Quite an interesting lineup of “holidays” to go along with, you know, *gestures around broadly*: Friday the 13th, Pi Day, and now the Ides.
43 thoughts on “March 15, 2020. Strange Lineup”
I feel pretty awful for the little ghost, who's birthday (Tuesday) is going to be a lot less than we had planned even two weeks ago.
AJR's tenth is Friday, and her siblings haven't had a chance to shop for her yet.
At least I already procured her pocketknife.
The state of Minnesota announced an incredibly extensive plan. I’m pretty proud of what they’ve come up with, TBH. Really considers a lot of angles.
I feel an incredible amount of pride in our educators and health care workers right now. I've reached out and said as much to my family who works in that area. I wanted to share it here as well. Thank you!
Ditto the kudos.
Yeah, we watched the conference, and we were both extremely impressed by how well thought out the whole thing was.
I found their YT channel and that's an easy subscribe. The Marbula One races are even more fun.
Last week the cat knocked the bedroom TV off of the bookcase where it sits and cracked the screen. It turns out that you can't even get replacement screens because they account for about 80% of an LCD TV's cost and manufacturers just don't want to deal with it. So we went shopping for a replacement. We found a 32 inch Vizio smart TV, 720 dpi so the same resolution as our old one, regularly $169.99 on sale at Target for $129.99. Then my wife went to work. She had a 10% off anything deal from her Cartwheel, then another 5% off for using the Red Card and another 5% off for something else I didn't quite understand. Then she used $35 in Target gift cards that she's accumulated to get the final price down to about $72 dollars (tax not included). I have a $75 Visa gift card I got for doing an online focus group a couple of months ago that I threw into the mix, so we basically got the new TV for free. Just in time to not see March Madness, hockey and baseball.
I have to wonder if the cat lost one of its lives in this incident.
Just one?
I’m taking a pricing (marketing) class right now. This is an awesome example of our mental accounting and behavioral economics. You obviously could use those cards to buy anything, but it’s the transactional utility at getting the big prize for “free” that feels so good. Way better than if they went to groceries and you had to pay for the TV.
I'm planning on running a "random things" bracket, in lieu of an NCAA bracket being available. I usually run an NCAA bracket for family, so this will be in place of that. I was thinking I'd likely open it up to a wider audience, including here. I suppose I could do a WGOM-specific pool, if there was enough interest in doing our own thing?
Can you explain the random things aspect a bit more?
I'll do ya one better:
Here is the link and the instructions for the tournament I set up.
How The Tournament Will Work (this is the part that stands in for the basketball games)
1. I have created a bracket of random things that people like. I will send out surveys to all participants (and possibly other people too) for each round, asking them to pick which of the items they like best.
2. The item that has the most votes will win that round, and will move on to the next round.
3. In the event of a tie, I will literally flip a coin. Heads will be the higher seed, tails the lower.
4. We’ll keep going until we’ve crowned a favorite random thing.
Creating your Bracket:
1. Open the link.
2. Go to File àMake A Copy
3. Save the Copy as “[Your Name]’s Bracket” (or whatever you want to call it, just so I know whose it is.
4. Then go to Share, and enter my name/e-mail address (and make sure you check the box to notify) so that I’ll be able to view your bracket.
Making Your Picks (this part is just like making a bracket with NCAA picks)
1. Pick who you think will win each matchup. That is, the item that you think most people will select as their favorite during the Tournament phase. This is not just who you like best, though obviously they might be the same sometimes.
2. Some of the items have links built in, if you’re not immediately familiar with the things.
3. Don’t worry about the links or spellings or writing out the whole word when making picks – just so long as I can tell which thing you picked.
4. You will notice that there are 4 regions and a Finals (the tabs at the bottom). Make sure you fill out each region completely, and then put your winner from each region in the corresponding finals line, before completing the finals.
5. If you have any questions, let me know.
6. Deadline for picks is 9 p.m. Thursday March 19th.
Rumors swirling that we’re going to be quarantined at home.
I went to Trader Joe’s yesterday and people were panic buying. I fell into a bit of it, but checked myself before buying random canned goods for no reason.
I do a physical labor job dependent on working on site, but from what I hear we’ll be paid as normal. A stock manager at the local grocer told me that unlike a hurricane where trucks can be diverted from other regions in the nation everyone is panic buying and thus the national distribution centers are running out of stuff to send to the local stores. I’m not afraid of the virus, but I’m beginning to become afraid of the social response.
Without discounting the direct threat of the virus, the panic is a significant issue. With any luck, the first wave of panic buying will subside in a couple days and the distro system will be able to catch it's breath.
Meanwhile, I have (already had) plenty rice and dried beans.
I’m not afraid of the virus, but I’m beginning to become afraid of the social response.
This is exactly how I feel, meat.
As a clarification, I don’t come into contact with the highest risk category unless I’m at work and we’re open to the public.
As I’ve said here before, for me it’s not an if it’s a when I get exposed to the virus due to New Orleans and port city and tourist destination and the French Quarter and public space and and and.... I’ve come to peace with that, and if I’m told to stay home for a month then so be it I will.
What’s making me a bit crazy is seeing footage of the cops breaking up huge crowds on bourbon street. C’mon folks, if we act now to change our lives for a while we might be able to go back to the way it used to be. If continue to act like idiots maybe we don’t get to go back to the lives we knew.
Humor: not dead, but...mailing it in?
If you're worried about what to do while you're quarantined, remember that while he was in isolation, Mathematician Theodore Kaczynski completed more than 16 successful technical projects and wrote a 35 thousand word essay that was published in the New York Times.
NYC, like many cities, compiles flu data from all ERs to help track flu season. Below are patients presenting for Influenza Like Illness (ILI) over the past 6 months. Notice flu season peaks and then recedes.
Surely they’re...testing those folks? 🤔
There is no emoji for the face I’m making. This guy is close: 😳 I use that one a lot.
Not enough tests.
WFH starting Wednesday, tentatively through April 10. (Got a text around 3pm.)
Was hoping that everyone else WFH would let me work from a near-vacant office, taking near-unoccupied buses.
I'll be much less efficient working from my basement with my kids around (I've tried it before).
Oh well.
Newsom issued order closing bars, breweries, wine bars, pubs, instructing 65+ to isolate at home, encouraging restaurants to cut capacity by half.
Expecting a telework order for state agencies by Tuesday. I don't have enough laptops for everyone. Trying to get a purchase order in tomorrow.
Pritzker just shut down all bars and restaurants until April.
And Nola has instructed bars to close at midnight. Last call at 11:15. While this isn’t news anywhere else, this is huge here. Last call in a 24 hour town? Still not the right response as the virus don’t sleep....
Awwwww.
So you're kids' school closed too, huh?
Our chancellor just issued the WFH order this evening, effective for the next three weeks at least. Thank goodness for VPNs, work-issued laptops, and Remote Desktop for the things that can’t be done from home.
Mrs. Hayes & I will need to work out a primary parent rotation. I think this will underscore our need to better utilize our spaces at home.
And tomorrow is Stone Cold Steve Austin Day!
I told the jalapeno to start keeping a journal. When writing in it tonight, he asked me how to spell "virus," "serious," and "quarantine." 💔
hmm, that sounds like a case of the 4th monday parentgood column to me.
I could probably manage that.
We had to sit Newbish down over the weekend to let him know that our upcoming trip had been canceled. He doesn't get it at all, but he took it about as well as I could have hoped, considering we'd been hyping the trip up for the last two months.
Called my dad. He was on his way to a concert...
Our friend’s parent was attempting to board a cruise that was intended to go for 20 days. He’d have none of the talking down until the cruise line canceled the voyage. SMH.
My main goal right now is to quarantine myself from my next door neighbor who thinks this is all a Democrat conspiracy to make Trump look bad. It might be time to move after this is over.
I feel pretty awful for the little ghost, who's birthday (Tuesday) is going to be a lot less than we had planned even two weeks ago.
AJR's tenth is Friday, and her siblings haven't had a chance to shop for her yet.
At least I already procured her pocketknife.
The state of Minnesota announced an incredibly extensive plan. I’m pretty proud of what they’ve come up with, TBH. Really considers a lot of angles.
I feel an incredible amount of pride in our educators and health care workers right now. I've reached out and said as much to my family who works in that area. I wanted to share it here as well. Thank you!
Ditto the kudos.
Yeah, we watched the conference, and we were both extremely impressed by how well thought out the whole thing was.
It looks like PBS is streaming Baseball for free.
https://www.pbs.org/show/baseball/
And FSN playing old Twin games.
How about MarbleLympics?
This is amazing.
I found their YT channel and that's an easy subscribe. The Marbula One races are even more fun.
Last week the cat knocked the bedroom TV off of the bookcase where it sits and cracked the screen. It turns out that you can't even get replacement screens because they account for about 80% of an LCD TV's cost and manufacturers just don't want to deal with it. So we went shopping for a replacement. We found a 32 inch Vizio smart TV, 720 dpi so the same resolution as our old one, regularly $169.99 on sale at Target for $129.99. Then my wife went to work. She had a 10% off anything deal from her Cartwheel, then another 5% off for using the Red Card and another 5% off for something else I didn't quite understand. Then she used $35 in Target gift cards that she's accumulated to get the final price down to about $72 dollars (tax not included). I have a $75 Visa gift card I got for doing an online focus group a couple of months ago that I threw into the mix, so we basically got the new TV for free. Just in time to not see March Madness, hockey and baseball.
hopefully you weren't working out at the time.
I have to wonder if the cat lost one of its lives in this incident.
Just one?
I’m taking a pricing (marketing) class right now. This is an awesome example of our mental accounting and behavioral economics. You obviously could use those cards to buy anything, but it’s the transactional utility at getting the big prize for “free” that feels so good. Way better than if they went to groceries and you had to pay for the TV.
I'm planning on running a "random things" bracket, in lieu of an NCAA bracket being available. I usually run an NCAA bracket for family, so this will be in place of that. I was thinking I'd likely open it up to a wider audience, including here. I suppose I could do a WGOM-specific pool, if there was enough interest in doing our own thing?
Can you explain the random things aspect a bit more?
I'll do ya one better:
Here is the link and the instructions for the tournament I set up.
Another time-waster
Rumors swirling that we’re going to be quarantined at home.
I went to Trader Joe’s yesterday and people were panic buying. I fell into a bit of it, but checked myself before buying random canned goods for no reason.
I do a physical labor job dependent on working on site, but from what I hear we’ll be paid as normal. A stock manager at the local grocer told me that unlike a hurricane where trucks can be diverted from other regions in the nation everyone is panic buying and thus the national distribution centers are running out of stuff to send to the local stores. I’m not afraid of the virus, but I’m beginning to become afraid of the social response.
Without discounting the direct threat of the virus, the panic is a significant issue. With any luck, the first wave of panic buying will subside in a couple days and the distro system will be able to catch it's breath.
Meanwhile, I
have(already had) plenty rice and dried beans.This is exactly how I feel, meat.
As a clarification, I don’t come into contact with the highest risk category unless I’m at work and we’re open to the public.
As I’ve said here before, for me it’s not an if it’s a when I get exposed to the virus due to New Orleans and port city and tourist destination and the French Quarter and public space and and and.... I’ve come to peace with that, and if I’m told to stay home for a month then so be it I will.
What’s making me a bit crazy is seeing footage of the cops breaking up huge crowds on bourbon street. C’mon folks, if we act now to change our lives for a while we might be able to go back to the way it used to be. If continue to act like idiots maybe we don’t get to go back to the lives we knew.
Humor: not dead, but...mailing it in?
On the other hand....
Surely they’re...testing those folks? 🤔
There is no emoji for the face I’m making. This guy is close: 😳 I use that one a lot.
Not enough tests.
WFH starting Wednesday, tentatively through April 10. (Got a text around 3pm.)
Was hoping that everyone else WFH would let me work from a near-vacant office, taking near-unoccupied buses.
I'll be much less efficient working from my basement with my kids around (I've tried it before).
Oh well.
Newsom issued order closing bars, breweries, wine bars, pubs, instructing 65+ to isolate at home, encouraging restaurants to cut capacity by half.
Expecting a telework order for state agencies by Tuesday. I don't have enough laptops for everyone. Trying to get a purchase order in tomorrow.
Pritzker just shut down all bars and restaurants until April.
And Nola has instructed bars to close at midnight. Last call at 11:15. While this isn’t news anywhere else, this is huge here. Last call in a 24 hour town? Still not the right response as the virus don’t sleep....
Awwwww.
So you're kids' school closed too, huh?
Our chancellor just issued the WFH order this evening, effective for the next three weeks at least. Thank goodness for VPNs, work-issued laptops, and Remote Desktop for the things that can’t be done from home.
Mrs. Hayes & I will need to work out a primary parent rotation. I think this will underscore our need to better utilize our spaces at home.
And tomorrow is Stone Cold Steve Austin Day!
I told the jalapeno to start keeping a journal. When writing in it tonight, he asked me how to spell "virus," "serious," and "quarantine." 💔
hmm, that sounds like a case of the 4th monday parentgood column to me.
I could probably manage that.
We had to sit Newbish down over the weekend to let him know that our upcoming trip had been canceled. He doesn't get it at all, but he took it about as well as I could have hoped, considering we'd been hyping the trip up for the last two months.
Called my dad. He was on his way to a concert...
Our friend’s parent was attempting to board a cruise that was intended to go for 20 days. He’d have none of the talking down until the cruise line canceled the voyage. SMH.
My main goal right now is to quarantine myself from my next door neighbor who thinks this is all a Democrat conspiracy to make Trump look bad. It might be time to move after this is over.
Uffda.