robotech_master

It's been a busy rest of the vacation from the time I last posted. On Saturday, I felt like going down to my brother Alex's place to visit, so I asked him if that would be okay. He said they were just about to head over to his wife's brother's place nearby, but that I was welcome to come along, and even stay overnight. So I quickly showered, packed my CPAP and tablet, and trundled on down there. Took about 45 minutes to ride the 16 miles. Alex made me a cup of coffee and showed me his new laser CNC gizmo, which could burn or cut things with a laser. Was pretty neat.

After that, we drove over to Target and Alex kindly bought me a six-pack of beer to take along. After checking the selection, I opted for the whimsically titled "Fear. Movie. Lions" double IPA, which was suitably tasty. And in reading the text on the side, I was introduced to a system of navigation called What3Words, which assigns a specific set of three words to every three-by-three-meter (or ten by ten foot) square the whole world over, so that you can tell someone exactly where you are just by making sure they're clear on what three words you just told them. You look it up in their app, and their app can then call whatever GPS navigation software you use on your phone to plot you a course to it. Or, you can look up the words via their website to see where they are.

I think it's a pretty nifty idea. Just make sure the person you're giving directions to also has the app installed, or else can look it up in the web browser, and then you can tell them exactly where to find you with just three words. Could be especially useful in situations where there's no precise street address available, such as rural areas, parks, and so on.

We didn't opt to stay into the evening for fireworks, but instead headed back to Alex's place. As it got dark, I sat out on the back porch and watched the rest of Alex's neighborhood shoot off fireworks for a while. He lives in a fairly well-to-do suburb, and several houses seemed to be firing off full-fledged semi-professional starbursts. They were seriously impressive, though I had to wonder what was going to happen if burning cinders fell on top of someone's house and lit it on fire.

Later that night, after the kids had been put to bed, I walked Alex through the first couple of ships on Hardspace: Shipbreaker, a fun Steam early-access deconstruction game centering on taking spaceships apart piece by piece. He seemed to get the hang of it pretty well. I wonder if he'll continue playing it.

After that, I went to bed. I was a little nonplussed to realize I'd forgotten to pack my toothbrush, my pills, and my weighted blanket, but I could get along without those. I had packed my CPAP and some distilled water for it, which were the important thing. As it turned out, even without the weighted blanket I slept like a rock, and awoke refreshed and well-rested. I had my brother spray sunscreen on my back and covered the rest of me in it myself, and hit the road for home.

On the way back to my place, I decided to play some Ingress—or as it's called now, Ingress Prime. I hadn't really been into this geolocation game for a couple of years, since I had lost the ability to get easily from place to place, but with the new bike, and the seventeen mile route back home, I felt like giving it another shot. There was only one in-game badge keeping me from hitting level 14, and the easiest one to get would involve creating a few big fields. And as it happened, there were a couple of portals en route that would make great anchors for a multi-layered series of fields I could set up through various portals in my home neighborhood.

So I stopped at one of the portals and hacked out a dozen keys, then headed on back north to the Ash & Elm cider brewpub, where I enjoyed a couple of glasses of apple cider while hacking out a dozen keys there. After that, I headed home to my neighborhood and started making my fields. If the preceding doesn't make a whole lot of sense to you, don't worry. It's game talk. Other Ingress players would understand it, though. Suffice it to say that before I was over, I had made level 14, so yay there. It'll probably take forever to get the quals for level 15, but there's only 16 levels in the game, so having made 14 is quite an accomplishment.

After that, I headed back home. After spending some time relaxing, I took my Trek bike over to the local bike shop to put it in for a tune-up. They're about three weeks backlogged, but having the new bike means I don't really need the Trek for a few weeks anyway. And it gets it out of the way in my house for a while.

When it came time for bed, I found that the application of sunscreen to my back had been a little spotty. A stripe had been missed right along my back, just above my shorts. It stings, even with the aloe/lidocaine aftersun gel I had bought during a previous encounter with sunburn. But oh well. 

This morning, got a call from the bike shop saying that my bike's drive train is completely worn out and needs replacement, to the tune of $230. Which I certainly agree probably needs doing, but it's not exactly in my budget right now. When I went out to mail a package this morning, I stopped in there to discuss it with them. I'll probably just end up having them do the regular tuneup for now, and bring the Trek back in for the replacement when and if I get another stimulus check. 

And that's pretty much all the news I have to report from the tail end of my vacation. Tomorrow, I go back to work from home on the phone for Anthem, spending all day taking calls from my attic. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that, though given I've had over a week off to rest and recuperate I think it will actually be a nice change of pace. And at least I'll have greater mobility during the times I'm not working. And I'll finally be getting some proper exercise.

Granted that my bike's electric motor is doing the vast majority of the work getting me from place to place, I'm still able to put in some effort pedaling along. It's just that I don't have to. So I'm thinking of the bike as being effectively like a stationary exercise bike that also happens to move. I can pedal along as much or as little as I want, but the more I do pedal, the more I'll eventually be able to pedal, and it will help build up my endurance and perhaps also start working off some of the quarantine/work-from-home weight. Back when I was bicycling to and from work on my Trek over the last couple of summers, I actually lost a few pounds without even trying to. Hopefully the same thing will apply now. I just have to keep pedaling until I get tired, and eventually I won't get tired as quickly.

Now that it's the evening and the sun is down so it won't further aggravate my sunburn, I'm thinking I'll get on the bike again and go a few more miles. Maybe I'll head downtown and back, eking out some nostalgia from following the old routes I used to use to commute in and home on the Trek. Since the bike has lights, it'll be a pretty safe run.

Anyway, I hope you all had a happy fourth, and that the coronavirus doesn't get ya. Later!

 So, wow.

First off, I've never been so thankful in my life that I work from home. Given that I'm part of the health insurance industry, working from home for them means that my job is one of the safest ever—in terms of avoiding infection, and in terms of avoiding being laid off during this time of economic turmoil. If anything, more people getting sick means I'll be more needed than ever.

Just got a notification from my employer that they're closing the building where I used to work, indefinitely, for "cleaning." Reading between the lines, I suspect someone displayed flu-like symptoms that could have been Corona or flu or a cold or anything else, and in the absence of an easily obtained test for Corona, they opted to be safe rather than sorry. Given that means several people from my department will not be working for the next little while, I suspect that means I'm in for a busy few days.

Meanwhile, I'm desperately worried about my septuagenarian parents, who are in the age group most likely to die from the virus, and my Dad has chronic asthma on top of that from the time he was a heavy smoker as a foolish young man. (I remember growing up he was still in the process of weaning himself off, with Copenhagen snuff, when I was growing up as a small child. I think he stopped that about the time I ran across some Copenhagen cans someone had discarded near the playground at my elementary school and decided to try it out for myself because Daddy used it so it must surely be all right.) 

The good news is, since they live in the rural Ozarks, on an 80-acre holding, they're about as well-positioned as they can be to live without ever needing to interact closely with another human. They could even go out for horseback rides to keep from getting stir crazy. The thing that worries me, though, is that they're very active in their church, of which my Dad is (if I'm not mistaken) a deacon. And while their church is pretty small, I really don't want them breathing the same air as any other people right now. It's too risky, because people with Corona are infectious before they even have symptoms.

On the bright side, when I went and checked the church's website right now, I noticed that it's in the process of getting set up to stream its services online, so that people at risk can view them while stuck at home. And that leads me to another realization about the Coronavirus epidemic: in one way it's kind of a good thing.

The epidemic is forcing businesses and organizations to accelerate their efforts to make it easier for people to take part from home, in ways they might never have done if they weren't forced to. I find it hard to imagine that any church as small as my parents' would ever have gotten interested in livestreaming its services if it hadn't been that so many of its congregation were most at risk from getting sick and dying from attending in person. 

In my day job, over the phone, I spoke to a couple of people today who let drop that they were working from home now. And I suspect that a lot of businesses and organizations are finding that their employees or members can perform their duties just as well from home as they could from the office. And at least some of these are gains that will stay with us after the virus has passed.

So, that's a good thing there. 

Now, if only we can contain the spread of the disease enough to let us get a handle on it…before we have to start triaging people like Italy…