Category: General

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California is locked down

OH God!

I’m gonna lose my mind.

I really would rather be out wandering around, but there’s little point to going anywhere since most of the places I’d like to go are Closed for the duration I’m pretty sure that this genie is out of the bottle. Fine! I’ll stay at home and go quietly insane from boredom.

You’d think there would be movies I wanted to watch on one of the streaming services. Nope! Anything I’m watching at this point is mostly out of boredom. Remember I’ve been looking for a job for 6 months, so I’ve already been home way more than I’d have liked to be.

I’ve watched most anything that caught my interest after exhausting the job search from 5 to 12. My schedule was usually, get up, have coffee, search for jobs, have lunch, then watch a movie.

I’m movied out. I’ve considered adding to my Itunes collection but a lot of the movies I’d like to add are $20 and that gets really expensive really fast. I’ve noticed that since the Coronavirus hit Apple isn’t discounting movies like they were.  Makes sense, they’ve got a captive audience right? Why discount anything if you’re one of the only suppliers and you know that people will pay top dollar to entertain themselves or their children for a couple of hours.

I do finally know what it takes for me to do shit around the house that I don’t really want to do.  Make me stay home where the distractions are limited and I’m looking hard for a reason not to look at my computer.

I’ve started reconfiguring my home network… Just for the fun of it. Now, that’s freaking sick!

So today I’m shredding old paperwork and statements that have been scanned or that I’ve  downloaded and filed.

Why am I blogging you ask? Because the shredder is overheated and I’m waiting for it to cool down.

I swear I need one of those CIA grade shredders!

On the plus side, the stacks of paperwork to be shredded have diminished by quite a bit. Talk about a fire hazard!

Why do banks insist on sending the most useless bits of paper? Yeah, I know I added your freaking card to apple pay. I had to call you to do it so why are you sending me 3 individual letters stating that I did it on 3 devices?

Really? Are you trying to kill a forest?

Shredder is cooled down again… 

Back to my imitation of a Hillary Clinton Aide.

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Happy St Patrick’s Day

Of course depending on where you are you might not have had the usual party.

Thankfully, there was more than enough beer and booze, a great meal and a nice small crowd.

But with bars & restaurants being closed it’s obvious that the celebration wasn’t quite to the extent that it normally is.

Gotta admit that I’ve not been a huge St Patricks’ day celebrator but it was nice to drink and laugh with nice people.

Today was kind of a day of little projects, Naturally the smallest project turned into one of those situations where pulling the thread was problematic.  It’s the nature of “small,” “simple” projects for them to a pain in the ass.

I’ll finish up those projects tomorrow, then head back on schedule, home. What awaits me there may be more chaotic that when I left. but the chaos is now nationwide. There’s no escape unless I find that mythical alien ship to “jack” and get offworld.

Since that’s not likely to happen, home to the mountain it is. It’s going to be a shock to my system, here it’s been in the low light 70s and wonderfully comfortable. Home has been in the 30’s so I’m going to be freezing, again.

It will be a long flight but perhaps this time it will be mostly empty. 

I’d thought about extending here but two factors prevent me from doing that. 1) is that I’m starting to be slightly concerned about not being able to get back. 2) I’m worried about contaminating my elderly relatives.

Mel Brooks and his son made a sortof cute PSA about it and they have a point.

I’ve got to plan to visit again soon. Perhaps when the Coronavirus is on the wane. 

 

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Okay Coronavirus is a big deal…

I said it was gonna be because China quarantining a huge area was a big deal.

But folks… 

Come on, how can you say you’re observing social distancing when you’re packed into CostCo, and virtually every other store thicker than sardines?

Look. Do your normal shopping. Get in, get out, and leave something behind on the shelves for the next folks.

I must say the folks in Northern FL are a lot calmer than the LA folks I left behind. Perhaps it’s a function of population density perhaps, it’s a function of pragmatism.

Thank God the bars are still open here. 

At this point it looks like I can still get home. But if I can’t well I’ll stay right here and if necessary try to locate some kind of job locally and adapt to the new reality.

Worst case scenario. I’l shave my head into a mohawk, outfit a car with steel plating and go “Mad Max” 

I don’t think it’s going to come to that. On the one hand it might be interesting. On the other hand I’m feeling more like Pooh, “Oh Bother!”

Let’s get smart, let’s be kind, let’s understand that this thing is going to do what it’s going to do. It’s not right, wrong, good, or evil, it simply is. 

Panicking isn’t helping. 

Take a breath. Turn off the news for a few hours, read a book. and calm down.

Trust me you can’t stay healthy in a blind panic 24/7.

Stream “The Martian”

Start by solving one problem at a time. Solve the most immediate problem first. Keep solving problems as they arise and we’ll all come through this. We may be forever changed, we’ll probably learn a lot, and the next time we’re presented with an emergency we’ll do better. 

This isn’t the time to play blame X, Y, or Z. Quoting Hillary Clinton, “At this point what does it matter anyway?”

Play the cards we’ve been dealt.

I’m not sure I could carry off the “Mad Max” look, and if I go “Mad Max” you’re not going to like me very much.

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It’s nice to be in my home state

IMG 1244My Brother’s place feels like home. It’s spartan. very little junk, and everything that’s here is something that my brother loves or which has obvious significance.

It’s strange that I feel so at home here, and did so instantly.

My sinuses lost their minds in the hours after landing here. They’ve calmed down considerably and now my skin is relaxing too, it’s the humidity here. 

Ibrothers.jpg.jpeg slept soundly once I fell asleep it took some time for my head to quite due to the  rigors of traveling. Once I went to sleep I slept well and deeply.

My memories of this area are surprisingly good. My brain automatically pointed out poison ivy. I wasn’t even aware that I was avoiding it until I went to reach for some of the berries, then I remembered and thought, “Huh” 

I’m in my home environment the world is right and I’m comfortable.

I’ve had a bit to drink after a day with my brother. Brother(s) actually, I got to spend time wIMG 1249ith the eldest sibling from my Father’s second marriage. he’s only 4 years older than me and looks very good.

I’m smiling a lot for no reason, and it’s not just from the booze. 

Okay, I’ve had too much to drink over the course of the day. But I don’t care.

Spending time with family is like the warmth of a fire on a cold night.

It’s comfortable and good. No-one is trying to outdo the others, we’re just laughing and enjoying being in each other’s presence.

I’ll admit that I was tense about this trip, but that tension was only about the flight and having to deal with the bullshit of security and close confines.

There’s joy in being here and in the company of people who generally think like I do, meaning in my family.

There’s also joy in faith in people generally who might disagree, or potentially take you to task about your beliefs but if it comes to that. Southern politeness and decorum will be followed.

It’s nice to feel that I have freedom of speech again.

I suppose all of this is to say that it’s nice to feel like I belong.

Social rules are those that I remember. I know, perhaps this place isn’t as diverse as other places, but I have to ask… 

Is that so wrong?

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And there it is folks…

coronavirus.jpgThe WHO just declared the Coronavirus a pandemic.

The CDC is still downplaying it.

Many countries are restricting air travel from affected areas, and some are suspending air travel altogether.

In a bit of Irony today is also the day that the 1918 influenza virus was declared a pandemic. Symmetry is always so nice.

Oh, and we can thank China for its closed system and fear of political embarrassment for this. From the start I’ve thought that China wasn’t telling the WHO everything. Well now, the rest of the world is going to be able to collect real data and hopefully they’ll point at China and say, “LIAR”. I hope that someone has the balls to stand in the UN and speak the truth.

Diseases like this and others are not just the province of one country they can affect the whole planet. In a globalized society, everyone needs to be totally honest and forthcoming about rapidly spreading / evolving diseases. The minds of all scientists should be engaged without fear of embarrassment to tackle the problem.

My only hope is that there will not be panic in the streets. Although, over the weekend a plane in America apparently had to turn around because passengers became agitated over a single passenger who was coughing. Of course the passengers on the plane demanding that they turn around had already failed in their science check.

Once the plane exceeded 10,000 ft the air was being recycled so they were most likely already exposed to the contagion.  Again, too little too late, and failure to understand the way technologies work.  

Not to suggest that coronavirus is as contagious as fictional viruses from various movies but the point is still the same. What’s done is done.  

Turning around to expel a single passenger then taking the same plane to your destination without disinfection is probably not going to do much to limit your exposure. In fact if all the passengers had to deplane the exposure levels probably went up with all of them being huddled in the terminal together.

But common sense doesn’t seem to have much sway in the time of “I feel…”

The snake oil salesmen will be coming out of the woodwork now with holistic cures, crystals, salt, and other “Natural cures”. Yes there are a lot of plants and materials that do have antiviral/antibiotic properties. Most of Western medicine has it’s roots in the natural world. That being said, much as I hate to say it, big Phama may be the answer. 

Scientific research has in many cases taken the natural properties of plant & materials and enhanced it to the point that efficacy is well beyond the natural abilities of eating tons of the raw materials.

So for the time being wash your hands, don’t touch your faces, avoid crowded places, and pay attention to your health. A substantial percentage of folks get a little sick and recover. Thus far the problem seems to be older folks or folks that have underlying conditions.

Just remember you read it here first.

Jan 27th I wondered if the genie was already out of the bottle.