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The day was a mix of work with some breaks for sleeping and taking Susie out.

We were back at it again at 6ish and working on the data conversions. The servers ran all night and finished about the time we started. We then started up more work, but at a slower pace, so we would not run the servers so hard that they nearly stop.

At the same time, we had more fixes done to make everything go faster and better. More vendor patches (OSS notes to you SAP folks) and new programs with some better load balancing. All a rush.

We had more Zoom meetings about race. Nike has decided that we all need to do more. We are now having difficult conversations, and it included this video: Difficult Conversations with a Black Man. It is much like pulling off a bandage, and like a bandage, it has to be done, and the sooner, the better.

Tomorrow is the 19June2020 and Nike and many will remember this as the day to celebrate as it is the End Of Slavery. We have to continue the data loads all weekend, but I will try to honor it.

I watched when I had a break between crises of the moment the Martin Luther King speech I have been to the Mountaintop. I had not listened to this one before and I really liked it. Words to live by and I like, as a writer, the flow and how he makes his points.

I then took Susie to the Reedville Cafe to lunch late. I have found it a bit safer to be a bit later for lunch as the kids and folks who think a mask is a political statement are already done and gone. The staff was friendly, masked, and very supportive and safe.

Susie had a cheeseburger with bacon with coleslaw. I had a Pacific Northwest favorite of fish and chips but halibut.

I went back to work after taking a break. I ordered pizza and pasta and salad from Dominos delivered.

We finally finished at about 11:30PM. We start again at 9AM.

The stock market went up and down, not much to say about that.

Today the reports are that more than seven-hundred forty Americans died from the virus, including four people of Oregon. Here is a hymn I don’t know: Now the Silence (Methodist Hymn 619).

I am tired as I have had no sleep except for a few naps. We are running the data conversions, and I babysat them over the night. I have managed a few naps of a few hours.

I was up again at 5:30 after a short sleep to check everything. We have been running all day and all night, and we have three more days or so to go.

So my day is a blur and is still a blur.

I did watch a bit of the stock market, and I saw it going up and down. That looked like profit-taking and options impacts to me.

I am sorry, but I am so tired that I can only do a few more minutes.

Just over eight-hundred people are reported to have lost their lives to the virus in the USA today.

So I went with a prayer instead of a song today. John Paul 2 prayer from the Methodist Hymnal 556

I am working on an issue with my data conversions at the shoe company. I am waiting for the technical server and platform people in India and local to give me some options. The software is too slow. We have been chasing this all evening and likely will be all night.

I am doing this blog in between meetings tonight.

The day started at 6:25AM when I woke without my alarm, forgot to put it on, and then had to rush as I had a 7AM call with India and Nike’s folks on designing some data conversions. That was followed by more Zoom calls. We then move to Microsoft teams for calls and sharing of screens and documents. This has been running all day and into the evening with a few breaks.

I got lunch at Wendy’s. I love their chili. Susie had breakfast for lunch.

I made beef tacos and shells from a box for dinner. I made this while being in the meetings call. I almost burned the beef when I had the burner set to high, and the meeting required me for a few minutes.

I received from Seeed two 8G Raspberry Pi 4‘s direct from China in the middle of this emergency. These are the new super fast Linux with good Wifi speed version now with enough memory. Yesterday, I got a new keyboard and trackpad for the Raspberry Pi 4.

This hardware is about the same power as one of my original supercomputers to run Nike’s SAP software.

The stock market in the USA lit a fuse and took off like a rocket. The retail sales numbers were not as terrible as imagined. The Fed chairman and the Dallas Fed warned that it will be a painful recovery. The market shrugged that off.

The reports show that more than eight-hundred forty people lost their lives to the virus in the USA today, including two people from Oregon. The infection rate continues to climb in Oregon and appears to have explosive growth in Texas. I found this church video that reminds me of many church services I have been in God of Ages. It is from a church in Texas, think of them.

Today we would play online Dungeon and Dragons, but one of our players is in the hospital, not for the virus. So we are thinking of him and his family.

Work started at 6:30ish as I had trouble sleeping the night before. The Zoom meetings were spaced out about every other hour. Crisis of day happened in those open times. So it was a rushed day.

Susie had a busy day. She had Zerida for nails and a few items left at 9:45AM. Susie got back and then off to the dentist at 4PM. A busy schedule for Susie.

I had chicken soup from a can, Cambell’s chunky, for lunch. Susie picked up a Happy Meal on the way back from Zerida’s.

I made of dinner rigatoni and cheese and meatballs (sliced up, after being baked from a frozen state) with sauce from a jar. All this cooked together. It is all gone–must be good.

I was so tired. I fell asleep watching the news in a chair. Our software was approved, so I signed on to work about 7PM and moved in my part of the fixes into quality for testing. I then went to lay down and read. I woke-up at 9:00PM.

On the gaming front, Litko sent me some replacement parts I purchased for the new edition of the board game Dune and some add-on parts for the Cthulhu version of the Pandemic board game. Litko makes cut plastic replacement parts that are bright colored and laser etched. If you play board games, they have some colorful replacement counters for you.

The stock market fell and then went back-up. Volatility was the watchword on Bloomberg today. The Fed announced that it would buy corporate bonds, and this seemed to calm the markets. I also heard a few stories that bankruptcies are starting, and while bonds appear to be covered to some degree, equity inventors are not protected in bankruptcy.

I made no progress on the Titanic model as I was too tired to do anything on that scale: Tiny!

According to the reports, more than four-hundred people died from the virus in the USA include six who passed away in Oregon. The infection rate is increasing in Oregon, with more than two-hundred forty new infections reported today. Today’s hymn is one I believe I have sung before: For the Beauty of the Earth.

Today was not very interesting, and so I will not try to make it more than it was.

I slept into 9ish. I did the dishes and the laundry in the morning. I got lunch from Burger King (I wanted a hamburger but did not want to pay twenty bucks for one) and a Chicken McNugget (six-piece) for Susie.

I did not attend any virtual church.

I managed to paint the Titanic model and to shape a few parts that I started last night. I have filled in a few bits that need more work. As usual, the prep works continues to go on and on. The new red paint really looks better than the brown-red. I will keep working and someday I will get this one done.

(I put the model over some of the books that are published just for model builders. Notice the light pass through the portholes that will be lighted.)

I attended our church’s Charge Conference as Pastor Jefferson has been promoted to an appointed position at our church, and a Charge Conference, A Methodist thing, must be called to change is pay to match his new job. I was able to answer some technical questions on social security taxes, as a former Treasurer, while the current Treasurer looked up the budget numbers to answer another question. I was happy to be more than a witness to the meeting. The pay package passed.

By the way, I am not a member so I could not vote–I resigned my membership to protest the vote against gay rights by the church. The virus has halted the splitting of the United Methodist Church over this issue. I do try to help with specific items like cooking lunch or breakfast, replacing the gay pride flag when it is stolen, and other non-financial and non-membership things.

I then took Susie for a long drive. We had corn chips with us as a snack. We drove the length of Cornelius Pass to the Columbia River and then headed to Portland and completed the circle in Beaverton. Mariah called, and we picked her up and headed out to the Rock Creek Tavern. This is a funky, very Oregon brewpub in the middle of nowhere off, ironically, Cornelius Pass, a bigger circle.

There we sat outside as it seems safer. The staff had masks, and most customers had masks on when entering, but it is a brewpub, so most folks were seated drinking and unmasked. McMenamins, the local company that owns so many places to me, is always an experience in bad or great service–sometimes at the same time. Our waiter was helpful, attentive, and got us our drinks with dispatch. Our food too ninety minutes to arrive. The waiter knowing we must have been to a McMenamins before did not bother to explain, and we were not surprised. When the burgers and tater tots arrived, we were happy they were correct, and good or even great quality, and I paid the bill, not change for being slow, and left satisfied that our experience was not worse. I really like the beer and the atmosphere of Rock Creek, and the “food marathon” is always fun to run.

I took a nap and read some more Maisie Dobbs. I am reading book seven in the series.

I talked to a few friends on the phone. We miss each other, and we wish the infection rate was not rising again! And finally got to write this little summary.

Today the reports show the infection rate in the USA is steady on the seven-day average (it is increasing in Oregon), and more than three hundred thirty people died from the virus today. I remember crying back in March when the death rate reached this level and am saddened to be relieved to see it again to fall to less than a thousand death a day in the USA. I picked Hymn 65 from the Methodist Hymnal ¡Santo! ¡Santo! ¡Santo! (English is on the opposite page, Hymn 64).