After a blah day on Monday, I'm out the door right near 6am on the road bicycle with both front and rear lights on. I ride up to the extended turnaround point on the San Gabriel river trail and turn back south towards the ocean. I catch up to the Saint John Bosco cross country team (and coach following on his bicycle) and I slow down and talk with the coach about workouts, upcoming meets, recovery, and other stuff. I usually run into the Saint John Bosco group on Tuesday's when they happen to be doing their tempo workout on the San Gabriel river trail that I ride. After five minutes of conversation with the coach, who recognizes me from years past, I say I'm taking off and as I pass the runners I tell them, "There are Olympics medals in 2028 and 2032 with their names on them. Go get them!" I've always looked forward to running into the Saint John Bosco cross country running team because I ran cross country, I like to chat with the coaches about workouts and upcoming meets, and I love the kids' dedication. These accidental meetups have been happening for many years now but usually only in August and September. I continue my ride to the ocean and pick up the pace after spinning to get warmed up. I push north on the Los Angeles river trail and before I know it I am finished with a 75 kilometer ride. I immediately ice both knees though neither has pain or soreness or anomalies on this ride. After a shower I make a quick trip to the grocery store in the car for heavy supplies, trim the roses, meditate, and read the news and markets. By now it is approaching noon so I chop up some vegetables for a late lunch and start watching the MotoGP coverage from last Sunday's race in Austria. (The coverage is always and extended coverage because there is a long pre-race show with interviews of team owners and key engineering personnel and it is a good build-up to the race and to keep track of the latest happenings.) The actual MotoGP race is XXX. Later I watch some international and USA news, continue to stretch and ice the legs and knees throughout the day, order another old-fashioned Ace bandage and large ice pack from Amazon, watch a bit more news, and catch the Dodgers' game. I aim, after a Wednesday morning recovery ride, to go back to the Markov chain optimization and grind through it until I find why the optimizer is doing weird things.
I start Wednesday with a recovery montain bicycle ride to the end of the ocean trail and back to home. AT home I catch Emilio, the retired schoolteacher's gardener (and mine when I am away). I give him some money for August, September, and October and he wishes to convey his concern and hope for her health (which I forward to her). After a shower I run an errand and finally use my Chime debit card for the first time after having it for many years. And it works well so I can be assured it will work if I ever break down on my bicycles and cannot fix them. I also drop off a library book and then read some of the news and markets. Today I zoom into a Gallup, New Mexico human trafficking task force meeting and the police officer doing the speaking gives a very clear presentation. And my Khmer friend from the Long Beach human traficking task force is happy to see me. Afterwards I chop vegetables and have steamed vegetables on a whole wheat bread bed (instead of rice) and then have a relaxing day as it is supposed to be very hot for the next few days.
I start Thursday out the door for a fast 90 minute walk. On the way home I stop and chat with a neighbor who I have not seen for a while and we catch up. After a shower I trim the roses and work on the Long Beach Human Trafficiking Task Force website as somebody seems to have taken an interest in it. It takes a lot longer than I expected and I need to get a new Google maps key, but I fix the main issues and ask some other questions about content on the website. I also pay a bill for the dishwasher repair back in March where the technician tok a photo of my check and said that was good enough. And now I receive a bill for his visit. I lok through my bank account (online) and notice that the check number is missing and I was never charged for it. So I write a letter to the company and include the original check and hope everyone is happy. It's 1:30pm as I'm cooking pasata for a long Friday bicycle ride and I turn on an early Dodgers' game to keep me company.
After the Dodgers' win I watch some youtube videos of Moneyball and rock songs and other weird film scenes and scenarios. For almost an hour I'm in tears because I love these scenes so much. There are no sad scenes. Just moments of brilliance, extraordinary songs (both classial and rock, or Thai), and film scene "moments of truth". Some are old, some are newer. But they are all videos, scenes, or music that have special emotional attachment for me. I've run out of Kleenex and have to go to the bathroom to get more because I have tears of happiness and the feelings and remembrances that they bring. And I vow to create new memories and intellectual content and acts in the future.
I start Friday early (with lights on) for a good road bicycle ride up past the El Monte airport to the Santa Fe dam. And I turn back towards home and yell at the cows and oxen along the way - they know me by now - and continue pushig a good gear. I feel very good and only in the last few kilometers do I get mentally tired more than physically tired for another Friday 100 kilometer ride. I do some Long Beach Human Trafficking Task Force debugging since the mapping features is broken, watch FP2 for MotoGP and Moto2, watch some Netflix, and catch some of the Dodgers' game.
Saturday starts with super sleep and a mountain bicycle ride all of the way to the old yacht club and back again - but not climbing of the Junipero hill yet. I trim the roses and grab a shower and read the news. Then I watch MotoGP/3/2 qualifying from Budapest and then just relax. Late in the afternoon I go to the grocery store for supplies for a friend's party and by 6:30pm I'm at the friend's house and meeting new people and running into old friends who I have now seen in years. Today I've dressed way up and worn nice clothes and a tie (because I don't get to dress up that much anymore) and I can see people loking at me curiously. But everyone is friendly and we have good conversation, good food, and good games afterwards to complete my friend's birthday.
I sleep very well on Saturday night into Sunday morning. I get out for another recovery ride and it's obvious that I don't have it today, so I turn around at the end of the ocean trail and turn back for home - skipping the peninsula five kilometers. At home I wash out a trash bin that I don't use anymore because we have three trash bins now: one for organics (food and plants and grass), one for recycleables, and one for landfill. It's the landfill bin I wash out because there isn't anything in it for a couple months now. After a cooling shower I meditate and work on the some websites. Google has decided to deprecate some basic Javascript and that has messed up some maps that I have on websites. I fix the Long Beach Human Trafficking Task Force website, which is my priority. And I know how to fix the others and I'll probably get to them on Monday. At 11 am I watch the IndyCar Milwaukee Mile race. The Milwaukee Mile was always the week after the Indy 500 and so I don't know why it is now in late August. During breaks in the race I cut up vegetables for a late lunch and get the laundry completed. During lunch I watch the Tissot sprint for MotoGP from Hungary and later watch some of the Dodgers' game. And I go back to fixing other websites later in the hot day.
I sleep well on Sunday night and wake up to read the news. I start in converting various old version google maprs which have been deprecated to the newer version. It takes a couple hours in the morning followed by lifting weights, a shower, lunch, and a Moto3 race from Hungary to get back to the maps. I don't completely finish it but I have the framework. At the end of the day I put the first website to be converted back to the older maps temporarily so that it still functions and will pick up the newer maps again on Tuesday. There is no real hurry on this, but its on the list and I want to work my list clear.
I start Tuesday with a "reverse" of my normal Tuesday ride. I go noth on the Los ANgeles river to the steeel bridge, then turn back and go down to the ocean against a head wind. I ride along the ocean and then up the San Gabriel river trail and along Del Amo for home. It's a good 75 kilometer ride immediately followed by ice packs on both knees (as a preventative) as I trim the roses and tidy a few things up. After a shower I ride the mountain bicycle to the grocery store for some supplies and read the news and markets. I make the call to DirecTV, which I have paused for 90 days as I evaluated alternatives, and finally call to cancel. DirectTV makes this easy as the customer representative, Robin from San Diego but now in Montana, walks me through everything and does not try to talk me out of canelling. She only says, towards the end of the conversation, "If it does not work out for you, we will welcome you with open arms back to DirecTV". I had expected a very hard sell to NOT cancel DirecTV, but it doesn't happen. And the DirectTV dish will remain on my house and I should responsibly recycle the DirecTV receiver - they don't even want me to ship it back to them (which I'd heard was the standard). This is the easiest cancel of services I've ever had. A fun Moto2 race from Hungary follows which is decided on the last lap and then I watch a bit more news. The Long Beach Human Trafficking Task Force is happy with my work so far and I take the day off from finishing up the coding. It just should be finished before the next meeting in early September. Since I'm a bit tired from the strong morning ride, I watch the MotoGP race from Hungary and then catch a bit of the Dodgers' game later.
I start Wednesday early with a mountain bicycle recovery ride but just to the end of the ocean trail - skipping the pneninsula today because I'm on a timeframe. At home I get a shower, meditate, and start to read the news. Then I go visit the radiologist and he's happy with my progress and we lengthen out the times betwen visits. I rush home like a maman on the Yamaha YZF-R3 to pick up a bottle of wine and I start drinking. After finishing reading the news and markets and some bookkeeping, I clean the freezer so that it looks brandnew (along with the refrigerator which I cleaned last week), and re-adjust the printer heads and alignment after yesterday's reload of cartridges produced all sorts of weird colors. Now it works as expected again. For lunch I have steamed vegetables on a bed of nan (non-garlic because the store did not have garlic nan). I then relax a bit with Netflix and later watch the Dodgers' game. I think about the final step for the mapping websites (along with the Markov chain analysis), but I decide that after tomorrow's long walk and mowing the lawn, I'll get back to business. I make the mistake of checking on one-way flights to Hanoi and they are down to $353 from LAX to Hanoi in my timeframe. Should I wait longer or book now?
On Thursday I hit the snooze button for an extra ten minutes of sleep and then get out walking. Today I run a little bit, mixed in the walking, but its about 2% running and 98% walking. I get no complaints from any bodypart and ice my knees the minute that I get home. In fact, I keep the ice packs strapped to my knees as I mow the backyard. Then I remove the icepacks from my knees, because that would look silly to outsiders, and edge and mow and trim the front yard. And then I trim the roses, grab a shower, and ride the bicycle to the grocery store for some supplies. At home I read the news and markets and work on the new google maps for th LBHTTF. This is slow going on as the new maps are fairly incompatible with the old maps and each day, when I decide I've made some progress but not completed the task, I restore the site to the old maps for temporary use. I'm cooking pasta to carboload for an anticipated long Friday bicycle ride and relax in the afternoon for a while. I go back and study the new google maps but don't make significant progress. And then I just relax with news and Netflix.
I sleep well on Thursday night and wake up near 4am. I take the opportunity to take an Aleve ahead of today's long bicycle ride. I get out for a good road bicycle ride up the Los Angeles river, past the El Monte airport and dam, and up to the Santa Fe dam. Then I turn back south and it feels like I have a bit of a tailwind. SO I crank like a manianc with no bodybparts giving me any "Hey, I'm here" suggestions. It's another Friday 100 kilometer ride and put ice packs on both knees the minute that I get home as a preventative. I clean up the bicycle a bit and putthings away and grab a shower and ride the motorcycle to the liquor stor for a bottle of wine. At home during an expected very hot day, I start it out with a fan blowing and read the news and markets and verify that some bills are pain.. And watch a very inconclusive FP2 for F1 cars from the Netherlands. Later I update some websites for the end of the month as their calendars swap over and also play around with styling google map icons for the mapping effort. I finally turn on the air conditioning at 3pm when the house thermostat says 85F and I have a slow Friday afternoon and evening. I keep finding cheaper and cheaper one-way flight to Hanoi and I'm down to $414 if I fly on Thanksgiving day. I'm still planning things out so there is no hurry to book anything. Heck, last year I didn't bok until five days before I left.
I have very vivid dreams on Friday night into Saturday morning and super sleep. I'm out the door near 6am for a recovery mountain bicycle ride to the old yacht club and back to home. As is typical, I have an idea of how to solve the mapping problem. When I get home I put icepacks on my knees, write a note to myself on how to solve the mapping problem, and plan my day. When the knees are cold enough I grab a shower, plan my day, and make a trip to the grocery store in the car for heavy items. At home I do one map icon formatting involving transparencies and it works, so now I just have to fix the other twelve icons. I watch the qualifying seesion for the Dutch Grand Prix for F1 and then I go fix the format on the twelve icons. It works perfectly! Another great idea discovered during a bicycle ride or run! I let the team know the site is ready to propagate to other facets of the site and then waste time on a hot afternoon with some college football and some Netflix. I'm ready to make a list of things that I want to work on through the rest of the year and into early next year as I almost ready to book a one way ticket to Hanoi for less than $400. But I wait. And then just have a slow day for the rest of the day.
I sleep well on Saturday night and get out for the slightly shortened mountain bicycle recovery ride and put ice packs on my knees the instant I get home. Then I put my cycling gear away, trim the roses, grab a shower, and ride the mountain bicycle to the grocery store for an end of month bottle of wine. I'm going sober in September. Back at home I start the laundry and re-look over the Markov chain code to see if anything obvious is causing the optimization routine to do weird things. And I prepare it for an alternative reinforcement learning machine learning algorithm. At 11am I watch the last IndyCar of the season, have steamed vegetables and bread for lunch, and watch some of the Dodgers' game. I guess I'll save the F1 race from the Netherlands for Monday. In my carry along notebook that I use for travel, I start a list of projects to work on (during the hottest parts of the days when I'm in the AC of my room). Late in the afternoon I listen to many youtube vidoes of 60's music, Dutch EDM, Thai pp, Burmese pop, Rock en Espanol, and other uncategorizable music. I'm dancing to the music and soon have another workout for the day.
I start Labor day Monday with a walk/run where I do a bit more running. SInce I'm running more, I shorten up to 62 minutes from 82 minutes but nothing hurts. And I immediately ice bpoth knees when I get home. I grab a shower and read the news and watch the F1 race from the Netherlands. Before noon I drive to Mod Pizza and Ruby and I have an almost three hour lunch with great pizza and great conversation. When I get home I just watch more new and relax.
I hit the snooze button and sleep for an extra ten minutes on Tuesday. Then I jump out of bed (after taking my blood pressure and oral body temperature) and get dressed for cycling. I go east on Del Amo and north on the San Gabriel river trail to the park and then back to the ocean, along the ocean, and up the Los Angeles river trail for about 75 kilometers. I feel good throughout, but I still put icepacks on both knees the instant I get home. I trim the roses and reset one of the rat traps. (The rat traps are placed near where a rat or possum was possibly trying to get under my house. The rat traps occassionally get set off but I never catch anything. I'm going to try another one of those newer rat traps which I used a while ago that just disappeared - somewhere there is a rat or possum with that newer rat trap attached to its leg and its either dead or alive.) I get in a cooling shower, meditate, and race like a madman on the motorcycle to the library to return two books and get four new ones. Then I race again like a madman on the motorcycle to the CVS to pick up a bottle of wine and work on some coding for the Markov chain that I thought of in a dream last night. (I'm riding this R3 like a maniacical madman because it's so much fun to ride a slow bike fast rather than a fast bike slow.) I run into a bit of dificulty because the Markv chain was set up for five breakpoints and five breakpoints only. So I have to spend some time making it more generic and then I can work on the new idea. Near noon I chop up vegetables to steam because I have not eaten since 7pm last night. This has been my standard practice now for more than a year and it happens to coincide with a form of intermittent fasting where you eat when hungry but have about 18 hours of not eating. Sometimes I feel hungry in the morning and have a banana and milk, but rarely. Later I watch parts of an early Dodgers' game from the east coast and keep thinking about te Markov chain. I know I am close on this effort.