Coronavirus

For most of my life, the presidency switches between the two major parties every 8 years, like a slow pendulum. Republican presidents like to give big tax cuts to rich people, under the assumption that will somehow benefit everybody else. But the rich keep getting richer, and everybody else has experienced stagnant wages for over 20 years now, after adjusting for inflation. It used to be that a college education was the entry ticket to becoming middle class or better, but the cost of that college education has become a heavy burden on graduates. Many millennials have had to delay home ownership and starting a family by a decade or more, and subsequent generations may face an even worse choice.

Had my first sit down meal at a restaurant today! Wait staff were masked and gloved and most of the tables were gone, but at least the place was up and running again. Felt weird, it's odd how just a few weeks of isolation can make what was once routine seem strange. Still, the beer was cold and the food warm! I figure it will be many a moon before large venues like concerts and games open up but it's nice to see the relatively low volume places get a chance to live again with common sense precautions.

ubarose wrote: It's almost as if the "American Way of Life" is dependent upon a perpetually impoverished under class, whom we revile while idolizing our over lords and buying into the myth of class mobility in an attempt to resolve our cognitive dissonance and assuage our middle class guilt. Resulting in a society that is 2 paychecks away from anomie.

You forgot to work "merit-based" in.

Can someone tell me how to insert a jpg into my comments.

I have the jpg on my PC

Kuwait gears up



Here is a photo of a drive in testing centre just built. There will be a total of 3 lanes when ready.

2 lanes for the rapid and swab test if you do not have a fever.
1 lane for the full test if you have a fever or if your swab test showed something wrong.

You can have 4 people max per car and they will be able to process up to 100 cars per hour at this location.

Positive tests get referred to the hospital immediately

Hospitals are free in this country.

My cousin's wife is a nurse. She told us a couple of weeks ago that all she does now is work on coronavirus patients.

Cut to yesterday-- she invites us over for dinner.

WTF?

We're in Houston, so it's not as bad as NY. Our idiot governor decided to open things back up, but most sensible people are still staying home. Regardless of how safe she feels, why on earth would she think we would feel comfortable having dinner with her? It's the weirdest thing.

I felt bad for turning her down, because I'd genuinely love to see them. But how could she not understand that having dinner with someone who has direct contact with the virus on nearly a daily basis would not be enticing?

My guess would be that after weeks of dealing with COVID patients she figures that either she has been exposed and is now immune or that the PPE measures are working and she is not a pariah due to her job. Just a guess.

QUARANTINE SKILL ACQUISITION CHECK-IN

I was really looking forward to honing my ukulele chops but my wife made me put my uke in the back office after two days. Sigh.

So instead I am working on:

- Beard growth. A lot more gray in that SOB than I remember from last time I was on a hirsute kick.

- Lifting weights. Slowly getting to 1.5xbodyweight for my squat, and 2x for my deadlift. Not impressive for young dudes and/or juicers, but for a middle-aged natty it feels good.

- Card tricks. Do you want to feel like Houdini? Then learn some tricks on YouTube and show them to a kindergartner you are quarantined with. Blows their lil’ minds no matter how sloppy you are. Unexpected bonus: makes you feel marginally better about the insufferability of board game nerds; their damage cannot remotely compare to the broken psyches of magic nerds. I suspect it’s due to the longer history and subcultural secrecy of the conjuring trade — attracts more people who need to feel superior. I guess it’s better than getting into 5g conspiracy theories.

Ukulele is not a crime!

Not Sure wrote: Ukulele is not a crime!

I keep trying to tell her this; she points out, annoyingly, that many things are not crimes but could be irreconcilable differences.

Not Sure wrote: Ukulele is not a crime!

jason10mm wrote: My guess would be that after weeks of dealing with COVID patients she figures that either she has been exposed and is now immune or that the PPE measures are working and she is not a pariah due to her job. Just a guess.

Thanks for your thoughts. She has said that she feels safer at the hospital than she does at the grocery store (which almost begs another question).

But it doesn't really matter if she's immune if she can still spread it. I did worry that I was being a jerk by refusing, but I'd rather err on the side of caution. Yeah, I don't want to treat her like a leper because she works with virus patients, but I also don't see how adding another vector to the equation helps anyone.