-rays to the oral pathologist and help the retired schoolteacher with a problem with her laptop. And then I finish completing and printing the nonprofit forms and they just need to be stuffed into envelopes and sent off. I've realized in the last few days that the Smart City Challenge that I've been working seems to have been dissolved so I prioritize filling paperwork though I will write up my efforts and publish them on medium since the results that I've generated are good and efficient. I finally break for lunch and watch the delayed final round of the golf tournament at Pebble Beach.
I again start my day befre the 5:30am alarm goes off. I make progress on various forms for the nonprofit until 7:35am when I'm getting out the door to ride the mountain bicycle. Today I feel extra strong from all of the cycling in Thailand and Cambodia and my trip to the old yacht club and back to home is done in a rapid time. After a shower I finish up the forms and tax forms for the nonprofit and have them all set to be sent via certified mail. Throughout the day I continue to work away on things that I didn't do while away.
I'm awake on Tuesday before my alarm goes off and, after working a bit on more paperwork, I'm out the door at 7:30am for another mountain bicycle ride to the old yacht club. Today I also feel strong and have a good ride with a reasonable surge during the last part of the northbound Los Angeles river trail. After a shower I walk to the post office to mail off the nonprofit documents and I stop at CVS on the way home for supplies. Throughout the day I continue to tie off loose ends and should be finished with the effects of 3.5 of travel today. In the afternoon and evening I have a slow day and enjoy the sunny 71F weather.
I again start Wednesday before my alarm goes off. I'm out the door for a long walk at 5:45 am. Today I walk for eighty minutes and know that the time has come to start some running. After a shower I ride the motorcycle up to USC for an oral pathology appointment. There are two doctors, two interns, and another person gathered around me as we go through my history and examine the white spots on mygums as well as the missing tooth. They finally decide that I need another biopsy - this time performed by an oral pathologist rather than a maxilofacial doctor. I don't know the difference. So I'll be coming back up to USC next week for the biopsy. At home I grab lunch while the Long Beach Human Trafficking Task Force meeting is going on Zoom. And then I work on writing up the Smart City Challenge and then lift weights. I haven't lifted weights for more than a month and all of the aches and pains are gone. Granted I'm lifting very light weights to get started again. But I hope to slowly advance the weights and not re-injure anything. Late in the day, after eating salad and potatoes for dinner, my entire digestive tract feels very weird and I even run to the bathroom once because I think I am going to throw up. Eventually I put on warm clothes and go to bed to read and to sleep.
Throughout Wednesday night into Thursday morning my digestive tract is very upset and I have to run to the bathroom a number of times. When the alarm goes off at 5:30 it gets shut off and I sleep until 6:30am. My body is running a 1.5 degree fever and there are more trips to the bathroom. Thus no walk or bicycle ride today. I write up the Smart City Challeneg medium article (Ref. https://medium.com/@ray-90807/reducing-inefficiency-of-city-service-calls-62e0fa8da6e4) and then lay down on the couch and watch television for a couple of hours. Before 11am I get out and do some grocery shopping and then mow the lawn. I'm extremely fatigued just mowing the lawn, so, of course, the digestive tract illness (food poisoning?) has really weekend me. I grab a warm shower and then go back and lay down on the couch to rest. Really? I've been in Thailand and Cambodia for 3.5 weeks eating anything I want and with potentially unsanitary water and I don't get food poisoning until I've been home for almost a week? Really?
I sleep very well on Thursday night into Friday morning even if my FitBit doesn't think so. I'm out the door on the road bicycle at 6:51 am and I ride north on the San Gabriel river trail for a bit before turning and going south towards the ocean. Today I ride past the scene of the accident for the first time and I feel no ill effects. And finally I crank along nicely against a headwind on the way home for about 65 kilometers. At home I trim the roses and pull out the chain saw to trim back the front bush which I more or less cut way back last autumn. I just trim the remaining branches way back to the root and leave the task of digging out the root for another time. I get in a nice warm shower and then continuously relax and stretch throughout the day. I read the report on the MotoGP test from Sepang, Malaysia and I'm already getting excited for the MotoGP season with the new riders on new teams and all of the new parts being tested.
I start Saturday with a mountain bicycle ride on a very windy day. The wind presents an opportunity for a good workout and there is a sidewind or headwind on three of the four legs of the ride to the old yacht club and back to home. I add in a few extra kilometers at the end for an extra hard workout and enjoy getting home and taking a warm shower. I gather my effects and plan my route as I run errands to the Home Depot and the ATM before meeting up with Ruby, Joseph, and Lisa at the Olive Garden. We have a great visit and Joseph, at my cost, has a number of funny comments and he's turning beet red as he puts them out there. As I drive home I pickup food for the Super Bowl on Sunday and do some additional grocery shopping. Otherwise I just wind down with some golf on the television.
I start my road bicycle ride a shade lat at 7:22am on Sunday. I go north on the Los Angeles river trail and fight a headwind. I go past the Whittier Narrows damn and get all of the way tothe El Monte cross-over which is completely flooded out. So I take a two minute break and turn for home. I crank alog nicely and pass a number of riders and finish up with 75 hard kilometers - the farthest I've ridden since the accident. I cannot tellyou how great the warmshower after the ride feels and I stay in the shower for an extra minute or two and let the warm water beat down on me. I go to work on converting a non-format document to the standard American Psychological Association (APA) format and it looks horrible. Nonetheless I send the partial APA format document over to the requestor and state my concerns and tell them that I will do what they want me to do. And then I relax and stretch cycling muscles and prepare for the Super Bowl. I'm excited when the Oxford Ocen beat the Louisiana Lemur in the game by the score of 89 to 76. And the old ox is yelling and screaming as the members of the USS Carl Vinson are shown during the playing of the United Stated national anthem
I sleep horribly on SUnday into Monday morning - waking up at 3am and not being able to sleep anymore. So I get up at 4:30am and work a bit on tidying up paperwork. At 7:40am I take the mountain bicycle down to the old yacht club and back to home. With yesterday's long ride and no sleep, I should be weak. But I feel good on the bicycle. After a shower I replenish the blood sugar and go to see a financial advisor. Later I take the retired schoolteacher to her accountant for her taxes and then to Trader Joe's for supplies. Near 7pm I have a Zoom meeting and complain that the APA format looks horrible and we should re-think this.