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Just a short easy day.

I made stir fry cumin beef for dinner from Cook’s Illustrated magazine. I did not care for it. Corwin said it was good. I did order lunch from Red Robin. Burgers for Susie and I. That I enjoyed.

I read and took it easy. I tried to get my Robot stuff to work–nothing worked. So I put that aside too. It will take more effort than I am willing to give today.

So Susie and I attended church online at 2PM. We all talked about the temptation to be over isolated and the temptation to fight against the isolation. We talked about how it is not about me but about us as a community protecting each other from the virus and finding a way to go on.

Returning to making dinner, I had no rice and had to head to Safeway again. I carefully followed the new rules with the one-way signs and picked up things for the stir fry and for dinner over the next few days. I know most of the checkers, and they wave to me and told me how happy they are to see me and asked me if we are fine. “We’re OK,” I tell them with a smile that reaches my eyes–all they can see with the mask.

So just a slow day of cooking and cleaning and reading.

An aside: I do all of this work on my Apple.

(everything will be good; I have The Ring)

An update: The little sparrow that has a nest on the front door, behind the wreath, is still sitting on the nest. I try not to disturb the bird. I do stand on my toes to see it through the little window on the top of our door, and it then sits-up on its nest and looks back at me. That use to make the bird fly away. Now it just watches me. We are getting used to each other.

On the longer-term finances, my 401K has lost only 7.5% this year-to-date. Thus, I have already recovered most of the loss. Yes, my totals are matching my mid-summer 2019 values. I am reading that panic is starting, and the advice is to hold until May and then sell to cash–according to these authors, that is when the economic damage and bankruptcies will start. In other words, the word is that The Fed and Central Banks and the vast governmental stimulus plans are creating a bubble and it will all collapse. For you that are already putting in your sell orders, these are the same people who previously told you that everything was great in 2008. I am touching nothing, except I increased my contributions to my 401K. I want some more–sorry I am the son of a capitalist.

I have a new book coming. The Abebooks site is still running and I am supporting book stores. I find Powell’s website, our local super book store, to never work right or have what I am looking for even when I know they have it. So I order from small book stores all over the country. I have purchased the first two books in the Elric series, not the expensive collector versions I use to buy cheap in East Lansing’s Curious Bookstore, but a newer printed version that is not that expensive (yes, if you have cheap-back-then DAW Elric first book in some old moving box in the basement, you might want to retrieve it).

I wanted to read them again. The second in the series is coming from California and the first is oddly coming from Eugene Oregon. 

The reports today show the death rate in the USA slipping to one-thousand five-hundred this Sunday. The total number of deaths in the USA broke forty-thousand. I picked a Psalm of Ascent to remember all the people we lost: Shir Ha Ma’alot – Song of Ascents (Ps 126).

So just a short note for today.

I had trouble sleeping, and using computers causes pain. The bright screen causes pain. I have turned down the brightness for this writing.

I went slow this morning and worked on my robot project. I managed to get the infrared control working on a Playground Express coded in Python. I used the Christmas Ornament project. The Playground Express has eight bright neo-pixels that you can control. I used the code that turned the neo-pixels on when you point a remote at it and press a number. Press a different number on the remote and point at the microcontroller for different colors.

I was not happy with the infrared as the range was too short. It is easy to code, and putting a Playground Express on the boat would be easy. Just attach to a mast or a funnel on the model. It could then talk to the main microcontroller by a few wires using standard serial communication. The range made it a poor choice.

I noticed that I have purchased a lot of LoRa boards. This is the networking for DIY projects that need networked devices. It is a lot more than a few commands that I need for my robot boat that I was thinking of. I load up all the enhancements to my development software for Arduino including manually loading various libraries. The hardware can use Python for coding too. I manage to get one of the boards working. My headache stops me from going on.

I tried to watch another “Inspector Morse” episode. I have three that are free on Amazon Prime. This is a crime show from the 1980s that I really like–I like the books that the show is based on too by Colin Dexter. My migraine returned, so I got about halfway.

I made chili for dinner. I ordered lunch from La Providence, delivered about noon. I went with a corned-beef hash with poached eggs and a croissant (it was still warm). It was perfect, as usual. I opened a bottle of Purple Cow Vinyard’s Marechal Foch to help the cooking go easier. This is a drier red wine locally made from our Oregon grapes.

I saw that The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall 25th Anniversary was now free on Youtube. So I watch that–a favorite. Slightly re-staged, but nearly perfectly done. It was a free stay-home concert.

Masquerade – Phantom of the Opera 25th at the Royal Albert Hall

I received a new radio and speaker from my sister and mother for my birthday. It is made to look like a pocket version of an old tube radio. It plays with great sound.

Today the reports count more than one-thousand eight-hundred deaths from the virus in the USA. This spoke to me today: Down to the River.

A short uneventful day.

I cannot believe we are on day 33. It seems so long, and yet it is only a month. The days just seem to mush into a stew of terrible news and working from home. The stock market crashes, then The Fed and Central Banks prints so much money I suspect that is why we are short of toilet paper (did I just create another conspiracy theory)! S&P 500 has a terrible crash and one of its best days on record–all in the same 33 days!

Work started at about 6:30 this morning. I rolled over and slept for an extra thirty minutes. It is not so much about extra sleep as having some control over when I start. It is more comfortable when I decide to get up and not blindly following a clock.

Work was filled with video conferences and some reaction to all the panic. We are deciding on “the how” to solve issues now. In one meeting, I was the only person without “director” in their title. I turned off my video and, there was a bit of a surprise. They realized I was going to get all the work, and they were concerned I had dropped off the call. One cannot see the possible career-ending eye-rolling with the video off.

While I was being treated to an unlimited supply of directors, I was also trying to fix a technical issue with an upgrade I am also responsible for. We worked until late on Friday trying various tests to better define the issue. I have to update the trouble-ticket (OSS incident to you SAP folks) with our latest fails.

I made soup for lunch as today was a march of meetings and problems and attempts to fix or at least diagnose issues. Corwin made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner.

I fell asleep right after work. I then wake up and had to head to Safeway to get dishwasher soap. The day seems to have run away and ended without me ready for that.

The Safeway had toilet paper (maybe The Fed did not use up all the paper after all), paper towels, even dried goods like beans and rice, and no fresh garlic bread. Safeway cannot get garlic–their suppliers are out. Apparently, the people of the State of Oregon smell of garlic!

As usual, I take a cleaning wipes at the entrance to Safeway when I take a cart. I then wipe the cart handle and my hands. I try to remember to follow all the directions in the store. We have one-way aisles now, and folks try to stay six feet away while shopping. When I am done shopping, and in check-out, I tell the checkers I wiped my hands before shopping so they feel a bit safer. I thanks them for working. Today the checker, and I chatted almost like everything was normal. The checker had a mask on as I did. 

I watched the first episode of one of the few shows I watch: Most Deadliest Catch. The world looks so strange back in October when the events were filmed. No virus and high prices for crab. The economy was so good that folks were buying lots of crabs and Russia’s Putin had put on curbs on Russian fishing to increase the price. Unreal now.

I am tired and it was a day at work that had me checking my retirement balances! The weekend is welcome. I am trying to work on infrared communication on my robot project, but I am tired and making some mistakes. Saturday will be a better day for that.

The reports have been a bit confused as they have added more deaths that were initially misdiagnosed to the total. But today it was reported that more than two-thousand five-hundred people lost their battle with the virus this Friday in the USA. And every one of those victims of the virus had nurses and doctors and caregiver that felt the loss plus family and friends also to grieve. I will go for words from Revelations set to music to remember our loss: I Will Sing the Wondrous Story. I remember this song as something I could even sing. The lyrics tell a story about us all being together someday, again.

Sorry, I am very late writing today as it is my 56th birthday, and I have been relaxing a bit today.

Starting in the middle, we had a cake that I made the day before. What we call German Chocolate (to the objection of Germans) with pecan and coconut frosting from a box and can. I added Oregon cherries soaked in rum. The cherries are mostly added to the cake with a few saved to put on top. The rum and cherry juice then mixed in the store-bought frosting. Easy, boozy, and slightly nutty and fruited–that is my birthday cake.

Instead of singing “Happy Birthday,” I played on my phone, and we sang along with the Beatles When I am 64. Corwin then played with Louie Armstrong singing: Happy Birthday. I then took on the challenge and found It was a Very Good Year. Corwin noticed I was going for oldies, so he played the Soviet Propaganda: The Battle is Going Again (Happy Birthday Lenin!!). I needed a few songs to counter that one: Happy Birthday Mr. President, and we all sang with this one: If I Were a Richman. We stopped after I played a video we all forgot about that is set of all places on the surface of Mars: Britney Spears – Oops!…I Did It Again (Official Video). Oops, I had another birthday.

I have to admit we all had been drinking for a bit…and have been isolated. Please feel free (with maybe a drink) and play the songs by clicking on them.

I started work at about 6:30 and found that the tasks I needed to do are delayed at least a day, so I took off the afternoon from Nike. I had meetings after meetings on data conversions until I hit noon.

Lunch was from Gyro House. I hoped to get what I ordered today. Last time I got someone else’s order. I watch on Grubhub as my delivery person kept driving past Gyro House and then circle back and miss it again. Twenty minutes later, my lunch appeared. It was still hot and was even my order.

I then went out to get our prescriptions. RiteAid is better stocked now. Susie had some meds she needed.

(here I am cruising to RiteAid)

I then went back to reading The Kaiser’s Battlefleet. I bought this from the USA Naval Institute for my birthday. I was learning much about the construction and logic behind the Imperial German Navy and precisely how the High Seas Fleet come into being. I know that World War 1 is not most folks’ interest, but that fleet has fascinated me. It is also telling that this is, more than a hundred years later, the first book on this topic that includes new research and validates the assumptions I have read before. For example, there has been a legend that the German Cruiser Blücher guns were smaller caliber because British double agents convinced the German Navy that Britain was using smaller weapons. The author has found no basis for that–the gun sizes were selected by a committee, and the smaller sized guns were to save money and weight. So interesting to me to learn the spy story is just a good story (oddly, one of the last acts of Sherlock Holms is being a double-agent to do precisely that, see His Last Bow).

I also started work on the Robot again. I was thinking of using LoRa communication to control it. I have purchased the LoRa Gateways from Sparkfun, and these are new style DIY networking for Long Range device communication. I managed to get “blink” working on the device. I stopped when I saw the complexity of the set-up. I might use something less complex for the first time.

Lastly, one of the best BBC old detective shows was on PBS, “Inspector Morse.” I stopped everything and watched it from 9:00 to 11:00 tonight. That is why I am so late today. I truly enjoy that show.

Today’s reports are that the death rate in the USA is more than two-thousand souls lost this day to the virus. I pick the Titanic hymn for today, Nearer, My God, to Thee.

Work included discussions that were not quite shouting matches–odd on video–but emotions were expressed. My blood pressure was quite high, and it was hard to focus after dealing with high-stress conversations. I am more tired now than I was hoping.

The stock market was down just a bit today. My mix of bonds and equities in my 401K is still rising. If the stock market continues to recover, I may fully recover my losses soon!

Today is the USA Tax Day. This year payments and even filing are allowed to be delayed. I paid all of mine and also filed for the government to return some of my money, which they sent already. Today I was surprised to receive our payment for the virus relief. Yes, I even got some of the money.

I picked-up lunch today from BJ’s Brewhouse as I wanted some of my favorite beer from them: Jerimiah Red Ale. I had their lunch spaghetti and meatballs. I had a beer while making dinner. Chicken teriyaki on the grill (Corwin who lives with us did the grilling). Cornbread muffins and peaches, canned. Susie approved!

I was tired, so I did not get too much more. I did make a cake, German Chocolate with Oregon cherries soaked in rum. Tomorrow is my next 29th birthday.

Today is not only tax day but the anniversary of the loss of RMS Titanic in 1912, the year of my grandmother’s birth. I made a small model of the RMS Titanic a few years ago when we did a class on Python Machine Learning using the Titanic victims as part of the data set. I have coal from the wreck. I also have piece of the first-class stateroom paneling from the sister ship of the Titanic, RMS Olympic.

I also today joined the Kickstarter for the last game in a series that I have purchased over the past years: Ankh. I have both Blood Rage and Rising Sun, which is by the same game designer, Eric Lang, and part of a series. These games all feature huge and intricate figures in the 28mm scale. These are “dudes-on-a-board” type instead of Euro or meeple driven. I really like his games. They also are just run to play with you pushing around those massive and/or lovely figures on the game board.

(Blood Rage figures painted by me a few years ago, yes girl Vikings)

Today it was reported that more than two-thousand four-hundred people passed away in the USA from the virus. I picked this one, not one I know, Abide with Me.