I start March with an extra ten minutes in bed - it sounds nice to hear the rain coming down (even if I cannot kickoff my March cycling account). Out of bed I work on catching up on two CSULA projects which appear to be in trouble and which I've been called in to help restore order. Near 9 am I do some grocery shopping and take the retired schoolteacher across the street to Trader Joe's for her shopping. Back at home I increase the weights a little bit and have a very good workout for the upper body - still being as careful as possible with shoulder muscles. And after a shower I go back to reading CSULA documents in preparation for team meetings on Friday. Later I review my taxes and can't quite decide if they are ready to be sent off or not. So I procrastinate for a few more days.
I start Thursday just after 5:30am. I read the news and set up a Python script and set it off to run. Near 7:45 am, since it is a cold morning, I set out on the mountain bicycle for the a good ride. I get down to the old yacht club and then start cranking along with or without the wind. When I turn north on the Los Angeles river there's a headwind but I'm up one full gear and I'm pushing like the devil. I catch up to a number of riders and they can only watch me go past. And finally, past my usual turn off at Del AMo, I've kept going and a guy on a road bicycle is doing his best to stay up with me. And when I reach my turn-around point, I just give hime a nod and say "Have a good ride" as I back off a bit and ride home. My legs and hands are tired but I weedwack to the roses and sideyard with the new batteries and notice that they do not last very long. Maybe they need a few charge/discharge cycles before they are at full capacity. After a shower I start losing my ambition to et to the library for new books and I just get to the grocery store for a big bottle of wine. I have one book left to read and it is intriguining because it involves the central american civil wars from the 1980's that I was involved in. So I manage to take my time reading it and studying every word and I'll get to the library on Saturday. During the afternoon I work on a Python optimization script where I think that the difference in magnitude of design variables is preventing a better convergence, so I re-tool the simulation to equalize the design variables and give it another a shot. Near 1900 hours PST I have a Zoom meeting and contribute in as professional manner as I can.
Since I'm going up to CSULA on Friday, I start the day with an eighty minute walk. However, the minute that I get into my front yard I see tire tracks on my lawn. WTF? I remember hearing a loud blast of radio noise on Thursday night when I was reading, but it ended just as I was getting out of bed to see what was going on. And then on Friday morning I see tire tracks running across my lawn from the idiot, troublesome, inconsiderate, brain-dead, etc neighbors. Really? You can't just back out of your driveway and instead you drive across my lawn to get out into the street. Really? After the eighty minute walk I weed whack the rose weeds and note that these brand new batteries don't seem to have a long life. But I read that you have to charge and then drain them to zero and re-charge and eventually they get better. I set this process in motion. I have an enjoyable day at CSULA as I ffer productive comments during presentation reviews, meet some incredible smart and talented people, and meet up with a team that is strugglng because their two advisors went missing. And then I rush on home in traffic to try and reviiew some fluid flow equations and energy balance equations to help the struggling team out.
Oh Saturday is a wild day. I start with a ride against a nasty headwind and I keep thinking that I can bail at any time. But I keep moving along in a good gear and get to the flooded El Monte damn. By now the wind has shifted but I start cranking along and I find after a while that I'm up two gears from where I would normally be. Some riders tag along behind me but give up after a while because I'm just cranking like a crazy man. At home I try a re-charged weed whakcer battery and it does appear to have a bit more life. So I'll keep up this fully re-charge/fully discharge cycle for a while. After a well-deserved warm shower where I'm staggering around the house because my legs are tired, I get two new books from the library and buy some supplies at the grocery store. Late in the morning I sit back and watch a fun qualifying session for F1 from Bahrain - life is good! Life is good again when racing season starts! And later I work on the troublemsome API Javascript process with a jQuery.ajax attempt rather than a jQuery.JSON attempt. Both of these processes work for standard html/css/Javascript, but my teammates have selected a very non-standard software package that does not seem to play well with well-accepted Javascript norms.
After Saturday's killer bicycle ride, I expect to sleep well, but I don't. What's going on here - I've had three great, hard weekend bicycle rides over the last few weeks and slept terribly that very night afterwards. Near 7am I take the mountain bicycle out for a purely recovery ride and the first seven kilometers are a struggle. But I get going and head for hme. And now the rain, unpredicted in any of my weather apps, starts falling and I get completely soaked over the last seven kilometers to home. I strip off my clothes as quickly as possible and get in the shower to warm up and put on warm clothes. For a while I work on a THIRD Javascript API request method that does not require the jQuery library. If this third attempt does not work, then I'm just going to lay down the law and say "You picked the wrong non-standard package to write the app in and it has to be completely re-written in a standard packege". Later I watch an etntertaining F1 race from Bahrain and watch the first third or so of the IndyCar race from Saint Petersburg, Florida.
On Monday I'm out of bed before 5 am because I can't sleep anymore. I answer some email and work on the Long Beach Human Trafficking Task Force website and then drive to Liberty park with their semi-rubberized track. I get in a good eighty minute run/walk where I'm now up to half running and half walking. Despite the previous bicycle rides, my legs, though tired t start, show no aches or pains. And I'm happy! I run a few Monday errnads and then work on the team's API call beause "I've offerred you three Javascript calls to an API and I have no more, so I'll just pretend that you get it to work with your non-standard language and I'll have the API results figured out when you're ready". Later I make some calls to dentists to oncologists and then watch the rest of the IndyCar race from Saint Petersburg.
My legs are so tired and hungover on Tuesday morning. Nonetheless I get out for a mountain bicycle ride to the old yacht club and back to home - as I get a bit slower as the ride progresses. At home I pull out the gardening equipment and edge, mow, and trim the front yard before sweeping up the debris and making it look nice. The backyard will have to wait since I am so tired. After a shower I put together a standard atmosphere for a CSULA team and also send off an apology email to a CSULA student who I may, or may not have, been a bit harsh towards. As the early afternoon approaches I have eaten nothing but a banana and a glass of milk but I'm still working on this API (where the documentation is so bad that I want to slit my wrists). As I'm a big believer in multi-colored food, I have white cauliflower, green broccoli, red pepper, yellow corn, more green jalapenos, yellow cheese, and grape red wine for lunch.
Even though I am in bed near 8pm to read and asleeep just after 9 pm, I sleep well and get out of bed 5:20 am. Since today is a leg off of days I work n the API and a few other things. At min-mnorning I lift weights with the lightweights and high rep as I try to rehabilitate my shoulders and later I mow the backyward and trim it with the weed whacker. Is the new weedwahcer battery battery lasting longer? It's hard to say. Later I have the Long Beach Human Trafficking Task Frce Meeting where I make a new contact and we have a later discusson at 4pm. I have to compose en email from this discussion. And, restless, I go out and spot fertilize the front yard in advance of a pineapple express sorotm this is suppsed to run through on Friday. I also make progress on doing some calculations to keep the CSULA hydroplane team on track and I'm ready to start performing the most difficult calculations where the team can help the most.
Frday is supposed t be a nasty day of rain ut when I wake up there are just a few droplets of rain. Thus I put the Yamaha YZF-R1 on the battery tender and take a shower and pack up everything for the journey. When I'm ready togo the rain hads arrived and I change ym mind and decide to drive up to CSULA. In eight years of going to CSULA, this will be only 4th time of driving. AM I getting old and becoming a sissy? Regardless I drive up to CSULA in some moderate rain and get very early to the senior design lab. Since nobody is present I am able to work on a human trafficking white paper that came my way this past Wednesday. I'm able to help one team out with some buckling calculations and simulations and then I go have lunch at the cafeteria. Today I arive there at 12:30 and the place is empty and take a table and have vegetables and mac'n'cheese. By 1pm the place is getting busy and I keep ofering my five person table for share with students but they always manage to find other friends to share with. I go back to the senior design lab and from 2pm to 4pm give my best advice and guidance to a team that has been flounderling advisor-less for a while. I think we have the teem back on track. Near 4pm I walk to my car in heavy rain and take a dep breath and just say, "Ray, get in one lane and stay there the entire way because you know this is going to be difficult. Difficult it is as it takes me more than an hour to get home (compared to last weeks' thrity minutes on the motorcycle.) It's ben a long day of helping students and I'm just a vegetabl;e in front of the television news at home.
On Saturday I wake up near 5:30 am and hear raindrops falling (though they should be tapering off) so I turn off the alarm and end up sleeping until 6:40am. I strap on warm, dry running clothes and drive to Liberty park to run/walk for eighty minutes. I'm chilly and wet when finished, but the ru/walk felt good with no aches or pains. After a quick shower I take the neighbor schoolteacher out to Trader Joe's for her supplies. As we return to the car I see (another) guy looking at my car and I stop him with, "Do you want to go for a ride in my Subaru?". And he's a world rally car enthusiast with a competing Mitsubishi and we have a short discussion about our cars. I don't think the retired school teacher appreciates the discussion and I have to remind her of a time before when somebody - that time a ChiChi - was looking at my car and I asked them if they wanted to go for a ride in my Subaru. She remembers that occasion and I have to explain why everyone wants to ride in my car. After dropping the schoolteacher and her groceries off I try to (twice) to mail my income taxes at the post office via certified mail but both times the line is very long. So instead I return books to the library and get new ones (two of the last three books not doing anything for me) and I pick up my own groceries at Vons supermarket. And then I have a slow day of watchingg golf on the television and setting up some email and Zoom correspondences since I'm still a bit burnt out from yesterday's long day st CSULA.
Saturday night into Sunday morning is the daylight savings time time change and I wake up near 4 1M (previously 3 am) and cannot sleep. Besides my lack of sleep tonight, the stupid government should just make a decision and stick with it and quit changing the time twice a year when heart attacks and driving accidents peak. I get out after 7:30 am and have a decent bicycle ride to the old yacht club and back to home. When I arrive at home, besides cleaning the chain of the bicycle I clean the rails of the garage and lubricate the hinges. After a shower I go to the UPS store and mail off my tax returns as I've given up on the post office and then I pick a few additional grocery supplies. My 1pm conference call gets cancelled because participants say "tonight is Oscar night and I have parties to attend to". Thus I watch some golf and finally decide to do some serious trimming of the "hook nail" that has grown on my partially severed finger (from the bicycle accident). There's blood flowing around so I clean it up and apply Neosporin and wrap it until it quits bleeding. The rest of the day is fairly slow and I vow to have a productive Monday. Exceptt hat I don't feel well on Sunday night and I'm not sure what Monday holds.
I wake up before the alarm clock goes off and I feel terrible. I turn over and sleep until the alarm clock goes off and note that I have about a 1.5 degree fever. I get out of bed anyway and start reading the news. I note today is supposed to be a slow day though I definitiely wanted to go cycling. I end up take some Alleve and go back to bed for about nintey minutes. When I wake up after 8:30am my fever had dropped by 0.3 degrees and I do feel better. But I probably need a relatively slow day. I look back and realize I got caught cycling in the rain last week, being in the rain all day at CSULA, and running in the rain on Saturday morning. So today will be a slow day and maybe I lift my light weights today at some point for a metabolism bosst. But nothing serious. The conference call happens at 1pm today. And it isn't what I expected. So how doI get out of this miscommunication?