Day 76: Saturday Rainy

It has rained and thundered today. Not the typical Oregon mist but full-on rain with lightning and thunder!

The riots are happening all over the country. People are split about them. I hear that the rioters are no better than criminals or worse terrorists. With the later being available to shoot down. Others remind us what MLK said more than fifty years ago: “In the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear?” For me, I try to hear and to understand and not add to the anger.

I started the morning late as I was tired. I am working as needed all day and night for Nike. We are trying to write an emergency conversion program that normally takes a week in 48 hours. We are all on-line working, of course, remotely and using Microsoft Teams to connect along with email and Zoom meetings. It is a nearly dizzying mix of technology and desperation. In other words, routine computer software development work!

We stopped to watch the Falcon 9 launch the US crew into space.

This is a NASA photo (credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls).

I have been online all day and checking in with the developers and tried to help where I can. I just put in some code for them a few minutes ago. This makes this update late.

I did slip out to pick-up my order from the local gaming store, Rainy Day Games. Their online store was sort of working–my order duplicated and they had to cancel a spare game for me. It was so nice to see them all, masked, but we all know each other. One of them runs the local gaming convention, Game Storm. Another is a serious gamer and painter–we share painting advice and gaming suggestions. I bought the game Never Bring A Knife as it was on special. I got to be one of four people allowed in the store at a time. Social distancing being maintained at all times. So great to see these folks after three months!

I then ordered pizza from Papa Murphy’s (the take and bake place we have here in Oregon) using their phone app in Rainy Day Games’ parking lot sitting in my car. While I waited for the app to tell me the pizza was ready for pick-up, I read the rules of Never Bring A Knife. It has a minimum of four players to play and can play eight. It is another social deduction styled game simpler than Secret Hitler without the historical baggage and awful name. You are either a cop or a hardened criminal. You try to make the other side lose the game by dropping someone on the other side with guns and putting hits on them. But others can heal or block the person you hit, and then they may easily deduce that you are on the other side. The lead will then fly in your direction. It looks like fun!

With the rain and me working online all day, it was a good day for musicals. Susie watched “Rocket Man” first. I stepped in here and there to watch most of it–Elton John’s songs are so well done in the film–I stopped everything and sat and watched and listened. This was followed by “Rock of Ages,” which is set in 1987 in California. I graduated from college in 1986 and headed out to Washington DC and Maryland in 1987 to find work, so it has some appeal to me. I was going into software, not Rock and Roll, but the late 80s is well remembered by me. I like the music and the goofy acting and story.

A relaxing night with pizza and coding when needed at the shoe company.

During the movies, I made pizza.

I finished the re-write of my Howard story, “Howard in Amsterdam.” The finish for the first will be uploading to Grammarly and fix missed grammar items and then a final re-reading. Getting to the final editing of my previous story allows me finally to begin my newest story, “Howard’s Lockdown.” I have been thinking about what would happen to Howard in our lockdown. Time to write that story!

Reports have just over one-thousand people losing their lives to the virus today in the USA. Portland police report arresting thirty-one people tonight, and there are reports of tear gas possible use tonight. I found this song for today–something I found by accident: Let My Prayer Rise Up (Suba Mi Oracion).