I sleep well on my first night in Chiang Rai into Thursday morning. I read the news and markets, get breakfast, stop at the ATM for more Thai Baht, and walk to the bicycle store to rent a bicycle. At least one of the guys there remembers me from last year. I soon have a bicycle and I get out for a ride north and west of Chiang Rai somewhat along the Kik river. I get a bit turned around and finish with a decent ride. After a shower I meditate and walk to a cafe where they donate part of their proceeds to fighting human trafficking. The food is very good! Then I spend a fair amount of time coding and cleaning up some projects and digging out the half-finished tournament play code that I have and I start working on that.
It is supposed to rain on Thursday and I go out a time or two to look at the weather. I see some isolated dark clouds, but nothing to suggest a heavy rain (if any at all). I have breakfast and read the news and markets and check the weather again. I get dressed and get on the bicycle. Before I know it I'm at the right turn, then the left turn, and approaching the White Temple. I stop for a minute and a drink and continue on. Soon I'm making the left turn and soon after that I'm 20 kilometers out and at the base of the 11 kilometer climb to the Khun Korn waterfalls. I make good progress up the hill and only at the end does the road get punchy. But I just spin away and I'm at the top. I stop again for water and to greet tourists in Thai and Arabic and then make my way for home. I hook up north of my hotel but inboard of the Kok river and I soon recognize where I'm at. I grab a shower and meditate and then walk to another cafe for some spicy red soup and vegetables and rice. Then I relax in my room for a while. A good hard ride needs to be offset with some rest. Late at night I watch some Netflix and work on the tournament play code. By the end of the night the tournament play code scrapes the rankings and team statistics, evaluates a fitness function based upon published research, and decides the winner of the first round in a tournament. Now I need to extend it to the completion of the tournament.
I have a bad one hour long period of no sleep on Thursday into Friday, otherwise the sleep is deep and good. I wake up at 6:10 and read the news and markets, grab breakfast, do a bit of coding because I have a good idea on the tournament code, and then go cycling. I planned a short ride today after the two previous good, hard rides. So I just go east from Chiang Rai into the country side as I have done before. There isn't much traffic and the roads are good. But I'm glad it was a short ride because I am tired. I get a shower, mediatte, and walk to The Pizze Company where I eat half a medium pizza and box the rest for home. At home I finish the tournament code. It does multiple rounds of tournament play and uses real statistics with a published set of coefficients for each statistic. I also watch some Netflix and relax. Later I have the second half of the pizza, walk around Chiang Rai a bit, and relax at home again. I'm worn out.
I sleep well on Friday night into Saturday morning. I continue to the read the news and markets, grab breakfast, read more news and do some coding, and go cycling pattern. Today I ride along the Kok river and find the prison and the subsequent narrow two lane road with little traffic and beautiful countryside scenery. At home I grab a shower, meditate, and get back on the bicycle to ride slowly (with helmet) to a grocery store for bread and cheese and...was that a bottle of wine? Back at home I track my expenses and update the tournament code with the last bit of published data available. That leaves about 13% of unaccounted variance that I'll just put down to luck and model as a random factor. This is getting interesting! Near 6pm I think about going to the nearby walking street market. And finally decide to walk over to the market and check out the clothing, artisan, food, and music offerings. These don't interest me but I enjoy mingling with the locals. And finally I return home to veg out for an hour or so before sleep.
I sleep well into Sunday morning and decide to mix it up since I am so hungover from cycling. I ride the bicycle down to an old abandoned airstrip and go running. In the early morning and late afternoon many locals come here to run, walk, or cycle because there is no traffic and no diesel exhanust fumes. I get in a 12 kilometer run and cycle back to my hotel. After a shower I grab breakfast, ride the bicycle to my favorite Ono coin laundry, pick up some supplies at a grocery store and meditate. Today I add some uncertainy calculations to the tournament code and I have a month or so to refine this part of the code. I have a slow day and try to poke around for my next project.
I sleep incredibly deep on Sunday night into Monday morning. I read some news, go eat breakfast, read more news and check out the Lions loss, and get dressed to go cycling. Today seems like it is easier than it should be and I climb up to` the top of the Khun Korn waterfalls again and it just seems easier than usual. On the way back home I have plenty of muscle glucose/sguar but I have no brain sugar left. Thus I crank along but have no idea what I am doing. Today I take the second major street light and it leads me directly to the clock tower and then to the my hotel. I grab a shower, meditate, and then get on the bicycle to slowly ride to a grocery store for supplies. I am just completely out of it mentally and I try to eat extra carbs to get some brain sugar back. The tournament code is working perfectly and I just need to make a good random addition/subtraction from scores to give a chance of upsets along the tournament. But I just rest and have the television going and watch some Netflix as I try to regain blood sugar. I also carry out my standard "recharge everything" Monday as I recharge the razor, the toothbrush, and the bicycle ePump. In the afternoon I work on fine-tuning the tournament play code and at some point feel cold. So I get under the blankets and fall asleep for who knows how long. I wake up near 7pm and have some` fruity biscuits and watch videos and eventually get to sleep. I'm worn out.
I sleep incredibly well on Monday night into Tuesday. After eating breakfast I read the news and Sunday football games and then go cycling. But legs and body feel good and tired but I am still missing blaun glucose/sugar and end up getting a bit lost. But I keep riding along and find a way back home. I can't seem to get enough brain glucose/sugar. I find a garden hose near the hotel and ask, in Thai, if I can use it to clean the mud off my bicycle before I return it in a few days. The attendant, as all Thai people, are excited that I can speak Thai and he lets me use the hose. After a shower I meditate and buy bread and cheese to try and restore my brain glucose levels. I end up watching only an hour or so of Netflix and spend the majority of the day making good proress on coding as I add enhancements to neural network/k-means neighbor code from a week or so ago. Before I know it it is 10pm and time to get ready for sleep.
I again sleep very well on Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. I wish I could always sleep as well as I have in the last few days. I start the day riding the bicycle to the old abandonded airstrip and running 12 kilometers with the locals. (I went running today because my bottom was a bit sore from this bicycle seat and all of the hours that I've put in on it. At home I grab a shower and have breakfast. I tip the one cook 100 Baht because she always makes me a vegetarian omelette. In my room I work on that old neural network/k-means clustering algorithm with the latest data. The previous data ended in September 2025. Now I have data up to December 23 2025. I'm getting incredible results! I look through my list of things to accomplish on this trip and am finished with all of them except for the websites that have to be updated on the last day os 2025 for copyrights and calendars and for learning about Google Analytics. I'm not up to studying and learning this. Maybe next week. I spend the day walking around Chiang Mai and trying to discover new places.
I sleep well again and have breakfast and read the news and markets. I get out for the easterly ride but I stop at 130 minutes because I am tired. After a shower I ride the bicycle to the coin landromat to clean clothes, stop at a 7-11 for snacks, and drop off the bicycle at the rental shop. And I tell them, "See you next year", and they are happy that I'll be back (God willing). I walk back tothe hotel and I am completely worn out. Thus I have some of my snacks and watch some video and lay down for a bit to watch some television. Late at night I figure out how to do the web scraping that I wanted to get for the tournament play code and soon I've scraped the raw data for all of November and December. Now I just have to aggregate the statistics and generate some probability functions to allow some degree of randomness for upsets in the tournament code.
I get in a good run down to the old abandonded airstrip, a lap and a half, and back to the hotel for 12 kilometers on Friday morning. After a shower I eat breakfast, read the news, and pack for my trip from the small, cozy Chiang Rai airport (which they want to expand) to Bangkok's old airport used mainly for short hauls and domestic flights. Of course as soon as I pass the metal detector I start to bleed from my left forearm. I ask a security person for a tissue and she sees that I am bleeding. I apply pressure with the tissue to the wound and elevate it above my head. But soon I'm surrounded by five medical personnel to escort me to a chair and see what's going on. I repeat to them that I have thin skin on my forearms and bleed all of the time and show them my right forearm that has wound remnants from a week or so ago. But one medical person sits me down and asks me questions to see if I'm lucid, one cleans the wound, one applies Betadine to it, another dresses it, and the fifth takes my vital signs. I keep explaining this is not a big deal and I have bacatracin antibiotic gel but its in my checked luggage. I finally convince them that everything is okay and they let me go on my way. When I get to Bangkok a fellow traveler sees me and says he saw the nurses working on me and asks me what happened. And I explain to him that I have thin skin on the forearms and bleed all of the time from them - nowehere else - just the forearms. He's happy I'm okay and we go our own ways. It takes three trains and a short taxi to get to my hotel - the same hotel that I stayed at last year at the end of Sukhumvit Soi 4 and right next to the new Benjakitti park with running paths, pickleball courts, ping pong tables, and basketball courts. Craving western food, I have dinner at Burger King and wander around the area to see if anything is new.