I sleep horribly on Monday night into Tuesday, so I set an alternate alarm for an extra 45 minutes of sleep. My legs are so tired but I get out on the mountain bicycle to ride down to the yacht club and back to home. It's actually only the first two to four kilometers that are slow and the rest of the ride I feel strong. At home I trim the roses and bring new blooms into the house. After a quick shower I go to Target, drop off a book at the library, and pick up groceries. I have steamed vegetables with cheese and salsa for lunch along with a fun Moto3 race from Italy. I make a lot of progress on a set of permutation runs prior to make MCTS runs on a specific problem. And watch some Netflix to end the day.
I have horrible sleep on Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. I end up reading for more than an hour and still have difficulty falling asleep. I get out of bed at 6:15am and work on the permutation analysis prior to the MCTE algorithm implmentation and then get ready to go. I have a good session lifting weights where most exercises see increased repetitions except for one. Then I rapidly run through mowing the front and back yards - as the rain has subsided for months the growth is much slower. After a shower I put on reasonable clothes and walk to the post office to mail off two Medicare appeals where they have refused to pay for some laboratory tests that were medically necessary. (Part of the problem is that my primary care physician failed to provide the required Medicare codes for the blood laboratory tests and I'm stuck with the bill.) When I return home, with a bottle of wine, I start drinking and performing the permutations of the model required for the Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) algorithm. I could have automated each set of runs, but I prefer in this case to make a run, examine the results for resonableness, and then continue on. (Rather than assuming each run is resonable and drawing false conclusions from potentially faulty data.) For lunch I have salad and garlic bread and a fun, if shortened, Moto2 race from Imola Italy. In the afternoon I continue babysitting permutation runs of the model in between watching the Dodgers' game from the east coast and some Netflix.
I'm out the door on the road bicycle at 6:20 am on Thursday. I ride up p ast the Whittier Narrows dam to the El Monte dam and turn for home. It's eighty kilometers and I have a couple of spots where it just feels like the wind has been against for the entire ride. But its a good ride nonetheless. At home I trim roses and bring more blooms into the house and grab a shower to read the news and markets. I have a long phone call with a friend in the early afternoon and then jump on the motorcycle to go down to the main library in Long Beach. I go to the "recent additions" section, as always. And within five minutes I've found three books of interest. Thus I rush on home and catch a bit of the Dodgers' game and have a slow evening.
I'm out the door on Friday morning a little after 6am for a seventy minute run/walk. I feel good during today's run but don't want to overdo it since I hooe to ride long on Saturday morning. After a shower I go get gasoline for the lawn mower and buy supplies at the grocery store. From there I read the news and markets and get in another permutation run for the MCTS and I hope that these last three very long runs (16 hour runs) will be done on Monday and I can get into the real heart of the problem. At 12:20 I pick up the retired schoolteacher and we drive to Downey for an Ear, Nose, and Throat appointment. I don't know why she's having this appointment because it has nothing to do with her symptoms. (Okay, an ear problem could cause dizziness, but not like this.) She's in and out of the exam within ten minutes and I finally break the news to her on the drive home, with a stop at Trader Joes for her, that I think that she had a mini-stroke. "Think about it. On Friday you're fine and walking up and down the block. On Saturday morning you can't even sit up for ten seconds without vertigo and you're confused and forgetting things and when you can walk, your walking gait isn't anywhere close to your previous walking gait". I was certainly more tactfull and cautious with my explanation, but she understands and had that thought also. She agress this appointment was a complete waste of time. And I tell her that she has to insist that the neurologist, on Tuesday, hears all of these symptoms and tries to diagnose it. I cannot go on Tuesday because I'm supposed to have the surgery on Monday to remove my infected implant and the anesthesia potentially kills me for a couple of days such that it would not be safe for me to drive. After our outing I come back home and watch FP2 for F1 from Canada (on a newly resurfaced track) and then I hope to watch the first game of the ice hockey Stanley Cup finals. Except that I've messed up the schedule and the first game is on Saturday. Nonetheless, during news programs and some Netflix I eat pasta for tomorrow's bicycle ride.
I start Saturday with a mountain bicycle ride to the old yacht club and back to home. I wanted to ride long today, but I didn't have it in me. At home I check the roses and see that they don't really need weedwacking this week - that being more of a winter/spring thing. But I should get down on my hands and knees and pull out some minor to moderate grasses/weeds at the base of each rose bush. I put that on my shcedule for Tuesday - the day after upcoming surgery where I might want to get out and move around but not do anything too strenuous. After a shower I read the news and markets and start another permutation data collection for the MCTS effort. And then I enjoy a slow Saturday with laundry, golf on television, F1 qualifying from Montreal, Canada, and the first game of the Stanley Cup finals inice hockey.
I sleep late on Sunday morning and get out for a two hour mountain bicycle ride. After trimming the roses and bringing all new blooms inside the house, I grab a shower and re-watch F1 qualifying from Canada. There were some points that I missed. Later in the day I watch an interesting wet, then dry, then wet, and finally dry race where its hard to tell whcih tires to be on and when. A lot of fun! Later I babysit the next-to-last permutation run and will have to figure out the best way to post-process all of the data. And how to display and explain it.
On Monday Ruby is taking me to my surgery appointment at 9am. I see the anesthesiologist and he says, "I remember you". Probably because he was also an ice hockey player. And I say, "I remember you too. It took you three hits to get a vein last time". But this time he uses the back of my hand and I barely feel the needle go in and t's perfect. The surgery goes well except that they've discovered another post is infected and so they had two remove two of three stainless steel implants. And so I suggest this doctor and my prosthodontist talk and get a good plan together. And this doctor, who I like and he likes my "always positive" attitude, says that they talk regularly and will talk. Nonetheless I have to go back and visit this doctor in two weeks but there's talk of having to do another surgery to implant another post. We'll see what happens. The drive home is smooth and Ruby takes leave. The anesthesia does not mess me up today and I do some coding, watch yesterday's IndyCar race, and walk to the post office and grocery store. (I've mailed off the request for a second income tax refund check because the first one was stolen, forged, and cashed.) Later I watch the ice hockey playoff game. This is only the second day of no workout for the calendar year and so I'll be ready for activity tomorrow.
I sleep very well on Monday night and get out the door on the mountain bicycle at 6:15am. The legs feel good after the day off and I don't feel any hit of sensation or pain or jarring as I start the ride out. Along the ocean trail I see a guy with long hair who I've seen riding regularly and who I saw starting off for a ride in the neighborhood where I run. His group is on rad bicycles but not going that much faster than me and I yell out, "Hey, I know you. Youre in my neighborhood. I wish I brought my road bike". He turns and nods - I'm not sure he recognizes me. But I speed up a bit and stay 20-30 meters behind them until they turn off my path. As I'm riding home there are two large birds standing on the bicycle path and they are not moving. So I slow way down and try to maximize my distance from them. And then I see the two ducklings that they are protecting just off the bicycle path. A eventfull ride. At home I adjust the gate door again for the dry weather. Then I trim the roses and just replace a few of the blooms in the house that are getting stale. There's a dead or cut evergreen tree branch that bugs me every time I look out the backdoor and see it. Thinking it's been cut but didn't fall to the ground, I take a rake and try to rake it down. But it's still attached. So I pull out the ladder and only go up three steps and cut the branch and a few nearby small dead branches. Now I don't have to keep seeing them. And while I have the ladder out I do some small trimming of new growth that resulted from the big tree trimming that I paid somebody todo back in February or so. I'm trying to control the direction of growth better this time around. I get in a warming shower and do the coding and after all of those long days and nights of permutations, I'm getting some great results as I plot the resulting trends and statistics. Finally near 2pm I'm sitting down for lunch - the first food of the day other than the post-ride protein shake. And later I watch the news and some Netflix.
On Tuesday night into Wednesday morning I sleep horribly again - waking up and not being able to sleep. So I turn on the light and read for an hour. When I wake up I have a slight fever, hopefully a one day thing. I work on the permutation post-processing and there's one thing bugging me about the results and I spend time looking for errors. I give up and go lift weights, mow the lawn, weedwack the roses, and take a shower. After the shower I figure out a wrong index and now I'm getting all of the great results that I wanted from all of those permutation runs. I just have to write it up and publish it. As the day wears on, more and more bodyparts feel "under the weather", but I walk to the post office to mail a letter and carry home a gallon of milk from the grocery store. And then just lay on the couch and watch the news and Netflix. And hope for good sleep.
Fortunately I sleep incredibly well on Wednesday night into THursday morning. The sleep is so good that I reset the alarm to get an axtra 45 minutes of sleep in. Thus I start out for a bicycle ride near 7am. It's still just the ride to the old yacht club and back t home but I feel good. Yesterday every bodypart was sore, tired, or "off" and I had a slight fever. Today everything feels good and the fever is gone. Thus after the ride I trim the roses and then pull the ladder out of the garage with the electric trimmers and trim the neighbor's trees near my Internet cable. I only get up to the third step on the ladder whereas usually I would go up one more. I'm just being cautious. And after I've trimmed the trees and cleaned up the debris, I sharpen the electric trimmer blades. As opposed to my first electric trimmer where I never sharpened the blades - I didn't know you were supposed to - I'm sharpening these blades every other use or so. And they cut so well. After a shower I read the news and markets and should start writing up the permutation work which is giving super results. But I cannot. And I just become a vegetable for most of the remaining part of the day as I watch some golf and news and ice hockey playoffs.
I start Friday but shutting off the alarm clock and re-setting the second alarm. But after a few minutes I feel guilty so I get out of bed and get out for a run/walk. Today, after the surgery on Monday and still being a bit "mentally hungover" from the anesthetic, I make the run run/walk more of a 60% run rather than the recent 75% runs. It's okay, I enjoy concentrating on my stride, picking my feet up, and sweating out the remains of the anesthetic. At home I stretch and then I scrub the Yamaha R3 tires to remove the "slippery sheen" that comes with new tires. After a shower I venture out in the car to CVS and the library. I should not be driving. I'm still mentally "in a fog", but I concentrate on moving my eyes, looking for disruptions, and concentrate on driving. At home I do some computer maintenance (seeing that I've abused it with these continuous permutation runs over the last few weeks). And then I again become a vegetable - watching a bit of golf, some Netflix, and some vacuuming.
I wake up on Saturday with an elevated temperature again and a slightly elevated blood pressure. I'm out the door at 6:20am for a long road bicycle ride to the El Monte dam. I feel strong and have no side effects from the anesthesia. I turn back and start cranking along - though it feels like there's a headwind going home all of the flags along the way are fairly benign. For the last 20-25 kilometers I keep seeing riders ahead of me and I vow to catch them. As I catch each rider or group of riders, they latch onto my back wheel for a tow. I'm just cranking along nicely until one kilometer from my exit at Del Amo. The police are present and say that the bicycle trail is closed and that we have to turn back. I ride up to the police officer and get the information that it's a rider that's down right near the Long Beach blvd homeless encampment. I just say to the officer, "Do your best on the rider. And be safe out here". And I turn back with my followers and I cut through DeForest park and side streets to get home. It was a fantastic ride cranking like a madman trying to catch riders ahead. After a shower I get on the mountain bicycle with a backpack and ride to the grocery store for some supplies. Back at home I start the laundry, read the news, watch some golf, tidy up my bathrooms, (and later the ice hockey playoff game). I can tell I won't accomplish much today.
I'm hungover from yesterday's long and hard ride, so I reset to my secondary alarm for an extra 40 minutes of sleep. I'm out the door on the mountain bicycle for a recovery ride a bit after 7 am. It's a good ride to the old yacht club and then I start for home. At the edge of the ocean trail I see a banner "Happy Birthday Aung San Suu Kvi" and a growd gathering so I have to stop. I talk with a few different people, starting wiht typical Burmese greetings and conversation before running out of my vocabulary, and they are impressed that I know the language. (I don't really know the language, but they're happy to see a whitw guy speaking their language.) We talk about travel to Myanmar (formerly Burma) and the desperate political situation. But we can celebrate Aung San Suu Kvi's 79th birthday. A few of the people invite me st stay around, but I have to keep riding and I bid farewell with a big smile to everyone. The speaking of Burmese on my part goes along well today with some Phillipino riders whoI was able to greet with Tagalog greetings aerlier in the ride. I love riding in the Long Beach area because you never know what ethnicity of person you are going to run into. I have a good ride, trim the roses and bring all new blooms into the house. As I step into the shower I finish the cleaning of the shower and then get on the Yamaha YZF-R3 for a loop-type ride since I haven't ridden it for more than a wek and I want to keep the lubricants moving around, the battery charged, and get to the 600 mile break-in period limit where I can start using more engine RPMs. Back at home I read the news and then relax with the final round of the US Open in golf.
I'm awake at my normal time and out the door for running a bit after 6 am. I get in a good seventy minute run/walk where I'm back to the run-to-walk ratio from before last Monday's surgery. At home I stretch and then grab a shower and start in on documenting the permutations work that I've been doing for a while. I have to go back and recover some data, which slows me down. But I'm making good progress and when I quit I'm probably three quarters done. There are some great results and I should get it out the door and online tomorrow. Later I clean the hardwood floors and watch a bit of the Dodgers' game and some Netflix.