My group is starting up again.

Ah_Pook wrote:

Shellhead wrote: I expect to see a surge in cases by mid-September, thanks to 100 million Americans failing to act sensibly on Labor Day weekend.

Wouldn't that imply that cases had at some point stopped surging?

I suppose my perception is skewed by local trends. From today's local paper:

"Holiday weekends have not been kind to Minnesota amid the pandemic. Memorial Day weekend came at the height of the first wave of cases; the state had its worst day on May 28 with 606 hospitalizations and 35 deaths reported. The Independence Day weekend marked a turnaround in viral activity in Minnesota. The state had reached a low of 6 new cases per 100,000 people per day on June 17, but the rate has steadily risen ever since and is now at 13 per day."

What a timely thread. Just today, a couple of old college buddies and another guy I've met a few times invited me over for gaming tonight. They seem to have no concern about the virus or distancing. When I brought it up, he said they'll all wear masks if I want them to.

I'm in Houston, Texas. The virus is far from under control here. One of my friends has a job working with day-laborers and basically cannot work from home. The other two I don't even know what their situation is. How in the world can they not be concerned?

It's a weird feeling, because of course I desperately want to go. Like everyone, I miss contact with my friends and playing real board games with real people. But there is just no way I'm going.

For me it’s as much about sizing up the group. One guy in it lives in a community senior care place, and has been cavalier about the risk from early on. I’m concerned he’s not sufficiently careful. The others seem more measured, but lots of people just like them (just like me) have gotten covid. So the result is that I have to refrain for the moment, and it may well stay that way for a while.

Prior to all of this I was finding myself more and more likely to start a game separate from the rest of the group because my interests were diverging from theirs. Leaving Earth in particular is a more brooding play with a big slice of historical perspective in it. I would never have been able to bring that to the table. Now, when I started playing it on my own people joined in, but offering it up would have garnered a veto. Omaha Beach, Struggle of Empires . . . just not in the mainstream of my group.

Great bunch of guys but not a perfect match. So them starting up without me is the end of an era, but in some ways a relief.

ubarose wrote: . . . but Tuesday Al starts back at school.

So your district is going back to school in-person? We're remote at least until the new year. I think every county in Maryland is.

We restarted our weekly game group on a limited basis a couple of months ago. My wife and I are 100% work from home. I make a weekly trip to the grocery store, otherwise the two of us may only leave the house for occasional errands. So we started gaming with a friend who was also working from home. If he goes in to the office(a hospital!), he takes a week or two off. We invited another friend and have been playing some 4 player stuff, but it's kind of intermittent because all of us act reasonably and cancel if we had some "riskier" interactions. Or are planning on a future visit to elderly parents or something.

But the face to face gaming has been nice.

My wife will start going back to the office on a limited basis(1 day a week)soon, and we're considering curling this winter, so gaming will likely go back on hiatus.

Sure enough, my best friend wanted to come over and play board games and maybe watch a movie, and normally that would be an easy Yes. But I think he is taking too many chances.

Just last week, he broke two local curfews (due to riots) to go play at a gaming event where he claimed that there would be social distancing. I suppose it would be possible for people to stay away from each other with only the current player at the table taking a turn. I think that it's more likely that people played as usual except with masks, and that those masks came off frequently for the consumption of snacks and beverages.

So I told him that I'm just not spending any time around people until I can get a vaccine in a few months. The only exceptions that I am making right now are going to work, the grocery store, or the hardware store. And I am wearing a mask in all of those situations except when I am alone in my office. My calculation is that too many COVID-19 survivors are experiencing nasty long-term effects and I don't want any of that, especially the ones involving the brain. My job and all of my hobbies require my brain to function normally, so I am deeply screwed if I get dementia.

He said he understood. He was disappointed because he is moving back to Florida before winter and won't be back until late spring, because he is doing the snowbird thing from now on. I said that I looked forward to seeing him in the spring. It sounds dramatic, but it really isn't. I've know my friend since 1991, and there have been similar lengthy periods where he has been living and working overseas or in a distant part of the U.S. Better that we both play it safe right now and wait for the vaccine. Well, except for the part where he will be flying back to one of the worst states during this pandemic. Oh well.