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Today was started at 6:45ish. I had a meeting starting at 7:30, so I did not have to rush as much. I was dressed and ready for the meeting with my last bagel from the freezer. I had coffee ready too.

I had three hours of Zoom meetings and a request for a vendor patch an OSS note for those who speak SAP software.

I managed to slip in a walk. I walked just a bit further than yesterday. My lungs seemed stiff, and I was coughing a lot this time. I am feeling better, even with the pain. Aspirin worked to reduce the pain and the inflammation. I was am feeling better this evening.

I put the vendor patch into the sandbox system, and it came back with a pile of changes to do. So I went heads down and put in all the changes—hours of work. I listened to the meetings while I coded the changes. I also got out my extra monitor to have the instructions on one screen while I made the changes on the other screen.

Note: The 15.6″ monitor has high-quality graphics and runs from a ‘C’ USB plug. It also can daily-chain the ‘C’ USB, so I plug the monitor in from the power source and then plug my laptop from the monitor. I have to plug an HDMI cable in from my laptop into the screen.

I went to Burger King for lunch–drive-thru. I had a whopper with cheese and a whopper jr for Susie with just cheese. As usual, it is amazing how bad Burger King fries are and how good their burgers are.

I continued with my work and then completed the patches (OSS notes). I then went to apply the same fix in the development system; it appears that I put all this in last June! The one note went in at least.

I was asked to back it out as it was not working as expected. Such a strange day!

Susie’s last week of Physical Therapy is next week. Michelle came and ran Susie through exercises and started a discussion on a list of items to do every week once the in-home care ended. Susie did very well.

Dinner was from Schwann’s, potato skins with cheese and bacon. We also finished the breadsticks from The Olive Garden that reheated in the microwave. We had hot chocolate as dessert.

Back to work after reading a bit.

I am reading the rules to Frostgrave 2nd Edition. I like the changes they made to the first version. I have ordered some new spell cards for the revised game. I ordered the official mat to play on and some terrain items from the UK. I also have ordered some other terrain items from a California 3D printing house–more ruins. This should look really good once we get it quickly painted and decorate it with a bit of snow.

Returning to the rules, this game still uses dice and has characteristics like Wisdom which you would find in Dungeons and Dragons, and like Role Play Games (RPG). Frostgrave 2nd Edition is a figure-based game, not an RPG, and the characters are represented by figures on a board and all the action is on the board. Instead of playing a character with lots of focus on one character’s abilities, the game focus is you running up to eight figures, a Warband. You hire cheap thugs and expensive knights to your team. Then you, a wizard, lead your team in the pillaging the ruins of the city of Frostgrave. In each scenario, your team is trying to recover the treasures while trying to survive the savage undead, demons, and other horrors that lurk or have recently defrosted. Another player has a competing Warband, and they, too, are trying to grab the treasure. While it is not good to fight another team, accidents do happen.  More to come.

Work was 9-11 at night again. So this is running a bit late.

18,709 people were vaccinated yesterday in Oregon. These numbers could increase as it takes 72 hours to get all the data posted. Over half a million people in Oregon are now vaccinated–4.2 million people are believed to reside in Oregon at this time.

2,428 people in the USA died today of Covid-19. The death rate is still showing a steep reduction. Oregon is still the 46th state for death rates from Covid-19.

I decided that a familiar prayer was a good choice today: The Lord Bless You and Keep You.

Starting backward, I just ended my session working India’s morning at 9PM. I had about three hours between my shifts. We are trying to get ready to convert complex data, and there is a lot to do. We are trying to run two shifts.

I also managed to figure out what was wrong with my groovy code while listening to the second shift–multitasking. I started making errors on purpose to see if the connection would react and found I was missing the obvious. I was calling the wrong API according to the online manual for the software I found. Fixed.

I made dinner before this, pork chops, green beans with almonds cooked in butter, and pasta boiled, drained, and then cooked in butter with Herbs de Provence in the pork chop pan. The chops are Schwann’s bone pork chops, and the green beans are microwaved and also from Schwann’s. It came out well.

I destroyed the almonds and had to dump the blacked version when I had the heat too high. I made a second set with more care! Nobody knew.

Work in the afternoon was more status meetings and a few discussions. All this punctuated with crises of the moment. I was also working on coding some groovy. I also demoed how to use some of my code and got a developer to save me some data to use.

Lunch was reheated chicken alfredo from The Olive Garden. I split it with Susie. I finished the salad that we had left too.

Before lunch was hours and hours of more Zoom meetings.

I did make it out for a short walk wearing now an N-95 mask as the CDC is now recommended two masks or N-95.

The morning started at 6:30ish, with me getting going and making coffee and rushing to be ready for the first meeting at 7:30.

14,414 people were vaccinated here in Oregon, USA, yesterday, and the previous day has also been increased to better numbers.

2,761 people died today in the USA from the virus, including six people in Oregon.

After searching for a while, I picked this one and realized I had not done it: Royal Choral Society: ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ from Handel’s Messiah.

Today the sun visited and finished most of the snow. It was in the 50s. It is Ash Wednesday. I have a package of items from our church, including ashes. Lent begins.

But, today, I heard the most amazing thing, despite windmills being around for centuries, the Governor of Texas claimed that windmills froze and broke their power system. We have had windmills longer than we have had Texas in this country. I happen to know they work in the winter in Michigan. He seemed to forget that I also know that natural gas pipelines must be buried and insulated; otherwise, they do freeze-up. One of the pipelines in the Washington DC area is poorly made, and Anacostia sometimes has issues. It seems that few of the pipelines in Texas are buried and insulated. It was not the windmills–gees!

I try not to make political statements, but we are talking windmills! I know that Texas wants you to burn oil for heat and power, but attacking windmills is just wrong.

Returning to my story, I started at 7ish and was ready for the first status meeting at 7:30. I had two hours of status meetings. I also had a few crises of the moment and helped with a few items.

I slipped out at 9ish.

I then took my note from the post office and managed to get to the post office at 9:15; surprised to see no line, I went in to discover that the post office hours had changed and I was 15 minutes early. I then formed a line outside of the not open post office (limit of two people) to allow anyone to use the Post Machine inside. Someone tried to use it by asking if they could, very polite Portlandia style, and I said, of course. Sadly the Post Machine was non-responsive. They joined the line.

I rang the bell after entering at 9:30 and soon was served two packages: One from Holand and one from Russia. I drove them home with my loot. I quickly opened my packages at home.

The board game Instanbul has a card that contains the items you have to trade and sell. A slight bump and the game could be ruined. GameFit in a city in Siberia, Novosibirsk, makes an overlay to fix this. This time it took three weeks to get here, eight weeks being the previous wait for an item for the game Terraforming Mars, and I was happy to assemble it. It is a bit wrong-sized but can make it work. I suspect that the Big Box version of Istanbul, the version I have, may have printed the wheelbarrow cards slightly larger. It will be OK. I only ordered four and should have ordered five. So it was mostly OK. I will order again and get that last overlay. The shipping costs are high from Russia; you don’t want to order just one item.

The other package is from the Embassy of the Free Mind in Amsterdam. I discovered a few months ago that they sell interesting esoterica books, posters, and even PDFs. This is a library that was recently funded by Dan Brown of the DaVinci Code. I purchased a set of books; I did not know they are this big, on The Influence of Hermes Trismegistus 15th-18th Century. How can I resist this?

I had lunch delivered. It has been a long time since I have ordered from Gyro House. I got my normal lamb gyro. Susie had lentil soup–it was not as good as before. My food was perfect.

I returned for two more hours of status meetings and some alignment meetings (these are meetings about items that would require a meeting unless we can agree).

Susie had Physical Therapy today. Michelle and a new gal Polly came today. Polly ran Susie through her exercises and then had Susie practice picking items off the floor. Susie was much better today.

That was the end of my of working when we finished PT. I checked, and nothing was outstanding at the shoe company. Mariah met us at the Golden Valley Brewery and our bartender, Stephen, who we have known for years at places all over Beaverton, is now our bartender at GVB! I had a “The Italian Job” burger, and Susie and Mariah had the meatloaf special. We had drinks and shared a dessert, careful to do it safely.

I had a few moments at home to rest before logging back on to work for IST (India Standard Time) morning.

10,653 people yesterday were vaccinated in Oregon. The number is increasing again. Let us hope it continues to improve as not all the information is available until 72 hours. Our county, Washington, finally reached a 10% vaccination rate.

2,537 people died from the virus today in the USA. It appears that the rate of death is finally decreasing in the USA and decreasing at a much steeper rate than before, suggesting the level of care is better now.

I turned to Here I Am, Lord when I opened the Hymnal. A good song for Ash Wednesday 2021.

 

 

 

 

I see the first year of this daily blog approaching. I never expected to write for a year, and I was hoping, a failed hope, that we would have vaccines and would be free of this at the start of 2021. I never believed that people would take the normal precautions for infection to be a political statement and that I would be looking at Year 2 of my blog and still not seeing the end of lockdown.

And 2021 has now had the largest power failures in Oregon history. Yes, the world has gone for another first. The USA faces the complete collapse of power grids in Texas and other western states while an arctic blast hits deep into the county’s south. My friend Violet Blue in San Francisco, we only meet online, said she finds it strange that California is not the center of yet-another-natural-disaster with total power grid fails. Another unexpected but totally predictable event. It has been cold before.

It does feel like Monty Python, Douglas Adams, or SNL is writing our script!

I might have to write another Howard story about the continuation of unexpected but completely predictable events.

I guess the only good news is that any murder hornets-filled trees broke-up from the ice storm, exposing the wasps to the elements. I suspect they are gone or greatly reduced.

The snow is mostly gone today, the water levels are coming down, and the mail and packages even were delivered. The trash and recycling are still not picked-up. I suspect we will see them on Friday, our normal day. Waste Management charges for each extra bag on the curb. I suspect the bad weather will be a windfall for them–irony and pun all in the same statement.

The morning started on Tuesdays as normal, 7AM Zoom calls with India and the USA. That is followed by four hours of status meetings, all on Zoom. I did write some Groovy code trying to make some progress on one of my tasks. I also had to look up how some data is sourced and what it means for another team. I helped write the old software, so I often find the answers they need or headed them towards them.

Much of today, including a few crises of the moment, was routine, and I was still tired. Focus came and went, but at least I did get some of my focus back a few times.

I went outside for a walk but saw my neighbor and a chance for us, socially distanced, to just chat, so I skipped the walk to just chew-the-fat with Chris. It was polite, and we do get along. I am still polite even when he told me that the QAnaon shaman guy from 6Jan2021 was actually an employee of Nancy Pelosi–not. He is good to his family and did my air conditioning for a good price. I am sure he thinks I am a crazy liberal.

Lunch for me was a can of New England Clam Chowder. I still remember having it in Massachusettes when I lived there as a little kid, and it is still a thrill to have some. Seafood, to me, is a pile of steamer clams. And taking the shells home to paint and play with. I remember still having a few even left when I was in college in a box.

Susie had Eggo Waffles with peanut butter.

Work went on with some more meetings, mostly status all on Zoom. We also had an alignment meeting that went well.

I stopped about 3ish as I was getting tired again. I did check emails while I read. I took a short 30-minute nap, unplanned.

Returning to the kitchen, I made tacos for dinner—boxed taco shells and spice packet, old school. I put the cheese in the shells before I heat them in the oven. I ate a lot of tacos–I love these. Susie had a few and split a bottle of Mexican beer with me.

This evening, I read the German Report on the Battle of Jutland that the British found in a partially scuttled German battleship and published the translation in 1918. I had never read this before; I have only seen quotes from it. It is in the back of a book of communication and reports published after World War One by the British Navy. It includes even the flags used in the battle. I order a print-on-demand copy of the book from India bound in leather. It is a scanned copy in the public domain, so it is not perfect, but it is good enough to read.

To me, it is amazing to read these reports. We are still learning about this 100-year-old battle.

I am back to working on India time tonight.

5,281 people were vaccinated yesterday in Oregon. Again, the rates are way down, and the state website says there is not enough vaccine now.

1,787 people died in the USA today from the Covid-19.

I have not sung this before, but I learned from cartoons: Nobody Knows the Trouble I Seen–Methodist Hymnal 520.

Last night the pine tree next door dropped a large branch on my neighbor’s front yard. About three inches thick and more than ten feet long, the branch brushed the house and roof as it fell next door. The neighbors, alarmed, moved to another side of the house to sleep. No more of the tree came down today-tonight. There is no damage—just some small branches on their roof.

All over the Greater Portland Area, trees are down, and transformers are exploding to add to the excitement. I have heard of multiple stories of children in shock as the Internet becomes not available. Why transformers are exploding from ice and branches are unknown to me. It must be a branch must hit them and short them.

We have power and no trees breaking so far.

The morning began with me very tired at 6:30ish. I had status meetings at 7 and managed to be ready and showered in time. There I started to learn of the loss of power and connections to the Internet for many Nike colleagues. Portland and areas in or near the West Hills are suffering transformer explosions and falling tree parts.

Returning to my morning, I got just started, and then Susie had to get going as her appointment with Zeriada for nails, hair, toes, and so on was 9 this morning. I had to leave the meetings running while I rallied Susie. She was responsive and was up and dressed by 8:30ish for coffee, water, and yogurt, and cereal mixed (her fav). Her driver was on time. The snow is still on the walkway for our house. Susie sat down in her walker and was pushed out to the taxi on her walker. It was not safe for her to walk in the snow. I helped get her loaded.

I then took a break. I rested instead of taking a walk today. It is too icy and damp for a walk today.

I finished the German-style goulash for lunch with 1/2 a can of peaches. While eating, I then read online the adventure I was playing on Roll20 today. I need to read everything ahead and get it set in my mind how to handle some items. We are coming to the end of The Mad Mage’s Dungeon, having skipped down to the lower levels. The last four levels of the complex are better assembled and written than any other part of the adventure. They should be fun to play.

Two more status meetings and my day is done today for the shoe company. I blocked my calendar and set a note that I was out this afternoon. I was tired, and it was hard to be focused today anyway. Susie returned, again being pushed on the walker this time. Susie had a McDonald’s Happy Meal today with Chicken McNuggets.

I drove to Zeriada’s too. I had a haircut that had been canceled twice, and I was taking on the Einstein look. I got to drive on the sloppy roads, but the roads were fine, just wet. Not as fun as yesterday.

The haircut takes no time. I headed back toward Beverton and stopped at The Olive Garden. I tried to use their app, it says to call. I walk in and ask if they can take a to-go order as their app is not working. I am reminded that because of Covid-19, I need to call my order in. I step back outside and call them from the car. I speak to exactly the same person again, but she tried to forward me and lost my call this time. I call back and hear hold music for five minutes before taking my call, the exact same person, and then she successfully delivering me to the to-go person–ten feet away from her. I put in orders for three dinners and dessert, just one for Susie. I was told it would be 15 minutes, it was 45 minutes, and they brought out the food and put it in my car, touchless.

I love their salad and breadsticks. I forgot the dish Tour of Italy was not one of their best dishes, but I have found that food is made better in this new world. I enjoyed it even if the lasagna was just OK. Susie enjoyed the chicken and alfredo on linguine pasta. Corwin got spaghetti and meatballs.

Just after finishing dinner was Roll20 and The Mad Mage’s Dungeon. All the players were ready, and we dived into the game. I had some hot tea to help with the exhaustion I was feeling. The players last time had fought a terrible battle to capture the top deck of an Astral flying ship. They regrouped, healed up, and then open the hatch to take the rest of the ship. They found many of the crew had been killed by having their brains sucked out of the cracked open skull. Quite nightmarish! The ship’s shape, squid-shaped,  and the horrific deaths of the crew suggested mind flayers–one of the worst and horrific monsters in Dungeons and Dragon. I had managed to make the players nervous, if not a bit scared.

They searched the ship and befriended a miniature giant space hamster. Yes, it is a real thing in 5E Dungeons and Dragons. The hamster was friendly, and when they headed to the bridge, it stood-up and saluted. The mind flayer, thanking the hamster for bringing it dinner, then tried to blast the minds of all the characters. It went first, everyone else rolled low, and I thought it would go poorly for the adventurers, but every one of adventures successfully resisted the mind-blast and made quick work of the captain. The hamster, who changed sides, was spared, but it was agreed by the players that it was headed to a pet shop and not as an ally. It was loot, not a friend.

The adventurers descended to the next level, shocked at how deep they are, and discovered a symbol of death trap waiting for them. They managed to remove it with dispel magic. They then explored found a tower that they are now resting before they take it on. The players are advancing their characters to the 12th level now.

After that, I started to write this blog.

Only 3,650 people were vaccinated yesterday in Oregon. Apparently, we are out of vaccine; that is what the state website suggests.

954 people are reported to have died from Covid-19 today in the USA.

This is the best version I could find of Rise, Shine, You People–Methodist Hymnal #187. I don’t know this song and just turned to it today.