Tag: covid-19

Not My Favorite

Today has not been my favorite day. Not by a long way. Not by a really long way.

(Yeah, that’s the inside of an urgent care)

(They said they’d call me if the test is positive, thank you, but if it’s negative they won’t call me. I did a double take on that. If you don’t call, how will I know?)

Idiocy

On September 1, 2020 the state of Massachusetts had 355 new cases of Covid-19. The United States as a whole had 41,976 new cases.

On September 2, 2021 (after having multiple vaccines available for over seven months) the state of Massachusetts had 2,037 new cases of Covid-19. The United States as a whole had 187,489 new cases.

What the fuck is wrong with us?

Take the god damned vaccine, you fucking morons.

A booster for Christmas

I got my second shot on April 7th. That means I will be eligible for the booster shot just before Christmas. HoHoHo!

I Love My Family

I love my family. They are the best. You will never meet finer people.

Knowing that I am going to be at my parents’ for two whole days and that I won’t see them at all during that time, they asked me if I wanted to play a game of Ticket to Ride Online with them. We all have it on our iPads and figured it would be a nice thing to do together even when we aren’t together. Look me in the eye and tell me that isn’t the nicest thing anyone has ever done. I mean, seriously. How wonderful are Jen and Harry? I know Bellana’s not a big fan of that game, but maybe we can find something we can all play, assuming we can sneak it in around her work schedule as she is working up a storm in the final weeks before school starts.

I’m not sure who setup the network at my parents house, but I am pretty sure they have a firewall of some kind that is blocking online games. I’ve mentioned my troubles with World of Warcraft in the past, and tonight I had to switch from the wifi to my iPhone’s hotspot in order to connect to the game. I know my sister’s kids were doing some of their remote school here last year. I wonder if they put something in to keep them honest.

Speaking of online games, Jen and I have been playing World of Warcraft for the last month or so. WoW is owned and operated by a company called Blizzard. Blizzard has been getting demolished with charges of various kinds of sexual misconduct in the work place. I believe their CEO resigned over it recently. Karmically speaking (I do not believe in Karma, but the principal still applies) we are both starting to feel uncomfortable supporting the company so we’re looking for something else to play. Jen was looking into Star Wars: The Old Republic today. She won’t have to twist my arm to play that one. A game where I can be a Jedi? Sure! A game where I can get in touch with my dark side and be a Sith? Sure! I’ll have to download that one when I finally get home from this nana/papa sitting shift, sometimes in 2043 or so.

Last time I was here I mentioned that the only place I feel comfortable doing my “exercise” is in the cellar, and I don’t like going down there and leaving my parents alone without having a legitimate reason to go down stairs. There is laundry to do tonight, so I have my reason. I didn’t have a chance to start it until a little after 9:00, and only had five out of 30 minutes done, but I think I can close the ring. I have been down stairs once and I got my time up to 15 minutes. I think I will have two legitimate reasons to go into the cellar before midnight and I think I can get in the 15 remaining minutes. We’ll see. It’s really hot here and the humidity is unreal. We’ll see.

I left work for the day at 3:30 today so that I could spend some time with Harry before I came to my parents house. We watched the first episode of What If…? It was really good. I can’t wait for more! While we were busy with the Marvel fun, an email was sent to the whole company saying that our return to the office policy was changing again. Our requirement to come in approximate once a week has been temporarily put on hold due to the increasing Covid-19 numbers (which reminds me, I haven’t updated my spreadsheets yet). My boss called me a little while ago to make sure we were all on the same page. It’s looking like going into the office is off the table until (probably) mid-October. Obviously that could change at any time, but I feel much safer. It was pretty uncomfortable being there the last couple of times. I didn’t feel unsafe per se, I just didn’t feel comfortable. Tonight’s announcement was like a sigh of relief.

Okay, I need to update my MA and US Covid-19 numbers spreadsheets, and then I need to mix a song. All of that sandwiched around laundry and “exercising” and actually going to sleep and stuff. Here’s hoping the quiet night stays quiet. Fingers crossed.

The Never Ending Flood Story

There was a little bit of water on the cellar floor when I went to bed last night. We were in the midst of our first four consecutive rain-free days since April and it seemed like things might be on the mend down stairs.

Then it poured over night last night. Again. There was more water in the cellar this morning, though still not the worst it’s been. Clean up complete. Wet vac and dehumidifier emptied yet again, though unlike the last few times it is currently raining in Methuen, Massachusetts, though it’s just a drizzle.

Just add it to the growing list of things that are pissing me off these days.

I feel like a fucking yo-yo. I was optimistic three days ago, absolutely crushed two days ago, a little sort of bordering on optimistic yesterday, and just miserable again today.

Who would have imagined that I would look back over the recent past and see something other than 2020 as the low point of human existence. I am actually feeling a little nostalgic for the high point of the global pandemic that locked down the civilized world and killed millions of humans. Not really, but in a self centered way? Yeah, a little.

Fuck.

Welcome to August

Happy August 1st, everyone! August doesn’t have a national holiday so this year I am going to try and make it feel better by acting like every day is an extra big deal. No I’m not. I’m just so happy that July and its constant rain is over. Granted, August might get constant rain too, likely will thanks to climate change, but for this one, sweet, shining morning, August is dry and I am happy about it.

I wore a mask at my mother’s house yesterday. Not all the time, just when I knew she was near me. We are both vaccinated, but she ain’t catching jack shit from me. The MA department of public health is recommending vaccinated people wear masks when they are indoors with other people around because we can’t tell who the morons who aren’t vaccinated are and if they aren’t going to do anything to protect their own health, then we the vaccinated have to do it for them. Because they are stupid. Because they are morons.

Thanks to the never ending pandemic of the unvaccinated we are still using instacart for groceries and they screwed up big time today. We had to go back for a second round. All in all I am happy for the service, they are right a crazy high percentage of the time, but every once in a while… We asked for hamburger patties and got pumpernickel bread. Riiiiight.

What else is going on on this fine Sunday morning in August that hasn’t seen any rain yet? I broke the music mold a smidgen today. We slept kinda late. Not super late, I was up at about 8:15, but for me that’s pretty late. I wanted to do some car music but the aforementioned instacart delivery was on its way, and I had some things I wanted to do before I left so I didn’t get into the car until almost 10:00. I do my car music in a movie theater parking lot, and due to the idiotic decision to re-open the state despite the never ending pandemic mentioned in the previous paragraph, the movie theater was going to be open at 10:00. I rolled the dice. I park in the back parking lot so hopefully anyone going in early to catch the delta variant and a movie would probably park in the front. My risk paid off.

August 1st

I did park in a different area of the lot though. I recorded four songs. There were two technical problems but neither stopped me. First, I use Trello to track my progress. The songs I needed to work on are on a list called Complete Lyrics/Melody on a board called 2021 50/90. My normal workflow is to bring up the Trello app on my iPhone and use that to let me know which songs to work on. The last couple of times I’ve done this though, the iOS app wouldn’t refresh. It’s showing me the board from about two weeks ago. Nothing is up to date. I had to turn my iPhone hot spot on and bring it up on the Mac. That is annoying as all hell.

The second technical problem wasn’t a problem but I would have had I kept going. The temperature outside was in the mid-70’s but the sun was out and shining bright and damn if it didn’t get roasting hot in that car. I’d open the windows but then people would be able to hear me “singing” and ain’t no way that’s happening. About halfway through my little “session” the Mac’s fan kicked on and it never shut off. I don’t know how much longer I would have been able to go before it started to overheat but “fortunately” my voice ran out of gas after about an hour and I had to stop.

I did manage to finish four songs. That’s one more than I had planned. I had three songs with the guitars finished and I wanted to pick those off. I also had six songs with lyrics and melodies already written that don’t have guitars yet. A couple of those have MIDI guitar tracks acting as place holders. I did one of those.

So the plans for the rest of today include, but are not limited to, cutting some grass, recording some guitar parts, having a cookout for dinner (weather permitting, of course, though July is over so the weather will be glorious), and hanging out with my step son who only has a few weeks left before he moves to college.

Of course, as I type out that to do list I am sitting at my computer reading twitter, making fun of creationists, and thinking that it would be really nice to just sit and watch movies with Harry and Jen all day. That might be the better to do list.

Welcome to August, may it stay sunny and dry. Good luck, folks!

The First Wave Continues

I stopped logging COVID-19 numbers on June 20th. Things were improving rapidly and I just didn’t want to be bothered keeping to the schedule anymore. One month later I started keeping track again. I’ve heard people refer to the current spike in the numbers as a new wave. I don’t think it’s a second, or third, or anything wave. I think we have done such a colossally terrible job as a nation of respecting our neighbors that we’re still very much in the first wave. It looked better for a minute there, but it was a ruse.

Massachusetts doesn’t post numbers on the weekends anymore so I can only track the national counts.

In the last 24 hours there have been 164,776 new COVID-19 cases in the United States. The vaccine has been available for free for months and months and we had over 100,000 cases today.

Again, I say this to all Americans who have not yet taken the free and effective vaccine: Fuck You.

Oh, Good

Check out what the Commonwealth of Massachusetts just announced in an article titled:

Massachusetts Department of Public Health releases updated face covering advisory

BOSTON — Today, the Department of Public Health (DPH) released updated guidance regarding the use of face coverings and cloth masks by individuals who are fully vaccinated for COVID-19. 

This week, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released updated guidance that continues to state that individuals who are fully vaccinated may, as a general matter, resume many of the activities that they engaged in prior to the pandemic without wearing a mask or staying 6 feet apart, except where otherwise required by federal, state, or local laws, rules or regulations.  In response to the recent spread of the Delta variant, however, the CDC’s updated guidance does recommend that even fully vaccinated persons wear masks or face coverings when indoors if other risk factors are present.

In light of the information provided by the CDC, and in order to maximize protection of vulnerable individuals from the Delta variant, the Department of Public Health released updated guidance today that recommends that a fully vaccinated person wear a mask or face covering when indoors (and not in your own home) if you have a weakened immune system, or if you are at increased risk for severe disease because of your age or an underlying medical condition, or if someone in your household has a weakened immune system, is at increased risk for severe disease, or is unvaccinated. 

All people in Massachusetts (regardless of vaccination status) are required to continue wearing face coverings in certain settings, including transportation and health care facilities. Please see www.mass.gov/maskrules for a complete list of venues where face coverings remain mandatory as of May 29, 2021.

See the full DPH guidance.

https://www.mass.gov/news/massachusetts-department-of-public-health-releases-updated-face-covering-advisory

Allow me to take a moment to respond. Here is my prepared statement….

To all of the people refusing to take the vaccine, I say this:

FUCK YOU.