Tuesday starts with a very windy ride - up to 30 mph. Up the San Gabriel river trail, and a strong headwind back south. But the strongest headwind - up to 30 mph hour - going west on the beach trail. I just persist and drop down a gear because I have to get home. At home, after the good workout, I wipe down the carbon fibre rims on the road bicycle since I just lubricated the chain and then I go bring in the first batch of suitable rose blooms for the year. After paying bills and reading the news and markets, I transfer some prescriptions from CVS pharmacy to Amazon so that they just simply get delivered to my doorstep. And then I sit back for the MotoGP race where nobody knows whether to use wet or dry tires. Just as the race is about to start, the pole sitter, and than many others, run off the grid to get their bikes with dry tires fitted. There is mayhem and chaos and the race, before it has started, is red-flagged so that riders can change bikes but also how to dish out penalties for riders who switched past the allowable time period. With a 100% level of inconsistency in dishing out penalties, the governing organization gives out NO penalties as they start the race. During the day, after the difficult windy bicycle ride, I've started my once-per-hour set of repetitions for the abdominals and lower back. And I continue to work on some of my forecasting models before the Dodgers' game comes on later.
Wednesday is very cold and I'm tired, so I sleep until 6:45am. I get up and go for a 73 minute run/walk amd the read the news and markets and finally head to LAX to pick up Joe and Elliott from Brasil. Elliot had left a sock at my house and I launder it and then put four tasty chocolate chip cookies into the sock and pretend not to notice. I, of course, get to LAX early and make a few loops around the airport umtil they can be picked up with their luggage. I ask, "Whose sock is this" and when Elliot admits it is his I give it to him and he says, "Wait a minute There's something in this sock". There are four chocolate chip cookies that I've baked and he gets them. I give Joe his car dongle and he immediately says, "This car has been cleaned". And I say "I have a high repution in my city and cannot drive a dirty car". I also give Joe a stern warning that his tire pressures are low and that is unnacceptable if he is driving his ten year old around. We have a discussion about his car maintenance but we have super conversations about Joe and Elliott's trip to Brasil. I give the dongle to Joe and let him drive us home and ask if everyone is okay to drive to Redlands. Elliott makes a quick trip to the bathroom and then they are off. The rest of the day is spent working on optimal curve fitting and the the Dodgers' game.
I wanted to ride long on Thursday, but just do my recovery mountain bicycle ride to the old yacht club and back to home. I go to get an RSV vaccine and CVS tells me they cannot give me one because I've already had one. They show me the paperwork. I guess I went in 2023 to get a flu vaccine and they offered an RSV also and I took it. I guess I am going senile. Later I meat Ruby at the Olive Garden and we have a three hour lunch (since its 2pm until 5pm that we are there) and she actually runs into one of her former neighbors for a house that she owns. Later I pick up some supplies at the grocery store and just relax.
Friday morning starts with a road bicycle ride and its going well until I get near El Monte where there's a decent headwind to fight against. Okay, once I get to the Santa Fe dam I'll have a tailwind ging home. But I don't because the few miles east to the Santa Fe dam has different wind conditions and its pretty much a sidewind (of not extermes like the other day, but noticeable). I crank along quite nicely and have some periods where I'm up a gear. And finally I make a few sprints to make green lights and only have to stop once all along Del Amo for a red light. I go weedwack the rosebeds again and readjust the contents of my bicycle saddlebag because I keep hearing noises over bumps and I'm trying to debug whether it is the bicycle or just the contents of the bag. A warming shower feels good and then I start the laundry and see another 5% sell-off in the stock markets as the moron implements his tariffs. After reading the news I watch a fun FP2 for F1 cars from Suzuka, Japan - wishing the whole time that I was sitting with the rabid Japanese F1 fans. But there are at least four red flags during the session due to crashes or, suprisingly, a fire alongside the track. Thus the FP2 times have no real relevance to the pace of the cars for Saturday qualifying. And late in the afternoon I watch the Dodgers' game while doing small tasks around the house.
Yesterday I banged my right hip and I'm wondering if I can go run on Saturday morning. I take an Aleve ahead of time and do my usual ten minute brisk walking warmup and then start the run. It seems to be okay and after ten or twenty minutes of running, I don't feel it at all. I get in about 17 kilometers and finish off with a short walk to cool down. After some water I pull out the weedwacker and other bush trimming tools and clean up the front yard. This is the area in front f the house structure but behind the front juniper bushes. The grass and weeds can grow long there and sine we're coming to the end of our rainy season, now is a good time to give it an initial cleanup. I notice a sidebush is also looking ragged, so I hand trim it and clean up. The warm shower feels good before I get on a bicycle to ride to the grocery store for a few supplies (i.e., cravings) and then get back home to read the news and clean up some websites and databases. I re-watch the end of FP2 for F1 from Suszuka, Japan from yesterday and then watch the actual qualifying sessions for SUnday's race. Later in the day, as I recover from yesterday's long bicycle ride, the banged hip, and the 17 kilometer run, I just relax and watch some Amazon prime vidoes that I have for a month since I converted all of my prescriptions from a nearby CVS pharmacy to a free Amazon delivery.
Whereas two days ago my right hip hurt a bit because I banged it on something but stil ran a long way, today my left hip hurts. I simple take the mountain bicycle out for my typical recovery ride to the old yacht club and back to thome and the left hip feels better the more that I ride. I trim some side bushes, trim the roses, grab a shower, and take the bicycle to the grocery story for more cravings. At home I watch a very close, tactical Japanese F1 race from Suzuka, Japan and and am happy with the results. After reading the news I relax with some baseball and some golf and hope that I did not mess up my left hip by favoring my right hip during yersterday's long run. As the day wears on the left him is unnoticeable and I hope that it remains this way. But I vow to take Monday off from cycling and running and just lift weights for the upper body to give both hips an extra day to recover and then re-evaluate. Sunday afternoon is slow with some Amazon prime videos (since I transferred my prescriptions to Amazon from CVS) and then spned a quiet day at home. I've decied to skip today's Cambodian New Year's parade in Long Beach for recovery, rest, recuperatin, and relaxation. When I try to run the dishwasher it takes a couple of tries to get running, but I believe that it eventually comples a fulll one hour wash and hear dry cycle.
I'm tired on Monday morning and have a planned day off from cycling or running and sleep late. Eventually I get in a good session with the weights for the upper body and clean the hardwood floors and kitchen floors. And watch some recorded television programs. I have a list of things to be done in the next few days but I don't have the motivation to do any of them.
I start Tuesday with a very low blood pressure reading and dressing to go out cycling. I get in a good 70 kilometers today with some periods of fast speed and some periods of spinning. My left hip, which has started to bother me in certain weight bearing situations, is nowhere to be felt. At home I trim roses and bring fresh bloms into the house and grab a quick shower. I drive to the library to return a book and drive to the now-distant Vons to get some cinnamon muffins and a few vegetables. At home I read the news and markets, tidy up the bathrooms, sand and clean the wooden thresholds between the hardwood floors and the travertine kitchen floor, and get ready to lay on a polyurethane coating and finally find a plumber who will crawl underneath my house to (probably) re-install some padding and pipe straps which have broken loose and make a big clunking noise when my lawn sprinklers turn on and off. (I had a partial copper repipe in 1995 and have never had a problem until now. And I don't see any water puddles or increased water bills, so it is probably a large pipe banging into a wooden joist where the support strap has rusted away and broken after twenty years or so.). I still have a list of things to get done including a haircut, since I have not had a haircut since my long southeast Asia trip started in November, but I'll get to them. Later I watch some of the Dodgers' game and get ready for a busy Wednesday.
I start Wednesday with a mountain bicycle ride where it is very very foggy along the beach. I have to keep wiping my shades to remove the droplets of water that have condensed on them so that I can see. And as I turn back home one mile from the ocean it is bright and sunny. I do some final sanding, cleaning, and taping of the thresholds between the hardwood floors and kitchen floor, grab a shower, ride the bicycle to the grocery store for some supplies, and change into older clothes to lay down a coat of polyurethane on the thresholds. An hour later it is dry and looks good. But I'll gently steel wool them, clean them, and put down a second coat later today in about six hours. I Zoom to the Long Beach Human Trafficking Task Force meeting and enjoy the presentation about the Safe Passage program in Long Beach. The afternoon is slow with a bit of coding and then I watch the Dodgers' game.
I happen to wake up at 4am on Thursday and I grab some water and take an Aleve for it to stat acting before the morning run. I'm out the door for running near 6:30am and I get in a good 74 minute run/walk with no pain or discomfort. And I notice that my left ankle, which had been slightly swollen (though not hurting) recently, is less swolen probably from the Aleve. At home I mow, edge, and trim both the front and back yards and they both look nice. This is the time of year, after the March rains, when the grass has it fastest and greenest growth. Not in the summwe when the weather is hot and it would take a ton of water to keep it green. After a shower I read the news and markets and help the retired schoolteacher again as she hands me scraps of paper with her notes on them and asks me when her neurology appointment it. And then I show her for the twentieth time how to get to google.com so she can find a taxicab. As I'm leaving I warn her again that her mobile phone (and now cane) should be with her at all times. These should be glued to her hip. But she won't remember either one when I'm called over sometime this weekend. The upcoming weekend is filled with F1, MotoGP/2/3, IndyCar, and the Masters golf tournament so I watch some of the opening round. I work a bit on the older cellular automata code from the Cerebral Beach Hackathon because I have a new idea. And pause the Monte Carlo Tree Search code because it has a) been overcome by events, and b) I'm not sure it is the right algorithm for the data that I have. In the early afternoon I cook and eat pasta to carboload for a long road bicycle ride on Friday morning.
I start Friday with a good 100 kilometer bicycle ride. I have a short, difficult period, but then I start cranking along and finish strong. After a shower I watch FP2 for F1 from Bahrain and some of the Masters golf tournament. I watch the FP2 for F1 (specifically to hear the back story about upgrades the teams have brought to the race and other information). After enough golf I watch the FP2 for MotoGP/2 and, again, specifically to hear the technical details of the motorcycles and other detailed information. Later I work on some "captcha" processes to eliminate a lot of spam that the the Long Beach Human Trafficking website, in particular, is receiving.
Saturday starts with an 18 kilometer run/walk at 6:40am and nothing hurts or even threatens to hurt. (Maybe because I coincidentally woke up at 4am and took an Aleve to help prevent muscle and tissue inflammation). After the run I stretch a bit, grab a shower, and run errands. I get to Home Depot for a new bathroom faucet filter as well as some food from the grocery store. At home I trim the roses, replace the bathroom faucet filter and I like the new water flow pattern, and then start in with qualifying for F1 from Bahrain. I pause the qualifying at times to chop up vegetables and cook rice (on a Saturday this week instead of Sunday). In the midst of the F1 qualifying I also get the dishwasher to run with only one restart of the touchpad with a screwdriver. I take a break to trim the roses and watch some of the Masters. I continually monitor and delete spam from the LBHTTF website and take creative breaks to stretch my Achilles tendon, quadriceps, hamstrings, and shoulders throughout the day. Later I watch qualifying for MotoGP/2/3 from Qatar and relax the day away. Late in the evening I re-cacalculate my 2024 taxes as if I had not given so much to charitable organizations for the specific 2024 year. And I think about trying to even out these charitable organization deductions and re-run my taxes to see if they would benefit me.
I sleep well on Saturday night into Sunday morning and get started on a mountain bicycle recovery ride well before 7am. I go north on the Los Angeles river to avoid all of the street/path closures for today's Long Beach Grand Prix and have a good ride to the Washington Street bridge and turn around for home. It's a good 50 kilometer recovery ride. I immediately trim the roses, grab a warming shower since today is a very cool day, ride the bicycle to the grocery store fro "craving" supplies, and then watch Saturday's qualifying for the MotoGP/2/3 races from Qatar. I'm a day behinf everything this weekend but its good becacause it stretches out the fun of the various races. I contonue to stretch my legs and shoulders throughout the day as I watch the Masters golf tournament. I really enjoy when a golfer hits a terrible shot into the trees or a horrible lie and tries to recover. I spend just a few minutes estimating my 2025 taxes and see if I can reduce my withholdings, but it does not seem the right thing to do for the comping year. Much later on Sunday I watch the recorded Long Beach Grand Prix and will watch F1, MotoGP/2/3 races on the coming days.
I originally planned on taking Monday off from cycling or running since I had a long ride on Friday and a long ride on Saturday and a recovery ride on Sunday. But I strap on my running shoes and get out for 65 minutes and it feels good. When I get hme I trim the neighbor's bush wish is infringing on my driveway. So now I have more room to get the car out of the garage. After a shower I read the news and markets and finally get to the F1 rac from Bahrain. Today is a slow day.