I start Tuesday before the alarm clock goes off and have a very good road bicycle ride. I'm cranking extra hard down the San Gabriel river trail because I think that I can catch up to some riders that I saw going in that direction as I did my typical ride extension north. Maybe I see them at the bridge or maybe not, but I keep cranking along and have a super ride. I grab a quick shower and ride the mountain bicycle to the grocery store where I wish the Vietnamese cashier "Happy Reunification Day" and he's surprised that I know this date and we have a brief discussion about the year for the end of the war and the year for the reunification. At home I trim the roses and carnations and bring in new blooms and then prepare a few datasets for my end of month financial predicitions. (Not that I invest on these predictions, but I've been running them for years to see how they perform.) Later I edit a couple of websites a day early for the end of month updates and watch the MotoGP race near noon.
I'm awake before the alarm clock goes off again and get in a good recovery mountain bicycle ride. Except that after the warmup it isn't really a recovery ride because I'm pushing on a fair amount of the ride. But I feel good. I mow the backyward and then edge, trim, mow, and sweep up the front yard so that it looks nice. I have a few plants of some sort popping out of areas that I just need to go pull out by hand one of these days. After a shower I ride the mountain bicycle again to the grocery store for Coca Cola and come home to read the news and markets. Today's Dodgers' game starts near noon and I have that turned on and try to help the neighbors with their 13 year old doggie who has some warts on his paw and the veterinarian wants $4000 to remove them. We'll try bacitracin cream, cut-up gauze pads, and and ace bandage to see if that can solve the problem. I read the news and markets and do a preliminary fincancial calculation before the closing bell to make sure some recently-installed Python modules will not mess this up. And they don't, so I can run the REAL calcs later today after the market closes. I do a bit of coding and then watch some ice hockey playoff games later in the day snce the morning and early afternoon have been very productive.
I start Thursday with an intended shorter run because every once in a while I feel something in my right knee. By the time I've done a ten minute warmup walk the knee feels file and I get in a 68 minute run/walk - alternating left and right sides of the streets in case the crown of the road is affecting the knee. But it feels fine and I'm happy. I trim the roses and grab a quick shower and go to both the Home Depot (for a new edger blade) and Vons (for supplies). Today I am wearing my Japanese heritage Los Angeles Dodgers jersey for the first time (since the neighbors gave it to me yesterday) and I get two separate comments about "I love your jersey" or similar words. Back at home I change into other clothes (because I don't want to get this new jersey dirty) and I install the new edger blade and then get down on my hands and knees and wax the gold rims of the World Rally Car (since I've driven in the rain a time or two). Later I read the news and markets and check on websites I take care of. I note that specifically for the Long Beach Human Trafficking Task Force website, where we used to receive a lot of spam email, the spam email has been reduced to one or two per day since I blocked any email address with a .ru domain and I blocked any setn text with Russian characters in it. In the afternoon I take a long break and run through 1800 channels that I get with my U-box and write down the ones that I will be using regularly. This is before I have figured out how to put these channels into a "Favorites" list. If somebody comes to visit and watch another channel, he or she will have to find it. And later I watch some of the ice hockey playoff games including the Kings' game.
And on Thursday, among one of my five phone numbers, I get another random text message. (The five phone numbers include my real mobile phone number, my real home phone number converted to a Google voice number, a Google voice number for the non-profit, an extra Google voice phone number, and a Burner phone number run via an app. I pay $25 per month for my real mobile phone number and $48 per year for the Burner app where I can change phone numbers as often as I wish. For example, if a hacker or date wants something that I am not willing to provide, I can change phone numbers free with the click of a button and start all over again.) Today I receive a Burner phone call for Ella who "Rose" pretends to know me. I keep talking along and and just try to f%@* with him/her because I know he/she is a hacker. This one goes on for a while before he/she gives up. I love to f$@& with obvious hackers who cannot possibly trace me.
I start Friday with a 100 kilometer road bicycle ride. It takes a bit f time to get going, but then I start cranking like a maniac and, of course, throw in some hard sprints to make traffic lights. After a shower I read the news and markets and am disappointed that the Los Angeles Kings lost to Edmonton in the playoffs for the fourth year in a row. Then I watch the F1 FP2 session from Miami. Later in the day I watch some of the Dodgers' game.
I start Saturday with a mountain bicycle ride and I feel drops of rain as I start. But I'm dressed, on the bicycle, and riding, and so I keep going. There are "nono-climates" of rain and no rain that ride through as I go to the old yacht club and back to home. Today I climb the Jumipero hill twice and legs feel good. At home I pile up all of my wet clothes, grab a shower, and walk to the grocery store in a drizzle. At home I take off everything that is wet and run it through the washer and dryer. I read some news and then get to watch a delayed, red-flagged, re-started, penalized, and final sprint race for the F1 cars from Miami. I'm unmotivated today so I watch some golf and baseball and vow that Sunday will be a better day.
I finish off a three day cycling binge with another recovery ride to the old yacht club. And I climb Junipero Hill twice and the legs feel better than yesterday. After a shower I read the news and watch some IndyCar racing, some ice hockey and bits and pieces of the Dodgers' game. A slow day.
On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week I lift weights, cycle 75 kilometers on the road bicycle, and cycle 50 kilometers on the mountain bicycle for a recovery ride. During Wednesday's ride I see two guys walking along the pier and when I've turned around and climbed the hill twice, I see them back near the start of the bike path. I stop and ask them if they are visiting. They are - one from Germany and one from Atlanta. But they are both Thai. So we have a mixed Thai/English conversation and they like my Thai (though I apologize that I lose the nasal accent if I'm not practicing). They are both here for a week and enjoying Long Beach. As I get ready to leave, I tell them that when I see people who might be tourists I like to stop and talk with them and welcome them to my city because I've had such good experiences when I've traveled. On all three days I do some Python coding on a new, small project for a friend as well as watch the Dodgers' games and the ice hockey playoff games. And late on Wednesday, seing that the plumber that I was referred to and spoke with has not called me back far past his promise, I call the phone number of a plumbing place that I see parked on a plumbing work truck in my neighborhood. And I have an appointment on Thursday afternoon for someone to crawl under the house and give me an estimate for new water pipe clamps (since I hear a loud clunk everytime the lawn sprinklers start or stop and the clunk is loudest right near the water inlet to the house).
Thursday is a good day. I start with a 13 kilometer run/walk, trim the roses, grab a shower, return a library book, and get to the store with the car for the heavier items. I spend the late morning reading the news and markets and finishing up the preliminary version of this code for my friend. The plumbing company texts me that the plumber is on his way and he shows exactly at 1pm - the beginning of the window I was given. I demonstrate the clunk for him from just the sprinler valves since any internal faucet, toilet, or shower does no make th clunk. He crawls under the house as we talk over the phone (rather than trying to yell through the crawlspace.) He cannot get to the front of the house from the external crawl space, so I clear out the floor of the coset entrance to the crawl space and I note that two edges of the baseboard cover up the removal of the crawlspace entrance. He says that his company cannot remove the baseboards so with two large screwdrivers and a crowbar (that that the plumber had), I'm able to pull off the two florrboards. It turns out that, being in the closet, they were not nailed in and just jammed into place. So my removal doesn't destroy anything. Now the plumber crawls thrugh this crawlspace entrance and finds the main copper line. We speak via mobile phone again as I turn sprinkler valves on and off and reproduce the clunk and he looks for where the pipe could be banging against something. He moes around a number of times and says the copper pipe is still solidly attached to the wood in the crawlspace and is not moving at all. He comes out and just says it has to be the excessive water pressure that the city is supplying. (He measured it earlier at almost 100 psi and says it should be down near 80 psi.) I question him and get the answers that the crawlspace is dry, the copper pipes look in great condition, there are no dead animals under the house, and the pulsing clunk noise can only be solved with a pressure regulator. A pressure regulator cannot be installed without digging up the entire front yard to get to the main line from the street supply. With his admission that a pressure surge will not cause any damage, I jus admit I'll have to live with it. I could live with it before, but I was worried that copper pipe clamps had come loose and were banging on something and would break. He reassures me the copper pipes are solidly attached, so I write him the $99 fee and move on. I take a break to cook pasta to carboload for a long Friday bicycle ride. After eating a bit, I take one of the baseboards from the closet and shorten it by an eighth of an inch and I am able to wedge the two closet baseboard pieces back into place. (Which will have to be removed again if somebody needs to go through the closet entry to the crawlsapce.) At the end of this ordeal, I am happy because there is nothing damaging from the clunking noise and it only cost me $99. Later I have more pasta and watch ice hockey playoff games. And a bit of the Dodgers' game. Later I add another feature to the code for my friend and now I need to summarize what I've done and see what he/she thinks.
I start Friday's expected long road bicycle ride a bit dubious. But I get warmed up and start cranking along very nicely. There isn't much cycling traffic since everybody will go out with their teams and groups on Saturday. So I can crank and crank and I feel good. When I get home I notice that I've done the ride ten minutes faster than usual! Despite a long wait for a traffic light near the Santa Fe Dam, I'm ten minutes faster. I'm going to try and stick with changes I've made to my diet for a while and see if I get faster. I grab a quick shower and drive to the grocery store. Saturday is the annual United States Postal Service food drive and I didn't get the notice until yesterday. So I need to buy foodstuffs/non-perishable items to leave near my mailbox so that my postal carrier can pick them up on Saturday. An easy way to do a little bit to help those in need. When I get home I read the news and markets and settle back for FP2 for MotoGP and Moto2 from LeMans, France. Later in the day, as I regularly get up and do some stretching exercises, I watch some of the Dodgers' game and the ice hockey playoff games. A day off of coding since I haven't summarized my results and received feedback from my friend who the coding is for.
On Saturday I get out for a good mountain bicycle recovery ride. Except that I do some pushing and climb the hill twice and then push all of the way up the Los Angeles river trail to chase down a guy going slowly (relatively speaking) on his road bicycle. I manage to stay with him and end up with a time five minute faster than usual. I grab a shower, read the news, watch Q1 and Q2 for MotoGP from France, and then get on the mountain bicycle again to go to Beach Streets 2025 - one of those events where they close down the streets to everything except bicycles and foot traffic. Since I'm there kinda early before the day gets hot, it isn't very crowded. But I can take side street detours and see the little shops and businesses that I would never have discovered otherwise. At home I've had my seccond shower of the before 1pm and sitting back to watch a few minutes of golf before the IndyCar race. Later I catch up with Q2 for Moto3 and Moto2 from France, catch some of the Dodgers' game and ice hockey playoff games, and come up with a good idea to add to the code writeup that I've done for my friend. Now I just have to write it up and get it to him. I should not jinx myself, but I'm on pace for 1600 kilometers of cycling this month. (The running is down since there were a few little aches that I didn't want to push and debilitate myself.)
On Sunday morning ,y mid back is very sore and unco,fortable. This is similiar to 2016 when I had a T10 veterbae issue. I take two Aleve and read the news and go lift weights. I'm slow and deliberate with each lift and have a good session. After trimming the roses and bring both carnation and rose blooms into the house I grad a shower and watch the MotoGP Tissot sprint race from France. Today Joe will come over, stay the night, and then catch an Uber to the airport for another businesses trip (I'm assuming Brasil again). Thus I have a slow day and wait for a text message to pick him up from the train staton.
Joe arrives near 4:30pm and he wants Thai food so we drive to Cerritos to my favorite Thai restaurant. As I order in Thai Joe says "I'm impressed" and we continue on. Afterwards we walk around a bit because Joe wants tea, but none of the shops quite offer what he wants. We drive home and we stop in at a Vons on the way home to pick up something for Joe to eat before his early morning flight to his destination and because I need milk and wine. When we get out of the car the Filipino family across the street is dismissing people from their party and I try to greet each one that I see with Tagalog words for "Good evening" and "How are you". I get happy faces from the Filipino visitors and I get a blank, incredulous, "why did I think otherwise" look from Joe because I can speak some Tagalog (Filipino). We watch some television a bit and watch one of those series of dateline murder mysteries that Joe calls "murder porn". I remember watching these shows in the hospital after cancer surgery because I've never seen them before and I'm interested in the forensics. Both of our alarms are set 5:30am so that Joe can cath an Uber (with his company paying for it).
Our Mondays start at 5:30am as I lay out equipment for a bicycle ride and Joe grabs a shower, packs up his blueberry muffins and chocolate chip cookie, and grabs his Uber. I was mistaken and he is flying to Orlando and then on to Miami for work - not Brasil (or Brazil if you prefer). I dress and get out cycling on a windy day. But I feel strong - that Thai curry rice and tofu must be it - and I crank along. Even during the 22 kilometer run down the San Gabriel river trail against a strong headwind, I'm keeping up a good pace. Only in the last kilometer or two does a group of three riders, who were probably working together, catch me and then I tag on to their wheels for the last headwind kilometer. I crank wildly on the last two legs of this 70 kilometer ride because the wind is at my back and pass a lot of riders. (A lot of riders surprisingly out on a Monday morning.) At home I weedwack the rosesbeds and around the perimiter of the backyard, put batteries in the recharger, grab a cooling shower, read the news and markets, do the laundry from Joe's visit, and settle back for Moto2 race from France. Later in the day I watch some ice hockey playoff games and do not get the writeup of my coding work done for my friend.
Just before noon on Monday I see the mailman and he has bypassed my house again because I hardly receive any mail. Because of this, the food that I left out for the annual USPS "help the hungry" campaign was not picked up on Saturday. I've put it out again today on Monday. When I see the postal carrier on the other side of the street, he has bypassed my house again because I get no mail. So I run outside with the two bags and ask him if he can get it to the people in need. And his answer, repeated at least once, is "I think that drive ended last Saturday". So he's not going to take it even though I offer to walk it down to his mailtruck and leave it there. This is the first time this has happened. But it's also the reason that I only buy food to give to those in need for these drives that I will eat so that it will not go to waste.