I start Tuesday with my typical Tuesday extended loop road bicycle ride. I again run into the Saint John Bosco cross country team and slow down to chat with the coaches for a bit and then offer enthusiasm for the runners. After a shower I take the Yamaha YZF-R3 for its first post-checkup run and get up to 100 mph and cruise along at 86 mph and it doesn't feel like the bike is straining. At home I take care of a ton of paperwork. But two items stand out 1) I receive a letter from an IRS agency that indicates that my claim of fraud for approximately $8000 has been upheld and probably, knowing the IRS, I'll have a check in eight weeks; and 2) I track down the Saint John Bosco cross country coaches who I chat with on my Tuesday rides and give them some Olympics stories that might be helpful for their runners. And I include, as I verbally told them a while ago, "I stopped and chatted with some of your runners a while ago and they were polite and restpectfull. You (and their parents) should be proud of these young men." I'm hoping that my tracking down the coaches via the Internet is not inappropriate or creepy and I hope that the Olympics running video and cross country skiing video links that I give them will be helpful. By now it is 1pm and I have not eaten anything so I'll grab some cold pasta and tomato-based sauce.
On Wednesday I'm out the door at 6:10am in the semi-darkness (without lights) on the mountain bicycle for a recovery ride. I know the sun will come up shortly. This isn't much of a recovery ride because I feel strong and push the majority of the ride. At home I very quickly trim the lawn and mow both front and back yards. Its summer and the gras only goes green if you give it a ton of water, which I'm not going to do due to water shortages and trying to be semi environmentally friendly. But I cannot get to replacing grass with a desert landscape. After a shower I read the news and markets and rewatch AlphoaGo - the film made about artificial intelligence beating the world's best player at Go. I'm most interested in the few creative, stunning, and unthinkable moves that AlhpaGo made that no human would consider and initially, on examination by the Go experts, thought were loser moves. But they were winning moves (eventually) which decided the games. After this inspiration I consider whether to participate in the upcoming Cerebral Beach Hackathon coming up in October. Those dates have no doctor's appointments ad no F1 or MotoGP races. And this time it open to 18+, so I don't have to sneak in as a student of Long Beach City College as I did a number of years ago for a "students only" hackathon.
Thursday blah day despite trimming and watering roses, lifting weights, and trimming a sidebush. SPend the rest of the day with some Netflix and IU dont know what else. A Cerebral Beach Hackathon notice for an AI hackathon in October appears in my email Inbox and I start planning on a project to work on.
I start Friday north on on the Los Angeles river. As I cross over the WHittier Narrows dam there is a coyote that runs across my path and I just yell "COYOTE" at it and it kinda ignores me but meales me alone. I go up the El Monte airport trail and see another coyote in an area that I've never seen one before. Againt I yell "COYOTE" and it just ignores me and leaves me alone. I take the turn before Arrow highway and crank along nicelly south on the San Gabriel river trail to Del Amo. At Del Amo I pick up another rider going west and as we approach two different traffic lights, about to turn yellow or ored for us, I say, "I can make this" and I sprint hard. He follows and we make the first light but he is going to turn left at the second light and I don't make it Nonetheless its a decent ninety five kilometer ride. As I approach home I notice that none of the little aches or pains that might bother me are not present - not the torn rotator cuff from the bicycle accident oor anything else. After a shower I do some grocery shopping, take care of a "no sim card" in my mobile phone (because they've converted to an eSim card), and then I sit back for F1 practice from Italy and FP2 session for MotoGP/2 from Aragon. Later an Industry Advisory Board (IAB) meeting notice from Calfirnonia State University at Los Angeles appears and I respond that I'm available though I may start to become irrelvant because I've been retired for so long. Later I update a few websites for the end of the month and start of a new month calendar of events.
I have a mtn bicycle recovery ride on Saturdary morning, trim roses, trim around animal areas and reset a single trap.
Amongst F1 amd MotopGP/2/3 qualifying I think of four ideas for an upcoming Cereberal Hackathon:
1) Long Beach has nearly 400 vacanies of commercial properties. How do we fill them
2) LA28 Olympics venues and law enforcement deployment
3) Cellular automata
4) Baseball lineups.
I let these ideas percolate and find myself pausing during F1 and MotoGP/2/3 qualifying to stretch my legs and shoulders and to write down some additional ideas
for the hackathon. I'll write brief abstracts for the hackathon on Monday and then apply.
For the remainder of Saturday I watch some sports on television and think about the four hackathon ideas as well as a few others.
Afterwords I juest relax and continue to let some hackathon ideas brew.
On both Sunday and Monday, I feel blah. I have a good 84 minute run/walk on Sunday morning and a good 65 kilometer bicycle ride on Monday morning. On the bicycle ride I get a flat tire at the exact spot that I did a number of years ago and use the exact same bus stop bench to fix the flat tire. Both of these flat tires occurred after Long Beach put in a separate bicycle lane (separated from traffic with a curb and bollards). The separation allows debris to collect in the bicycle lane and many time I just ride in the street instead. Today I ride in the separated bicycle lane and I find a long staple sticking out of the rear tire when I get to the bus stop bench. I'm never using that separated lane again and I'll tell the pilce exactly why if they pull me over for riding in a regular car lane. Sunday sees a fairly exciting F1 race from Monza, Italy and the MotoGP sprint is interesting in the combinations of riders battling away. And the look on the world championship leader in the pits as he stares down the Michelin tire representative is priceless! (He started out sideways, got back to third, and then faded to ninth at the end - it must be the tires.) And on Monday, after the bicycle ride with flat tire and a cooling shower, I get a haircut, pick up supplies at the grocery store, read the news, and then watch the full length MotoGP race. Otherwise I'm a bit blah on both days.
At 3am on Sunday night into Sunday morning I've switched to my alternate alarm from 5:30am to 6:15 am - feeling that I need extra sleep. I'm out of bed and have a pretty good mountain bicycle ride down to the old yacht club and back to home. At home I trim the roses, and then "stage=up" the ladder, clippers, and electrical cords needed to trim a tree for tomorrow. I have other things to accomplsih today. After a shower I take the Yamaha YZF-R3 for a nice ride and stop in at CVS for supplies. Back at home I read the news and then start planning projects for an upcoming Cerebral Beach Hackathon. I have no teammates but I have four projects that might be of interest. And then I turn my attention to planning out a winter vacation. Recall that last year I was so cold, expecially at night, that I needed the heater, an extra blanket, a down comforter, AND sweats and a hoodie to stay warm during sleep. Thus I am going someplace warm in the winter. I've been watching prices for travel and I start laying out a trip to Hanoi, Vietnam, various places in Thailand that I've been to and have not been to, as well as Phnom Penh, Cambodia. This is one of those trips where I'll plan a few one-way tickets and get somewhere and then decide where to go from there - thus I don't have a plan to get back home yet. (And ticket prices keep changing by the day, so there is no hurry to buy any tickets.) I take a break to watch a fun Moto3 race race from Aragon where the overnight thunderstorms have completely cleaned the track of rubber build-up on the new pavement and its a wild race! The championship leader runs out to a big lead ad riders staring 3rd are soon running 10th and riders running 9th are soon in second. Tha changing track conditions and differetn tire choices make this a wild race. Soon the lead riders, after getting a three second lead, is back in fourth and not making the podium. The changing track conditions wreck havoc with team strategies and eventually my favorite rider, having chosen a hard rear tire, wins the race ane becomes the 400th lower class rider. My second favorite ride gets second. And the the expected results are completely turned upside down. I think about watching the Moto2 race immediately, but decide to save that for Wednseday. And I just go back to writing abstracts for the Cerebral Beach hackathon to try and draw in participants to team with me and solve some interesting problems. At some point I realize that it is nearing 4pm And I have not eaten anything today. So I eat some cauliflower, squash, and broccoli soup and some some bread and butter.
I start Wednesday with a 65 minute run/walk - not wanting to overdo the running. I trim the roses and pull out the ladder and electric clippers and tree back the two large trees in the backyard. Then I rake up the trimming and run a lawnmower over them - because that's easier than raking and lifting them into the trash bin. I have a cooling shower and read the news and markets and then start running errands. I goto CVS pharamcy to refill two prescriptions and to get what I thought was a flu and monkeypox vaccine. But instead I just get a flu and covid vaccine (because they day they don't have the mpox vaccine). Well, then why was it on their website? Afterrwards I drive to the train station to fill up mu TAP card and then I go to the library to return two books and get two new ones. Back at home a box has arrived and I install the tank protector on the Yamaha YZF-R3 and an old battery tender that I had left over from the Yamaha YZF-R1. It's a very hot day, so the fender eliminator kit will get installed (replacing the old one) later. AT mid-afternoon I finally get to sit down and watch the Moto2 race where its also wild due to the track having been washed away of rubber from the previous night's thunderstorms. And later I relax with a bit of the Dodgers' game and read the installation instructions for the fender eliminator kit.
On Wednesday night as I toss from one side to the other, I notice how sore both of my shoulders are from the morning's vaccinations. I don't remember my arms being this sore before, but then I've never had these vaccinations at this low of a weight. And when I wake up on Thursday morning I have a 1 degree F fever. I slight fever is possibly normal after the vaccinations, but this is more than usual. I take an Aleve, trim the roses, water the roses for our current heat wave, and read the news and markets and lift weights. The shoulder soreness does not bother my lifts, but most lifts are down a bit. (And I'm somewhat lethargic today.) I sharpen the trr trimmers from yesterday and cool off with a shower. There isn't much to do until today's 2pm dental appointment where I hope I get at least a temporary set of teeth with a bridge to use for a while. Late on Thursday I watch the first football game of the season while adding in another potential project for the Cerebral Beach Hackathon.
When I get ready to go cycling on Friday, the rear tire on my road bicycle is flat. THis is the one that I changed on the road the other day. I must have pinched the tube when installing the new tube - which allowed me to finish my ride the other day but is slowly leaking air. Thus I take the mountain bicycle out for an loop ride with extensions to the Seal Beach outlook and past Liberty park. At home I pull out the road bicycle and possibly find more of the staple in the rear tire that possibly punctured the new inner tube (rather than me pinching it). Eventually, though this tire does not have that many kilometers on it, I put it aside and install a brand new tiree and brande new tube on the road bicycle. ANd I'll debug later as to what is salvageable and what is not. After a shower I read the news and markets and make fish and chips to watch the FP2 sessins of MotoGP and Moto2 from Misano, Italy. And then I just relax with some Netflix. Today it reaches 106F in Long Beach and I think about it, but by 6:30pm it is down to 84F and I slowly ride the mountain bicycle to the First Friday event and walk with my bicycle on the sidewalk and check out the shops and music and art. I haven't been to a First Friday for a long time - maybe since before the bicycle accident which is approaching two years.
On Saturday I start north on on the Los Angeles river trail with the road bicycle and new rear tire and nre ttube. I'm low on blood sugar and muscle glycogen right from the start. I get to the bridge and think, "I'll just get to the Whittier dam and turn around". And this thought keeps popping up with different outbound targets each time. But I keep going. Today I cross over the Whittier Narrows dam and ride along the street and turn north on the San Gabriel river trail. Wait...what? I see riders ahead and I want to catch them. I'll turn around after I see the pen of cows. But I see other riders ahead and think "I'll turn around at the midpoint". But for some reason I keep going all of the way to the base of the Santa Fe dam. Now I finally turn around and head for home. On the ride home I keep seeing riders up ahead and I keep my pace up to reel them in. (And I've certainly seen the pen of oxen both north and south and yell out to them the Thai word for ox. Sometimes the oxen look up - I hope they recognize a fellow oxen.) In most instances, the riders either decide to take a break at a park, stop and answer their phones, or otherwise leave the trail. Finally a rider joins the trail ahead of me from a park and I ride 50 meters behind him for many kilometers until I put on a surge and ride besides him. It turns out he works at Northrop Grumman on aircraft aerodynamics and we talk about a mess of topics. But now its my turn to exit at Del Amo and I wish him well as he will continue back to Seal Beach. Along Del Amo I'm a bit slow (because I don't have blood glucose or muscle glycogen and its been almost 100 kilometers of riding). A rider is behind me for a while and says he likes my jersey. I'm wearing that retro Renault Gitane Cycles jersey that anonymously was delivered to me. This is the second ride in a month where riders have told me they like the jersey. But he leaves at Clark avenue and I crawl on home. I'm happy that I kept pushing on, but I'm tired. I have a cooling shower, meditate, pick up supplies at the grocery store, and can relax with the air conditioning to be turned on near 1pm since its already 93F outside. Though we will not get to yesterday's 106F. There's qualifying for the three classes of MotoGP riders (MotoGP, Moto2, Moto3) today which I enjoy and then, because I have no blood sugar, just sit in front of the television with weird college football games which mean nothing to me.
I sleep an extra ten minutes on Sunday morning and get out on the mountain bicycle for a recovery ride. The first few kilometers are difficult but then I'm going. It's a good ride with a typical time for the recovery ride distance. At home IU trim the roses, grab a cooling shower, meditate, get back on the bicycle for a couple of supplies at the grocery store, and then return home to start the laundry. Today is expected to be 101F in Long Beach, so I have fans going early to try and capture the cooler morning air and the air conditioning will get turned on later. I read the news and start the laundry. As I'm putting laundry into the washing machine I look through a chest of drawers and discover more old clothes. I try on a pair of black corduroy pants ad they fit good - a bit loose in the waist - but good enough. And I find swimming trunks and another pair of shorts which should fit but I put them in the laundry first. A bit later I watch the MotoGP Tissot sprint race. It's 2pm when I finally make a salad and bread and butter for lunch. I watch some football but miss the Dodgers' game and the highlight of the week - MY Detroit Lions game on national broadcast against the Los Angeles Rams. The Lions play wellin the first half and let the Rams tie the game. Fortunately the Lions win the overtime coin toss and take the football down the field for a touchdown. It's the best Sunday I can hope for in this heat.
My legs are very tired on Monday morning but I still get out for a 64 minute run/walk. The ten minute warmup walk was the hardest part. I grab a cooling shower and meditate and ride the bicycle to the grocery store for some supplies. When I'm inside the grocery store I notice that my forearm is bleeding. This is the one time where I've decided not to carry tissue with me for a runny nose or tearing up of eyes (side effects from the radiation). So I ask the cashier for a tissue and she says, "How did you do that?" And here's another case where I'm bleeding or bruised and have no idea how it happened because I don't feel a thing. Today should only be 99F in Long Beach, but I'll have a slow day and watch the MotoGP race from Misano, Italy and some Netflix. The MotoGp race is wild as light rain starts to fall before the race and then stops and everyone is unsure how to proceed. When the race starts, with everyone on dry tires, there is more rain and the championship leader is more or less the only one to duck into the pits to change motorcycles to wet tires. This is a big mistake and he later has to go back and get his dry bike back out. A fun race to watch! Because this race was so much fun I cannot help myself and watch the Moto3 race where there is no rain, but the winner comes back from a double long lap jump start penalty to record his first ever win. Another young rider to watch for the future.