Category: covid-19

13 Months

It’s April 13th. Here in my personal Covid-19-land the 13th day of a month is a milestone. March 13, 2020 was my last day working in the office. Here we are, exactly 13 months later.

How do things look at this point? Not bad for us. Everyone in my family, including my step daughter who is away at school, is at least partially vaccinated. We have a Moderna, a Johnson & Johnson, and two Pfizers. Can you believe we live in a world where that sentence isn’t gibberish and actually makes sense?

We still don’t feel safe around other people. We still don’t feel safe going into stores. We’ll come around on that once we’re all 100% vax’d, but for now… I think it’s going to take a while for us to lighten up. Again, we’ll get there… it’s just weird.

The members of The Lizardfish all shared their estimated fully vaccinated date yesterday. I think we’re all ready to start playing again. Goodness knows I could use a high volume stress relief.

Still locked down. Still hanging in there. 13 months down and who knows how many more to go.

Birthday Delay?

My 50th birthday is in less than one month. I was planning on buying myself a present. I was going to take my Les Paul to an actual luthier and have the neck worked on. At the minimum I would have the frets dressed and the one inlay that’s starting to pull off fixed. More likely I would have the inlay fixed and the frets (gasp) replaced. I was also thinking about new pickups and having all of the wiring replaced. I was also also thinking about doing all of the same work to my ES-335.

Now… Maybe I should retire the Les Paul (the ES-335 is already retired) and, when the band starts rehearsing again, just play my SG. It’s still practically new. It won’t need any work for a while (knock on wood) so just play the SG all the time. I’d still need a backup for gigs so if we ever have another gig (in the post-Covid world that question is still unanswered) I could trade my strat for a cheap, used Les Paul Junior or something. Juniors from the mid-20-teens seem to be reselling for cheap. I could maybe do a straight up trade.

The reason is college. Mostly, at least. We’re about to have two college students and I don’t want to spend what little money is left after tuition on something that isn’t 100% necessary. New frets on a 43 year old guitar are a luxury that can wait until after the kids graduate. College is expensive. Two colleges… that’s really expensive. There’s just nothing left over. That’s not a complaint, of course, college is worth every penny. It just means that come 2025 or 2026, my Les Paul is going to have some major league work done. I’m talking Hollywood actor after the first time he loses a gig to a 22 year old up and comer level work done.

In the Office

March 13, 2020 was the last time I was in the office.

Until today.

A month or so ago my company announced that the building my desk lives in was being sold. Another company made an offer we couldn’t refuse. We needed to clear out all of our stuff. They put together a schedule for all of us to go in and do our thing. My turn came today.

I drove to Waltham, took my temperature, double masked, and went for it. It was exceedingly uncomfortable.

An elevator? For real?
I’ll never take a sunset pic from this window again.

Tomorrow Will be Scary

Want to hear something super scary that’s happening tomorrow?

I have to go into the office. It will only be a short visit but the fact that it’s happening at all is scaring the shite out of me.

I’ll probably live blog it in a vain attempt to keep the scary at bay. We will see.

Vehicle Inspections

In March 2020 when the Covid-19 lockdown crap was starting to hit the fan, one of the last things I did was get our Mazda inspected. Backstory, in Massachusetts you need to get your car inspected once a year. You get a sticker on your wind shield with the month you were inspected. Our Mazda had a sticker from 2019 with a two which meant the inspection expired in February 2020. I didn’t get to it on time, but I did get it down the following month. So the 2020 sticker had a three on it. Dig?

The Kia had a nine. It was inspected in September 2019. When September 2020 came around we were in full blown Covid fever and there was no way I was going to a shop for an inspection. We have barely driven the car anyway so no big deal. Now that we’re into March 2021 it’s starting to be an issue. Both cars are non-compliant now. Jen was trying to work up the courage to take the Kia to a garage to get it taken care of. It was late last week and it was a big deal for us pandemic-wise. When she got to the nearest garage she learned that the inspection software for the entire state was offline. It’s still offline today, a week later.

They didn’t tell her why, but they suggested she come back on Monday. We learned the truth over the weekend. Malware. So now that we want to get the two cars inspected we can’t. Some reports are hoping it will be up next week. Some are hoping it will be up next month. Wonderful. The police statewide are supposed to be letting cars with March expirations slide. Somehow I don’t think they’ll let September slide too. I don’t want to risk the ticket so I’m not going to try. It’s just… even when the state is pretending that Covid isn’t a thing anymore, we still can’t get things done. It’s just adding insult to injury, you know?

My Mask Tried to Hurt Me

Earlier tonight I needed to put on a mask. I had a slick little disposable N95 deal. I went to hook it over my ears and…….

Poked my idiot self in the eye.

That was like an hour ago.

It still hurts.

Stupid mask. Stupid, stupid mask.

Patience

I’m patiently waiting for this to come back…

…and my patience is running really thin.

No stir crazy jokes today. I want this shit to be over. I want our lives back again. It’s so close I can taste it, but at the same time all of the infection numbers are climbing. It’s getting to me today. It got to me yesterday too, but today is a little different some how.

2012-04-24 - Point Loma and San Juan Capistrano 134
8/365

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 75

That’s something you don’t see every day during a pandemic.

It’s trash day in my little neighborhood today. I took the two big barrels out to the street like a good citizen. My yard is a mess thanks to squirrels and high winds so I have a lot of trash scattered along the edge of the woods. That’s a weekend project though. Today we’re just talking about the garbage truck.

They drove up, took our trash, drove up to the next house and took theirs, then they drove diagonally across the street, picked up one house, and drove diagonally back across the street. In doing so they blocked the entire road. That’s when the school bus drove up.

So here we are in Global Pandemic World, living on our little locked down street, with two great big trucks blocking each other in the middle of the road.

Traffic? On our little residential street? Is that a thing?

Remember traffic? I have to drive to my office in Waltham a week from this coming Friday. I’m going in the afternoon, not during the rush, and I’m only going to be there for an hour or so. Still… the idea of it… it scares me. I don’t mind the drive, but going inside… yikes. That’s not the point of this episode though.

The point of this episode is, if you drive a truck during a pandemic, you should still probably not block both sides of the road. I mean, if you can avoid doing so you probably should.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Fans in the Stands

The Boston Bruins are coming out of their week or so long Covid-19 shut down tonight. They are playing the Islanders at the Garden and for the first time since last March there will be fans in the stands. Not a lot of them, in terms of the building’s capacity, but some.

This was actually supposed to be the second game with fans in the stands but the first one was postponed when the team was shut down due to their little Covid-19 outbreak. I’m just going to leave this sentence right there and give you a second to allow the irony to sink in.

All set? Okay, ignoring the irony for a moment, I was thinking about this earlier today and I started to wonder how the team would handle possible outbreaks in the stands. I envisioned a message displaying on the jumbotron at regular intervals saying something like:

If within the next week or so you should develop Covid-19 symptoms and receive a positive result on a Covid-19 test, please call the Bruins at 617-555-IRONY and let us know so that we can commence with contact tracing for your fellow ticketholders.

You know, something simple like that.

On a completely unrelated note, we had a meeting today with all of the groups under our Senior Manager. We did a little team building exercise that required everyone to log into the same website. Sort of like a Jackbox thing without the possibility of NSFW content cropping up. The site gave each participant a randomly generated user name. What was my randomly generated user name, you ask?

EpicGiraffe

I’m pretty sure that when I someday punch my ticket and see my whole life flash before my eyes, being referred to anonymously as EpicGiraffe is probably going to end up being the high water mark for all things.