Content-type: text/html Ray Manning

Monday, March 27, 2023 8:02 PM

New Start


On Tuesday morning I'm still up +1.5 degrees in body temperature but I have to ride. So I take the mountain bicycle and just go down to the pier and turn around and come home. There's a drop of rain or two, but norhing majoer. At home it is all I can do to mow the front yard, trim the roses, and weedwack the sideyard. After a warming shower and warm clothes throughout the day I just keep feeling worse and worse and coughing more and more.

I cough my way through the night and I stay in bed until about 9 am with a +3.0 degree fever now. The FitBit says that the vast majority of sleep was light sleep - very little REM or deep sleep. I get up and read the news and take care of correspondence. In the middle of the afternoon I'm bored so I go out and lift my light weights and even struggle with those lifts. But it feels good to accomplish something. And then just lay on the couch and watch the news and Netflix. And hope for better sleep tonight and a reduced fever so that I can try a light bicycle ride on Thursday morning.

I have another night of sweating but when I wake up my body temperature is just below what I consider a maximium normal body temperature for me. This is fantastic news! I know I'm still sick and contagious from all of the coughing, but it looks like my body fought off the infection (subject to the next few days of normal body temperatures). At one point I think that I will get on a bicycle and ride a bit, but I look outside and its windy today. So I work on running numbers and tax outcomes for a strategy that I mentioned to my financial advisor. And I'll look back at these calculations and make a decision as to what to do when I visit him next week. In the mid afternon I get out and mow the backyard which has been growing like wildfire since we've had so much rain. And I pull out the edger and trim around items. It feels good to move around and increase the metabolism. And then I have a slow day as I've had to turn down a dinner invitation since I'm still contagious. And I let the CSULA team know that I'm going to "zoom in" with them on Friday since I'm contagious and don't want the entire senior design team (and all other engineering students and faculty near me) to end up with the flu. I take the time to check out the CDC flu count and see that the number of cases have fallen to very low levels since the end of February and the H3N2 strain, that I am particularly susceptible to, has dropped from 80% of cases in December to about 40% of cases. But I still got the flu (after cycling, roaming about, and running on various days in the cold rain).

On Saturday morning my fever is back up to +2.0 above my normal. I hem and haw and finally drive over to Liberty park to do my rehab run/walk. I'm up to 50% running and 50% walking and I'll stay here for a while. Today I don't feel bad despite the fever and extend the run/walk to ninety minutes. After a nice warm shower I do some grocery shopping (since I've been quarantined for nearly a week with the flu) and I get to the library. In both instances I certainly wear a mask and triple protect everyone else if I'm going to cough using the mask, and handkershief to my nose and mouth, and coughing into my elbow. I watch a good qualifying for F1 from Saudi Arabia with a jumbled grid formalized for tomorrow's race. And in the middle of the afternoon I'm dropping off so I get in a warm two hour nap after which I feel much better even if I'm still coughing a lot.

On Sunday morning I feel pretty good after sleeping well but sweating throughout the night and my fever is just +0.5 above my normal. Today I hem and haw about cycling since there is the possibility of light rain, but I go anyway. I get in a good ride with just a few light rain drops down near the ocean and for the last kilometer or two coming home. I trim the roses and get in a nice warm shower and put on warm clothes. I watch the interesting F1 race from Saudi Arabia and check out some golf. I've been watching golf for a couple years now because I used to play in high school but also because I like to see how the pros fight themselves out of trouble after they've hit bad shots. Again I get in a nap today and am feeling pretty darn good. Late in the day I start going through the updated documentation from a partner and I note the incorrectly spelled words (including the name of their own company in one instance), spellng the same word two different ways (i.e., one an American spelling and one a British spelling), as well as the lack of explanation of code inputs and errors in the examples.

On Sunday night I'm surpsied by a car in the driveway blowing its horn (and half on the grass). It turns out its Person Ha_KY who has made a surprise, unannounced visit. And he's run over the yard because he heard about my neighbors running over theyard recently. Person Ha_KY has a couple of days before the next work assignment and has stopped by. I get Person Ha_KY set up in the guest bedroom and he notes, ""Hey, my door doesn't close all of the way because it sticks on the frame". This is a problem with a number of doors in this house during the rainy season as the ground shifts. And Person Ha_KY announces, "We're going to fix these doors". It's late and I assume its a passing fancy so we go to sleep.

On Monday morning Person Ha_KY are driving to Home Depot for tools and supplies needed to plane down the doors to not stick. We end up spending hours on Monday and Tuesday morning planing doors, readjusting locks, and even taking two doors off the hinges to do more work. In between all of this effort the Internet provided comes to visit and replaces my external Internet cable and some conenctors since they've become wet from all of the rain and could cause problems in the future. And Person Ha_KY aand I get out for a three hour bicycle ride. After dinner on Monday night we make a second trip to the Home Depot and work on doors some more. It's not until 11:30pm that the doors operate smoothly and we both drop from exhaustion.

Tuesday starts off very wet and Person Ha_KY insists that we finish off a couple little door tasks. I just go along with the push - Person Ha_KY or myself always wanting to help each other out when possible with our various skillsets. Before 10 am Person Ha_KY has cleaned himself up and is driving to his next work assignment. I grab some pasta for lunch and have a relatively slow day. I do manage to lift weights with slightly higher weights as the rain comes down.

On Wednesday I hear the morning rain and shut off the alarm and sleep until almost 7 am. I eventually pull myself together and get to the ATM, CVS pharamcy, the haircut salon, and the grocery store. Later I visit my financial advisor and he'll ready the paperwork for some moves. At home I'm working away trying to solve a Javascript Cross Origin Request Sharing (CORS) problem and realize that the Javascript I've written previously to hit an API have always hit "open" APIs. Now I'm trying to hit a limited access API. Thus, in theory, the holder/owner of the API has to change the API to allow access from a specific domain. But I work on a middleware Javascript solution and get it to work using standard Javascript but get stymied a bit using jQuery. Nonetheless I let my teammates know that I have a workable, if sketchy, middleware solution that involves a third party host. And I suggest that we just tell the API holder to give us domain access and everyone will be happier.

On Thursday I'm awake before 6 am and ready to go cycling in a bit. But some rain hits and I get delayed. I read the news and fill out some financial forms and perform some other tasks as I let the roads dry up. Near 10 am I start out on the mountain bicycle and the way out to the old yacht club the roads and bicycle trails are wet. But by the time that I turn around and head for home the drying pavement is good for me. It's a good workout that might never have happened. When I get home I pulll out the new planar and do some minor planing of the coat closet to prevent any sticking. Fortunately I barely have to take the paint off the edge of the door to get it to close smoothly. I'll let the the weather dry out before fine-tuning all of the previously sticking doors. After a shower and a trip to the liquor store I talk with my financial advisor and we're on the same page for some moves in the next week or so. And then I finally get a rest break in the middle of the afternoon where I watch some golf. And now I'm starting to get excited about the first MotoGP/2/3 races of the year from Portugal this weekend. My long winter of racing withdrawl is almost finished. Near 7pm I have a Zoom call with the team and we can't make any decisions.

I start Friday driving over to Liberty park and continuing the half run/half walk rehab. Going by time, I do this for ninety minutes (i.e., 6:30 am until 8:00 am) but going by how the FitBit tracks exercise its only seventy minutes. WTF? Regardless it's a good workout and I drop off a letter at the post office on the wway home. After a wamring shower I get dressed for CSULA and read the news and markets and then ride the motorcycle up to the university. Today I watch a number of teams' elevator pitches and then I meet with the team that I inherited. We have a decent meeting and finally I ask the team to send me the radiator design spreadsheet so that I can turn on the optimizer and let the mathematics guide our design choices. Rather than going round and round in circles as the team appears to be doing. I leave a bit early and edge and mow the lawn - which is very long since we've had so much rain. At times I can only take about four passes with the lawnmower before I have to empty the bag. But I persist and clean up with another shower and watch FP2 for MotoGP and Moto2 from Portugal. And, of course, have the radiator design optimization running by the end of the night and ask the team for some realistic parameter limits to make it more realistic.

I sleep well into Saturday morning and though I originally had planned on an extra long road bicycle ride, I instead just do a mountain bicycle ride to the old yacht club and back to home. Near the aquarium there are long lines as a pop-up fan event for the pop icon Lana Del Rey is held. I have to slow to a crawl to pass the kids, but then continue on. And I note how clean the Los Angeles river trail is now as the city has been removing homeless encampments and trying to get people into housing. But this will only last for a month or so. At home I do a lot of weedwacking until two batteries die and then I sweep up and get a nice warm shower. I make a quick trip to the grocery store for supplies, talk to my financial advisor (on a Saturday!), do the laundry, and add in upper and lower bound capabilities for the radiator design optimization process. Now I just wait for the team to get back to me. Throughout the day I watch a bit of golf but various qualifying and spring events for MotoGP/2/3 from Portugal.

On Sunday my legs are a bit tired - probably from this long lasting flu - so I just get out on the mountain bicycle to the old yacht club and back again. The Lana Del Rey popup is going to repeat on Sunday, so there are people lined up at 8 in the morning for the starting time of 11am. At home I grab a shower and re-watch the qualifying for MotoGP/2/3 from Portugal. I think maybe on Saturday I was not back into my MotoGP rhythym yet, so the results have left me. And I just have a slow day - trying to finish off the cough

On Monday morning I go for an eighty minute walk in my neighborhood - thinking my legs are a bit too tired for running at Liberty park. After a shower I read the news and markets. At mid morning Ribu stops by because she had a case at the elementary school at the end of my block. We have a nice visit until she has to go to her next case. I take off for Home Depot, Target, and CVS for errands. Back at home I setup and start the flushing of the tankless water heater with white vinegar. This task is very easy since I bought the new self-priming pump back in early 2021. I let it run for 45 minutes and then re-assemble as necessary to have working hot water in the house. At 3pm I have a Zoom meeting with the CSULA students abut the radiator optimization and we put in realistic lower and upper bounds on design parameters and try a few runs. Late in the day I watch the Moto3 race from Portugal - deviating from my typical order of MotoGP then Moto3 then Moto2.