About This Coronavirus Thing

So, as we sit here at Sac State on a lovely cool but sunny morning, most of the "civilized" world is going ape-shit over this new strain of Coronavirus which emerged from China late last year. And of course to some degree it's warranted; I mean the World Health Organization did a press briefing last Thursday in which they mentioned total numbers of reported cases and deaths world-wide. And if we can believe those numbers, they would put the mortality rate of this new disease at around 3.4%. And that's pretty high, actually. 34 times higher than the common flu, which typically has a mortality rate of 0.1% each year. But of course this disease - this virus - is relatively new. So it's a bit early to predict these numbers, and even more difficult to say for sure how many people actually have had the virus. It does after all present with symptoms typically associated with the flu, and most cases are relatively mild. Still, people ARE dying. Mostly people who are elderly (over 60) and/or have an underlying respiratory condition.

Of course, this has wreaked havoc on the economy and the cruise line industry in particular, as several ships have had outbreaks with dozens affected (and a handful of deaths after being back on land). Several ships have been quarantined upon returning from their voyages, due to fear of the virus potentially spreading, and several more have been denied entry to various ports. Mostly island destinations in the Caribbean.

Meanwhile, the stock market continues to crash. As of this writing it is down over 1900 points (7%) just today, and their have been similar drops for most of the last two weeks. So for anyone who has their own IRA's, or stock in cruise lines - ouch. Like really, ouch. It will rebound, I'm sure. But non one knows for sure when that will be.

In the meantime, over the weekend the Elk Grove school district decided to close all 67 of its schools this week, because one family in their district was under quarantine for possible exposure/infection. I mean, come on, closing the ENTIRE district? People have gone a little nuts. Meanwhile, anonymous posters on online internet forums have suddenly become infectious disease experts, and are dictating (to anyone who will read their posts) how people should respond to this situation. Should we be alarmed? Should we cancel all of our public outings? Should we ignore this because after all, 20,000 people have died from the common flu anyway? Who's to say, who's to say.

Meanwhile, folks - particularly older folks - are scared to cruise and are cancelling trips. And for many, it's not even the fear of catching the virus per se, but the fear that one person on board might exhibit "flu-like symptoms", and then they shit the whole cruise down and quarantine everyone. It happened to the Diamond Princess in Japan, folks trapped on board for two weeks. It happened to my beloved Grand Princess last week as she steamed back towards San Francisco from Hawaii, because someone on the previous trip came down with the virus after the fact and subsequently died, and those people have still not disembarked (they are scheduled to start taking people off in Oakland today, where they will all be tested before allowing them to re-assimilate into the population).

It's getting crazy out there. Now I'm waiting to see if Sac State does anything, as it's currently business as usual. My guess is that in the next couple of weeks they may start restricting public events, such as sporting events and our music events. So that would be fun. But we will see...

In other news, I was walking along the streets of downtown Sacramento today enjoying a cup of hot chocolate before heading into work, and I actually talked to someone on the street. A nice woman who works as an engineer for the Department of Water Resources. Imagine that! Me, a dedicated introvert, conversing with a stranger on the street. Crazy times, crazy times.

All right, time to go wash my hands again and get back to work...

Your Menstrual Cycle

So, ever since I upgraded to the iPhone 8 Plus, however many years ago that was now, I've been paying attention to the Health App. Like, a lot. I mean, to be fair, I'm sure I don't get much out of it compared to some people who like to track every beat of their heart. But I pay attention to the step counts and distance walked. And I try and keep my weekly averages about the same, if not improving from week to week. Of course at some point you can only improve so much.

Not too long ago, an update was launched for the app. And the look is quite different than it used to be. It's taken a little getting used to. And I think it's unhappy with me, because at every chance it gets, it sees fit to inform me about how my steps this hour/day/week are less than last hour/day/week. And when I have a banner week traipsing around the city, for which I feel really good about myself, it is content to tell me that I'm taking "about the same amount of steps" as last week/month. I mean, come on iPhone, give me a little encouragement! But here's the kicker - it now has little ads to help you "get more from Health". And the one I see most frequently is this one: Learn About Menstrual Cycles. My phone seems to honestly believe that I can learn more about my health by tracking my cycle.

I keep looking around for the candid camera. I mean, this is a joke, right?

I'll admit, I'm kind of afraid to click on it. I mean, phones have gotten pretty smart. What if my phone knows something about me that I don't?? It could very well be trying to tell me something. What if it shows me something I really don't care to see? It's almost dinner time after all, don't want to ruin my appetite. (This is me attempting to be a stereotypical male. A dude. Yeah.) But you know what, today is the day. I'm clicking on it. Maybe I WILL learn something about myself. Or maybe I'll just get this stupid thing to stop showing up if I click on it. OK. Here goes...

I did it.

Huh. It seems that a menstrual cycle is an "important part of my health". Perhaps it's just warning me to avoid anyone currently ON their cycle?? Well in any case, I am glad to now know that cycles vary from month-to-month and person-to-person. There's a revelation. News flash: I've been married and divorced twice now. I think I've got that one down. My life's experience with women has taught me that, at least. I may not have learned much else, but what guy does? But my phone tells me that "the best way to understand what's normal for you is by tracking your periods". So. I guess I need to start tracking my periods. I'm...not really sure where to begin here. Maybe an excel spreadsheet? I do like spreadsheets. Actually, I'm sorry, I really don't have have time for this nonsense. I'm a guy! I don't HAVE a menstrual cycle! Sheesh.

OK, clearly Apple needs to work on some bug fixes...

Found A Quarter

Early in the morning before most of the college students have even woken up is when I find myself out on the streets of Sacramento. In the weeks I don't have Connor, it's amazing how quickly my morning routine goes. There's just...not that much to do when I'm only getting myself ready for the day. So I leave the house early and stop off at random places along the J Street corridor. And then, I take a walk. To explore. To breathe. To get my steps in so I can maintain my average of over 5 miles of walking per day.

In any case, it's refreshing in the cool early morning air, when the streets are still fairly vacant. And I see a lot of shops and Victorian era homes and so on. Eye candy. And today, I found a quarter on the sidewalk. A quarter! I wasn't aware at the time, but this was pretty much the highlight of the day. Not that the day was bad, per se. it was just...dull. The same old schtick. Move a piano. Open sone doors. Answer some emails. Coordinate little bits and pieces of details of the many events on the horizon. This and that and some other stuff. Mundane.

I may have left work a half hour early.

So now it's a quarter to 9pm, I've returned from my evening walk around the neighborhood, and I'm making up for it by watching old Family Guy episodes and waiting for the laundry to finish. Productive? Um. Sure. Take that, Tuesday! Perhaps tomorrow will be more exciting. Who knows, I could find a dollar.

Weekend in Review

So, it was a surprisingly busy and productive weekend with me and Connor. Two bachelors/roommates living life to the fullest. Or, at least, hanging out and being guys anyway. Saturday he had a basketball game in which he scored three times. And that's pretty good considering he's been playing with the 1st graders, even though he's just a kindergartner. His team really dominated the other team actually. Not that they really keep track of such petty things as the score. But the kids tend to. They notice. The score was something like 26-6, I think. He was proud of himself. Then in the afternoon he had a play date at a park with his little girlfriend from school, in which he also got to give her his Valentine's Day card and a large Hershey's Kiss. I may have helped somewhat with the procurement of those items...

Kids are funny at this age (6). They run around and play, and then get distracted and play with other people or by themselves, and then at one point or another get sad because their play date isn't giving them quite enough direct attention. And then they come together and run around together some more. And then they sit and share "secrets". Connor said they were saying secrets about me. Probably they were making fun of me. That's what I would do if I was that age. That's what most kids do, isn't it? "His hair is gray like my grandmother's". And things like that. Kids tend to point out the obvious. But in the end they spent a couple of hours there playing together at the park. Playing tag, playing on the swings, playing on the monkey bars, and so on. They ran out a lot of their energy in those two hours. Which, frankly, is always a good thing from a parent's perspective.

Sunday we got a lot of chores done at home, including washing the car, pulling some weeds from the back patio, cleaning the toilets, and putting all of toys and other miscellaneous things away where they belong. Connor made it into a sort of game by saying that it was our cat Buster that was telling us what chores we had to do and when. I also got a little bit of time while he was on a "break" to go through some of the files in my file cabinet and office desk, and clean out and shred or throw away a bunch of stuff that's old and no longer needed. There were some things I found that I hadn't seen in nearly 10 years. Why do we hang onto this stuff? I tried to be pretty liberal in just tossing stuff that I would probably never again use anyway. Sometimes it's tough to let go of "stuff". In any case, I'm slowly but surely whittling down the amount of stuff I'll eventually need to move.

In between all of that Connor got to practice riding a bike, which he has not really had too much experience with till now. At least, not without training wheels anyway. He did good though, and rode all by himself for some significant stretches of sidewalk. At least, until the sidewalk turned. That inevitably lead to a bail out and/or crash, and a bit of whining because the bike doesn't do what it's supposed to, apparently. It's always the bike's fault. But he's excited about trying again, which is a good thing. And this morning he was going on and on about how he didn't realize that the balance was so important and that you can't turn the handlebars too much too quickly. So I guess the bike has been cleared of its transgressions. Parenting win, I suppose.

Then after dinner we cuddled up on the couch and Connor watched his favorite YouTube celebrities doing their thing. I baked some chocolate chip cookies from some store bought dough. And the sun slowly settled and the clock wound on, and before I knew it, it was bed time. The weekend was done, the work week getting ready to show its ugly face once again. And that, pretty much, is my weekend in review.

Whoosh. And rant.

Do you ever feel like you go to bed one night, and it's somewhere in the middle of the Christmas season, and then you wake up and it's the middle of February? Whoosh! Time just flew right by you. Hours and days and weeks have just flown by. Well anyway, here we are in February already. It's Monday at work, and it feels like I've been here forever.

Yesterday I went to the bar at Chili's and tried their $5 margarita of the month. This is a picture of it. Doesn't it look tasty? It was, it was. I had two. And also chips and salsa. Oh and some boneless chicken wings. Yum. This month it's called the "Hearts on Fire 'Rita". According to their website, it contains Maker's Mark Bourbon, Fireball Cinnamon Whisky, and Lunazul Blanco Tequila, along with grenadine and Chili's sour.

Anyways. Time for a rant, because why not?

I've recently been considering upgrading my personal computing situation. I've been using desktop computers for, well, ever, it seems. And I've been thinking about migrating over to a laptop platform. I used to use the desktop platforms because a) they were cheaper, and b) the larger screen made it easier for doing composing-type activities. Which, frankly, I'm just not too inspired to do anymore. Plus I'll need to move at some point this year, most likely downgrading in size substantially, so it may not be functional for me to dedicate space at home for a desktop setup anymore. And to be honest, having only one spot where you can work on your computer is something of a drag. So, yeah, I've been looking at Mac laptops.

First of all. They're expensive. Like, you need to donate a kidney to afford them expensive. And to add insult to injury: Apple removed all of its functional ports and replaced them with Thunderbolt ports. And nothing else. This actually happened, I think, back in late 2016. That's how much I pay attention. Here's the thing - there's NOTHING that natively plugs into thunderbolt ports. Except for Apple's even more obscenely expensive Pro Display, if you're into that sort of thing and can sell your first-born child to afford it. The most recent Thunderbolt 3 at least will accept USB-C connections. So that's something. But get this, even Apple's own celebrated and massively popular iPhone won't plug into their laptops, without buying another connector cable or an adapter. Sorry, but removing all USB-A type ports from their laptops, not to mention SD card slots, seems like just a clever way to force you to buy more adapters and cables. A sort of "screw you" to the consumer. As if it wasn't enough that you paid $2000-3000 for their laptop, now you also have to buy an adapter to actually plug any of your peripherals into your laptop to use them. Like you used to when the MacBook Pros actually had these connections built in.

Sigh. Rant over.

So, to be realistic, I'll probably eventually succumb to my own internalized peer pressure and buy a new 15-16" MacBook Pro. And an adapter off of Amazon so I can actually use it the way I want. That will come later this year, likely after I've moved and settled in somewhere new. And then I can retire my late-2014 model Mini.

So yeah, here we are in the second week of February already. It's not my week with Connor but I'll get him back Thursday evening to take him to basketball practice. And then he'll be my Valentine's date. So there's something to look forward to. And...whoosh! Time has flown by and it's about time to pack up and head for home.

Week Two: Done

So in the past I've written posts at the end of the first week of the semester, entitled appropriately enough: "Week One: Done". So I thought I'd mix things up this year with this post. Here we are at the end of WEEK TWO. How's that for craziness? Actually it's been a weird time as I've been struggling to get past this head cold that's been with me for the past two weeks. Ever since I got back from that cruise. Oh yeah, I took a cruise. Just a little 4-night jaunt out of Long Beach to Catalina and Ensenada. This was my 16th cruise overall, and fourth on Carnival. And it was the first that I've taken as a solo cruiser. But it was actually pretty fun. You can read my review and see pictures on Cruise Critic.

Anyways. It's Friday at the end of the second week of school. I'm actually going to a cabaret show featuring music of Andrew Lloyd Webber tonight, put on by the Sacramento Theatre Company. I've never actually been to any of their productions, now that I think about it. Guess I'm branching out. Earlier this week I subbed in for my brother on bass at a rehearsal of the Sacramento Symphonic Winds. It had been awhile since I played in a concert band setting, but it was actually pretty good. Though they're playing, among other things, some music from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, with studio-quality arrangements. Those suckers are not sight-readable. Oh well. A good time was had anyway, despite it being past my bed time as it ran till 9:30pm. Well I'll be out past my bed time tonight too. What a week this is turning out to be! Maybe I should have focused on week-twos more often in the past.

Other than that, not much is happening in my world right now. Just slowly working towards that time when I'll be able to breathe clearly again, and not be periodically coughing up stuff. Today is the best it's been in two weeks, so that's something. And this Sunday is Super Bowl Sunday. Maybe Connor will let me watch it. Probably not though. He has his own plans, his own designs. But the 49ers are in it, and he likes the colors red and gold, so there's hope.

I'm going to cut this short as I'm at work, and darn it if I shouldn't probably be doing something productive. In fact people keep stopping by and interrupting me and making me do stuff. The nerve! Well, at least it forces me to get my steps in for the day...