Category: covid-19

Random Stuff

It’s Sunday. My thumb hurts, and the rash on my arm is bigger than it was yesterday. I’m falling apart completely. Quarantine is finally breaking me, it seems. So what’s a red head to do? How about some reflection on the state of his world? Also known as a post full of random stuff? Sounds good to me!

Today is kind of a big day. Symbolically, if not literally. Today is the last weekend day that the kids are at our house before Bellana goes back to school. We’re going all out. Jen is making her favorite dinner tonight. Harry is making her favorite dessert right now. I’m so worried about the future. I want her to go and have a great second year at college, but I don’t want her to go and be at risk of catching the plague. I want her to stay here and be safe. Basically all the same arguments I made last August, with a few pandemical twists. Mostly I just don’t want to miss her again. Selfish, yes, but it’s still true. At the same time, if they can keep the Covid bubble closed and stop her and the rest of the students from being exposed, then I want her to have a great semester. I want her to have a ball. She doesn’t leave for a little over a week, but her last weekend is a dad weekend so we’re giving her a send off a little early.

I feel a little better about my step son’s school plans now that I know he’s only going in person half of the time instead of all the time. I guess you could say I feel half better than full bad? Get it? I would feel full better if he was going full remote, but that’s probably going to require an outbreak in the high school and I don’t want that either. I want him home and safe.

Sports: The Bruins won their first Tuukka Rask free game. They are up two games to one in their first round series against the Whale. I have confidence in Jaroslav Halak, that’s not the issue. I just had more confidence in Rask. A Cup win seems less likely with Halak carrying them, but really given the way they played in the first few games into the return to play, I had lost most of my Cup confidence anyway. We’ll see how far they can go. I’d like to at least beat the friggin’ Whale.

The Red Sox are utterly atrocious. They are very close to being on pace for the lowest win/loss percentage in franchise history, and the franchise has been around for about 120 years or so…. that means they are really, really bad. We all knew it was coming though. They have one major league starter in their pitching rotation and he’s probably a #4 on a real staff. Maybe a #3. Chris Sale, Eduardo Rodriguez, and Nathan Eovaldi together is a nice start for a rotation, but with Sale out getting Tommy John surgery, and E-Rod out with Covid-19 related heart issues, that just leaves Eovaldi and a bunch of minor leaguers and that is a recipe for complete disaster. Add a few hitters having epically bad seasons so far and you have a team that has a good shot at the #1 overall draft pick next year.

Music… 50/90 is 42% complete. I just added songs #20 and 21. I’ve got seven songs with rhythm guitars down that are waiting for lyrics and vocals. That’s it. 28 songs total so far. I need to get to 34 by the end of the month (50/90 takes place over three months and 50/3=16.67). I also want to have a 10 song (at least) album in a month for August. Five of the completed songs were started and finished this month, and three of the unfinished songs were started this month too. Those three are the top of the priority list right now, and I have to keep the new stuff coming so I don’t fall behind. I feel like I am way behind on things, even though I’m really just at the halfway point.

A bird just flew into the window, about two feet away from me. I hope he’s okay. It looked like it might have been a glancing blow. More like he bounced off than crashed.

We applied for vote by mail ballots recently, and our 9/1 Primary election ballots were delivered a couple of days ago. Will there still be a functioning USPS for us to mail them back? The shit stain of a president admitted publicly that he’s hamstringing the post office to tamper with the November election, and the response from those who stand as a check and balance against him? They went on vacation. Also, there is a global pandemic that is killing a thousand Americans a day so they went on vacation. If you still think your government represents you, then that should show you the truth.

That’s kinda a bummer note to end on. Here, let me make it worse by adding a couple of new songs. That should push us all off the ledge, right?

Back to School: Good, Not Great, News

We received some news on the plan for back to school and the news is a whole lot better than we thought it would be, but still not that great.

They are dividing the students into two groups, alphabetically. On day one, one group will be in the building and the other will be remote. On the next day they swap, and so on and so forth ad infinitim. Is ad infinitim the correct usage of that phrase? Did I spell it right? Does anyone care? Do I even exist?

So it’s good news that my step son won’t be going back in person full time. It’s bad news that he will still be going back half of the time. What’s best is that they took the decision out of our hands. The four parental types wanted one outcome, and the student himself wanted another. This way the school is making us split the difference down the middle.

Of course all of this planning will be heading straight down the shitter once they go back and kids, staff, and faculty start testing positive. Once we have a nice little outbreak on our hands we’ll be remote learning full time again. Bank on it. Also, this plan still puts the faculty in the building full time. I don’t see that happening, at least not everywhere. In my step son’s school system they seem a little more lax about Covid than in other areas, so maybe the faculty is down for it. In some parts of Massachusetts, I expect teacher walkouts. The unions are already saying they want remote and it’s just a matter of time before we start hearing about strike votes. I will fall 100% on the side of the teacher’s unions on this question. They did not sign up to risk their lives for the shit we pay them. Strike away, brothers and sisters.

Five Months

Today is August 13th. Five months ago today was the last time I was in the office in Waltham. Five months. At the time the work from home order came, we were expecting it to be two weeks. Five months and counting.

My step daughter was on spring break, expecting to go back to Vermont. Nope. My step son kept saying that they can’t close schools, that would be crazy? Nope. Closed. My wife read a news report that hinted things could be bad enough to keep us home until the Fall and I thought that was ridiculous.

Now we are planning for back to school. University life will require a quarantine and a negative test to be let onto the campus, and from there on it’s a bubble. High school life… who the hell knows. Even the administration doesn’t have a friggin’ clue where they are going, never mind the students and their families. It’s a complete disaster.

Work? It’s looking more and more like we won’t be back in a building until sometime early next year. Jen’s company is still closed down completely. Mine has been sneaking people back into one of the buildings, and next month they are going to open another. My building is not on the reopening radar yet so it’s unlikely we’ll go back this year. We don’t know for sure though. We had wondered if we might be making working at home permanent, but the company squashed that talk emphatically. We’re going back, we just don’t know when yet.

In the last five months I have bought two tanks of gas. Normally it’s two a week(ish). I’ve been to my parents house a few times and been incredibly nervous about it each time. What if I have it and give it to them? What if they have it and give it to me and I bring it home and give it to everyone else?

I haven’t set foot in a store since a few days after we were sent home. That first weekend (I think) I went in a grocery store a couple of times, and maybe a drug store once. This was before stores put their Covid restrictions into place. I haven’t had to wait outside for the headcount inside to go down. We’ve been using instacart and amazon for pretty much everything we need. I’ve done a couple of curbside pickups, one at Best Buy and one at Home Depot.

Are there signs this is coming to an end? Not really. There are hints of vaccines. Until I and my family have one in my blood I’m not going to stop stressing. So many of our fellow citizens seem to think it’s okay to start reopening, and every time they try there is an outbreak and a new spike and it’s time to stop being stupid and just shut things down again.

I want this to be over, and it won’t be over until we all take it seriously… and there doesn’t seem to be much chance of that happening.

Covid-19 Numbers

Here’s what I have for today, for the state and the country at least. The city of Methuen hasn’t given us numbers in a while:

  • Massachusetts
    • Total Cases: 121,707 (up 392 from yesterday)
    • Deaths: 8,751
    • Death Rate: 7.19%
  • United States
    • Total Cases: 5,124,050 (up 52,871 from yesterday)
    • Deaths: 164,329
    • Death Rate: 3.21%

Sure, let’s open up the schools. Let’s get a shit load of six year olds to hang together in a closed room. What could possibly go wrong, 50,000 times in a single day.

School

I am starting to get really pissed off.

I have been in three or four discussions today on the topic of kids going back to school during the pandemic.

One started with a parent at a town meeting saying that her kid going back to school in person was worth the risk of two kids dying. It’s only two dead kids, she said.

Another started with, police and fire departments need to go back to work so teachers should go back too.

I just can’t believe that actual human people made these arguments in all seriousness. I mean, it’s only two dead kids, right? What’s the worry? It is infuriating! Fire departments go to work so teachers should too? Do teachers take the job with the understanding that it might cost their lives? I’m not a fire fighter, but I’m pretty sure they do. Likewise, I’m not a teacher but I’m going to take a wild guess that the answer is an emphatic and total NO! No they don’t! If you think a teacher should risk his or her life for their profession then FUCKING PAY THEM FOR IT. Again, I’m not a teacher but I am willing to bet that teachers don’t get hazard pay.

It’s only two dead kids, she said. Well ma’am, what if one of the two dead kids is yours? Is it worth the risk then? You fucking moron? Is it worth it if your kid dies, or is it only worth it if some other mothers’ kids die?

Have we as a people always been this evil? How could so many of us not have noticed?

Oh… and I won’t use that over sized first letter thing again, okay?

Back to School?

This just popped up in my iPhone’s news widget. We’ve spent a lot of time over the last few days stressing over back to school. The entire discussion is insulting. If the pandemic was bad enough to shut down schools in March, how is it not bad enough to stop a re-open in August? It’s absurd. The situation would need to be better now than it was in March and it is most definitely not better. It is worse. So very much worse. FIVE MILLION infections worse.

To quote the great Will Ferrell in Zoolander, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.

Maskless

I left the house today! WOOHOO! Suck it, Coronavirus!

I went to my parents house today for something that was not an emergency. What a nice feeling that was, let me tell you. They are having a bit of an issue with vines and invasive plant over growth. They are kinda taking over. I took a trusty, heavy duty hedge clipper over there and went at it. They can now get through the front door without anything pulling any Little Shop of Horror shit on them.

The downside. Thorns. I didn’t realize it. They didn’t realize it. Some of those vines had the biggest, ugliest, razor sharpiest thorns I’ve ever seen. My father chucked a pair of heavy gloves out the door for me, which helped, but I half expected my second favorite Bruins t-shirt was going to go home in rags. Luckily I avoided that.

I stayed until my back pain convinced me that it was time to go. I got to talk to my parents through the door for a few minutes. Mom had a bad day yesterday, pain wise. Today seems a little better. She’s definitely a little more together cognitively, which is great. She had blood work yesterday, and a nurse visit the day before (I think?) and a chemo treatment this coming Monday. It’s not going to get easier for a long time.

On the way home I had to do something that I hadn’t done in months. I had to put gas in the Mazda. I’ve written about it before, but I haven’t put gas in that car since early March. Five months. If there’s a plus side to lock down, it’s the huge reduction in carbon emissions coming from our family. I’ve now put gas into each car once since the lock down started.

Unfortunately, the visit to the gas station was a clear demonstration of why our country has gone to shit. There were four customers. Me, a driver on the island next to mine, and a couple on a motor cycle on the next island over. There was also a youngish guy putting air in his tires. Of the five people, there was one mask. Mine. I had latex gloves on too. The rest of the group? Nothing. My skin didn’t touch anything that isn’t a part of the bubble we live in. Inside the car? Yes. Outside the car? No. I kept waiting for some smart ass nazi-friendly remark from one of the other customers. It never came. Good. Screw them.

My Flickr photo-a-day thing is up to day 343 today. Just a few more weeks to go. I tried to take a picture out the car window while stopped at a stop light. There’s a farm on the State Hospital grounds (technically I don’t think it’s on the grounds anymore, I think the land changed hands? Something like that? It used to be State Hospital property, but who knows, whatever) and I tried to get a picture of some corn.

That was my second attempt. The first attempt also caught the control box for the traffic signal. I didn’t want that though, so I took another.

When I got home I noticed the image on the box. I thought it was a reflection of one of the State Hospital buildings, but the angle is all wrong. I zoomed in and saw it’s a painting! How cool is that? A little cropping and now this photo 343/365:

343/365

Sure, Lets All Go Back to School

The United States of America topped the 160,000 COVID-19 death mark today. Aren’t you proud of us? We topped the 4,000,000 infections mark 16 days ago, on July 23rd. At the current rate we should hit 5,000,000 on Sunday or Monday. That will be one million new cases in 18 or 19 days. One million cases in less than three weeks.

But sure, we should be fine letting all of the kids in the country go back to school. There’s nothing to worry about.

As the immortal Frank Derbin used to say…

Nothing to see here.

Is This a Bad Idea?

I was up really late last night. I had a load of laundry running and I didn’t want to fall asleep until it was done. I was also watching an episode of The Watchman and I wasn’t paying attention to the clock when I started it. It finished about 25 minutes after the laundry. Dumbass. Turns out I didn’t get to sleep until about 12:15am. My sleep numbers were pretty good* but there just wasn’t enough of it.

Seemingly unrelated, King Crimson guitarist/band leader Robert Fripp not only helped to invent what we now call Progressive Rock (with the first King Crimson Album, In the Court of the Crimson King in 1969, the point of it being the first prog record is arguable, but the arguments in favor are pretty good. For me, I tend to look at The Beatles Abby Road which came out a few weeks earlier), but he also helped to invent what we now call ambient music as well (with the 1973 release of No Pussyfooting in a collaboration with Brian Eno, under the name Fripp and Eno). He came up with a technique of using a couple of reel to reel tape decks to make loops of sound. He eventually developed a whole electronic style of playing, which he dubbed Frippertronics because he sounds like he’s one of those guys who likes giving funky names to stuff (I don’t know if that’s true or not, it just kinda seems that way. No offense meant, Robert). These days he uses a guitar synthesizer rig and some samplers to do his thing (and recently it’s been really making me want to dabble in synth pedals and loopers).

One unique (I think) aspect of a King Crimson show is that at some point before the people start showing up, Fripp will record a few minutes worth of an improvised ambient piece of music and they will play that through the sound system before the show starts. I think they loop it so it can start playing around the time the doors open, and end when the band takes the stage. Musically speaking they’re not really… ya know… musical. There isn’t a melody, and there really isn’t a harmonic structure to speak of. They are just meant to be background sounds.

So Crimson has been touring for years and years, and every show has it’s own original ambient piece. There must be a mountain of these suckers stored up somewhere. In the spirit of the Covid-19 lock downs being an existential kick in the nuts, Mr Fripp has been releasing one of these ambient pieces each week. Every Friday he puts one out via all the streaming services under the title Music for Quiet Moments. Music for Quiet Moments 15 came out today.

Why am I talking about this?

Because I have a playlist with all 15 pieces and it’s playing through the Sonos speaker in my bedroom/office right now, and as alluded to in paragraph #1, I’m pretty sleepy today.

Is it a mistake to combine these two seemingly unrelated things? Being sleepy and ambient music?

Ummmm… maybe I should switch to something noisier.

*My SleepWatch numbers for the past couple of weeks have included a string of heart rate dip values that were literally unbelievable. I did eight straight days above 20%, then one in the teens, and then six more above 20%. I’ve never had a run like that in the year-plus I’ve been paying attention. Granted, the last two nights have only been 13% each. A month ago I would have been very pleased with that. Now? It’s a let down.