I'm out of bed at the usual 5:45am on Tuesday to have some green vegetables as the last food before the PET CT scan and then go walking. I only walk for 45 minutes because I think you're supposed to be taking it easy before the test. As I'm starting the walk I notice that two sprinkler zones are not working, so I'll hae to debug those. After the walk I trim the roses and go to pull up weeds and grass near the sprinkler timers and notice some ground wires have come loose from the controller - probably from the heavy rain that we've had. Except that I notice thre gound wires disconnected but only two sprinkler zones are not working. Puzzling. I reconnect the ground wires and cap them off and electrical tape them and now all of the sprinker zones work. Just there are two sprinkler heads that always need adjusting and I'll get to that later in the week. After a shower I try to drink extra water as directed and just read the news and markets. And then get ready to ride up to West Los Angeles for the PET CT scan. Except the motorcycle won't start. This is different than before because I can hear the solenoid being activated but the starter motor doesn't want to turn the engine over. And the starter motor isn't that old. I hurriedly put the bike away and drive, surprisingly with very little traffic, to my appointment. The PET CT scan goes smoothly and now I face a disastrous drive in a car back to Long Beach. Traffic is just a nightmare and I can't believe people do this driver everyday. I'm hungry now so I quickly cook some food and see the pre-surgery schedule of events which includes seeing my primary care physician and a blood draw. Really? They couldn't have told me this two weeks ago so that there's a possibility of getting these done. The blood work analysis being the long pole in the tent. So Wednesday morning will be begging with schedulers at two different facilities (my doctor and the lab) for some priority.
After two days of not riding due to the PET CT scan restrictions, I get out for a mountain bicycle ride to the old yacht club and back to home. I feel good during today's ride and push when I feel like it. At home I take a short break and then mow the lawn and do some trimming of the lawn. After a shower I do some grocery shopping and work on debugging the Ymaha YZF-R1 which will not even crank over and is throwing unseen error codes indicating a short. I play wth the wiring loom a fair amount and will have to continue some more another day. I receive notice that I have a pre-surgery appointment with my rimary care physician on Thursday at 11:45 am and thopugh I don't know what blood tests will be required, I make an appointment for Monday for the blood draw. (They can figure out how many tubes of blood to take when they get my doctor's list of tests to run.) I chop up vegetables and make a nice tomato-based soup for a few days and watch some Netflix and ice hockey. I've noticed that thet Netflix series that I watch are usually very intriguing until the last episode or two where they go off the rails and beyond believability.
I'm out the door near 6:15am for a mountain bicycle ride to the old yacht club and back to home. I feel strong throughout and enjoy the ride. Near the end of the ride, down a sidestreet, I hear a car horn beep and I look to the left at a parked car and see some guy flipping me off. Really? What was that for? He's parked. It's not like I cut him off or cut in front of him. I'm just riding in the opposite direction down his street. I think about going back to get his license plate number for future reference, but I don't. I just ride on home, trim the roses, and try to debug the motorcycle. Everytime I try to start the bike I get a different error code. And fearing the battery is getting low, I plug it into the battery tender that I have but the tender gives me a red light - probably indicating a short somewhere and it cannot recharge the battery. After a shower I look up various error codes, motorcycle resalers, motorcycle buyers, and dealers. A bit later I get a callback from a dealer about a new Yamaha and I say, in honesty, that I will come in either Saturday or Tuesday. The current Yamaha YZF-R1 has served me for 21 years and I've sworn for the last four years "I'm not putting anymore money into it" but I still put money into it. This electrical problem is either the ECU or harness and both will be difficult to debug for me and maybe it is time to move on. I go visit my primary care physician for a pre-surgery exam and the drive home - stopping for a big bottle of wine on the way home. The retired schoolteacher has called so after a bit of wine drinking I go visit her across the street and we fix her computer problem and talk about her problems. I keep all of the discussion away from my problems (except the motorcycle) because I'm not ready to go public with my issue. Near pi time, 3:14pm, I get back home and continue debugging the motorcycle, watch some ice hockey playoff games, and some Netflix.
I sleep horribly on Thursday night into Friday. AFter an hour of sleep I wake up and cannot fall back asleep - which never happens. I'm thinking about the motorcycle and what to do. Later I fall asleep but then wake up again and cannot sleep. Eventually I hear my alarm go off at 5:40am and I snooze it for ten minutes before getting out of bed. I drive to Liberty park and have a good eighty minute run/walk - nothing hurts or is sore or threatens to be a problem. Back at home I get in a shower and go to CVS and the library. At the library I return four books (three were read 100% and the fourth about 50% but unfulfilling) and I get three new books. At home I have some leftover vegetable soup and watch hot, greasy FP2 conditions in Spain where hardly anyone improves their times from FP1 this morning. There's supposed to be a 2pm CSULA meeting, which I've requested to be over Zoom since the motorcycle isn't running, but the Zoom link is fifteen minutes late getting to me and the team, with all of the collaboration tools that we now have, have difficulty sharing the presentation file. But there has been progress and the team only has to semi-function as a team for two more weeks. Later I watch FP2 for F1 from Baku, Azerbaijan and close out the day with some ice hockey playoff games.
On Saturday I wimp out from a long road bicycle ride and just do the old yacht club ride. At home I trim the roses, admit that they need some serious cleaning up, fix two sprinkler heads that don't quite pop-up, and try to debug the motorcycle. I disconnect everything from the battery and spend a long time re-charging the battery to get started. As the Yamaha YZF-R1 battery charges, I watch qualifying for the MotoGP/2/3 classes fro Jerez, Spain. And then watch F1 qualifying from Baku, Azerbaijan. The battery, by itself, fully charges after a long time, so that is a data point that I can se during debugging (meaning the battery is good). Later I do some paperwork and watch the ice hockey playoffs.
On Saturday night into SUnday morning I have decent sleep and I'm out the door for cycling at 6:12 am. Again, I wimp out of a long road bicycle ride and just do the old yacht club ride. After collating the rides, I see that this April has still been my best April of cycling ever and I note that I did not miss a seingle a day of working out. (Though the TEP/CT scan day was just a simple 45 minute walk since they didn't want a strenuous workout on the day of the test since it would skew the metabolism rates of various organs.) Towards the end of today's ride my legs are tired from four days of cycling and one day of runnig over the last five days. Expected. I had planned Monday as a day of upper body weight lifting and no leg work. After a shower I clean the soap scum off the glass bathroom doors with a razor blade - it's really a glide a razor blade along the door to remove the soap scum as opposed to a repetitive scraping. I continue to spend time debugging the motorcycle and complete system does re-charge when put together, but continues to throw various error codes on the dashboard. I'm 90% of thought that this is terminal for my abilities and the for the 21 year old motorcycle. I spend time cooking sauces and vegetables for the upcoming week and watching the MotoGP sprint race from Spain and the real F1 race from Azerbaijan. Later there are two game sevens in the ice hockey playoffs and I keep an eye on them though my Los Angeles Kings were eliminated yesterday.
I wake up on Sunday night into Monday morning at 1am hearing rain. This can't be rain - it's May in southern Calfironia. But it is rain. And when I get out of bed near 6am (on a pre-planned day off from cycling and running), there is more rain. After a while the rain stops and I drive to have a blood test and return home to trim the roses, lift weights, and grab a shower. After reading the news and markets I watch Sunday's recorded IndyCar race and later watch a very fun and exciting Moto3 race from Jerez, Spain. Later I deal with another first round ice hockey playoff seventh game and a medical bill that isn't quite right that they want me to pre-pay.
On Tuesday I sleep an extra ten minutes and get out the door at 6:20am for a very good, strong road bicycle ride of 65 to 70 kilometers. At hme I mow, edge, and trim the lawn to keep it looking neat and tide for upcoming events. After a shower I go visit the retred schoolteacher across the street who is having some banking issues with money transfers to Peru as well as some other issues. We talk for almost 100 minutes before I go back home to take care of my own business. Early in the afternoon I watch the Moto2 race from Jerez, Spain and then relax a bit before the first couple of second round ice hockey playoff games starts. Somewhere in this day I try to take of some other pre-surgery logistics and paperwork.
Late on Tuesday night, as I'm going to read and go to sleep, there is a helicopter overhead. It keeps circling and I see the light flashing down near my house. I peek out of the front window and see the helicopter spotlight but I certainly do not dare go out onto to the porch or further to see what is going on. At some point I give up on my personal surveillance and go back to bed to read. Soon the helicopter is gone and I can read and sleep in peace. Foreshadowing, there is no news in the local press on Wednesday mornings as to what the issue was. I get out ten minutes late and go for a mountain bicycle ride to the old yacht club and back to home There should be rain on Thursday morning, so I have to ride when I can. Back at home I rehydrate and then trim a juniper tree which is getting close to my Internet cable. This effort goes smoothly though twice I have to climb up the ladder to the step that says "Do not step on this step or above..." in order to trim the Juniper tree. After cleaning up I look back at the tree and it looks decent - it would not win any awards but it is now far removed from my Internet cable. After a warm shower I read the news and markets, watch a decent but not exciting MotoGP race, and cook some more vegetables. Early in the afternoon I document "the nuclear opton" in case I die during my upcoming surgery and expect to show responsible individuals where these "nuclear option" documents are located. Later in the day I just relax with some Netflix shows and the two ice hockey playoff games.
On Wednesday night into Thursday I hear the rain coming down and, though I cannot fall back asleep, I enjoy the sound of the rain. This will probably be our last rain until November. Since rain was predicted, Thursday morning is a no cycling and no run day and instead I get in a decent session lifting weights. Some muscle groups are still tired from yesterday's tree trimming and swinging the tree trimmer around. I have a Zoom call with a dentist or dental surgeon or something like that on Thursday afternoon to confirm what we are doing during my surgery. And to confirm that he has spoken with the oncologists and surgeons performing the surgery. And later I finish off a very slow Thursday with ice hockey playoff games. I'm in a lull right now because the CSULA semster is finishing up (with nothing to do but guide chart preparation) and the surgery coming up soon (so I cannot really start any new projects).
There is a surprise Friday rain, so my planned run is cancelled. It looks like I may not get in a workout today for the first time in 44 days (since I had the flu). I drive up to CSULA (since the motorcycle is terminal) and I enjoy some of the presentations and just pick random student projects to talk with the students about. Some of these are computer science projects, rather than the mechanical engineering projects that I'm associated with, so they are are interesting to me. My team gives a decent presentation though they needed one more practice session. Afterwards I face the nasty Friday afternoon drive home and it doesn't disappoint as it is painful. How do people do this everyday? At hoe I watch FP2 from the F1 weekend in Miami, trim the roses, and space-out with the ice hockey playoff game.
Saturday is clear but I wimp out and just take the mountain bicycle to the old yacht club and back - rather than a longer road bicycle ride. At home I get down on my hands and knees and start cleaning up the rosebeds which I've neglected this year. It's a lot of up and down and twisting and stretching and pulling of weeds/grasses, so some body parts will be sore in a day or so. But I get more than a third but less than a half done, so there was some good progress. After a shower I take a quick trip to CVS for supplies, do the laundry, catch up on some paperwork, watch qualifying for F1 in Miami, and then relax with the ice hockey playoff game.
On Sunday I pretty much duplicate Saturday. A mountain bicycle ride to the old yacht club and back to home, cleaning the rosebeds, watching the F1 race from Miami and watching ice hockey playoff games. I have two more rose bushes to clean up - I ran out of steam before finishing.
I'm lazy on Monday but get in a good session with the weights with no real joint pain. And then I finish cleaning up the roses for this go-round. They'll probably need more cleaning in a month or so (besides the regular trimming maintenance).