I start Tuesday doing more workon the LBHTTF website and reading the news and markets. At mid morning I get in a good workout fr the adbominals, core muscles, and biceps and warm up with a shower. In the afternoon I ride down to my prosothodontist for a cleaning and for a finalcheck of my partial, temporary bridge before I go on my trip. If it looks and feels good after the trip and the separate maxillofacial surgeon says that everything has healed properly, then we can make me a permanent bridge. I pick up food from Togos on the way home and sit sit back and watch the election coverage.
When I'm out the door for cycling at 5:40am I do not know the results of the previous night's election for president (or any of the down ballot races). I go out Del Amo and north for a bit on the San Gabriel river trail and then turn back south towards the beach. Somwhere along the way I pick up another rider and drag him/her along for many kilometers until the end of the trail. It turns out its a he, and he says something to me about dragging him along, but I don't really hear what he says as he he heads towards Seal Beach and I head towards Long Beach. I have a good road bicycle ride and fight a nasty headwind up the Los Angeles river trail coming home. And then decide to continue against the headwind past my normal exit to get in an extra 10 kilometers. I end up near 75 kilometers for the ride. I grab a warming shower, but some supplies at the grocery stores, do some hard pruning of a couple of rose bushes, and finally read the election results. (I usually hard prune the roses right near the first of the year, but my plans show me away until the end of January. So I'm slowly hard pruning early). Despite hope against the tide, the USA elects a convicted felon as their next president. I check the markets and see that equities are going wild in the positive territory. So I'm making a lot of money today. But still disappointed in what the future holds. I sit down and watch last Sunday's MotoGP race from Malaysia to take my mind off bad thoughts. The first few laps are incredible as the firsat two riders in the championship will not give an inch and are banging into each other and passing on every corner. Finally the race settles down and there will be a final race at Barcelona (replacing Valencia which has experienced tremendous flooding and loss of life). Later I tidy up the house with my handheld power vacuum, recharge it, and continue on. And then I'm a vegetable as the things on my list to do (for Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia) can wait a few few days. As then other tasks for those countries will continue on. And later I watch the Moto2 race where the second place finisher is a substitute rider (for a primary rider that I don't really care for) and the fourth place finisher (who I don't really care for) loses third because he miscounts the laps and things the race is over when it is not. A wild day of racing and of live!
Thursday is extra chilly, but I get out the door at 5:48am for a run/walk. Today I just go for 65 minutes since I plan on cycling long tomorrow. At home I hard-prune a few more rose bushes. Only five more to go before I take my extended vacation. After a shower I ride the bicycle to the store for supplies and then work on the LBHTTF website. I finish the html, Python, and database updates for the LBHTTF website by about noon on Thursday. I want to get an Internet-savvy young intern to go through the entire website and try every possible area. I'll have to propose this to the LBHTTF core team this week and let them think about it for a while. Later I watch some Netflix and add a few little things of my tasks to be accomplished amongst my long travels this winter. I take some time to chop up vegetables for a thick vegetable soup and put together some pasta sauce as I start using up ingredients in my kitchen that would spoil duing my extended vacation. I'm sure some milk will be left over and will go sour, but I can do the best that I can with the other foodstuffs at home. A rather slow day after the morning run, rose pruning, and website completion.
Despite still being a bit nervous about the repaired rear valve stem/core, I take the road bicycle out for another good ride. I go all of the way up to the Santa Fe dam, back to the ocean, and up the Los Angeles river trail for a total of 120 kilometers. I felt strong throughout and just "worked through" the slightly rougher patches where some good wind was against me. Afterwards I just relax since I've done everything on the LBHTTF website accept upgrade the deprecated map icons. This can wait.
I've been so tired later on Friday morning after the 120 kilometer bicycle ride and a bottle of wine that got opened. But I sleep well and drag myself out of bed for a recovery mountain bicycle ride to the old yacht club and back to home. I grab a quick shower and run errands - the ATM, Staples, the library, Home Depot, and the eWaste recycling center (for electronics and hazardous chemical recycling). But today, for an unknown reason, there's a sign saying that they are not open today. So I drive back home, unload my recyclables from the trunk of the car, and read the news. And later, because I'm not ready to update deprecated Google map icon styling, I kinda waste the day away with college football games. And loading important information on memory sticks for my upcoming extended leave.
I'm out the door at 6:00am on Sunday with and extra layer of clothing on since it has been cold (to me) lately. It's just a mountain bicycle ride down to the old yacht club and back to home. As I'm riding I see a large animal way in front of me. If that's a coyote, that is one BIG coyote. It turns out its a large German shepherd off a leash and as I pass hime or her, he/she starts to run with me. I can see from the look on the face that the doggie is friendly and just wants to run. After 200 meters the doggie has slowed down and quit. I want to go back and take it home as mine, since it appeared so friendly. But it probablyhas a chip and so I just keep riding. Going out my legs feel strong, but the last three quarters of the ride I can feel the legs tired after 220 kilometers in three days. At hme I hard-prune one rose bush - leaving three to be finished. And after wiping down the chain of the mountain bicycle I lube it up and switch through the gears the spread the lubricant around. After a shower I ride to the grocery store for supplies, start the laundry, and read some news before the football games come on. At halftime the mountain bicycle has been in the sun for two hours (and I've gone out irregularly to roll the chain around and spread the lubricant), so I bring it inside the house. What the heck? I take the road bicycle outside and repeat the two hour lubrication/pedaling to spread the lubricant. Barring rain, both bicycles are ready for their long vacation (when I leave them alone in the house for a couple of months). On Monday I'm goig to work on the deprecated google map pins to the updated version, so today I just watch football and finally see MY Detroit Lions on television for the late game in a tough game against a resurgent Hourton Texans team.
I need extra sleep on Monday and sleep until 6:45am. I get up and read the news and markets and at mid morning get in a decent workout with the weights. Right afterwards I pull out a shovel and maul and dig out three non-productive rose bushes. This is hard work and I'm sweating like crazy without a shirt in the cool weather. After a shower I grab lunch and then try to re-arrange my travel plans to accommodate friends' holiday vacations from work. And then watch some of the football game.
I'm out the door for an extra long run at 5:55am. I have both a sweathshirt and my cycling shell on because it is chilly. But I realize that I forogt my gloves. Oh well. I get in a good 19 kilometer run where I feel strong throughout. Back at home I grab a shower and read the news and markets. I get bored late in the morning so I go out and hard-prune two more rose bushes. One more to go on Thursday. Then I should put some effort into cleaning up the carnations before I leave. Near 1pm I'm on the motorcycle for two doctors appointments way up at Cedars Sinai hospital. I tease both doctors with a recent picture of my face battered and bloody when I fell a week ago, and claim that they hit me. We get a good laugh out of this. Both doctors are happy with my progress though the ontyrologist takes a small biopsy of a region near a failed implant which is taking its time healing. Just to be sure. And then I ride the Yamaha YZF-R3 home like a madman as I'm in a hurry to get home and relax. (I should note that I never pay for parking with the Yamaha YZF-R3 because I can retract the mirrors and ride between parking structure gates, on the sidewalk, or even on other walkways to avoid parking fees.)
I start Wednesday with a mountain bicycle recovery ride near 6am. I can tell that my legs are tired from yesterday's long run, so I just spin when I need to and push when I can. At home I catch the Salvadoran neighborhood gardener and give hime a note about how long I will be away and he refuses money upfront, as usual, and expects to get paid aftwerwards. I grab a shower and drive to the grocery store for heavy items. And then I go to a clothing store but they don't have dress pants in my size. When I get home I clean and lubricate the garage door hinges and then look deep into the bowels of the closet and find a pair of pin-striped dress pants - exactly what I wanted - freshly dry cleaned from 100 years ago that are a bit too big but I'll use to get started. The Long Bech Human Trafficking Task Force Meeting starts at 11:30 and a very good speaker tells his story of being violated and trafficked and how becoming a Christian helped him "get out of the life" and start a non-profit. His talk strikes me because it is no nnsense and directly from the heart. It's already been a productive day, so I take some time to relax with the news and markets and some television. And catch a bit of the Kings' ice hockey game. I'm so tired from Tuesday's long run, that I am in bed reading and asleep very early.
I need more sleep and set a second alternate alarm when I wake up on Thursday. But I wake up before the alternate alarm and take my blood pressure and body termprature (as standard practice) and get dressed to start my day. Amongst my routine my alternate alarm goes off and I disable it. And I'm out the door for another recovery mountain bicycle ride near 6:20 am. I feel good going out and, for the most part, coming back in, but north on the Los Angeles river my legs are tired. That 20 kilometer run sure took a lot out of my legs. At home I pretein load and then hard-prune the last rose bush. And pull out a rake to clean up the debris of all of the recent hard pruning. This past year of rose growth was super for the early part of the year but was terrible for the last few months. Thus I've culled a few unproductive rose bushes with shovel and maul and I'll concentrate the upcoming year on the remaining rose bushes. I finally get in a warming shower and then ride the bicycle (with a backpack) for supplies at the grocery store. I am still tired so I read the news and markets and reboot both computers (desktop and laptop) as they suggest that updates are available. I find a Monte Carlo Tree Search Algorithm that I understand, so I try and install it but it doesn't want to install. I'll work on this for a while. I have an early (for me) lunch at 12:30 of vegetables and bread and butter. Fully expecting to take Friday to lift weights for the upper body and then carboload for a long Saturday ride. (This plan is partially driven by the possibility of rain for Friday morning and not being able to ride or ready to run again.) After lunch I continue a long break from coding by cleaning up and/or watching recorded shows from DirecTV or Netflix and then go back to see if I can install the Monte Carlo Tree Search Algorithm via alternate means.
For an unknown reason, on both Wednesday and Thursday, I just feel like crying. I put on some music and race endings that make me want to cry with joy and I cry. I think about people who are refugees with no homeland and I cry. During the Thursday morning bicycle ride there are a couple periods of time where I have to wipe my eyes because I am crying and cannot see where I am going. I'm crying for both happy events and for despicable conditions that people suffer through. I'm not crying for myself despite everything I've been through in the past couple of years. I'm crying for both joy and sadness and efforts of other people. Why is this?
I'm out of bed at 5:45 on Friday morning to backtrack a bit and work on the Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) algorithm. I get it to work for a test case supplied on github. And now I start configuraing my recent hackathon effort, directed at a cellular automata simulation of homelessness, to fit into the MCTS algorithm. I clean up my code and start to gigure out how to deal with a nonsquae inputs to MCTS - since all of the examples are tictactoe (i.e., 3 by 3), checkers (i.e., 8 by 8), and connect4 (i.e., 7 by 7). I take a break to dig out the last of the rose bushes that are non-productive and this one comes out fairly easily. I get in a good session with the weights, put all sorts of batteries on battery chargers since I'll be gone for a while, put a coat of polyurethane on my shovel and maul, and then grab a warming shower. Today I watch MotoGP FP2 from Barcelona for MotoGP - the last race of the season - set up as an alternate due to the recent flooding in Valenica (the traditional closing race of the MotoGP season). In the afternoon I cook pasta to carboload for a long Saturday morning road bicycle ride and then watch Moto2 FP2 frm Barcelona. I eventually keep modifying my cellular automata (non-square) code to fit into MCTS theory but don't finish in time to make a run and find errors to be corrected.
On Friday it is a cold start to the ride and gets colder as I approach El Monte and the Santa Fe dam and the mountains. I get turned around and crank up the pace to warmup. I'm dragging along riders and one rider, in a red Specialized jersey, is a bit irritating because he always follows and never takes a turn at the front. I pull everyone for 20 kilometers ad finally the red jersey guy takes the lead for a kilometer or two as we approach another rider. Instead of passing the rider, he tucks behind him and we slow down. After a few kilometers I've had enough and announce "Rider on the left" and go to the head of the pack and tow everyone along for a few kilometers. This last rider, I can tell, is stronger than I am and after I've pulled for a few kilometers he takes his turn at the front. With te red jersey rider at the back being towed along again. We finally approach my turn off point and I announce "Exiting at Del Amo" and "Thanks for the tow" to the strong rider at the front. To the red jersey rider I just say "Have a good ride and wave" and he says nothing but waves back. I get in 90 kilometers and only the last few riders, after a hard and fast 75 kilometers, is slow. I grab a q quick warming shower, drop off my last library book at the library, and pick up some grocery supplies. Later in the day I watch MotoGP/2/3 qualifying, work on the MCTS implementation, and just feel good and tired after the hard ride. It's refreshing that I've felt so good over the last two days after my little crying spree. Maybe I need to do that more often.
On Sunday I sleep a bit late and start a recovery mountain bicycle ride to the old yacht club and back to home near 6:30am. When I get home I see that the temperature is 61F isnide the house, so I finally turn on the heat (ahead of my December goal). I grab a warming shower, do some garage maintenance, fill up the Yamaha YZF-R3 with gasoline, and stop in at CVS pharamcy for supplies. At home I rpint some Vietnam reservations because I don't trust the Vietnamese immigration officials with phone-based immigration assignments, watch a few minutes of football, watch the entire MotoGP Tissot sprint (to set up a deciding MotoGP race on Sunday), and work on modifications to the Monte Carlo Tree Search modifications for my problem. Later I wash the hardwood and kitchen floors so that they will be clean, more or less, whem I return from the trip and then watch football.
On Monday I'm out the door at 5:20am for a 19 kilometer run. I could have run longer, but I don't want to overdo things and mess any bodyparts up before my trip (as I did with my left Achilles tendon before my last trip to Vietnam). I get a very nice warming shower, fill up the car with gasoline, and pick up a few supplies to last me until I leave. (I try to leave my vehicles filled with gasoline so that condensation does not accumulate in an empty gasoline tank and make it harder to start on return.) I cut up almost all of my remaining vegetables and make a very thick veggie soup for use throughout the week so that I do not waste any food on my extended trip. I work a bit on generic Python *args arguments for subroutines and my simple examples work, but the real problem has something wrong with it. I add this to my list to work on during my trip though I should hopefully work it out before I leave. There's the World Championship deciding race for MotoGP and the new champion gets a third place to clinch his first MotoGP championship (before he switches teams for next year). And later in the day I atch some of the football game though I don't care for either team playing in it. I also take some time to nofiy my banks and the post office that I will be in other countries - so please do not restrict my ATM or credit card usage and just accumulate my mail for later pickup.
I sleep late on Tuesday after Monday's long run. I start the day out the door at 6:20am for a recovery mountain bicycle ride. My legs feel tired, but they feel better than the day after last week's long run. I warm up with a shower, ride the bicycle to the grocery store, read the news and markets, take care of a few more things that need to be done before my long trip, and then watch the final Moto2 race of the year. All of the MotoGP teams will get Monday off and then they will start testing their 2025 motorcycles on Tuesday. At times during the day, as is typical at this time of year, I go stand outside in the sunshine to warm up and absorb sunshine. As I'm out here I plan out the projects for the backyard in 2025: seriously trim back the side Juniper so that it is easier to maintain, remove the termite-infested porch and decide what to put in its place, and maybe even extend the garage back so that I have more room in the garage. (The porch has been on the house at least since I bought it 37 years ago. So it's certainly time for something new.)
On Wednesday I sleep a shade late and walk to the grocery store for supplies. Then I get out for a second recovery mountain bicycle ride after Monday's long run. At home I mow and edge the front and backyards before turning it over to the neighborhood gardener for the next few months, I get in a nice warming shower and then Zoom into the Gallup New Mexico Human Trafficking Task Force meeting. They are just starting this effort out in Gallp, a city of about 25000 people, so I contribute where I can. My pre-travel checklist is down to two items to be accomplished before SUnday's day of laundry and packing.
I wake up Thursday morning near 4:00am to "chirp-chirp-chirp". It takes me a mnute or two to realize that the smoke detector is telling me that it has low batteres. So I grab a chair fron another room and pull the smoke detector down and disconenct the battery. I go back to sleep until about 6am and get out the door for a 65 minute run - not wanting to run to far after Monday's 19 kilometer run. At home I have a replacement battery for the smoke detector and it gets installed before I grab a shower. I get the car washed, pick up more batteries for the future, and get a haircut. The stylist, another Khmer lady, is happy to hear that I will be going back to Cambodia and we both agree about how bad traffic has become in Phnom Penh as everyone as transitioned from motorbikes to cars. (She had just visited last year and discovered this.) I get home and turn on the heat and read the news and markets. I load a memory stick with personal or semi-personal data that I don't want available on Dropbox. At this point, I just have to make sure my documents (and copies) are ready and then do laundry and pack on Sunday for a Monday morning flight. Monday morning before Thanksgiving - the busiest travel day of the year and they are expecting rain (just to throw in a wildcard). I spend almost two hours working on scraping assets from websites in case the Gallup New Mexico Human Trafficking Task Force finds a website that they want me to copy, duplicate, modify, change the colors, and change the content of. This gves me a chance to practice my my Python web scraping skills and I note, at mid-afternoon, that my skills have not degraded at all. I continue to stretch my legs and shoulders and neck throughout the day as I intend a long Friday bicycle ride and a long Sunday run before I spend a million hours on an airplane getting to Vietnam.
I'm having a skeptical night of riding long on Friday morning because of the temperature and the way that I feel. But, for the most part, I sleep well on Thursday night. The alarm goes off and I hit snooze for ten minutes and then get up to go ride. It is very cold before 6am when my ride starts and I can barely get the bicycle stopped when I need to as my fingers are cold, but I move along and continue to hope for the the warmth of the sun and for no shading of my bicycle trail. I get up to the Santa Fe dam and then head south - not energetic, but not tired. I crank along as a rider or two pass me but I also pass a number of riders on the long run down the San Gabriel river trail. I'm committed now, so I ride along the ocean and then back up the Los Angeles river trail towards home for a 120 kilometer ride. At home I quickly get a warm shower and then see a bill from the city of Long Beach for the recent ambulance visit. In jest, I forward it to my neighbors who (rightly) insisted that they call 911 and I see a form to forward it to Medicare and MediGap which I fill out and get ready to drop in the mail. I get the bedding laundry done and watch a very cold and inconclusive FP2 for Formula One in Las Vegas. It's 3pm and I haven't eaten anything yet, so I warm up some cooked vegetables and have some highly-salted chips that I bought the other day because I had a craving for salt (but didn't follow through on the craving). I'm trying to buy and eat just what is necessary at this point so that nothing goes to waste during my long and unknown trip. Throughout the day I keep stretching my legs and neck and shoulders and hope for no muscle cramps.
On Saturday there is a threat of rain so I sleep late and stay away from cycling and running since my legs have not had a day off for a week. I walk t the grocery store for a couple of things that I am craving and then read the news and markets. Fairly early I get in a decent session lifting weights and then warm up with a shower. The F1 qualifying from Las Vegas is a bit dull since it is Las Vega - what can I say? And then I start gathering things for my trip though not yet packing them. I've previously sorted through all of the left over money from previous trips so its easy for me to find any useable money for this trip. The rain does come very lightly at 2pm but I'm inside the house watching some football and still gathering information, memory sticks, and links as well as physical items for my trip. This will be a long trip.
Though the pavement is still wet, I start Sunday near 6am on the mountain bicycle. When I get down along the ocean there is a very large police presence and I have to ride on Ocean boulevard all of the way to the old yacht club. Not a problem since it is early on a Sunday morning. Then I reverse for home and police presence on the beach path - it must have been twemty LB SUVs - is still there and I was told earlier "It's going to be a whilee". I warm up with a shower, start the laundry, watch the Las Vegas F1 race, and pack for my trip. I pull out all of my leftover money and find the appropriate ones for this trip to take with me to get started in each country. And then I just work away at packing and making sure that IU have everything ready to go on Monday morning.