Friday starts with the now-traditional 100 kilometer road bicycle ride. Today I go up the El Monte dam route even though there are some traffic detours. But it seems like I hit mostly green lights and don't have to stop. I eventually turn south from the Santa Fe dam along the San Gabriel river into a headwind. I just keep cranking along and make good progress. And get in some hard sprints to make green or amber lights along Del Amo. After a shower I return a library book and then try to blow the neighbors flowering tree leaves off the driveway. I spend some time reading the news and markets. And it feels good to sit back on the ouch after today's hard ride and watch FP2 for MotoGP and Moto2 from Italy. Much later, after I missed last night's bench clearing brawl in the ninth inning of the Dodgers' game, I watch some of their game against a different opponent. (The bench clearing brawl was against a longtime division rival.)
On Friday night I sleep well and get out for the usual mountain bicycle recovery ride to old yacht club and back to home. This ride, as is standard practive ver the last four months, includes two climbs of the Junipero hill. On the way back home a rider joins the trail ahead of me and I chase hime down and hang back up 30 meters just to let him know I'm there. We both exit on Del Amo and I wish him a good ride in case he riding more. At home I trim the roses, grab a shower, pay some bills, and put together a basic AI reinforcement learning algorithm. I take my time and work throughout the day to specifize this generic algorithm to my friend's problem that he is trying to solve. I take breaks to stretch my legs and watch qualifying for MoroGP and Moto2. And later I work on the code some more as I watch the Dodgers' game and wonder if I need to combine a neural network with the reinforcement learning algorithm.
I wake up near 1am on Sunday morning and can barely walk to the bathroom - how am I going to ride on Sunday? But when I wake up on Sunday and take my blood pressure and body temperature (as I have done everyda for 25 years), I get up and get dressed for another mountain bicycle recovery ride. Except that the elgs feel strong and I have a good ride. At home I bring both bicycles up and degrease the chains and a few well-used gears, blow leaves of the driveway, and grab a cooling shower. I continue to work on the AI reinforcement learning algorithm and have it specified for my friend's problem. But I'm not fully understanding the difference between a reinforcement learning algorithm and a time-consuming global search. But I keep plugging away at it. The IndyCar or Elkhart Lake is interesting because there are three different tire and fuel strategies employed and its fun to see which ones work out best - with many drivers not being able to complete the cooldown lap because they have run out of fuel. I take a break to watch some golf, ponder the reinforcement learning algorithm, and watch the Tissot sprint race from Italy. Finally, as the Dodgers' game goes on in the background, I take an initial guess at a reinforcement learning algorithm strategy and will have to update it in the next few days as I learn "by doing" the ins and outs of what I have coded. During the day I take a spill in the house and bang up my right hip and leave a large, bleeding wound on my left forearm.
I sleep horribly on Sunday night into Monday morning because the front and lack of my right hip hurts from a fall I took yesterday. I wake up and take two Aleve and go for a 65 minute walk. I am very slow to start with because my right hip hurts but I gain a bit of pace as I proceed. I do not dare do any running today. I get home and grab a shower and read the news and markets with a blueberry muffin. Wondering if I will be able to ride tomorrow, I take the mountain bicycle to the grocery store to pick up milk for my retired schoolteacher neighbor who is degrading quicky by the day. And I pick up some garlic Indian nan to use as a "bed" to put steamed vegetables and oil on (instead of rice like I will typically do). I have milk and banana for lunch and then head up to Century ity to see my maxillo-facial surgeon. Why? I don't know. I thought that my prosthodontist had enough clearance to move forward with a permanent bridge from my last Century City visit in March. I make good progress on the Reinforcement Learning part of the code from my friend and now I just have to implement the appropriate policy for the Agent to move variables around.
On Monday when I get to the maxillo-facial surgeon's facility, I see that they have new parking gates installed. I am not able to to squeeze around
the parking gate with my motorcycle. I give it a try and bump into the gate with my motorcycle mirror or elbow, and the entire gate falls to the ground. I go ahead to the
underground parking and see the parking attendant who recognizes me and I tell him, "I bumped into the parking gate". At first it is no problem. After he guides me to
my usual spot and I remove my helmet, I tell him, "I bumped into the parking gate and it is now laying on the ground".
He gives me a surprised look and confirms with me via video that the parking gate is laying on the ground. He says, "Just go inside to the parking office and they will talk
with you".
I go into the parking office and tell them that on my motorcycle I bumped into the parking gate and it has fallen off and is laying on the ground.
They ask for my insurance card, which I provide them, and they go look at the the video. They guy in charge comes out and says, "You did not try to rush through the gate. You were
going 1 mph when you hit the gate and it broke and fell to the ground. Here's your insurance card back and we'll take care of it."
Thus I go to my appointemnt where the maxillo-facial surgeon digs out some gums and loose bones and tells me to squeeze this gauze between my teeth for your ride home to prevent the blood
from dripping over everything.
When I leave the facility I take the direction that the parking attendants have told me, namely, "Just ride on the sidewalk past the gates because your motorcycle will not
set the sensors off and let you out".
So I follow my standard procedure of riding my motorcycle on the sidewalk to bypass the parking gates and ride on home.
I start Tuesday with a good 75 kilometer road bicycle ride. The hip warms up very quickly, but I get stuck by a bee just below my left albow in the first 8 kilometers of the ride. It's not until I get home that I realize the stinger is still in and the area has reddened. I trim the roses and neighbor's sidebush and grab a shower before sitting back to read the news and markets. Then I take a break just before noon to watch the Moto2 race from Italy. And then finish off a series of the Vietnam war on Netflix and watch some of the Dodgers' game.
I've gone to bed very early on Tuesday night to do extra reading. But, as a result, I wake up a bit after 5am on Wednesday and cannot sleep. I get out of bed before the alarm at 5:30am goes off and get ready to go cycling. I have a decent mountain bicycle recovery ride. At home I mow and trim the front yard. In the back yard I run the mower along the side of the house but the rest of the yard does not need mowing. I grab a shower and there's another phonecall from the retired schoolteacher across the street. She says a friend took her to her Tuesday appointment of which she did not have. Two days ago she me her appointment was on Saturday. Now, after yesterday's miscue, she has a sheet of paper with Saturday, 1:45 pm, arrive 20 minutes early, bring ID card and insurance card all highlighted in yellow. I make her read the paper to me a number of times and she keeps saying, "I have to call my friend to give me a ride tomorrow". During the twenty minute conversation I ask her at least ten times what day is today and she does get it right. And I ask her ten times what day is her appointment and she says, "Tomorrow". So we start the whole what day is today, what day is your appointment process over and over. I make her promise, at least ten times, "Do NOT put anything on top of that appointment paper" (Or else you will lose it and go tomorrow to the imaging center). I'm sure I'll get a call tomorrow saying she went to the imaging center and she didn't have an appointment until Saturday. This entire dementia/Alzheimer's thing has come on very quickly - only in the last eight months or so. And now it gets noticeably worse every day. But what can I do? Later I watch the MotoGP race from Italy and some of the Dodgers' game. I'm waiting for feedback on the writeup and extraneous notes on the coding that I did for my friend.
My right hip, both in the front and back, still hurt throughout the night. But I try to go walking to start first thing on Thursday morning. I do my usual ten minute walking warmup and then give a few steps of running a try. It does't feel bad, so I continue on with a few extra walking breaks at the beginning of the run. But the right hip seems to feel better as I go and I have no real threats from the left hamstring that I am trying to rehabilitate, so I get in a good 73 minute run/walk. I'm very happy to be able to do this run/walk with the little ills/niggles that I have. I trim the roses and do some sweeping around the house of the neigbor's tree as it blossoms. After a shower I return a library book and get back home. The retired schoolteacher has been very upset lately that she cannot watch Christiane Amanpour on telelvision so I poke around google and try to find her show (on the retired schoolteacher's television plan). I give her the information which is simply to try PBS channels at 10am (1pm east coast time) or maybe tape-delayed to 1pm to match up with east coast time. I'm not sure if it will work, but its the best information that I can find. (And don't give me a hard time about using the term "tape delayed" since everything is digital these days.) I read the news and markets and do some end of year web updates a couple of days early. I do some poking around for a good Reinforcement Learning asset strategy to try out soon. And I watch a very rare Dodgers' game from Colorado that starts near noon Pacific time.
I start out on Friday assuming that I will cut this ride a bit short and turn back towards home at the Whittier Narrows dam. But I feel good and nothing, of my recent injuries hurt, so I continue north to the Santa Fe dam. At the dam I turn back for home and start cranking, Along the way a couple of tri-athletes pass me and, at first, I let them go, then decide to try and chase them down. They have a long head start and I never do catch back up to them, but I'm cranking hard and finally get off at Del Amo. From there I still have enough energy for a couple of sprints to make green or amber lights. I just have to realize at some time in the future, that I am twice the age of these tri-athletes or other very fast cyclists, and I probably cannot stay with up them. Regardless of this realization, I had a very fast and hard 100 kilometer ride that I enjoyed. At home I grab a shower, get gasoline for the car, and pick up a bottle of wine at the grocery store. I read the news and markets and then start in with F1 FP2 from Austria. I take a break to relax and read a bit more on Reinforcement Learning Agent strategies, and them sit back for FP2 for both MotoGP and Moto2 from the Netherlands. A weekened that I almost pushed the "Buy" button on a number of times to get back to Assen (i.e., the Cathedral of Speed) and Sachsenring outside of Dresden. The MotoGp practice session is filled with crashes and takes forever to watch as the temperatures are cooler and the riders are pushing too had on either their soft or medium front tires. Forutnately it looks like nobody is hurt badly from their high speed crashes but there is multi-millions of damage to the motocycles to be repaired before tomorrow. Moto2 is cleaner but still a lot of damage - and all of this with no rain but the cooler temperatures of the Netherlands. Later I tidy up the bathrooms and watch a bit of the Dodgers' game.
I have an incrediblly deep sleep, as I always do, for the first four hours of Friday night. Typically I will then have periods of light sleep or deep sleep or dreaming sleep or tossing/turning. I get out on the mountain bicycle recovery ride and my legs are tired from Friday's long, hard ride, but they wake up and I have a good ride with two climbs of the Junipero hill. At home I trim roses a day early because there are blooms that I can bring into the house and enjoy. After a shower I drive to the grocery store to pick up the heavy items and then return home to read the news. Later I watch qualifying for F1 from Austria and MotoGP/2/3 from the Netherlands. Later I watch most of the Dodgers' game as I am just physically hungover from recent cycling and stuff. So I relax and be a vegetable. I dread this day because the retired schoolteacher will finally get a pure brain MRI scan and though a real neurologist will not read the MRI for a while, I know what it will show and I'll have to be ready for dozens of phonecalls about how to pick an assisted living facility.
I have trouble sleeping late on Saturday as my right, front hip hurts. Eventually I get up and go for a decent recovery mountain bicycle ride but I can tell my legs are tired from Friday's long, hard ride. After a shower I ride the bicycle to the grocery store for a bottle of wine and get caught by a friend for an enjoyable 150 minute phone call. Then I pick up the F1 race from Austria where my favorite driver gets crashed out on the first lap. Later I take out my trash, the retired schoolteacher's trash, and another neighbor's trash shose dog was recently sprayed by a skunk. I do not smell amyhting nasty from the their trash though I know skunk-sprayed linens or blankets are in there. Today is a nice day and I enjoy the nice weather near 70F and finally watch Saturday's Tissot sprint race for MotoGP bikes from Assen, Netherlands (i.e., the Cathedral os Speed).
I again have trouble sleeping on Sunday night into Monday morning after the inital four or five hours because my right hip is causing me discomfort. I'm trying to debug whether this is a a musclular problem as a result from a recent fall or a more serious internal injury. Regardless I get out for a 113 minute run/walk where I've increased the running portion near 50%. After a shower I ride the motorcycle to the ATM and to CVS for more wine. At home I start watching the Moto3 race and get a call from the retired schoolteacher. I get over there and call her insurance company and she has an appointment in ten minutes with a nurse - as I try to debug her loss of channels on Spectrum TV. The nurse comes over and in private consolation agree that the retired schoolteacher cannot live alone as I debug her Spectrum TV. I'm lost after rebooting and reconfiguring her Spectrum TV and and a Spectrum TV technician will be on sight within an hour. Really? Spectrum TV will send out a technician to fix her TV/cable within a hour? I go gome and watch and very fun and exciting Moto3 race and see the Spectrum truck apear. I walk over and explain her situation and within a couple of hours he has left. I sure hope she has her favoriote television channels or I'll get another phone call soon. The evaluator nurse appears when I am there and we both agree that she cannot live alone anymore. So we agree to try to figure out a plan for her future living though I tell her "I have power of trustee" but I do not have "power of durable attnroney". We agree and she says the courts may step in. This is not good. But I cannot do anything about it and I go watch a fun Moto2 race from Assen, Netherlands.
I start Tuesday with a good road bicycle ride. I crank along nicely though I know my legs are a bit tired. A couple of tri-athletes blow past me and I let them go. We are own on our programs. I get in a good 75 kilometers of riding and call it a day. I trim the roses and clean up a front bush before getting a a good shower and buying more wine at the grocery store. I read the news and markets, and, seeing that this is halfway through the annual calendar year, I do some additional financial calculatins and cannot be dis-satisfied with the results or projections. Throughout the day I stretch calves, quadriceps. shoulders, and and hamstrings and try to recover from the ride. Approaching 2pm I finally I have some vegetables and pasta as I watch the Dutch MotoGP from this past Sunday. There was another call from the retired schoolteacher and I can handle this within 30 minutes. I'm trying my best to accommdate her needs as she continually slips into dysfunctionality.