Coronavirus March 30, 2020

Just got back from a walk around the Coal Creek area, starting around the Newcastle YMCA. There's a lot of new apartment buildings around there. My goal now is for a one hour walk, so we did a few loops around the parking lot before driving back. The area we walked around was previously criss-crossed with train tracks, bringing the coal to Lake Washington. I'm going to try to find a historical map of the area, with the old tracks.

I saw something on Facebook that I really didn't like. On the front page, Facebook is pushing a donation to... get this... the CDC Foundation! Because the CDC did such an outstanding job in the early months of dealing with the Coronavirus! If it's not obvious, I'm being sarcastic. I'm pissed off about this on so many levels. First, Facebook minimized and censored information about Coronavirus. All in the interest of "avoiding panic". And every time you searched for anything coronavirus related on Facebook, they would put first, a link to a stupid CDC web page that said absolutely nothing useful.

I could go on and on about government mismanagement of this situation. The FDA providing limited, inaccurate tests for coronavirus, and preventing other organizations from using their own tests. Actually making it illegal to provide these tests. It boggles the mind. The government pushing the "masks don't work" idea, when the truth was that masks due work, they were in short supply. Other countries dealt creatively with this situation - why didn't we?

Okay...what else is new...Jean and I have a deal. We're each going to complete some task we've been procrastinating on, and send a picture of the completed task. She's done hers for the day - now I need to do mine (which is...starting on the paint touch-up work downstairs again).

Above is a picture of the walk we took today. I think this is where the old train track went.

Coronavirus - March 29, 2020

Today was a busy day socially, I had long conversations with 3 friends on the phone, and will have another tonight. Not as good, for sure, as talking to people face to face, but better than nothing. One of my friends lives in an area with limited internet, and talking on the phone was frustrating. First we tried an actual phone call (poor call quality, still cut out occasionally) and then we switched to Facebook messenger (much better quality, but massive and frustrating latency).

Took a short walk up at the top of the hill. Lots and lots of people walking around. We have a tendency now to walk right down the middle of the street, since there's no traffic.

Yesterday Eric and I took a drive to downtown Bellevue. It's eerie how empty it is. And it's creepy to think of how many people has lost their livelihood, with all the closed shops. Hopefully it will not last long.

Hmm...not sure I have that much else to say! Did I mention my daily checklist? I have a checklist of what I need to do daily (walk on treadmill, family walk, family vitamin D, play ukulele, etc). I've been doing pretty well at checking most of them off every day.

I think I'll finally try sewing a mask. We have some masks, but I'd like to wear one that I sewed myself. I just watched a video about how in the Czech republic, mask-wearing is mandatory, and many people are setting up little home workshops to make them.

Coronavirus - March 28, 2020

A few more notes about what's going on during the Coronavirus quarantine. Eric did a big grocery shopping trip about a week ago, and I have a scheduled pickup from Fred Meyers, via Instacart, for next Wednesday (the earliest I could get). On the plus side, I can still add things to it. I think the thing to do is create a cart as soon as you get a pickup, and then just add things to it as they come up. Because the problem is actually getting a pick-up time slot. Once you have that, you're good.

I did just see a news article (I'm reading the news WAY too much) saying that Instacart delivery workers were planning to go on strike. That would throw a wrench in this plan.

Still going on our daily walk, every single day. Yesterday we went to walk around the Mercer Slough. Lots of skunk cabbage. 

They has such a strong odor. I don't think it's terrible, but it's definitely pretty...skunky.

I'm calling people lots more. Now that I'm not seeing anyone except family, it's good to connect. My neighborhood book club met last night via Zoom, which worked pretty well. We're meeting once a week now, instead of once a month, which is great.

My friend Jean is flying a lot (she's a flight attendant) and keeps me up with what's happening in the world. Flight volume on planes has absolutely plummeted. Also, they have new rules for what they actually do on planes - they do not take credit cards any more because they don't sell food. They will give out drinks, but only canned drinks. Her main problem on the flights is avoiding boredom, because with such low volume of passengers and restricted service, there's not much for her to do.

I'm not much of a clothes horse, but I've become even less so now. I've basically been wearing the same outfit, all the time. It's not as bad as it sounds - I have half a dozen long-sleeved white shirts that I'm alternating, which is what I'm wearing, along with a fleece top. But still - I've realized that even though I don't think I "dress to impress" - not going out means I do so even less.

Coronavirus - March 27, 2020

Well, I'm a LOT more relaxed now about things than I was earlier. You might ask - why? Why would I be relaxed and not as stressed now, when the bad news is coming hot and heavy?

Because...previously, I was very much out of sync with how everyone else felt about the coronavirus. Nobody that I knew personally was worried. People on the coronavirus forums on Reddit were worried, but not people I knew in everyday life. When I woke up, every single morning, I had a stressful feeling in my stomach, that really bad times were coming.

But now? The whole world is freaking out. It's catching up to where I was, 6 weeks ago. So I'm not as worried.

I did some work for the company that I'm consulting at right now. There was a big push to make there systems scale up 10x because there was supposed to be a surge of usage. So, I was stressing about how to do that. But it turns out that's not a requirement, currently, so I'm off it. I really wish I had gotten more integrated into their team before everything switched to online work. Right now I'm not very integrated, and I don't find out about things. Which really means that I can't be very effective there, to he honest. Their database is ... well, when a system is created and evolves over the years and nobody really puts their foot down about decent database design, or really knows much about it, it can get pretty bad. Like, REALLY bad. So any kind of improvement is going to be really challenging. So much duplicate code. We'll see how it goes.

I'm hoping to get lots of projects done. Like this diary, organizing in the garage,

Here's one project - making nettle soup. Our family went for a hike around the Lewis Creek area (interestingly, some trails are only visible on OpenStreetMap, not Google maps, so they're far less used). I noticed there were lots of young nettle plants, so I went back the next day and picked some, and made nettle soup from it. Here's the bag of nettles, and the finished soup.

Coronavirus diary - the beginning

Okay...my plan here is to "catch up" to today, and then every day, write just a little bit on what we're doing, what's going on. Honestly, there won't be that much because...well, we're mostly staying at home. But this is a unique time, and I don't want to completely forget it.

So, to catch up a little bit.

I've always been interested in epidemics. A while back when "bird flu" was a big thing, I purchased some masks and gloves, and occasionally checked out some forums online on that topic.

So, when I heard about an epidemic in Wuhan, China, I paid attention. I found some forums on Reddit where it was discussed (Coronavirus, China_flu, Wuhan_flu) (in order, going from most censored to least censored). And I got pretty obsessive about following this, far earlier than most people were ever aware of the problem. I spent many, many hours going through online coronavirus forums. Like - much of the day.

What really worried me is seeing the videos that were coming out of Wuhan. Apparently for a short while, censorship in China was relaxed, and you could see videos of people, fallen over, in the street. Or crowding and yelling in hospital waiting rooms. Then Wuhan was completely and utterly shut down, and people were being welded into their apartments. All visible on videos, online. One video that really freaked me out was of people standing in a line waiting to pick up food from bags on the ground. And they were standing about 20 feet apart, so the line spread way off in the distance! Seeing this kind of thing - how seriously people took it - is what really freaked me out.

I prepped. February 18 and 24, we did 2 big grocery trips to Winco, where we bought lots. I'm talking 50 pound bags of sugar and flour, 25 pound bags of steel cut oats, dried beans, old fashioned oats, and so on. The only thing I'm not sure that we'll use is the dried beans - we're just not in the habit of using the. But flour, sugar, oats, etc - we'll definitely use that.

In early and mid February, I began looking in stores for masks, and hand sanitizer. Masks were gone almost everywhere, except at a Walmart in Chehalis they had some painting/sanding type masks, and then at an independent hardware store in Renton, McLendon's, they had a whole rack of different types at the front of the store. Alcohol based hand sanitizer stuck around a little longer, but it too was gone from most stores very quickly.

On Feb. 23rd, I bought a 4 pack of Amazon brand hand sanitizer. Shortly after I bought it, it went out of stock, and you could get on a mailing list to get notified when it came back into stock. Just out of curiosity, I got on the mailing list to get the notifications. Three times (March 1, 2, and 4) I got email, saying that it was available again. And three times, as soon as I clicked on it, it was out of stock again.

Monday, March 2, 2020 - The first day that I kept the kids home from school. The previous Saturday, I had kept Kenny home from his job at Target. He was happy to do it, probably because I had been talking about the coronavirus so much that I freaked him out as well. We did go out and have dinner at a friend's house, but I was very nervous and stressed about it.

Friday, March 5th, 2020 - I think this was the first day that most of the local large tech companies had work-at-home policies. Facebook, Microsoft, Expedia, etc. Amazon was at most a day later than the others, even though they're in general very big on NOT working from home.

Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - I emailed the school superintendent, asking that the schools be closed. I kept the kids home from school the whole week.

Friday, March 13, 2020 - Bellevue School district is officially closed.

Monday, March 23, 2020 - This week there's been some "optional" learning opportunities through the school, mornings from 9 to 11. It seems to basically mean that many/most teachers are having online classes via tools like Microsoft Teams, or have videos to be viewed. Kenny's chemistry teacher offered an optional "experiment" (pretty simple, involving making a paper boat move in a bowl of water with soap). The kids were encouraged to take a video of themselves doing the experiment, and post it online. Kenny's attitude was "It's optional, so I won't do it", but I told him he had to. So he did.

Wednesday, March 25, 2020 - I believe this was the first day of the official "stay at home" requirements, where only mandatory trips are to be taken, and only essential businesses are to be open.