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The workday ended early for me. I have been extra tired these last weeks–The physical stress of the smoke and the emotional stress of the previous month has worn me down a bit. My boss asked me if I was staying today. Such an odd and direct question. Will I be working for Nike next year? Yes, I answered as I want to see my 25th anniversary at Nike and the new computer system going online the following year. So yes, at least two more years.

Worked started at 6ish again, and my first Zoom meeting was at 7, and then the meetings would stop about 10ish. So I did the email and the crisis of the moment and tried to help.

Susie was up at 9! So she was dressed and going.

I took Susie to drive-through Burger King, and then we drove over to a park off of Cornelius Pass and ate our lunch in Air Volvo, watching people in the park. I watched my Nike email on my phone–nobody needed me during lunch.

Susie was thrilled to get a Whopper Jr with cheese (I removed the offending onions and pickles we forgot to exclude) and to sit in the car and have a safe picnic at the park. It was a slightly cold and overcast fall day. We had sprinkles all day. Perfect fall Oregon weather, and Susie, like most of us, has been inside most of the 190+ days.

We returned home and I had some more meetings and emails and texts to work with.

Later, tonight Mariah came over, and we watched NFL–Thursday Night Football! I cooked dinner for everyone, and we opened a 2010 bottle from Purple Cow Vinyard–it was smooth and almost sweat like old like port wine but still light. I had some cheese we ordered from Olympia Provisions, and so I cut that up and served it while I got dinner going. It was, we ate it all, locally made and excellent cheese.

I baked chicken thighs, boneless, and skinless–enough for all of us. I heated white sauce from a jar–not great, but the Herb Provence I sprinkled on the chicken complimented the sauce. I cooked some pasta and microwaved some frozen green beans. I threw it all together, and it was well-received and straightforward.

I nodded off during the game at one point. I am still tiring too quickly. I will try to get some rest this weekend.

We are a witness to the nine-hundred forty plus people who died today here in the USA according to the reports on the Internet. We will go on for them and remember them and grieve.

I picked this song as even tired I was thinking of this as we saw the rain returning and eating in the car: This is the Day that the Lord has Made.

 

Susie and I came to Beaverton, the Greater Portland Area, twenty-four years ago now. I don’t have any records with the exact dates anymore, but I remember moving here in mid-September. My work anniversary day recorded by Nike is on the thirtieth of September. I like it here and plan to finish-out here in Aloha, Oregon.

And it has been raining four three days now. The Oregon mist is not back yet, but we are getting lots of wet. Usually, we get a few days of rain in September, and the real rain comes with the Coho winds in October.  This is a cold desert wind that is significantly colder than the air. The cold air comes from the Columbia Gorge and blasts over the hills into our valley. Tender plants are frozen by the wind. Gardners here know that you plant tender plants out of the wind near the house.

Working backward, I was just reading the delightful book, Yes, Chef. Before that, I finished a meeting on data conversions with China and India at 7:30PM that went to 8:15ish. The world is flat for multinational companies, and I am often up late or early to chat with the other side of the Earth.

I also read that Proud Boys are coming to harass us again in social media. There is a call on social media for the locals to confront the racist bigots in rainy Portland. Additionally, this call suggests it is perfect Portland weather for the locals to be outside protesting Proud Boys. Here rain is a call to action!

Our rather belated air purifier showed up today. It is mostly a filter with a cheap fan. I suspect I could buy a furnace filter and attach a fan to get the same thing–it looks like a covered kitchen appliance. It does have a timer control so you can have it running when you are not trying to sleep–it is a tiny bit loud. Maybe it can remove some of the pollen and any remaining smoke particles.

Corwin made Jambalaya for dinner. This is from a box with the spices already in it. We usually add more rice to back down the spices for Susie and add sausage, and in this case, pork boneless meat is already cooked. Corwin added local tomatoes and fresh hatch chilis. It was great, and Susie was OK with it. Once in a while, we make Susie a grilled cheese or scrambled eggs with cheese if dinner is too spice. We want to get some food into her, and thusly we sometimes make dinner twice.

Nike stock went to over $130 (and then backed off to $128) today. The earnings were great.

Worked went on with more meetings and various emails on process items in the afternoon. I found that my afternoon was free and so I took a break and read for a while. I had to check in a couple of times.

Lunch was a Lamb Gyro from Gyro House delivered with extra spicy garlic sauce. I had meetings that ran through lunch. I took the 15 minutes free to enjoy my food and got another 15 minutes to finish. I try to grab lunch, but today it was just a break between meetings. I told the Nike Zoom folks that now that we are all Zooming, the extra spicy garlic is no longer a social no-no for lunch.

I slept too late and got going at 7ish and started reading emails from over the night and morning. I prepared for my meetings and began with an hour meeting on Nike’s new platforms for development. I do not use these platforms, but it is good to know what else is in use at Nike.

Today we witness the passing of over eleven hundred people in the USA from Covid-19. We pray that the caregivers and the people who lost friends and family today will find peace.

Joyce Hill, Susie’s aunt, suggest a hymn: Great Is Thy Faithfulness. Methodist Hymnal #140.

 

 

It is hard to imagine that we have been locked down for so long.

I am sad this evening.

The Covid-19 disaster continues to go on. I see that the politic of denying the tragedy and the rejecting of the other disaster of climate change. For me, I cannot grasp the illogic of racism that is so strong in my country. I also can no longer be tricked by the illusion of equality that I believed most of my life–we, I, need to do better. All of this crashes down on me once in a while. Today is one of those days.

I think it helps me to recall why I am writing.

I hope the reader knows I try to be entertaining while writing and sharing my adventures of trying to make it through the crazy that is another day in the lockdown. I like to joke that this is the “unoccupied Greater Portland” when looking at the politics that is my reality in Oregon. I try to find the focus or the fog each day and record it and share this nugget of life. But, it is hard today; the focus is sharp today, and it hurts a bit.

I hope each day to tell the story of the lockdown as experienced in my tiny corner of Greater Portland that somehow has become an attractor of disaster. Chaos Theory has gone weird! What could be next?

There is meaning, I believe, to write each day what happened, including what was for lunch and dinner, and how many died. I mean to witness their deaths by stating the count. Each night I try to find some music that might bring solace to another day of loss.

Today I write with tears. I will not apologize or ask for solace because of the tears. They help.

This morning started with a strange dream. I had left Nike and returned to my previous job working on old boat-anchor terminals (if you have worked on old IBM 5250 terminals or had to carry one–you understand their size and weight) on the old IBM computer systems. Everyone was happy to see me. It seems, remember, dream logic is not that logical, because the cure for the Covid-19 virus, global warming, Trump, and all the other problems of the world was to change everything back to the 1980s. Yes, we all returned to the “safer” times of the cold-war and old computer systems, and I was again in Washington DC as a System/36 RPGII programmer. No Internet. No social media. In the dream, as one of the few people who could code on old IBM equipment, I was welcomed back to my old job on K Street with enthusiasm. I sat down at an off-white IBM terminal that went buzz a lot crowded on a table with a poor chair–the IBM terminals did not fit in the cubicles. I started to create a data definition (don’t ask; it is old stuff you will never need to know) when a noise outside blessedly released me from 1988–Reagan is president in my dream.

I was awakened from reinventing 1988 by my neighbors poorly backing up a vehicle at 5:45ish. I put on my robe and went outside to see people in the dark, incorrectly backing up a trailer and finally leaving after 15 minutes of this. They missed Air Volvo, my car is parked in the driveway, by two feet. My neighbors say, “Sorry,” when he sees me and leaves. I was not awake enough to roll-my eyes.

So my first meeting is at 7AM, and I was out yesterday. I have a backlog of email and my day is meeting and Zoom rich. I clear what I can that is not useful, make promises to get to some of the items, and prepare to face the day of Zooming.

I slipped in some work during the status meetings. I have seen a few slots that have opened on my schedule, but I plan to take a break and walk and read, so I work the status meetings.

I manage to pay attention and work and clear the backlog by late morning, at least the things I know about. I got some more meetings planned at the end of the day from directors.

I slipped out for a walk between meetings. I am stiff–my legs just seem to not work right, and my waistline is getting the virus extension; more exercise is an apparent cure.

Lunch was a tuna fish sub from Subway with two bags of chips, an extra bag for Susie–she loves a salty snack. It was ten bucks for the sub, three bucks for chips, and seven bucks to deliver. It seemed extravagant for tuna fish, but I love tuna fish, and Susie is allergic to fish, so I can only get it once in a while.

I had a few more hours of meetings and then a break before I hit the last two director scheduled meetings.

I have found a new delightful book, Yes, Chef, that I highly recommend. Since Anthony Bourdain passed, I have avoided chef books, but this one is just fun so far.

I talked to the insurance company, Allstate, today. Apparently, if my house is not to local building code when they go to rebuild it from some disaster, I have to pay for the upgrade to code. Today I agreed to pay the extra $33 dollars a year to get this covered by my insurance. I have no comment on this–I thought it was a given. Now I am covered. Yea are warned!

Susie got going late, and Corwin and Susie had to get her coffee, water, and breakfast. I was on an hour of Zoom calls looking at designs and giving my input, so I could not help Susie this afternoon.

As often happen, I was given almost no time to decide if I would agree to a technical solution. Luckily I was involved in these technologies as they were brought to Nike a few years ago. I can usually agree and get it over. And I do.

Finishing work, I make dinner by using my own taco seasoning. I looked up what the Internet suggested and managed to make a decent taco. Shells are from a box.

I finally had time to catch up on one of my new favs. I watched the next episode of Lovecraft County and was surprised by the content. It was a sexy horror story set in the middle of the Korean War. None of this is from the book, but again the story worked for me. Furthermore, if you are ready for Hollywood styled Lovecraft horror set in the 1950s from a black family perspective, this is excellent.

I am still sad and tired of the battle, but it is another day, and victory is just to get to the next day.

Today we declare that we are the witness to more than nine-hundred sixty people whose suffering of the virus ended today. We wish them, their caregivers, and their people peace.

I found this and thought America was a good ending for today. 

It is day 190, and I did not feel ready to return to work on Monday. I thought I had not finished enough this weekend so much I wanted another day. I was also not sure I could face so many hours of Zoom status meetings. So I put in the paid-time-off (PTO) request in and slept in today–to 8ish.

Susie had some problems this morning and then had to rush off to hair and nail appointment. It was good that I was on PTO, as this would not have meshed well with the meetings. I find being a caregiver in a Covid-19 work from the home world is not that easy.

Returning to one of the things I wanted to do today, I spent most of the day working on my 3D printer build. I am still trying to learn how to use all of this 2020 beam and Torx screws to build my printer. I managed to make the heated plate where the 3D item is produced. I got all of the stepper motors mounted (the motor takes steps and can thus control the tiny steps needed to print in 3D). I managed to find all the parts and attached them so far. I had a panic when a picture did not quite match, but I looked the piece up on the internet and then was able to find it–just a bad photo in the instructions.

Everything was good until I hit the most crucial part, the extruder. The pieces do not fit together. I cannot mount it on to the bars that control its movement. The screws holes are not quite right. I tried for an hour. I know they are 0.2 millimeters too close in the mount to hold the extruder. Ugh! I bought this in 2017, and the company is totally lockdown–no help is coming.

I will wait and see if I think of anything else to do; otherwise, I will drill the hole slightly larger.

I had reheated spaghetti and meatballs for lunch and made Chicken Kiev (frozen from Schwans) with rice and freshly steamed carrots.

Tonight is Monday, and so I have online Dungeons and Dragons using Roll20. Corwin is back with us, so I have all five players. I had to spend more than an hour preparing for the game. I reviewed what we did last week and what is possible to happen tonight. I also suggest that Corwin’s character was warned by the Mad Mage to move to more challenging sections of the Maze. “Follow the Rust Monster,” he is told.

We start the online game without issues, and soon we have everyone going in video chat and in the game.

The characters meet in the adventure just as they attack a zombie beholder. Corwin rejoins them (he missed the last game, so we decided that the Mad Mage just wanted to talk to him). The players over-power the encounter (they are too high-level for the encounters), and after a search, they find a gate marked with a rust monster and head down.

The gate pops them magically to the sixth level, and they are soon exploring a lost dwarven fortress now incorporated in the Mad Mage’s Maze. The dangers are greater, and they fight magical robots designed to look like angry dwarves. The battle was not hard for them to win, but they took some hits this time. Now they understand that they have some of the defenses still working. We end there as they rest in a lost temple of healing and goodness, preparing for much more challenging adventures. We are set to play next Monday!

I read for a bit and try to fix the printer one more time. Parts will not go together. I will look at that later–I will let it sit for a day or so.

I have decided to paint more gaming figures. Richard, one of the leaders of some groups I play in Portland, sent me a text that the figures for Heros of Land, Air, and Sea boardgame (HOLAS) need to be painted to make the game work.  I have a copy of the game; I got it for 60% off–massive dudes-on-the-board game and started painting some of it. I will paint it more soon and exchange my painted figures for unpainted (It may surprise folks to learn that I often paint sets of figures two or three times now). I like to paint, and it is nice to use painted dudes-on-board when gaming.

I hope to use the new 3D printer to make some more items for gaming. My resin printer cannot make larger items.

More than three-hundred eighty people lost their battle with the virus today in the USA.

I was looking for a harvest song as we enter the fall: We Plough The Fields and Scatter.

 

 

It is hard to imagine we are on day 189 of the lockdown!

I started late this morning after a night of poor sleep. I could not sleep through the morning, so I got up late after just laying there for a few hours. I made coffee and watched the “Most Deadliest Catch” and then “Alaska Bering Sea Gold” reality TV. My legs hurt, and I was stiff, so I just wanted to take it very easy–coffee and TV. I also found my emotions too close to the surface, and so I was bad company. I am not sure that I didn’t cry when the story of the fishing mentioned for the first time Covid-19. The filming of Most Deadliest Catch is always the previous year; the show just hit 2020 and Covid-19. It is hard to see their reactions, which mirrored ours back in early 2020. It is hard to watch the captains of the crab boats discussing what the

The coffee and some TV worked, and my emotions, tired feeling, and stiffness went back to normal. Mariah asked me about lunch, and we headed to the Golden Valley Brewery. We sat outside and had burgers and the cheap $3 beer, a Kölsch. Mariah was off to Portland, and I returned home to work on building a 3D printer.

Back to Torx and metric parts, the build of the printer went on for a few hours. I am slowly learning how to build with 2020 T-slot beams and their connecting elements. The beams are made to allow you to slide nuts into them and then attach premade components. I bought the printer because of these parts; I wanted to try out this kind of build. It was 2017 then when I purchased a Folger 2020 i3 kit, and I got busy with coding Machine Learning, so the printer sent on a shelf. I have a few items I need a larger build for, and so I want this printer as it can build larger items than my resin 3D printer. The resin printer makes perfect 28mm figures (Dungeons and Dragon scale) and other small items great for board games. It is mostly my inexperience that causes a failed print on the resin printer.

My previous 3D printer is in the attic. It never worked and seemed to be permanently out of adjustment. I am hopeful that this do-it-yourself (DIY) printer will be a better fit.

I got the frame built. I then read more Maisie Dobbs and relaxed and woke-up stiff again.

Susie wanted to go out and get dinner somewhere. We headed to the Olive Garden; I thought I could do a huge salad and some small dish. I downloaded the app on my phone and put our name in. It said we were tenth in line and had a 30-minute wait. I rushed Susie and then complained about the Oregon drivers braking for green-lights (why?!) the whole way there. We make it according to the app and are now fifth on the list.

I see the folks there, and they inform me I am now on the real list and that there is a ninety-minute wait. I am frustrated as the application had me rushing there and telling me I could eat before nine! Susie is surprised as we get back in the car.

Pastrini’s, about a mile away, has room. We have a lovely meal there and take tiramisu home (it was delicious). As we are eating outside, we saw GrubHub drivers and pick-up orders running non-stop. We even witness folks popping out of running cars left with flashing hazard lights in the street to get their food. The traffic had to drive around the vehicle.

We came home and decided that I need another day off after the terrible two weeks of bad air and stress.

Today more than two-hundred ninety people in the USA died from the infections according to the reports.

Today I decided that all I wanted was a clear sky and rain and a Shaker hymn to mind: ‘Tis Be a Gift to Be Simple.