I'm worn out on Tuesday morning! It's been an active few days and I did not sleep well. Thus I just take the mountain bicycle out for the usual recovery ride to the old yacht club and back to home. My legs felt strong throughout and I regret not doing my usual longer Tuesday road bicycle ride. I trim the roses, grab a shower, meditate, return a book to the library, and pick up a bottle of wine for the day. I catch up on email since some high school classmates recently invited me to the 50th anniversary of our graduation. Last night I put together a quick summary of my life - which stretched out to two full pages of text - and now I'm answering emails about the summary. I read the news and markets and prepare Excel and Python code for some end of month and end of quarter calculations that I do on my personal financial situation. A bit after noon I've chopped up vegetables and enjoy them steamed with bread during the MotoGP race from Motegi, Japan. I make appointments at the CVS pharmacy for a flu vaccine, a Covid vaccine, and an mPox vaccine for Monday. I wonder where they will jab in the third vaccine since I only have two arms. I guess I'll wear shorts to the appointment in case they want to use a thigh. And later I catch some of the Dodgers' wild card playoff game where they destroy their opponent.
I am so tired on Wednesday monring that even after hitting the snooze button once, I think about not cycling and doing an alternative workout. But I get up and put on my cycling gear and just do the mountain bicycle recovery ride to the old yacht club and back to home. Except that I push at times and feel better and better as I ride. Only in the last kilometer or so do I go back to spinning. At home I immediately put ice packs on both knees as a preventative measure, grab a cooling shower (again with antiseptic soap and regular soap for last Friday's wounds), dry off, apply the Bacitracin antibiotic ointment to the wounds, and sit down and meditate for twenty minutes. I'm out of some irregular supplies such as cleanser and burritos, so I ride the bicycle to the grocery store and pick them up and stop at the post office to forward some of the retired schoolteacher's mail to her. It's getting obvious that she is not coming back. I sit back and read the news and markets and even transfer today's version of critical files to memory sticks and to a Google drive in advance of the trip to Hanoi eight weeks out. Though I am sure I will transfer potentially updated versions the day before I get on the airplane. I have steamed vegetables and bread for lunch as I watch some of the baseball playoff game. And I relax with Netflix and some of the Dodgers' game later in the day. I'm waiting for comments from the report that I report about the coding that I did for a friend.
I'm worn out so I turn off the alarm when it goes off and sleep on Thursday morning until just after 7am. I get up and read the news and markets, get in a session with the weights (using one step down in weights for each lift), trim the roses, grab a shower, and meditate. I spend most of the day just relaxing and carboloading for a long ride on Friday morning.
I start my usual Friday road bicycle ride north on the Los Angeles river trail. There is drizzle in the air so the bugs are absent. I get get past the El Monte dam to the Santa Fe dam and then start south on the San Gabriel river trail. I'm cranking along nicely with a slight tailwind and soon there is drizzle, or rain, or drizzle. I'm completely soaked in water and a bit chilly, but I have no choice but to continue south towards home. After a bit the rain subsides and I can get back home as if no rain ever occurred. I end up with a strong 100 kilometer ride and quickly ice my knees and shoulder. (The shoulder from a possible re-tear of the rotator cuff muscles from three years ago and the fall last week.) After the icing I get in a warm shower, read the news and markets, and set back and read the news and markets and then wacth FP2 for MotoGP from Indonesia, FP2 for F1 from Singapore, and finally FP2 for Moto2 from Indonesia. I regularly get up and perform some calf, neck, and hamstring stretches though I continue to skip the quadriceps stretches as they may put excessive stress on the knees. For the rest of the day I do not do any coding and just sit back and relax with various Netflix and television shows.
On Saturday morning i get out for an 80 minute run/walk and it feels good. I certainly ice the knees immediately afterwards, trim the roses, grab a shower, drive to the grocery store for heavy items, and pick up three new books from the library. I watch a fun qualifying sessin for F1 car from Singapore and then chop some vegetables for a later lunch. Though before lunch I go outside and cut my own hair (as I did during the Covid-19 pendemic) and it looks good enough for now. I'll get my hair cut for real before my November vacation. And then I watch MotoGP/2/3 qualifying from Indonesia. I'm again lacking any projects to work on, so I watch a bit of college football and some of the Dodgers' game.
I sleep a bit late on Sunday and take the mountain bicycle north on the Los Angeles river trail - avoiding all of the beach and street traffic of today's Long Beach marathon. It is chilly outside, so I put a shirt underneath my cycling jersey. The chilliness will be good for the people running the marathon, half marathon, and other distances in Long Beach. It is supposed to be a recovery ride, but I find my self cranking up one gear almost the entire way home. At home I grab a shower (still using the ice, antiseptic soap and Bacitracin anitbiotic on my nine day old wunds), read the news, and watch an intriguing, if not exciting, F1 race from Singapore. This finishes the coverage just in time for me to edit my traveler's checklist for an upcoming trip. (I started making this checklist of things to carry and tasks to carry out a few years ago and has made it easy to pack and not forget anything.) I start the laundry and watch MY Detroit Lions win another game though not as dominating as expected. Later I watch some of the Sunday night football game and some of the baseball playoff game and vow to be more productive on Monday and to catch up on all of the MotoGp/2/3 races from this past weekend in Indonesia.
Monday is chilly again, but I get out running in just a t-shirt and running shorts and I warm up nicely. I get in 80 minutes again and immediately ice the knees afterwards. I'm starting to think that I've beaten the slight knee pain/soreness that I had four to six weeks ago, but I still want to be cautious. I get in a nice warming shower and read the news and markets before going to get a flu and Covid vaccine. It is the same Vietnamese lady that ave me the shot from one or two years ago, and I tell her I found a one-way ticket to Hanoi for $258. She's stunned! I'm stunned too and tolde her that I was ready to buy at $400. She repeates places for me to go near Hanoi or way down near Da Nang. And I listen intently as she pokes both of my arms for my flu and Covid vaccines. At home the thermostat in the house says 72F but I am still a bit cold. I open the doors up to try and gettig sum warming air into the house. The loss of 50 pounds from cancer treatment has made me very susceptible to eing cold. Whereas before I used to love the chill in the air in October through February or March in Long Beach. Now I try to escape from it for a couple of months. At home I watch the Tissot sprint race and later watch some of the Dodgers' game and some of the Monday night football game. I'm still awaiting feedback on the teo reports that I sent to my friend and I look at my list of problems to tackle and am unmotivated today to get started.
Tuesday is again chilly so I wear a t-shirt underneath my cycling jersey. I go out Del Amo and up the San Gabriel river trail to a convenient turn around point - seeing the Saint John Bosco cross country running team out for an early morning run and I say Hi to the coaches as I think they know me by know. (But we're going in opposite directions so I don't slow down to talk with them.) A couple riders catch up to me halfway down to Liberty park and I let them tow me for a while. When we pass Del amo, I sprint ahead a bit and say to the riders, "I guess it's my turn now". So I pull the riders for four kilometers and then they take turns towing me for the last four kilometers. I start a big sprint saying, "We can catch that guy way up ahead in yellow", and we do, but just barely. At the end of the trail they are heading south and I am heading west and north so we thank each other for the tows and continue on. I finish with a good 75 kilometer ride. I immediately ice the knees and trim the roses. After a shower I make a quick trip to the store for a couple of supplies and then read the news and markets. I've decided that every Python code that I write from now on will be object-oriented, so I start converting that second code for a friend into object-oriented code. This will take a while, but I think it might be beneficial as we try out different algorithms. I pull out the mop and cleaner and clean all of the hardwood floors before watching a reasonable Moto2 race from Indonesia. I finally grab lunch near 2pm as I continue an informal intermittent fast routine - my last food was before 7pm on Monday night and I haven't eaten anything until 2pm on Tuesday. The research shsows that an eighteen hour intermittent fast is as good for you as a pure 24 hour fast and this is what I have been doing, for the most part, for quite some time now.
There is a good mountain bicycle recovery ride on Wednesday morning out to the old yacht club and back to home. I feel good, the legs feel good, and enjoy the ride. At home I edge and mow the front yard and backyard and take some time to clean up the rosebeds a bit. I'm still deciding what to do with my backyard, so I'm not putting in as much time on it as I had in the past. I grab a shower, mediatate, read the news and markets, participate in a Long Beach Human Trafficking Task Force Zoome meeting, and then go visit the eye doctor. He says that my distance vision is about the same as it has been since the radiation treatment - meaning that it has degraded to about 20/40 instead of the 20/25 before - and says we'll keep watching it. He does want me to get new reading glasses from three years ago, so I agree with this and it will give me a better pair to carry when traveling. Since the doctor has dilated my eyes during the exam, I drive slowly home and can't really see anything to be able to work on the object oriented version of the latest cose. Instead I just relax, watch sone local news on television, and relax with the later Dodgers' game. I realize that I have not eaten anything since 6pm Tuesday to 4pm on Wednesday, so I steam some vegetables and dump them on some whole wheat bread and some Italian oil. Fortunately Thursday is a planned day off from cycling or running, even if I cannot see anything, I can still lift weights and maybe do some coding. And finally pull a chair up close to the television (if needed) to wach the MotoGP from Indonesia last Sunday. (Again, I like to stretch out the F1 and MotoGP weekeds to get repeated doses of fun and pleasure throughout the week rather than watch them all on the weekend. But I don't think I've ever waited until Thursday for a MotoGP race.)
Thursday is my typical leg day off, so I work on the object-oriented code and add some new ideas that I think will bear fruit. I also go out three different times to the garage and due abdominal, core muscle, lower back, and bicep exercises - Three sets each time. I'm sure I will have sore body parts on Saturday monring. I finally watch the MotoGP race from Indonesia where the two favorites hit each other on the first lap and a rookie wins the race. I cook past and carboload for an expected long bicycle ride on Friday morning and then sit back and watch some of the Dodgers' game. Every once in a while getting back up for a few minutes to work on the new ideas within the oject oriented code.
I start Friday morning north on the Los Angeles river trail on the road bicycle. I get confused on gearing a couple of times, but that's because one of the shift levers is sticky and doesn't fully return to a neutral position (which I can handle by pushing back to its neutral position but this should be lubricated especially after I got caught in the rain last week). I get up to the El Monte airport and it seems the windsocks show that I've had a headwind and crosswind against me the entire way north. I cross over to the San Gabriel river trail, hoping for a tailwind, but it doesn't seem to be there and flags further south show a pure sidewind. Nonetheless I realize I am a bit down on energy but still get in a couple of sprints along Del Amo to beat amber lights. Did I not eat enough carbs yesterday? Are the flu and Covid vaccines from Monday still around in my body? Was it the wind that took a lot out of me? Regardless I finish the 100 kilometer ride a bit more tired than usual. I grab a quick shower, get gasoline for the Yamaha YZF-R3, buy a bottle of wine, read the news and markets, make my usual October grants to charities that I support, verify with the Los Angeles County property tax portal that they have received my payments for 2026, and then just relax. I enjoy this day, even if a bit more tired than usual, because it was a good, tiring ride, there's wine open, I've been productive with grants and property tax checks, so I feel good! I notice that my weight is down six pounds since August. (I don't dare tell the doctors this because I have no doctor's appointments and because they would yell at me.) I'm going to have cheesy bean and cheese burritos with tomatoes and jalapenos added for lunch and maybe even eat those chocolate chip cookies that I baked a while ago for dessert later in the day (with ice cold milk). Exccept that I foget to eat anything after 2pm, either dinner or the chocolate chip cookies. But I get a skeleton Reinforcement Learning algorthm to work and now I just have to apply it to my friend's desire. And then I get to sleep per my standard proedure for reading a physical book from the library then turning off the lights for sleep.
I get out for a run just after 6am and extend both the run-to-walk ratio and the entire length of the session to 90 minutes. There is nothing that hurts or gives me twinges or any indications of problems. I want to get back to the 20 kilometer runs, but I'm taking my time as I don't want setbacks. I immediately ice both knees though they don't hurt and are not sore. I wear my knee ice packs outside to trim the roses and walk around the backyard and check if everything is okay. I need to spend some money on the porch/veranda and on the backyard landscaping, but I don't know what I want. I grab a shower and make a trip to the grocery store for some supplies and because I have a craving for salty potato chips. Back at home I clean up the driveway from the neighbors' tree where the squirrels come to eat the seeds and drop the unedible part. Then I spend time catching up on the news and answering a few more emails about the upcoming 50th high school graduation event. (Which I will not attend because, as I've told everyone, I can get to Hanoi cheaper than I can get to Michigan.) Today I work for a short time to try and start the conversion of the skeleton Reinforcement Learning code that I found to apply to my friend's problem. (The skeleton Reinforcement Learning algorithm is geared towards finding a path through a maze. Which is an interesting problem. But it is unrelated to my friend's problem and I have to convert "the fitness function" and "the reward function" to applicable code.) But I spend most of Saturday just being a vegetable and having steamed vegetables and whole wheat bread for a late lunch and then I eat p[asta and cheese for dinner.
On Sunday I grab the mountain bicycle and go down to the old yacht club and back to home - pushing sometimes since I did not ride yesterday. At home I grab a shower, meditate, start the laundry (where most of my clothes are workout clothes), do some web crawling protection by updating my robots.txt files for various domains, and set back to watch some football. Today I bake a medium multi-cheese pizza and enjoy half of it for lunch. I watch some more football and make a few notes on dieas that I have to work on. And later I watch parts of the first game of the American League Champsionship series for baseball. It is supposed to rain almost all day on Tuesday, so that will have to be a weightlifting day. And I ponder whether to cycle a bit long or run again on Monday.
Monday is National Indigenous People's Day, or if you rare so inclined, Christopher Columbus day. I start late and get in a very windy mountain bicycle ride where I fight the headwind on some legs of my trip and enjoy the tailwind on other legs. On my street I stop and talkwith a neighbor down the street to se if he has seen Richard - the man from the neighboring street who used to walk his beautfiul and friendly dog Scout everyday. Though Scout passed away about a year ago, I used to see Richard walking alone. But I have not sen Richard for a long time now. My neighbor assures me that Richard is still here and he beeped his car hron in friendship at my neighbor a few weeks ago. I get home and immediately put icepacks on my knees. The green/organic trash people have already picked up our green/organic trash and I go retrieve my bin and the retired schooltecher's bin (as I've paid her Salvadoran gardener to keep keep doing his thing). I run into one of the ladies across the street and she is starting to walk her very old dog and she is using a cane. So she has tweaked her back in some way and when I get home from my errands I suggest an anti-inflammatory, ice, and tennis ball massages. None of which were suggested when she went to "Uergent Care" at her health care provider. I get in a shower and try to mail the retired schoolteacher's important mail to her neice, but the post office is closed for National Indigenous People's day. Though I thought the annex of the post ofice where one can self serve weighing and determining postage and mailing stuff is also closed. Thus I ride my bicycle into to the UPS store and they are able to connect with their servers after a five minute weight and I get the package of bills and bank statements sent off to the neice of the retired schoolteacher. As I ride back home I see a different neighbor on his bicycle out with his young son on his small bicycle. I stop them and make them adjust the son's helmet so that it is fully covering his forehead and nt tipped backwards and make them tighten the straps. And I tell them about my $252 fair one way to Hanoi and the neighbor is jealous that I will be in southeast Asia for a long time. At home I close all of my doors and the garage door and use my leaf blower to remove the neighbor's leaves from my driveway in advance of an expected full day of rain on Tuesday. (It's easier to blow dry leaves away and then it is to pick up wet, soggy leaves.) I then read te news and markets and dig deeper into a Reinforcement Learning sample program that I have in order to fully understand it and to potentially apply it to my friend's desired coding. I'm making good progress and ready to take the Reinforcement Learning skeleton and tart adding my friend's specific problem. This is going to exciting! Later in the day as I've worn myself ut physically and mentally, I sit back and watch the two baseball league championships series.