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I start Friday at 5:20 am as I want to pack, take a shower, eat some food, and get to the airport early to argue with AirAsia whether I have prepaid my luggage fee or not. They always pull this sh$t on customers. Except that a miracle happens and they have received my luggage fee and they do not try to double charge me. As usual, I help other travelers get their bags into the overhead bin and I end up cutting my forearm on one of the helps. I ask the flight attendant for tissue and she eventaully makes a second stop and brings me a bandage. The flight of 70 minutes gets into Bangkok's old airport 20 minutes early. By the end of the flight one part of the wound is still oozing so I sit down with my luggage and pull out some waterproof medical tape and tape up the wound until I get to the hotel. I don't know what other people think of me attending to my wound in the airport. I catch a bus to the nearest BTS skytrain station and then the skytrain to the Nana station. From there this hotel is quite a walk with luggage but I just take my time in the mid-day heat. The hotel is nice - remember that this was a tertiary or quarterary choice - and I can see the running park outside my balcony window. A 2 kilometer loop of the park. I put neosporin on the wound and re-dress it until I go find some gauze. After I have lunch I relax a bit and then decide to go run at the park. It's a short walk and I have a good 70 minute run/walk in the heat. There is some cloud cover now so it feels much cooler than just a couple hours ago. After a shower I contact my friends in Bangkok and see how we will arrange to meet up. Tao comes to visit for an hour or so because he works close to my hotel and he's shocked at how thin I am. And I have to reiterate what I've been through recently. But I can tell he is really worried about me. Just before bed I take a short stroll to stock up on water during these hot days.
I sleep very well on Friday night into Saturday morning. I get up and go for a 75 minute run/walk in the park which featured an extra long warm-up since my last run was about 12 hours ago. After a shower I take my laundry to get washed and buy some supplies for lunch. I also take time to backup some files, do some financial calculations, pay some bills, call the retired schoolteacher neighbor who is freaking out about fraudulent charges on her credit card, and relax out of the mid-day heat. At 5:30 I've ridden the skytrain to MBK center to have dinner with Person M_My. But he has a gum infection of some sort so we just have smoothies and catch up since it has been years since I saw him. Later we go back to my hotel and hang out.
I sleep horribly on Saturday night into Sunday morning. Thus I sleep late. Person M_My and I go walking to find a place for breakfast and then we pick up my laundry on the way back to the hotel. After a short rest, we go to Benjakitti park near the hotel to walk and run and take pictures. I get in a decent 60 run/walk though my legs are sore, so I cut back the running and increase the walking for a day. Later I see Person M_My off and I pick up supplies for lunch. I spend the afternoon relaxing in my cool room and later entertain Person T_Th who comes to visit.
On Monday I cannot anser the 6:05 alarm and reset it for 7am which I answer. I check the news realy quick and then run/walk around the park for 80 minutes. My legs are sore, but its a good soreness that loosens uo as I go. Afer a shower I take the trains all of the way out to the airport thinking I can go to a newstand and get The Economist for reading on the way back home. But there are no newstands anymore (and the Phnom Penh newstand probably will not have The Economist like last time). I'm feeling frustrated as I'm low on blood sugar and missing The Economist on the two trains back the MBK center - almost wanting to say nasty things to people playing their music too loud or bumping into me because they had their noses buried in their phones. But I hold off and go to my favorite vegetarian food stall and start to feel better. On the way back home I stop for more first aid tape (to prevent foot blisters and to keep my wound covered) and some chocolate. And I relax a bit and get a start on updating websites for the new month and new year that turns over soon. (Monthly updates are pretty easy but the annual ones need the copyright updated and I have to make sure I get all of the files.) And later watch some Netflix.
I keep vowing to have a pure walking day, but today isn't it. Once I've warmed up with a brisk walk I start run/walking. I get in a good 67 minute run/walk. After a shower I go walking to stores to top up supplies and then finish off the website updates. I've accomplished most of the technical, coding, and web-based actions that I needed to accomplish except for converting to the new Google analytics and to the new Google map markers. I still have Cambodia to accomplish these. Late in the day I go to Terminal 21 to meet up with Tao for dinner and have a small new year's eve celebration. A few years ago Person M_My and I went over to Siam Center for new year's eve and it was so crowded that I couldn't take it. And when Person M_My and I got home, he discovered his necklace was missing from his neck. Somebody must have yanked it in the crowded conditions. Thus I try to avoid these large crowds.
I sleep very well for the first five hours of Tuesday night and then wake up and have trouble falling back asleep. I start the new year out the door before 7am for a long walk (with only a handfull of running surges) since my hip flexures are a bit sore. I finish with a good 80 minute walk and stretch with the other Thai runners afterwards. After a shower I go pick up supplies, close out the 2024 financial caluclations, and work on some mySQL backend code that I just found a Python version incompatibility with. After making some good progress I take some time to re-watch AlphaGo about using artificial intelligence to play the game of Go. (Just to get more new ideas.) Later I ride the BTS skytrain to Silom and wander around and see how much it has changed. I don't stay long, just enough to walk up and down the street and probe into sois and alleys. Then I ride the BTS skytrain back home and continue the mySQL programming. I'm making good progress.