KIP covid thread

An older sister of mine and her husband stopped by earlier today, after a follow-up appointment for her mastectomy last September. We hosted them outdoors, sitting more than six feet apart, wearing our masks, but it was damn good to see them both doing so well. They escaped to their car just about ten minutes before the sky opened and rain + hail poured down for 20 minutes.

British Columbia is the jurisdiction with over 5 million residents that has the lowest COVID deaths per capita in North America + western europe. the premier is going to announce what the plans to ease restrictions will be in half an hour.

a new benefit for hospitality workers my gf can apply for just came live today, on top of $1000 she received yesterday from the province of BC, and the CERB she receives from the federal government.

finally after 6 weeks or whatever of working from home I have all the software and hardware I require to do my job. will not have to return to work any time soon.

wfh estended thru September it looks like, and discussion at high levels seems to accept that the civil service will not return to a five day model working week

this is very good imo

Our “new normal” planning is looking similar

We got similar word from our executives on Monday. I'm making a trip to the office tomorrow to pick up a couple monitors, keyboard, mouse and docking station. I've been working on a laptop this whole time. They offered the office equipment much earlier, but the time has been slipping by like crazy.

- 2/3 of the way through an extremely involved and exhausting (relative to the last time) but also personally rewarding paternity leave that started the day tom hanks was diagnosed and the NBA was cancelled
- read as many books in the first five months of this year as i read last year
- got my instapaper queue (~150 articles that are all like 10-30 minute reads) to zero
- seriously dialed in my vim configuration

i wasnt aware of even one bun let alone two

they call it Bun B

i remember that day so clearly! i was in class and one of my students was like "Tom Hanks has the virus!" and we all talked about it. We were still meeting for classes, but it may have been in the last two weeks.

god it really feels like 600 years ago

I remember that day. it was 3/11. I'd seen Overkill the night before, and I knew things were about to change, but no idea how much. the morning was normal, but that afternoon, they'd announced a crowd-less March Madness, and a crowdless Golden State Warriors game. I go to rehearsal, Hanks is diagnosed right as it's ending, and Trump has banned Europe travel.

I get to my car 10 minutes later, the NBA has cancelled their season. That was a crazy day.

but the day before was wicked awesome! (KIP)

i don't have anything not-maudlin to say -- thinking about that day has made me so wistful about the pre-rona times

thanking u neanderthal this is ofc the kip covid thread

weather in dublin has been great and weve been enjoying cycling through the park and into a traffic-free city quite a bit

The Stax Records box set is doing all my KIP heavy lifting tonight, thank fuck for music rn

got laid off from my beloved but flailing non-profit in late December, but was soon joined at home by... the rest of the world, in a way.

my now-college age kids are home, and it's amazing. they're as fun as always to be around, but now they also actually spontaneously help around the house. they've been doing a lot of cooking but also art projects and music playin'

i'm doing a lot, it feels like. trying to keep up with a statistics course on Coursera. kinda important as my day jobs have featured lots of program evaluation and applied research, and i've always been stronger on qualitative methods than quantitative.

also involved in a research & writing project with a team of folks from around the country. i dig the work but it's *hard* (writing almost always is, isn't it?)

taking a dance class online (martha graham based), doing some "running" (i.e., walking with spurts of running every couple of blocks, and a bunch of other exercise-y things. i try to be pretty regular with this stuff, for many reasons, not least because it keeps the demons at bay.

built raised garden beds!

growing shrooms!

reading books and playing rekkids.

keeping in touch with a bunch of friends, mostly through texts and emails.

some of these projects move a lot slower than i'd like. i go into each day with a list of five things pretty big things to do and it's often the case that i can only manage one. i'm getting a little better at not getting too down on myself for this.

sad about Florian news today. Ride in Peace.

ooh, VG, i'm jealous of your Stax box set!

I remember that day. it was 3/11. I'd seen Overkill the night before, and I knew things were about to change, but no idea how much. the morning was normal, but that afternoon, they'd announced a crowd-less March Madness, and a crowdless Golden State Warriors game. I go to rehearsal, Hanks is diagnosed right as it's ending, and Trump has banned Europe travel.

I get to my car 10 minutes later, the NBA has cancelled their season. That was a crazy day.

https://www.wired.com/story/an-oral-history-of-the-day-everything-changed-coronavirus/

great oral history of 3/11 here

9/11, 3/11, so many fuckin' 11s

every crew, every clique, and every posse

I’m still having fun making music on my dinky laptop I bought for school and we’re baking excellent sourdough bread twice a week. I’m getting up when I feel like it and still getting the same (or more) amount of work done, even with the added effort involved in supporting COVID response. My social calendar is off the charts compared to the last decade, since I can now indulge in happy hour activities without the usual 45-60 minutes of travel time to get home. I still have my job, my wife still has her job, our daughter’s teachers are engaged and keep ensuring she has plenty to do during most of most days. I am so grateful.

i don’t think neanderthal’s baby joke is getting the attention it deserves. i see you.

idgi tbh

third child = pimp c

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UGK

heh if ever a pun was outta my wheelhouse ey

Probably a good thing that I'm thinking "I need a haircut" for the first time in about 15 years. The fact that I'm beginning to look like Gavin McLeod is not so good.

Lol

good news folks

Lmao, city of NYC thanks goddamn. pic.twitter.com/gbIxbaDflT

— L😯LC😯X (@smileyniv) May 7, 2020

... before, after and during

work from home looks set to run into 2021 for us at which stage if trends continue i'll be at my 1999 weight with a mortgage deposit saved

When they let me out of this joint to go shopping I’m gonna buy a truckload of books and a steak dinner

me, once my dad's recovered, I'm going driving to a remote location and not telling anybody where I am for a month

these are not kip posts imo

why is what I said negative? sounds like bliss to me even when we're not in a pandemic

#aftercovid not #kipcovid imo

wheres the covid appeals board

“When Tony Parsons’s new novel came out you couldn’t get hold of his book”.

https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/10/could-lockdown-herald-an-exciting-new-chapter-for-the-book-trade

here's a fun way to figure out what the fuck is making noise outside your window
https://birbs.glitch.me/

neat!

working from home means that I could have a nap on my lunch hour to help with my hangover today.

that is a golden gift from the spirit upstairs that should not be underestimated

Probably a good thing that I'm thinking "I need a haircut" for the first time in about 15 years. The fact that I'm beginning to look like Gavin McLeod is not so good.

Nah, it'll have to go before it strays any deeper into Michael D. Higgins territory

I'm straying deep into mullet territory

I feel relief because for the first time in my life I truly do not care what my hair looks like. Is it sticking up? No? I'm good.

The excess fluff irritates me, but I'm rolling with it

i went from a neat pixie cut to looking like my dad in 1978
oh well! if it burns someone's eyes out, i fake-apologize in advance

I've had the exact same Dana Scully haircut for the past fifteen years, so quarantine is forcing me to switch things up, which is probably a good thing. I might just not cut it until the pandemic is over, and then I'll finally know what it's like to have long hair.

Finally obtaining a set of hair clippers has changed my life for the better.

Given we're going to be able to sit in the park before too long, are there any decent foldable chairs out there that are better than dad-chairs/camping chairs but more portable than standard deckchairs?

These are a pretty classic staple
https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/gunde-folding-chair-black-00217797/