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I start Tuesday with a shorter ride than expected because there is a lot of work to do today. After a shower I run errands to Trader Joe's, Vons, and the library. Within two minutes of entering the library I have found two good books to read - one related to the punk ruck music scence in Russia and one related to the "weird events" of Forumla One. At home I expect some help at removing fence posts in the backyard, but none is coming. So I just start with a new idea I've had while cycling to use the the garden hose as a water jet (as I've done while tryng to tunnel underneath pavement while laying new sprinklers.) The idea seems to work well as I can make good progress digging up the cement posts. It takes 90 minutes to practive and get going and completely remove a very heavy cement post. But I think I think I have a process in place. I'm super tired now and spend some with the retired schoolteacher who can't seem to make any decision on her own. And I take two separate efforts, with rest time between, to completely remove the chain link fence from the vertical posts and to soak and prepare for another post removal soon. It is supposed to rain on Wedneday, so i look forward to a very short run or session lifting weights and take my time trying to remove the cements posts. (The cement posts look at least two feet long and must weigh more than one hndred pounds each - so they are not easy to work with or dig up.) But I'm not on a schedule for this effort. The rest of the day moves along slowly and I look forward to a Wednesday and either Thureday or Friday of rain and light workouts.
Since it is raining a bit, I stay in bed until 6:15am listening to the rain. There's no early morning run or cycling today, so it's not critical to get out of bed early. I start the day with a Red Bull and Mountain Dew cocktail in order to do tax forms for the non-profit, do some other code editing, get in a workout with the weights, and do a bit of water-spraying and digging of posts even though the day is wet.
It rains on both Wednesday and Thursday, so I go out out running and get completely soaked. And see two more coyotes in these two days - that make five coyotes that I've seen in the last seven runs. I do a lot of programming and keep making typographical errors (which are easy to catch) and some other logic errors which are harder to catch. In betwen I do the one workout per hout on these two days - one for abdominals and one for biceps. And I ponder why my coding skills have diminished. I think its just because I haven't had a chance to code since the Cerebral Beach hackathon back in October.
I expect to ride long on Friday morning, buts its especially cold after the rain and my legs are tired so I do a mountain bicycle recovery ride to the old yacht club and back to home. I use the waterjet to spray open the cemenet post for one end of the gates and its goes well. I don't remove the post, but another day of waterspraying and prying should get it out. After a shower I go see the retired schoolteacher again, for like the 20th of the last 25 days, and I'm getting afraid as she is talking of selling her car. Does this mean that I will be her chauffeur? I continue to insist that she call her insurance provider and ask about regular, like twice a week, home health care. I explain that once I had once a week physical therapy and once a week home nursing checkups, during both the bicycle acident and the cancer rehabilitation, I had a heck of a time trying to get them to stop. Finally just saying, "I'll call you when I need something". But her health plan is different and we'll see when she calls on Monday (after a month of me prodding her) what her healthcare provider offers. I ake a short break do some financial planning and then tidy up the house a bit and just try to get ready by resting for a long Sunday bicycle ride. It will only be a degree or two warmer, but today was not nearly as cold as I thought it was going to be. And after eBay seems to be striking out for the most popular of my collectible magazines from 30 years ago, I grab a stack of old, alternative magazines and dump them into the recycling bin. Something that I should have done six years ago after my brother died. During an early afternoon break in activities as I'm putting stuff away in the garage, I go check the fence post that I watersprayed this morning. I can move it by hand. THus I put on old shoes and socks and dig away a bit using a shovel and and an old fence post for leverage. I only try for then minutes and give up - a Sunday morning waterspray should loosen everthing up to fully remove the post tomorrow.
I start Sunday in chilly weather with legs still tired from previous runs and rides on the road bicycle and have a pretty decent 100 kilometer road bicycle ride. There are a couple of riders who pass me on this ride, but then I seem to gain momentum and pass many riders on the southbound leg. And I even find the strength tomake three sprints to make green lights. At home I check out the loosened post and it is very loose. Though I am tired, I put on my muddy clothes and do another waterspray. And then minutes later I have the cement post out of the ground. I have two to go - the most difficult one - one up against the garage and one up against the relatively new back fence. But progres is going quicker than I expected. I get a shower and take the motorcycle out for Super Bowl supplies. Typically I'll have a Togos subsandwich and chips. Today, I just buy chips and decide I'm make my own sandwiches. With four chocolae chip cookies leftover from the other night of making for after the game. Before the game starts, for which I have no real preference, I walk through the house and gather some things to be donated or disposed of soon. And find that Goodwill "theoretically" wipe wipe a donated computer of personal infrmation, so I'll check this out on Monday before donating TWO laptops to them. I still have a ton of old Manning/Pjura stuff that...what do I do with it? Nobody has those last names anymore and nobody has shown any interest in it. Do I "impersonally" go to the consignment store where I found my kitchen light fixture and ask the lady to consign it? And then, having run out of energy, I just watch some golf before the Blah Bowl...ummm....the Super Bowl comes on.
Monday is a planned day off from working the legs since they've bit hit pretty hard with running, cycling, and fencepost diging lately. I read the news and markets and put together a list of things to do and have a very godd session with the weights. After not lifting weights for the seven weeks in Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia, it might be time to raise the weights and lower the repetitions (as long as I don't do that too quickly and mess up a joint). After lifting I do some more waterspraying and digging of the last two fence posts (and cement bases) that have to come out. And then I quit for the day - I'm tired.
I'm out the door on the road bicycle for an initially planned long ride. I have second thoughts about a long ride when there are some raindrops and I think ahead about trying to remove the fencepost up against the back fence. Regardless I have a very good road bicycle ride of about 70 kilometers. At home it seems like the cement block holding fence post in is very loose and within ten minutes I have it out of the hole. I've straightened everything out so that the backyard doesn't look like the mess that it is and then I start watering the last fencepost/cement block which is right up against the garage. I think I've found the edge of the cement footing (as opposed to the garage footing) and I dig around and water. I go out a few times during the day and drop water into the hole though I don't use the pressure spraywasher yet. And after a warming showr I have a very slow and boring day. There are errands that I could run, but I'll get to them on Wednesday and/or Thursday when the car has to go out for an appointment in the rain and the car, unfortunately, is going to get wet.
There's a light sprinkle when I go to run but it doesn't get any worse. I get in a very good 90 minute run/walk. At home I waterspray the fence post cement block and if I use my imagination, I can possibly see some side-to-side motion when I push on the fencepost. This means some progress, but nthing like the one from yesterday. Hopefully a couple days of rain and more waterspraying will get it out. After a shower I grab a coat and umbrella and walk to the post ffice and grocery store and then walk home. Everything is wet and goes into the washing machine. Lately the dishwasher has been acting flakey and as I'm out running I think "hard restart". So at home I pull the plug out of the wall socket and let the dishwasher be dormant until late in the afternoon when I'll plug it back in and see if it starts behaving again. At 11:30am we have the Long Beach Human Trafficking Task Force meeting that I've missed for the last two months because I was on a fourteen hour time difference. But we have a good meeting and hear some good successes from the Long Beach Police Department. During the day I spend a lot of time consolidating my travel laptop with my home desktop and new laptop and I also spend a lot of time consolidating the notes that I hand-wrote in a paper notebook to a digital format and then I paste it into the paper notebook. (This paper notebook is a travel notebook when I go to CSULA or various meetings or other countries where I like to keep all non-secret, non-private information.) Here's another day where I've run/walked 16 kilometers, dug and played with the fencepost, taken a shower, walked to the post office and grocery store, had an LBHTTF meeting, and worked on a website and list of things to do, and I still have not eaten anything by 2pm. I finally have a bean, cheese, tomato, and japaleno burrito and some Sprite to pump the blood sugar back up and continue working.
Late on Wedneesay afternoon, despite me not hearing the typical "dishwasher noises", It seems that the dishwasher has regained " an equlibirium status" and is running normally. Except that it doesn't seem to be producing the heat dry part of the cycle. Thursday is a miserable day - it's cold and very wet. I sleep for an extra hour because I've probably been pushing things a bit much. I get in a good session with the weights with increased weights (except for the shoulders that still have problems from the bicycle accident). During the heaviest rain I buy a new shovel (because this 35 year old shovel's wood handle broke with all of the leverage that I've been using it for), get to the ATM, visit my financial advisor, and then stop in at the grocery store for supplies. I'm topped up for a while and I look excitedly t the forecast of weather on my mobile phone and see that I should be able to get in a run on Friday morning. And then I just try to stay warm and watch a bit of television.
As I'm waking up at 6am on Friday there is a 20 second downpour and than silence. Wait - there wasn't supposed to be any more rain. I check my weather apps and they show a 20% chance of rain in about 30 minutes when I'll be ready to go run. I'll take that chance. My second bathroom toilet won't completely flush, as happens sometimes during heavy rains, and I'll take care of it later. I get dressed and get in a completely dry air, wet pavement run of 90 minutes. Two longer runs in three days! At home I grab a quick shower and drive to the Home Depot to buy a new toilet plunger. (This toilet plunger, like the broken shovel this past week, is probably close to 30 years old.) On the way home I stop in at Marshall's for a zippered hoodie in size medium. And then I stop at the Vons supermakrtet, which has been here for about 30 years and was a small Home Depot wen I first moved into this house, is shutterred (as they had announced since it was underperforming). I take a picture of the Vone logo and shuttered doors and continue home. I guess this is "corporate progress" even if it is "neighborhood harm". At home I wipe down the World Rally Car since it got rained on yesterday, use my new "most powerfull" plunger to unclog the toilet in two strokes, and then work for a few minutes on the last fence post that is being stubborn. I give up and pull the trash bin out to put in one cement block from the fence (probably weighing 140 lbs), one broken shovel, and an old toilet plunger. I wonder what the government will think I'm doing if they go through my trash. Then, being worn out, I sit down and read the news and markets and make sure my MotoGP and F1 streaming payments are up-to-date for the start of the season soon. And later work on some websites that require a fair amount of historical review of photos and text to get correct. I quit halfway through and vow to finish it shortly.
Perhaps you can tell that I am working on "routine" things like updating websites, cycling, running, lifting weights, home maintenance, and fence disassembly. I have two "advanced" projects that I want to work on but I cannot bring myself to sit down and go through the intricacies and details of each of these. I start to wonder if I am going senile, just plain getting old, getting unmotivated, or losing interest in these projects. I'll try to finish up the "routine" websites as quickly as possible and then put my concentrated effort on these new ideas. And then I will have to decide if I am going senile, losing interest, or don't feel motivated about the new projects.
I intend to ride long on Saturday, but instead just push the mountain bicycle down to the old yacht club and back to home. I get in a few surges to make it a more difficult workout. At home I play with the last remaining fence post. As I shake it back and forth it finally starts to show some movement. I waterspray and dig around the cement block and see mroe motion as I proceed. But I cannot get anything under the cement block yet in in order to leverage up and out of the ground. But this was good progress. To recap, it took six days to remove six posts and now it looks like it will take six days to get this remaining post out. After a shower I make a quick bicycle ride to the grocery store for supplies. I catch up on the news, pay some bills, check for tax document availability, and then start to consolidate this latest "development" website in a temporary location to its permanent home. Later, tuckered out from the ride and the pushing and pulling on the fence post, I just relax with some gold and ice hockey on television.