covid.house2024-03-27T00:00:00Zhttps://covid.house/John SJ Andersonbetter late than never2024-03-27T00:00:00Zhttps://covid.house/entries/2024/03/27/<p>Today was our Ithaca College visit. We got up, grabbed a bagel from a
place across the street from the hotel, hung out in the room a little,
walked around town a bit.</p>
<p>I didn’t want to pay to get the car out of the garage, so we decided
to walk up to the college from downtown — keyword, “up”. It was about
1.5 miles, with ~500 feet of elevation gain, or just over a 6% grade.
Mr17 was <em>not</em> terribly happy with me, especially not after we ended
up on the wrong side of campus and had to hustle all the way across to
get in time for the info session — but we made it. We had a good,
enjoyable stroll back <em>down</em> to downtown, relaxed a little in the
room, had an early dinner at a local burger joint/alehouse, and then
read to close out the evening.</p>
<p>Tomorrow: a visit to Syracuse, and then we storm NYC!</p>
Drew day2024-03-26T00:00:00Zhttps://covid.house/entries/2024/03/26/<p>We got up, strolled over to a little deli in Roslyn for a bagel, then
we got on the road to Madison, NJ — home to <a href="https://drew.edu/">Drew
University</a>. We arrived a couple hours early, so we
wandered around the small downtown a bit, then had some lunch.</p>
<p>After we did the college tour (Mr17 vibe check: low), we got on the
road to Ithaca. A few hours later, after driving through quite a bit
of Pennsylvania and upstate New York, we rolled into Ithaca. We got
checked into our hotel, grabbed a spot of dinner, and headed to bed.</p>
<p>Tomorrow: Ithaca College.</p>
Hofstra Day2024-03-25T00:00:00Zhttps://covid.house/entries/2024/03/25/<figure class="float:left">
<img src="https://covid.house/images/2024-03-25-phil.jpg" loading="eager" alt="Photo of Hofstra alum Phil Rosenthal" title="who knew phil went to hofstra?" />
<figcaption>who knew phil went to hofstra?</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today was our <a href="https://www.hofstra.edu/">Hofstra</a> visit, at 10am.
After a short drive from the hotel, we had a lovely walk around the
campus with a small group. After the tour, Z and I had some lunch at a
hamburger joint near campus, then returned to the hotel for a little
nap. In the afternoon, we took a little stroll around the village of
Roslyn, then had a <em>fantastic</em> dinner at <a href="https://www.hendrickstavern.com/">Hendrick’s
Tavern</a>.</p>
<p>Tomorrow: Drew University tour (in Madison, NJ) followed by a drive up
to Ithaca for a tour there on Thursday.</p>
<br clear="both" />
travel day2024-03-24T00:00:00Zhttps://covid.house/entries/2024/03/24/<figure class="float:right">
<img src="https://covid.house/images/2024-03-24-shoes.jpg" loading="eager" alt="Mr17 and I took a shoe pic in the airport because of course we did" title="obShoes" />
<figcaption>obShoes</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The alarm went off at 4am. It got snoozed a few times, but eventually
we got up, got ready, got out the door, and were in the Alaska lounge
at PDX by 0530. This was the Sunday before Spring Break for most
(all?) of the state of Oregon, so the airport was pretty busy.</p>
<p>Our completely full (and actually <em>legit</em> completely full, I checked
on my way to the head) flight was fine; we had decent tail winds so it
was only a little over 4 hours to JFK. Rental car pickup was smooth,
and the traffic out to our hotel wasn’t horrible, by NYC standards.</p>
<p>We had an early dinner in the hotel restaurant (kinda meh, but very
convenient), and then I watched the Thorns lose their home opener,
sadly. Early lights out.</p>
<p>Tomorrow, <a href="https://www.hofstra.edu/">Hofstra</a>!</p>
hectic saturday2024-03-23T00:00:00Zhttps://covid.house/entries/2024/03/23/<p>Moderately hectic Saturday: bunch of stuff around the house in the
morning, then mid-day I drove up to PDX to pick up TheSIL, who is
going to be staying with TheGimpyWife while Mr17 and I are out of
town.</p>
<p>Got back home, made a grocery store run, got everything packed, and
then drove back up to PDX with Mr17 to overnight in a PDX-adjacent
hotel in advance of our 07-ohmygawd-20 flight tomorrow.</p>
<p>Dinner at a completely mediocre American “wood-fired” joint near the
airport; one of those places where you realize you were there 4 years
ago and it sucked then too. Finished off the night watching the
Timbers absolutely <em>suck</em>.</p>
<p>The alarm is gonna go off <em>way</em> too early tomorrow…</p>
<p><strong>todo tracking:</strong> 7/8</p>
friyay hits different now2024-03-22T00:00:00Zhttps://covid.house/entries/2024/03/22/<p>We had an insulation company out first thing, working on a roof issue;
after they got started, I took Ms21 in to work and then squatted at a
coffee shop for a bit, to write up yesterday and plan today.</p>
<p>After coming back home, I did a variety of household chores: boiled
some eggs, did some laundry (in advance of the trip Mr17 and I will
leave for tomorrow), rowed 5K, stored the rower, and got the loft set
up for TheSIL (who arrives tomorrow to help TheGimpyWife out).</p>
<p>For lunch, I ran over to
<a href="https://untappd.com/RatchetBrewery/beer">Ratchet</a> and visited the
<em>amazing</em> Tacos el Pelon. Afterwards, I enjoyed a beer and read about
Rust.</p>
<p>The later afternoon was a little busy — after getting Ms21 home from
work, TheGimpyWife and I headed out to her first PT appointment. That
went really well — she was able to do quite a bit of walking around
the office without her brace on, and she got a good set of exercises
to work on, and a follow-up appointment next week. To celebrate,
afterwards we grabbed a beer at
<a href="https://www.b2taphouse.com/">B<sup>2</sup></a> before heading home to a
dinner of leftover bucatini.</p>
<p>Tomorrow, CollegeVisitPalooza ‘24 gets underway.</p>
<p><strong>todo tracking:</strong> 19/22</p>
thursdayin2024-03-21T00:00:00Zhttps://covid.house/entries/2024/03/21/<p>After the usual morning stuff, I got Ms21 dropped off and then posted
up at Archive for a bit of coffee and another chunk of Rust book, and
then — just for a change of pace — I went back home and read a couple
chapters of Tufte.</p>
<figure class="float:left">
<img src="https://covid.house/images/2024-03-21-egret.jpg" loading="eager" alt="an egret or heron, hanging out by Salem's Mirror Pond" title="plausible egret" />
<figcaption>plausible egret</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="float:right">
<img src="https://covid.house/images/2024-03-21-statue.jpg" loading="eager" alt="statue of an egret, found in Salem's Mirror Pond" title="egret statute" />
<figcaption>egret statute</figcaption>
</figure>
<br clear="both" />
<p>I took myself out to a late lunch at a sandwich food cart, then
immediately bounced over to pick up Ms21. I got there a little early,
so I walked around Mirror Pond (not be confused with the other, much
better known <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_Pond">Mirror
Pond</a>…) and managed to find
an egret (maybe? maybe a green heron?) checking out its cousin
sculpture.</p>
<figure class="float:right">
<img src="https://covid.house/images/2024-03-21-bitchtopher.jpg" loading="eager" alt="A sticker from the gym, with a faux-NatAm beading style anchor tattoo with an overlaid ribbon that reads BITCHTOPHER COLOMBITCH" title="colombitch 🤣" />
<figcaption>colombitch 🤣</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After I got Ms21 home, Mr17 and I bounced back out to the gym and
moved some metal around. It was not my best gym outing; I failed to
hit my goals for 2 out of the 3 lifts, having to drop back down to
smaller weights. But we did it, and that’s what counts. (The sticker
is one of the many, many progressive stickers and flags from the gym.)</p>
<p>After getting back home, I moved another chunk of stuff around in the
basement, and then grabbed a shower. I helped TheWife take a shower —
she’s moving around better every day, but getting the knee brace off
and then back on afterwards is not really a self-service activity. We
had leftovers for dinner, and then a couple of hours of
reading/sitting around, followed by a fairly early bedtime.</p>
<p><strong>todo tracking:</strong> 14/15</p>
i could get used to this2024-03-20T00:00:00Zhttps://covid.house/entries/2024/03/20/<figure class="float:right">
<img src="https://covid.house/images/2024-03-20-the-ladies.jpg" loading="eager" alt="our flock of three chickens, scratching in the back yard" title="the ladies" />
<figcaption>the ladies</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After the usual morning routine, I dropped Ms21 off at her internship,
and then bopped on over to the newest coffee shop/record store in
town, <a href="https://www.offbeatcoffee.co/">offbeat coffee</a>. I wrote up
Monday’s entry, then read the first chapter of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Visual_Display_of_Quantitative_Information"><em>The Visual Display of
Quantitative
Information</em></a>.
One of my funemployment goals is to re-read the first three of Tufte’s
books, and then finish by reading the “new” fourth one. (Scare quotes
because the book came out in 2020, wtaf pandemic time brain.)</p>
<figure class="float:left">
<img src="https://covid.house/images/2024-03-20-yours-truly.jpg" loading="eager" alt="your humble correspondent, hanging on the taphouse patio" title="yours truly" />
<figcaption>yours truly</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Following morning coffee, it was time for errands: bank (cash rules
everything around me), post office (state taxes: mailed!), hardware
store (grass seed: acquired), and grocery stores (dinner ingredients:
procured). After getting back home and putting everything away, I
re-heated some pizza and TheWife and I lunched together.</p>
<p>I spent the first part of the afternoon starting the grand basement
re-org: I moved a set of shelves we use to store household standards
into what’s going to become the pantry room.</p>
<p>I then decided that my basement work deserved some patio beer, so I
headed out to my <a href="https://www.b2taphouse.com/">other usual local</a> and
read more of my Rust book while having a couple beers, outside on
their patio, by the fire. Post beer-time, I went back home and threw
together <a href="https://pinchofyum.com/muccis-bucatini">some bucatini</a> and
<a href="https://pinchofyum.com/house-favorite-garlic-bread">garlic bread</a> for
dinner. We were joined by a friend of Mr17’s; everybody seemed to
enjoy the dinner. Afterwards, too many dishes, then TheWife and I
watched some TV before heading to bed.</p>
<p>On and on and on…</p>
<p><strong>todo tracking:</strong> 18/20</p>
sometimes the title is the hardest part2024-03-19T00:00:00Zhttps://covid.house/entries/2024/03/19/<p>The day started off with the usual routine of dog walking, chicken
loosing, dishwasher unloading, coffee making, and breakfast prep for
Ms21, but when I hopped in the shower, I noticed that the drain
…wasn’t. (Un)fortunately, this has been enough of a recurrent
problem with this house that I was aware of it right away — but it
also meant that a pretty big portion of my day was devoted to getting
things flowing again.</p>
<p>After my aborted shower, I dropped Ms21 off at her internship program,
and returned home. I spent around an hour getting this site back up
and functional, extending the header so that it counts funemployment
days instead of pandemic days (but leaves the older pandemic day
counts alone), and correcting an off-by-one bug in the dates that has
probably been there <em>forever</em>. It was a tiny little bit of fun coding
stuff to start the day.</p>
<p>Most of the rest of the day revolved around dealing with the
aforementioned drain clog, and doing a comprehensive inventory of the,
frankly, silly amount of freezer space we have. I also squeezed in a
little post-lunch nap.</p>
<p>After I picked Ms21 back up from her program and got us both home, I
finally conceded to myself that the drain wasn’t going to resolve
itself, so I broke out the plunger and got things moving again. After
I sprayed the shower down with bleach water, Mr17 and I headed out to <a href="https://www.catalystfitcommunity.com/">the
gym</a>.</p>
<p>We’ve been working through <a href="https://www.couchtobarbell.com/">Couch to
Barbell</a>, and today was the
next-to-last day of the second phase of the program. We’re both
looking forward to a short break and then getting into barbell work in
phase 3. Once back home, I also rowed 5K – closing in on my 2 million
lifetime mark! – and cleaned the ashes out of both the grill and the
firepit. After that, I rinsed down the shower, then myself.</p>
<p>Following a quick dash to the grocery store to pick up buns, I whipped
up some hamburgers and grilled them up, enjoying what is probably the
last day of our current run of nice weather. After dinner, a friend of
TheWife’s came over to pick up some eggs (we have <strong>so</strong> <strong>many</strong> eggs
right now omg), drink some wine, and chit-chat. That pretty much
rounded out the day.</p>
<p>And so it goes…</p>
<p><strong>todo tracking:</strong> 14 items of 25 completed</p>
gainfully funemployed2024-03-18T00:00:00Zhttps://covid.house/entries/2024/03/18/<p>Welcome to the third chapter of <a href="https://covid.house/">covid.house</a>…</p>
<p>As you may have <a href="https://genehack.blog/2024/02/farewell-fuckyourary/">read on my main
blog</a>, I’ve
recently given notice at my (now prior) job, initially without a
replacement lined up. I’ve corrected <em>that</em> issue — more about what
I’m going to be doing once we’re a little closer to my start date of
April 29<sup>th</sup> – but it leaves me a good solid six weeks
between the two gigs …“funemployment”, as the kids say.</p>
<p>I’ve got a long list of things I’d like to accomplish — more about
<em>that</em> later as well — but I’m a little worried that I’m going to
end up not accomplishing as much as I’d like, and I know once I start
the new gig, that’s going to consume quite a lot of my attention, so
I’d really like to stay focused on both getting things checked off
that list, but also making sure I’m really enjoying the time off,
relaxing, etc.</p>
<p>To that end, I thought I’d spin this journal back up for the duration,
and see if talking about this stuff in public will drive some
accountability around alla that. I guess we’ll see…</p>
<p>Today was a bit hectic in the morning — I needed to get TheWife to an
ortho followup for her messed-up knee, and I needed to get Ms21
delivered to her internship program, and those two things needed to
happen at essentially the same time. We ended up squaring that circle
by dropping TheWife off <em>way</em> too early, then I delivered Ms21, then
rushed back to the doc office to catch the end of her appointment. Bad
news: it is not, as we were initially told, a “near complete” tear of
the ACL, it’s just a full tear. Good news: TheWife got her brace
unlocked, so she can bend her knee, and she got cleared to do as much
as she is comfortable with as far as bending, moving around with or
without crutches, and even starting to ween off the brace. PT is going
to be in touch. All in all it was a a good appointment; she’s
scheduled for a phone follow up in six weeks.</p>
<p>After that morning excitement, I returned TheWife home, and then
headed downtown to <a href="https://www.archivecoffeeandbar.com/">my local</a>
for coffee and some general reflection time. This is something I
should <em>not</em> fall into the habit of doing every day, but it was a nice
leisurely break after the hectic running around of the initial
morning.</p>
<p>I returned home and spent the morning shuffling between doing loads of
laundry and cleaning out our basement pantry area — we had a ton of
early pandemic-era stuff hanging around, as well as a bunch of expired
stuff in the fridge, all of which got cleaned up and disposed of, in
advance of a larger amount of re-arrangement for that area.</p>
<p>After lunch (drivethru fastfood burgers), I spent some time reading a <a href="https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/command-line-rust/9781098109424/">Rust
book</a>
before deciding that maybe I needed to back up and first read a <a href="https://nostarch.com/rust-programming-language-2nd-edition">more
introductory-level Rust
book</a>.</p>
<p>Miscellaneous chores and picking up Ms21 at the end of her internship
day rounded out the afternoon. I had been planning to grill burgers
for dinner, but the hamburger hadn’t quite thawed out, we’d had the
fastfood burgers for lunch, and really I just wasn’t feeling the
cooking so we ordered some pizza for dinner instead. After dinner and
cleanup, I built a backyard firepit fire and enjoyed that, before
giving up and going to bed.</p>
<p>Day 1, in the books.</p>
<p><strong>todo tracking:</strong> 19 items of 24 completed</p>
home at last2022-07-17T00:00:00Zhttps://covid.house/entries/2022/07/17/<p>We got a bit of a slower start today, but we only had about six hours
of driving to do, so it was fine. Rather than taking I-5 all the way
home, we jumped off to US-97 and went around on the east side, picking
I-5 back up around Eugene.</p>
<p>First time seeing Mt Shasta. It’s no Hood but it was pretty cool.</p>
<p>Home initially around 430pm, then unpacked the car and turned around
and took the rental back up to PDX to return it. Sprung my car from
the parking garage and drove back down to Salem, arriving about 730pm.</p>
<p>This concludes the second chapter of covid.house. Thanks for reading.</p>
leaving los angeles2022-07-16T00:00:00Zhttps://covid.house/entries/2022/07/16/<p>We got on the road around 8am — the 105 to the 405 to the 5, windows
down, cruise control set. Brief lunch break, a few misc stops, but
mainly the kind of interstate driving where you disengage your higher
brain functions and just make sure you keep it between the lines.</p>
<p>Hit Red Bluff, CA around 430pm, and called it a day.</p>
one more day2022-07-15T00:00:00Zhttps://covid.house/entries/2022/07/15/<p>Very much a “light at the end of the tunnel” sort of day — lots of
work meetings, followed by going to fetch the rental car …followed
by an annoying amount of phone calling and back-and-forth with the
rental car company, because somehow it was set up to return to LAX
instead of PDX. <em>Supposedly</em> this has been changed, but as I write
this, the rental company’s website still shows a return to LAX.</p>
<p>Looking forward to being home; not looking forward to 15+ hours of
driving. Hoping that fire season holds off a few more days and that we
don’t end up needing to detour…</p>
never could get the hang of thursdays2022-07-14T00:00:00Zhttps://covid.house/entries/2022/07/14/<p>Slept poorly, and then overslept my alarm. Would like to be back in my
own bed now please.</p>
<p>Mx15 tested <em>blazingly</em> positive again today — like, test strip darker
than the control — <strong>positive</strong> positive. (I did not test.)</p>
<p>Thought about how I was going to feel about getting on a plane with
them come Saturday, and after a bit of reflection, booked a car,
booked a couple hotel rooms near the midway point of the ~14 hour
drive, and canceled our flight. Mildly annoyed at losing the second
weekend in a row to travel, but it’ll be worth it to get home.</p>
day three of five2022-07-13T00:00:00Zhttps://covid.house/entries/2022/07/13/<p>Nothing much to report today — Mx15 tested <em>blazingly</em> positive;
I tested negative again. Some work was done.</p>
<p>Entering the “so very ready to be home” stage…</p>
day two of five2022-07-12T00:00:00Zhttps://covid.house/entries/2022/07/12/<p>Slept okay, not great. Awake at 0445, 0530, and finally gave up
around 0630. Complementary breakfast, less-than-mediocre coffee, and
then a solid day of work (mostly meetings), interrupted only by a
mid-day RAT about 24 hours after my initial contact with Mx15
(negative!) and some delivered KFC for lunch (Mx15’s choice). I hadn’t
had it before but dutifully report that the KFC spicy chicken sandwich
is inferior to the Wendy’s spicy chicken sandwich in all possible
ways.</p>
<p>Took a post-lunch nap that stretched a bit longer than planned — I
think my relief at the negative RAT translated into the first actual
relaxation since the Sunday morning phone call that started this
“adventure” — followed by more work, and delivery pizza for dinner.</p>
<p>Mx15 is starting to feel a little stir-crazy, and they’re still under
the weather, but seem to be experiencing “bad cold” level sympotms so
far. The Wife, with the patience of a saint, suffered through getting
access to the CA KP system (which is different from the OR-WA KP
system…) to be able to talk to a local advice nurse about Paxlovid,
only to learn that given their age and current symptoms, it’s not
indicated. Knock wood that things continue in the same vein and we
don’t need to revisit that.</p>
<p>Decided to kill some time getting this site back operational, at least
for the duration. Have some infrastructure work to deal with to do it
<em>properly</em>, but at the moment, I should be able to publish the last
three days worth of updates at least.</p>
<p>And then an early bedtime…</p>
covid.hotel2022-07-11T00:00:00Zhttps://covid.house/entries/2022/07/11/<p>I woke up around 0530, and did the normal morning hotel stuff: got
some breakfast, drank some mediocre hotel coffee, repacked my bag. I
got on the road around 0730 or 0800, headed mostly east, and a little
bit north.</p>
<p>Initially, I was mostly happy that I seemed to be going in the
opposite direction of the morning drive time traffic, but that
happiness passed as more of LA woke up and got on the freeways.
Eventually I got far enough outside the city — once my route started
climbing up into the mountains — that the traffic mostly went away.
Under other circumstances, CA-330 would be a fun drive: steep and
twisty, with magnificent views. As it was, I just wanted to get to my
destination as soon as possible.</p>
<p>Arriving at the camp and collecting Mx15 was quick and non-eventful.
They looked worn out and under the weather, but weren’t hurting too
bad — not the best but under the circumstances I’d take it. They got
into the back seat, and we set out for the fully-masked return drive.
We ended up stopping a couple times on the way down — somewhere
between the elevation change, the twisty road, and the COVID, they
were getting carsick — including one run though a CVS for provisions.
We were at our new hotel, just south of LAX, around 1300.</p>
<p>We got checked in, I unloaded everything from the car, and then headed
back out to a grocery store for additional provisions for the week.
After that I returned the car, caught a Lyft back to the hotel,
ordered us some dinner, and spent the rest of the evening trying to
catch up on work.</p>
back to the covid house2022-07-10T00:00:00Zhttps://covid.house/entries/2022/07/10/<p>The phone call woke me up.</p>
<p>I’d gotten back into town Saturday afternoon; an uneventful mid-day
JFK-PDX flight capping off a week spent working in NYC, timed to allow
me to attend a going-away party for a dear friend and colleague. I’d
driven home, hugged The Wife and Ms19, dealt with the pile of mail,
had a quiet dinner (outside at a local pub), and then went to bed
around 2200, still somewhat on East Coast time.</p>
<p>So the 0830 phone call woke me up. It was on The Wife’s phone, and
as she grabbed it and answered it, she stepped outside into the
hallway — trying to let me go back to sleep, I guess. Pretty quickly
she was back and putting the call on speaker.</p>
<p>The camp that Mx15 had been at for a week was calling to let us know
that they’d tested positive for COVID that morning. The plan <em>had</em>
been for me to fly down to LAX that evening, overnight in an airport
hotel, and get Mx15 off the camp shuttle bus and then fly home with
them Monday evening. That plan was now officially pining for the
fjords.</p>
<p>So, the shuttle bus from the camp to LAX? The camp wasn’t going to be
able to allow them to ride that bus; we were going to need to pick
them up at the camp, near Big Bear Lake, in person. Oh, and still no
later than Monday, if at all possible, as the camp staff was going to
be leaving too.</p>
<p>A few hours of what-the-fucking and scheming and reservation booking
later, we had a plan: I’d fly down Sunday as planned, but instead of
meeting up with Mx15 at LAX on Monday, I’d rent a car, drive over to
Big Bear, get them, drive back to a hotel in LA, and we’d post up for
the week (in separate rooms) and fly home the following Saturday.</p>
<p>The rest of the day was a blur of unexpected planning, packing, and a
continual low-grade panic. Fortunately the camp gave Mx15 their phone
back early, so we were able to do some coordination with them and make
them aware of our plans.</p>
<p>Around 1530, I set out for the airport, arriving around 1730. The
flight itself was uneventful, as was getting a rental car and getting
to the first night’s hotel (which was not the hotel I ended up booking
for the rest of the trip). Bed around 2330.</p>
back to the mines2020-11-30T00:00:00Zhttps://covid.house/entries/2020/11/30/<p>for some reason, i slept pretty poorly. was wide awake around 0300,
and i’m not sure if i ever made it all the way back to sleep.</p>
<p>i had a 0700 meeting (i know, i know, first day back too; what <em>was</em> i
thinking), so i probably should have just given in and gotten up way
before i did.</p>
<p>reasonably productive day, although more in the “managed to deal with
the interruptions pretty quickly after they occurred” sense more than
the “did all the stuff i intended to do” sense – although i did quite
a bit of that too.</p>
commencing re-entry2020-11-29T00:00:00Zhttps://covid.house/entries/2020/11/29/<p>given the late bedtime of the night before, ended up sleeping in
rather late. finally rolled out of bed in time to have lunch, and then
spent the rest of the afternoon working on weekly review stuff and
getting ready to dive back into work for a few more weeks.</p>