I start Tuesday with a seventy minute run/walk. I do this run a bit cautiously because I just ran on Sunday and don't have time for a bicycle ride before a visit to Cedars Sinai and my oncologist. After trimming the roses I grab a shower and read the news and markets and ride the motorcycle up to Cedars Sinai. I get to tell the oncologist about my non-anesthetic colonoscopy from June and show him my brand new permanant teeth bridge. Things are going well enough that he asks me, "Is there anything that you cannot do since before the bicycle accident or cancer?" I cannot think of anything. We're all happy! I ride like a madman on the way home with a clear carpool lane and I ride 80mph the entire way to Long Beach to pick up a bottle of wine, start in on the MotoGP race from Misano, Italy, and finally prepare a cheesy veggie and bean burrito near 3pm for the first food of the day. And later I document some more incremental results on the second code though I will wait until more complete results are available tomorrow before sending out another report.
I start Tuesday with a typical Wednesday morning recovery ride. My thighs are sore - from two runs and a bicycle ride in three days, from the long ride on the motorcycle up to Cedars Sinai and back, or...? Thus I start the ride a bit slowly to warm up my thighs (not knees) and get to the old yacht club and back to home for a good ride. I immediately put an ice pack on both knees as a preventative and start the computer. I grab a cooling shower, get gasoline for the World Rally Car since I'm toying with the idea of going clubbing on Friday, and get to a distant Vons for cinnamon muffins and other heavy groceries. At home I put everything away and work on a couple of Python software tools to make the interface between this second Python code and a Word document for reporting easier. I make god progress and can now get back to the Python algorithm to solve the task at hand. It's approaching noon and I've already made pasta sauce for tomorrow's carboload Thursday (in advance of a long Friday bicycle ride). I take a break for lunch and have steamed vegetables on bread and then go back to coding. I keep re-arranging data so that it cannot easily be pasted into Word and finally have a Word document that describes what I've done thus far. I take a break to watch a Netflix series and then later do some more coding to better "bin" the data.
Thursday is a planned day off from cycling or running, so I turn off the 5:30am alarm and sleep until 6:50am. I start the day with some good ideas that I had to better display the data and get that complete in Python. The session with the weights is pretty good with most lifts back to normal but a couple lagging behind. After a quick shower I ride the bicycle to the grocery store and then continue with the Python coding. I make tremendous progress and only have time histories to generate for a Markov chain before I can release the document for a review. I expect updates based upon the review, but I'll deal with them later. The report is up to 14 pages and will probably be about 18 pages when I send it off (hopefully on Friday). It's after 1pm and I've only eaten a single cinnamon muffin, but I'm not hungry. So I work away on Markov chain time histories until I finally get hungry. Normally on a Thursday I would cook a ton of pasta to carboload for a long Friday ride, but today I eat two veggie and cheese sandwiches while I watch some Netflix.
I'm out the door before 6am for a road bicycle ride north on the Los Angeles river trail. My quadriceps are still sore, so I spin a fair amount at the beginning (as I usually do) to get warmed up. Today takes longer to get going, but then have a good ride and even keep up a very good pace down the San Gabriel river trail against a persistent headwind. I end at 100 kilometers and I'm glad to be finished (more because I'm out of brain sugar rather than blood sugar). I grab a shower and read the news and markets and drop off two read books at the library. A bit before noon I watch FP2 for the Forumla One cars from Baku, Azerbaijan. After lunch I watch more of the Netflix series "House of Lies" and it has provided good entertainment even if a bit unrealistic. I never do catch up on brain sugar today, so there is no coding or report writing done.
I start Saturday a shade late and get in a good recovery mountain bicycle ride to the old yacht club and back to home. It still takes longer than usual to warm the legs up. At home I trim the roses and look through all of my old road bicycle tires and tubes and will have to decide which ones are beyond help and which ones could be kept in an emergency. And I restart my cable modem since I think it is a good idea to shut it off for the night every once in a while to let it restart afresh. I get in a cooling shower and meditate and pick up some heavy supplies at the grocery store. At home I read the news and markets and make sure that the Dodgers have won Clayton Kerhsaw's last regular season home start in Dodgers' history. They do it with homers from Shoei Ohtani and Mookie Betts making the diference. I open up the second code and see why the results are weird, but I don't have root cause yet. I'll get to it. Thus just before noon I watch qualifying for F1 from Baku, Azerbaijan. It's a wild qualifying session with crashes and red flags and enough rain to make one think about intermediate tires. A fun watch! Later I so ome computer maintenance and watch some Netflix.
Sunday is a weird day. I get in a second recovery ride on the mountain bicycle to the old yacht club and on the way back home there is a runner who I always see. So I slow way down and we have a very long, intelligent, and great conversation about training and marathons and family and stuff. When I speak some Tagalog to him he say, "You speak more Tagalog than I do" and we both laugh. Finally when we get to his turnround point we talk about exchanging phone numbers but we can't agree on what app to use. So I tell him I'll him next Saturday or Sunday and we can figure it out. When I get home I ice the knees and trim the roses and take off my clothes to grab a shower and there's a knock at the door. Its the Long Beach Police Department. My Filipino neighbors have said tha I know the story about the retired schholteacher since one of her friends from Canada has tried calling and can't get hold of her and wants to do a welfare check. So I ask if I can go back into my house and get my phone which has the niece and nephew's phone where she is staying. As I do this, a second LBPD SUV with two more police officers pull up and I can see the neighbors wondering what is going on. I give the police the contact information that I have, admit that I have a key to take care of her house, and offer to give them my name and number. They decline. And finally I ask them, "Will you handcuff me and put me in the back of the crusier and take me away for a few minutes to make it look good for the neighbors". They decline my request but laugh along with me. I finally get my shower, do some coding, watch a fun F1 race from Azerbaijan and kind of waste the rest of the day with football games on television.
I start Monday as a new day! I get out and have a good run where I've increased both the length of run and the run-to-walk ratio and feel nothing from the knees. At home I still ice the knees as a preventative. After a shower I grab a Red Bull and Mountain Dew cocktail and make great progress on the second coding algorithm. It runs and I just have to make a final plot over consistent time frames and I can write it up and send it off. Except that I discover some uncertainties in the analysis that can really drive the behavior, so I'll have to think about this a bit. But I get sidetracked listening to music - EDM, rock en espanol, Thai pop, Coldplay, etc and re-watch a few scenes of Moneyball on youtube. I never quite finish the consistent time plotting but maybe I can squeeze that in after the prosthodontist check of how I like my permananent bridge (which I've had for a week now) and when MY Detroit Lions come on Monday night football. And the Lions dominate their strong opponent and maybe this will be their year.
I start Tuesday very early cycling out Del Amo and up the San Gabriel river to my recent turnaround point. Then I start riding back south though I have not started cranking yet. Near Liberty park three riders and then two more pass me. I just keep riding along except that they don't gain that much distance on me. Thus I kick it up a gear and catch on to the back of them. The fifth rider is barely hanging on, but I just ride along at the faster tempo for a bit to get used to it. After a couple kilometers I pass them all as I say to each one, "I guess it is my turn to pull". I'm not pushing that hard but everyone stays behind me until I hear a dialogue in espanol a ways down the trail and one rider sprints ahead of me. I relax for a few seconds and then I sprint to catch up to him. I stay behind him for a bit but it seems like he is slowing down or I am getting stronger, so I go around him and tow him (and maybe others) down to Pacific Coast Highway where the riders thank me for the tow as they go south on PCH and I continue on towards the end of the trail. I complete the ride though I am a bit tired at the end of the ride from pulling everyone along. After a quick shower I make a trip to the grocery store and then start in on the uncertainties from this recent code. First I write code to plot out the uncertainties and make a story and then I'll have to present it to my friend and how to deal with the uncertainties (which I think I have a handle on).
I get out early on Wednesday for a mountain bicycle ride. It's not to be out early because I can sometimes see georgeous sunrises. I get down to the old yacht club and back to home, put icepacks on my knees, and start setting out equipment to mow and trim the lawn. I start the computer and get it set up before I take the icepacks off and mow and trim the backyard and frontyards. I grab a cooling shower and ride the bicycle to the grocery store for a bottle of wine and a bottle of Mountain Dew (for tomorrow). I start into coding by stepping back a bit and just computing some correlations and copying (and properly referencing) the quote from a book that I'm reading about AI and neural networks. I compute some simple correlation coefficients (for that second code I'm working on ) and I also compute some combined correlations. I want to make the point to my friend that this is not an easy problem to solve and simple tools will not solve it. I work on writing up just the correlation results so that he can see how difficult it is. And by the end of the day I send it off to him. I also use a Morningstar retirement Monte Carlo calculator and it keeps telling me that I will okay with millions of dollars in investments. This is what I want to see but today's results stand out and make me realize that, barring any nforeseen house collapse or uncovered medical bills, I could outlive my money by 50 years unless I start spending more. But what would I spend it on (besides the termite-ridden veranda)? I have everything that I need and want. Later I watch some of the Dodgers' game to see if their bullpen will fail them again and give up losses when they start the bullpen relievers ahead of their games.
Today is a day off from working the legs and I start by trying to finish off the second code and writeup. I just keep working away at it and before I know the time is 11am. I'm not feeling like lifting weights today, so I do a good abdominal/lower/core muscle group workout. I trim the roses, grab a quick shower and I get back to coding. Soon it is 3pm and I finally cook pasta to carboload for a long Friday ride. After dinner I do more coding and there is one plot that I cannot get a good grasp on as to why it is behaving as it does.
I start north near 6am on the Los Angees river trail for a long road bicycle ride. I get to the Santa Fe dam and start heading south. Just wouth of the Whittier Narrows dam is a construction site and I slow way down, but still hit gravel and I'm on the ground. I'm okay and the bicycle is okay but I have streams of blood running down my right knee, my right forearm, and my right pinkie finger. After the fall I think some adrenaline kicks in because I start cranking like a madman and go past Del Amo. Blood streaming away or not, I go down to the bridge and turn around and then go back along Del Amo for home - cranking a higher gear three times to squeeze past amber lights. I've been through this before, so I immediately ice both knees as my recent preventative. After ten minutes I grab a shower and use an antiseptic soap on the wounds and clean them again with soap. After drying off I use Bacitracin antibiotic ointment on the wounds and ice them again. After a while I put more Cacitracin on the wounds and eventually dress the wounds after letting them be exposed for a while. After readiing the news and markets I steam vegetables and have them with bread and Italian dressing whle watching FP2 for MotoGP and Moto2 motorcycles from Motegi, Japan. I'm bored, so I drive to the ATM and get money and buy a ton of vegetables and other heavy stuff at the grocery store. I'm set for the seven or ten days (I hope). Nothing hurts now but I'm sure on Saturday morning and on Sunday morning my right knee, right elbow, right hip, and right shoulder will be sore. Later i just keep icing bodyparts and watch some of the Dodgers' game and some Netflix.
I sleep normally on Friday night with my injured bodyparts not affecting me at all. When I wake up, nothing is that sore, so I get on the mountain bicycle and go north for a timed ride of two hours. I certainly start out gingerly, but nothing hurts or is sore, so I get to the one hour bridge, grab a quick drink, and turn back. It's a great recovery ride after yesterday's 110 kiloemeter ride with fall and blood. At home I immediately put an ice pack on my knees and trim the roses and lay out cleaning supplies to scrub the bathrooms. During my shower I do the "usual post injury" practice of cleaning the wounds with antiseptic soap, then cleaning them with regular soap along with the rest of my body, drying off, puting the Bacitracn antibiotic ointment on the wounds, and keeping them open to the air while I meditate and do twenty minutes of code verification. I take a break to scrub my bathroom and when it is finished, except for a wipedown, I take a break from cleaning to watch the MotoGP/2/3 qualifying from Motegi, Japan. And later, I send off the second coding effort documentation and ask for feedback. And though I don't know any of the teams or players, I watch some college fotball before the Dodgers' gamme starts. Finally I get into bed and read before turning off the lights for sleep at 10pm. Originally on my list this week was to go up to Hollywood and West Hollywood for some more clubbing, but the accident scuppered those plans and I have it on my list for next Friday - already into October.
I start Sunday with a bicycle ride and my legs are tired. But still get to the old yacht club and back to home. I grab a shower and meditate and replace two lightbulbs. The one in the refrigerator that went out that I didn't know I had a replacement for (since the other one went out quite a while and I mist have bought two). And the one in my office that I don't have a replacement for, I steal the bulb from the guest bedroom since it rarely gets used. And I'll buy a replacement for it when convenient. I watch MY Detroit Lions get off to a slow start against the Cleveland Browns but then destroy them. And then I have lunch of fish and chips with the Tissot sprint race from Japan. Later I catch some of the Dodgers' game and am in tears of joy when Clayton Kershaw gets pulled from his last regular season pitching in his career. He three 5 and 1/3 scoreless innings and the Dodgers' manager has his best friend n the team, Freddie Freeman, go out to take the ball away from Kershaw. Though the game is in Seattle, the crowd is going wild witnessing history. And the Dodgers' go on to win. The rest of the day is slow since I'm tired and its 48 hours since hitting the pavement and this is probably the peak of the inflammation and soreness for any of these types of injuries. Though I've controlled the knee and elbow with multiple icings each day.
I'm not sure how the right knee will do, but I start with my normal ten minutes of walking warmup and then proceed with the usual combined run/walk. The knee feels fine during and afterwards. So it seems like the bicycle accident only scraped the knee up but did not do any serious damage. At home I update two websites for the end of the month as per my usual practice. And then I book an incredibly cheap airfare that just popped up for $258 one way from Los Angeles to Hanoi, Vietnam. And I also book a hotel (so that I can apply for a visa to get into Vietnam).