So, last weekend I visited my sister in Oak Park, Illinois for a baby shower/family reunion/ early Passover Seder. And last night I started to get a bad sore throat and I was sure it was Covid. But the antigen test was negative. I guess it could be another kind of bug.
HOW IS EVERYONE DOING AFTER OVER TWO YEARS OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC?????? I am basically a bunch of Legos and hair glued together with two blinking, witnessing, increasingly distressed eyes peering out at everything but -- God forbid -- a mirror.
Doing okay here, not much to report. My father-in-law got through his second bout of COVID fine. It was a lot milder than the first time he got it during the initial wave.
Oh hey, peep. Are the self-administered rapid tests actually better than 50% accuracy at this point? I feel like I might be deluding myself on this point. There are definitely other bugs out there, and one of the decisions I have forced on myself is no longer worrying so much that I might have covid when there are no symptoms.
We went to a show last night where hardly anyone was masked and I'm pretty sure that if one person in that room had it, everyone else does now. (Sons of Kemet... probably worth getting Covid tbh. I was masked.)
HOW IS EVERYONE DOING AFTER OVER TWO YEARS OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC??????
Mostly fine, with the standard caveats that everything is little worse than I'd prefer.
I mostly have a routine. I'm working in the office, but I wear a mask anytime I'm outside of my personal office. I'm still doing that, but I do feel less anxious and more comfortable in the world as the Omicron wave has passed (I've been worried about a BA.2 wave, but that seems to be having less impact on the US than Europe).
I haven't forgotten about Covid but I have officially reached the point where I'm more concerned about the midterms (and, occasionally, the Supreme Court) than I am about covid -- which is not an entirely reassuring way to feel.
The midterms, right. Has there always been this much hype about how the president's party is doomed to lose, starting more than a year out? Maybe this is just a year where it seems very salient, as opposed to 2018 or 2014?
This observation seems pretty apt.
That is indeed a good observation. The Reconstruction era is getting a lot more, and more accurate, attention in recent years but I think it deserves even more. More focus on how and why it failed, especially.
Visiting the in-laws in western NY next week. We had originally planned to do this in February (in the other school vacation week), but decided COVID numbers weren't great but were getting better and it would be better to wait (plus, a chance of good weather). We are getting only marginally better weather and noticeably worse COVID numbers.
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The latest macOS update seems to have broken a fundamental workflow for me: I minimize the comment window when I'm ready to do something else. Then, when I come back and click on comments to a post, the window is supposed to reappear. Except now it doesn't. It just stays in the Dock. Hopefully a dumb bug, not someone's bizarre notion of superior UI.
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Concord is right nearby, don't have to travel to NY for that.
Yeah, I've worried a lot about the reconstruction parallel, but it really does seem like the far right's goals are much much less ambitious in terms of rolling back civil rights than the post-reconstruction people were. Like even if the Republicans end democracy and instal a dictator, they're not going to resegregate the federal government or even de facto resegregate. The vast majority of Republican voters are well to the left on racial issues than the median voter was in 1995. Interracial marriage bans aren't popular even with Republican primary voters.
You seem to be equivocating between "the far right" in the first sentence and various versions of "Republican majority" afterwards. But I also didn't read that tweet as meaning specifically "the Republican party wants to return to the antebellum South, but nationwide" by drawing a parallel with the end of Reconstruction: it was describing a parallel dynamic, IMO rightly.
" Interracial marriage bans aren't popular even with Republican primary voters."
Republican primary voters care about whatever issue Fox tells them to. If they decide it's the issue of the month their opinion will change overnight to early 1900s.
Too much support for rail transportation then.
16 is on to something. "Bring back segregation, are you kidding? Who the fuck rides a bus? Plessy v. Ferguson, sure that's dystopian, I'll give you that, Democrat-run passenger train urban hellscape... why would we install drinking fountains for anyone anywhere when everyone can buy water?" etc. etc.
I can't remember if Plessy or Ferguson was the train, but the latter sounds more like a train name on Sodor.
I'm being recruited by a USAID program to spend two weeks volunteering my technical assistance to a company in central southern Africa. I haven't said yes yet, because I'm still trying to suss out how much good I would be able to do there vs. how much I'd be a cog in development industry grift. Could go either way.
We'll, we finally got it. Infanta had a fever Saturday and tested positive (right after we got back from brunch, thankfully with folks who had all very recently recovered -- she didn't yet have a fever in the morning!) with an antigen test; Iberian Fury and I were PCR negative Saturday but PCR and antigen positive by Monday. So at least for us the antigen tests were pretty good!
We've got it pretty mild all around, though I hope today is the low point for me. Actually kind of good timing since university has an Easter break for classes, so I can watch the Infanta while IF works, and this has us very safe as vectors for when my mom visits in two weeks.
Sorry to hear that, XT. It does seem like we're on the gradual slope toward endemicity at this point, though all these concepts are slippery. Pandemics can last for centuries, after all.
|| NMM to the guided missile cruiser Moskva.
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Also, we are now v close to completing purchase of the ludicrous house. Feeling optimistic.
And if anyone in the LA area happens to notice a film showing about a selkie over the next month or two, you should have a look because my utterly objective opinion is that it's pretty good.
The Secret of Roan Inish? I liked it very much. (I've not seen Ondine).
23: Congrats! What makes the house ludicrous?
23: Congrats! What makes the house ludicrous?
22: you probably want to hurry up and get one in to the Battalion Tactical Group while you still can.
In my experience, the lateral flow tests are pretty good. When all 3 of us tested positive (not at the same time), we each had a couple of days of mild to no symptoms at the start when we tested negative on the lateral flows, but then a consistent solid 10-11 days when we tested positive every day, with the line gradually fading until by day 11 or 12, it was gone. Which, I think, pretty accurately reflects viral load. I'm not aware of anyone I know being positive, except during the very early couple of days, on PCRs and not subsequently testing positive on lateral flows. Most of my friends who've tested positive* have had similar experiences.
However, I _am_ aware of someone I know who tested positive consistently on the lateral flows for about a week, and had 2 negative PCRs when it was subsequently found to be the PCRs at fault. Because, specifically, of: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54923641
* i.e. all of them, I think I know 3 people who haven't had Covid, in my entire circle of friends, their kids, extended family, etc. Lots of people I know have had it at least twice.**
** my Mum hasn't had it, I don't think. And one couple I know who are both teachers, and who have been literally swimming in COVID for 2+ years, who haven't tested positive, despite their kid testing positive, and all of their colleagues and friends.
28: My understanding is that pre-vaccine you were likely to have enough virus replicating before you developed symptoms. Post vaccine, your immune system is on the alert and you develop symptoms in response before the virus has replicated enough to make you infectious on a lateral flow. Maybe there's also a day before you would be infectious.
I'm going somewhere for Easter on Sunday, and our infections are going up. I'll test in advance for others but nobody else will and hope they have the windows open and we can spend time on the deck.
Ondine is fucking great.
19: If they ask you to bless the rains, it's the second.
25: age and size. I think bits of it predate the settlement of Rhode Island, and it's about the same size.
Do people still not expect you to heat a house?
I get that ships loaded with weapons have caught fire often throughout history, but, even if it's true that Russia lost its ship through accident, that doesn't seem like a good thing to announce as propaganda.
33: I bet it has some kind of fire (gas even) or other room heater to turn on in one room at a time so that you don't need to keep the whole house heated all the time.
5: I have no idea, but I ran the test this morning and it came back negative again, so I'm going to assume it's correct.
Makes sense. They don't heat the parts of Rhode Island that no one uses either.
32: Also - as big as Halford's grotto? The last DC Con was a lot of fun, but sometime getting away from the city could be cool. Renting a castle in Scotland would be sweet.
I'm up for a Scotland meetup any time next month.
You can have a 'cottage' out back, like they have in Rhode Island.
My heat bills were crazy in January, though they went down. It turns out that the walls are not insulated even thought there is insulation in the attic. Luckily, Massachusetts has a program where they cover 75% of the cost of insulation (blown-in) as well as extra batts in the attic.
35: fireplaces in pretty much every room except the library and the grotto.
Does that mean coal? The one thing that struck me about northern England/southern Scotland is the lack of trees. Also, wasn't the library supposed to have a fire to keep the books from mildewing?
For grilling burgers in your bedroom?
45: what, you're expected to wrap up warm to use the sex grotto? was a former owner some kind of cable-knit fetishist?
Proper use of the sex grotto generates its own heat.
Improper use too, if you use candles and oil-based lubricant.
Luckily, Massachusetts has a program where they cover 75% of the cost of insulation (blown-in) as well as extra batts in the attic.
Of course Mass has a better program than NH. We only get 50% and have had to fight to keep it.
People fight you for insulation after it is installed or just like when it is on the truck?
We had to fight when the Republicans on the Public Utilities Commission arbitrarily and probably illegally shut down the program because they could. Even the Republican ledge and governor were made to be accept that this was a step too far, and so a law got passed to give us back our home insulation program.
50: There's a surcharge on the bills. There are a couple of towns with municipal utilities who do not participate in Mass Save. They have less generous rebates (for energy efficient and carbon neutral equipment) and insulation subsidies, but their rates are lower.
Spike - we need to meet up this summer. Your town is less than 90 minutes from my metro west burb (next to Knecht's PDBS).
I posted here at length about the two-year anniversary: http://cybishop.blogspot.com/2022/02/two-years-in.html.
Somehow my immediate family has managed to avoid covid so far, as far as we know, but I know plenty of people who haven't.
In CA at the moment visiting Cassandane's parents. At 8 days this is my longest vacation in over 2 years.
The link has an extraneous period at the end. Delete it and it seems to work.
Thanks for sharing it, Cyrus. Maybe we'll all just start blogging again once that guy kills Twitter. (That guy's name is so fun to anagram, however. Muon Elks. Keno Slum.)
L'Unsmoke
Moksë Nul
(The most obvious, Lone Skum, I also acknowledge.)
I realize this technology can be turned against me.
Spike - we need to meet up this summer.
I spend my summers next to a lake that is down by the Mass border. I welcome you to come out for a swim when it gets hot, and perhaps have lunch or dinner on my dock. Offer open to other commenters as well.
Aagh. I have too many good summer intern candidates to choose from. Not a terrible problem, I realize, but I hate having to say no to some of them and I drive myself crazy worrying about my biases -- is B really better than A or do I just have a stronger impression of B because I interviewed her more recently? Do I really think C would do a better job or did I just enjoy his sense of confidence? Am I even a good enough interviewer to make a fair evaluation? Etc. It's irritating.
62: Surely you just hire whichever one has the nicest lake house.
True. Randomly pick from those with lake houses.
Spike- my parents spent about 8 years working for/with USAID in Rwanda and Mozambique. They still know lots of people around there, and have opinions about various relevant things. Let me know if you want to chat with them about anything.
How I am is that I did something mysterious to my ankle and sometimes it swells up in what seems like a serious way but then it goes back to normal, and different parts of it hurt at different times, and then it swells up again, and I can't walk on it for an hour and then it seems like it's okay, and I don't know what I did or when it started and it definitely seems like the kind of thing that a doctor would be completely dismissive of and I'm very tired of it.
62: I would just assume A is the best, since why else would A be A? But maybe that's biased.
Wait, is 60 to me? I'm just incredibly loopy and by "this technology" I meant "making anagrams of my [pseud]." I suppose Elon Musk (or anyone) could make Twitter worse, but it would take a while for one to notice.
60 didn't make any sense to me either.
67: Ankles are for shit. Nothing I've ever done worked except taking too much NSAIDs or waiting months.
Just reading that made my Achilles tendon hurt again.
60 is a drive by, not worth addressing
How are you, Barry? I feel vaguely like you've had more whiplash during the pandemic than a lot of us...
E. Messily, I wish I had advice about your ankle -- I hope it goes away as mysteriously as it started. Inflammation is a hard problem.
56, 57: sorry about that! The power of not having to use HTML tags went to my head.
58: I've only ever blogged for personal stuff. For years I only used it as a link repository, a favorites list at a URL. I blogged a bit to deal with the mess of 2020. I started again this past January due to a change in other hobbies. TL;DR: not exactly a generalizable trend.
There's an ABBA song that has a flute-like refrain (just instrumental). Does somebody remember which one that was? Google has gotten me a video of a guy playing ABBA songs on the pan flute, which was anti-helpful.
This doesn't answer your question, Moby, but still seems appropriate to direct you instead to this flute masterpiece. https://youtu.be/nF7lv1gfP1Q
Please enjoy.
The song says high school but the musicians screech like grade school.
Pokey had middle school band tryouts this evening (where they match kids to instruments that they've never touched) and the guy was selling Pokey hard on the flute. I think it's hard for them to find anyone who wants to play the flute. He was saying that Pokey did amazingly well at the blowing part, and I couldn't tell if it was sincere or if he was just trying to get someone to agree to the flute.
The flute is very easy to carry, which might be a strength.
re: 81 and flute in general
xelA plays flute. I don't think he finds it that inspiring. He's OK at it. He hasn't done the first level of music grading exams, but he can sight read pretty well for a beginner. He started great guns and his teacher was really impressed, his core tone is much nicer than a lot of his peers, but it has tailed off as laziness and lack of inspiration has kicked in.
The one really big advantage of flute is that it sounds pretty good, even when the player is a beginner. Unlike a lot of bowed instruments, brass or other woodwind, which are horrible, for a long time.
74.1 I'm doing pretty well actually. On of my best friends who was canned the same day I got my offer letter has gotten a job at my old place (in a different and functional department) and has come back to Arrakis. He's been staying with me the last couple of weeks while looking for a place , he's good company and a fine cook so it's been very nice. Another good friend also came back and I'm very happy about that. I've also met someone but it's early days yet. The job is also completely stress free so on the whole I'd say everything is good.
84: That wasn't what I was thinking of, but it certainly did have a lot more flutery than I remembered.