That’s not bad. A little red. A little puffy. Hurts a tiny bit, but only when I touch it. Not a problem.
Space Ship. I worked all day today spiffing up the data before shipping it off the the government. I could tell that other people were entering data. And changing things. We are all trying to tame the data.
I did most of my work from the comfort of my favorite chair, a ca 1955 leather recliner, wrapped in a blanket. Heating pad on the back side. Warm computer on the front side. From my chair all I could see was a gray sky. Food arrived sealed in plastic boxes and bags.
A war is raging outside of my sealed universe.
But, I am doing my part. A remote warrior in the war on covid. My last battle.
That’s the way the mind works if you spent your formative years reading SciFi.
Gratitude
Christmas Cookies!
It is hard to keep track of the COVID numbers here at The Asylum. It is at least 27. Maybe more. Good time to stay in my little imaginary space ship.
looking for the light
Very tired tonight. Not a side effect of the vaccine. A side effect of old age.
No real side effects from the vaccine. About 18 hours after I got the shot my arm got sore. One of the side effect of Covid is death, so not to worry about a sore arm.
Gratitude
Grateful for my little apartment. And my nice warm bed. And indoor plumbing. I am not a chamber pot/outhouse kind of a person.
Hanging out in the “airlock” trying to score drugs. Good drugs.
life and coronavirus #239
My supplier calls. I go out in the cold. She has the goods. I bare my arm.
Gratitude
Grateful to have gotten COVID vaccine #1
If I get caught doing this it’s a 7-day quarantine. So worth it. What I am I doing? What I always do – wrangle data. “Hey Auntie, what did you do during the Great Covid War?” Well, I didn’t die (yet) and I moved a whole lot of data around. The amount of “paperwork” involved with the vaccination process is stunning.
That is the bad news. The good news is – no new COVID cases in the Asylum today. And, management agreed that if residents are allowed to drive their cars around outside the prison yard campus “so long as they do not enter any type of business or engage in social activities with others.” Then I should be able to walk around. Because we are going to be all locked up again starting Friday. Almost anything you do lands you in quarantine for at least 7 days. Most likely 14.
friluftsliv – got that in early this morning. It was cold but not snowing. Then I walked back up to the 11th floor and here I have been all day. Will be shutting down work and thinking about work soon. Zoom with my friends. Dinner. Bed. Pretty dull. Dull is OK.
Yesterday, the fine state of Virginia decided that some data that they had said was optional really wasn’t. So there was lots of rather frantic redoing of my reporting system today. Tomorrow, I will see how it works with today’s data.
Reading the Wall Street Journal while eating lunch, there was an article about the initial day of vaccinations in the northern California area. The last paragraph mentioned scrabbling around getting some sort of interim reporting system working. (While waiting for a better system to come around.) I guess I am not so special.
Gratitude
Grateful for NO new covid cases. And mini muffins with hot chocolate and coffee.
I deployed this formula today:
=SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(Z2,”(“,””),”)”,””),”-“,””),” “,””),”.”,””)+0
I am sure there is an easier way to do what I did, but surely not a more fun way.
Dawn’s early light from the Old Bat Cave. friluftsliv didn’t happen today. Too cold and too busy. But, I did Zoom Yoga. Which I really like. I know it helps that it is a class that I went to In Real Life. But, most of the people are new. Just me, a gay couple, and the teacher are from real life this session. But, we are sort of Zoom friends now. And, one of the students is moving into our sister Asylum in April. We plan to meet “after”. And I went to the old lady barre class here at The Asylum. That might be my last class for a while because:
It really is time to lock me in my room. And, I have a job to do. I have to produce 7 chunks of data at the right time in December and one last chunk on January 1. I am not mission-critical. Nobody will die if I don’t make the bell. But, it’s a matter of professional pride to deliver the product on time.
Also if I do get sick or if I am “exposed” then I really get locked in my room and can not go to the laundry room or the trash room or mail room or anywhere anytime for 14 days.
Gratitude
Grateful that I seem to be in a little better shape than I was in June. More exercise and less weight.
Hotel Party December 15, 2019
Faye Daniel Memorial Service December 15, 2020
I looked in my photo catalog to see what I was doing on December 15th last year. Eating and drinking with a lot of people indoors and out. Without a care in the world. May we see those times again.
Mālama Pono
looking for the light – the Old Bat’s Cave pre-dawn.
The hospital got shipment one of Covid vaccine. And they gave 10 doses today and I extracted the data and sent it on its merry way. Only time will tell if the government system will like the data. (This was a test. They have more than 10 doses.)
That is the good news.
This is the bad news. I assume that the new cases are not on the nursing floor. Time to say close to the Old Bat’s Cave.
friluftsliv didn’t happen today because it was cold and rainy and I had work to do. I didn’t go to yoga because of work and the 3 new Covid cases. I did walk up to the 11th floor.
life and coronavirus #238
John is looking very festive today. I wonder if he is going to ask Santa for a 70K Hyundai?
This is my view of this morning’s building implosion. I knew I wouldn’t be able to see it. It was between the building with the pointy top and the funny shaped building. But, I did think that I would be able to see the dust cloud. But, nothing. I watched it online. So, it did happen.
That was about the most exciting thing that happened today. So, I guess I have nothing to complain about.
friluftslivwas easy again today. Sunday is normally a no exercise day for me, but it was so nice out that I went out twice and got in some extra aerobic work. Snow Drops, surely spring is coming soon. I am counting on it.
Gratitude
Asylum Mac&Cheese. Onolicious as we say back home in Kona. Now, I know that it comes frozen from Sysco. But, that doesn’t make it any less wonderful.
No updates about our covid situation. It’s the weekend. It will be interesting to see what tomorrow brings. Hell, at my age, it is interesting to get get to tomorrow. And, the Electoral College Votes tomorrow. Normally a non-event except for the wonkiest pols. With the Orange Lord – anything can happen. Stay tuned. It will be interesting to see what tomorrow brings. On several fronts.
Soaking up some vitamin D and enjoying the 61° weather. friluftsliv was not a problem today.
They didn’t tell us how many people are sick today. One person died yesterday. But, that happens a lot here at The Asylum. He lived on the nursing unit. And that is our current hot zone.
All cozy in bed this afternoon with a nice big cup of Trader Joe’s espresso tea. That was after friluftsliv which included opening up my window for a hour to let nice fresh air in, going for my strip mall fitness walk and working on my garden boxes. Pretty damn good for tropical person like me.
Gratitude
Whole Foods Delivery. Got my order in at 6:38AM and they delivered at 7:21AM.
So what is weird? COVID. The hospital is making final plans to vaccinate staff. And today we are told that the Asylum rats will most likely be getting vaccinated in January. That should be making me happy. Happy and getting ready to go to Hawai’i, hotel or no hotel. Or maybe Bermuda. Or maybe just a train ride around the country.
But. First I have to live through our current COVID surge here in the Asylum.
This doesn’t count the one resident who died last week. This time last week we had a total of 9 cases. This week 24.
looking for the light
I am not a fan of Xmas. But, I rather like these decorations. I found them when I was out on my 2.5-mile hike this afternoon. And I doubt that I can ever find them again. I think they are pretty special.
I have to extract data from “my” database and parse it out for feeding to another database. A picky government database. I was able to come up with the data. But the process was almost totally manual. Stuff was pieced together from two extracts and much data reformatting was required. It was an accident waiting to happen considering my age and overall mental alertness.
I have a very old program that dates back to Windows XP time. It would make the process smoother. So, when I woke up at 4:45AM this morning I started thinking about how to get my hands on a computer that would “safely” connect to the internet AND run my old program. I decided that running a bastard copy of XP with BootCamp on the MacBook was the only viable option. However, I am pretty sure that some of our residents have computers that still run XP or Window 7, it would just be a matter of finding the computer. And, convincing its owner to let me borrow it for a couple of days.
Well, somewhere between oatmeal, lots of coffee and barre class, I came up with a viable Plan B. The process still requires some TLC on my part, but it is totally doable and I am not embarrassed to show my backup person how to do it. The vendor has promised to magically do this entire process for a fee. Sometime in early 2021. Well, we don’t need it sometime. We need it now.
I was a really happy camper about noon today when I got this process all reset. But, there was no one to share my excitement with. The joys of working from home.
After lunch, friluftsliv. I went for a nice walk. Came home to a message that said my COVID test was negative. As was everyone in “Independent Living”. Then a little nap. A perfectly acceptable day.
Gratitude
Grateful for some outside time today.
Got an email from my hotel in Kona. They are not going to reopen until March 1 at the soonest.
Some of my neighbors seem to be looking for the light in 1.75-liter bottles. Whatever it takes to get you to the other side of this dumpster fire.
I spent all day working at the computer. Looked out the window and saw a lone snowflake float by. Not what I wanted to see. I want to see the sun. And palm trees.
life and coronavirus #237
At least I can cut my own hair. But, I hate to see the brown-mouse-colored hair go. I will soon have white-rat-colored hair. I had planned to go to our hair salon and have my hair washed, shortened a bit, and maybe tinted some outrageous color. But, fortunately, Covid closed the salon before I could implement that deranged plan.
Gratitude
Cookies. Trader Joe’s goat cheese with dried cranberries. Audiobooks after a day at the computer.
