50 thoughts on “November 30, 2020: Thanksgiven”

  2. The peperoncino is back with his pod for the first time since November 6. I had forgotten what quiet sounds like.

    1. We had 10 days between pod days and I am soaking up the silence today. Really feel for parents managing young kids at home during our districts new, more structured full-time distance learning plan.

      1. We're holding Rick back from daycare the next couple days to give a little buffer in case anyone brought something back from Thanksgiving. House should be noisier than usual, which is great.

        2. We're holding Rick back from daycare the next couple days to give a little buffer in case anyone brought something back from Thanksgiving.

          the wife put her preschool on an extra week of Thanksgiving vacation for precisely those reasons. Doing Zoom calls with the classes this week instead of in-person.

        1. The Big Sister hasn't been to daycare since early March, the Second Child never.

          Neither I nor my wife have worked at the office since then either.

          I would pay $TEXAS for 3 solid hours of being able to work without something interrupting.

          I used to come into the office, put on my headphones then whoops it's lunch already. Then eat, put my headphones back on and whoop, time to go home.

          I haven't put on my headphones in months.

  3. Made it safely back to Minnesota yesterday. Neither child slept a second during the entire drive to New Orleans. The Justice finally fell asleep on the way back... right after we crossed the Minnesota River.

  4. I'm taking vacation M/W/F to get some various chores done around the house, as well as getting a start on our Christmas letter. I'm also working on a 34(?!) year Zoom reunion of our Strat-o-matic league managers.

  6. I actually watched the last few minutes of the Vikings game yesterday. They had a huge comeback and then tried to give the game away, but Carolina out-Vikinged them, even copying the old wide left bit. Amazing.

    2. I quit watching after the 2 fumbles that Carolina ran in for touchdowns. I went to the golf academy near my house and played a round of simulator golf. I was shocked to see we won when I got home. I am pretty confident that if I would have watched til the end, we would have lost the game.

      1. I am pretty confident that if I would have watched til the end, we would have lost the game.

        Same, although that game was not on here. My wife likes to point out that any time I watch the Vikings on tv, they lose.

      2. I also got disgusted and turned off the game, went out and played Frisbee with the dog. Then Younger Daughter came over and I replaced a broken stabilizer link and repositioned her knock sensor. The shimmy in the steering wheel is fixed now, but the knock sensor diagnosis goes on.

    3. I'm not a huge vikings person, but my SO and family are and she decided to nap after the 10 seconds of Chinn. Woke her up for the last drive pre touchdown. "Watch them try to mess this up," I said. They certainly tried.

      I am an unabashed Teddy fan. This wasn't his best game and he was rusty especially early. Take out these two best players (well Cook wasn't out but clearly hobbled) and you get this output.

      The special teams play has kept me interested. What a crazy rollercoaster. Say what you will but those down will always entertain.

    1. That seems like a bummer for Wichita.

      I was initially excited at the chance of attending, since my sister-in-law and her family now live in Kansas. Then I looked up how far Wichita is from Lawrence.

      1. It might work out in the long run, especially with new facilities, but year thats quite a blow to the community to be demoted. On the plus side at least the parent team is closer to home than it was when Miami was the team.

        Maybe it leads to a few Minnesota folk, or Twins fans in Iowa or the Dakotas to go visit for a weekend.

  8. I now know five people who have died of Covid, including the head of my high school and a guy whose daughter skates in my daughter's club.

    1. This thing is and should be a generational game-changer for politics and policy throughout the upper Midwest/plains states, where it has hit like a ton of bricks in the last two months. Almost everyone in every town in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska and the Dakotas will end up knowing multiple people whose lives will have been lost or immeasurably altered by the time vaccines are readily available.

      But I have my doubts that it will change anything for the better in politics.

      1. Sturgis was a massive super-spreader event that impacted the whole upper Midwest and beyond. Cell phone tracing shows 61% of the counties in the entire country were visited by someone who attended the Sturgis rally in August. The dynamics are pretty simple - the virus moves around when people move around and goes where they go.

        1. There really hasn't been enough emphasis on this. A terribly selfish decision to hold this in 2020. Every other big event across the country was cancelled.

                  1. Oh, well, yes they should have, but they didn't even recommend masks, let alone mandate them. And I still don't think it would have mattered. Closing borders wouldn't have mattered.

                    1. I tend to agree, I remember reading an article at the time about the intense verbal abuse and even physical threats suffered by some folks who went to Sturgis to hand out free face masks and hand sanitizer.

                    2. Yea, I have at least two h.s. friends (they were friends when we were in h.s.; now just Bookface acquaintences) who attended. One is married to a nurse who is basically a Covid denier. Both are very conservative. Neither have gotten sick (yet), but I don't know whether they've adjusted their ways at all since.

            2. You really think cancelling would have kept bikers away?

              We’ll see what happens when Mardi Gras rolls around. Officially canceled, but .....

        2. And to paint with a broad brush, the people attracted to Sturgis are probably also less likely to follow guidelines around masking, etc...at least based on some people I know (but not personally) that attended.

      2. Around these parts, I have seen far fewer posts regarding "open up", etc. There are 2 reasons for this. 1) The virus has hit our area hard and most of us now know people who have either died or been hospitalized with Covid. 2) The election is over.

        It is a shame that politics were injected into the handling of the pandemic. It is a shame that battle lines were drawn regarding the pandemic. It is a shame that alternate facts regarding the science of the virus and mitigation efforts were not only broadcast on all mediums, but believed by way too many people. It's a shame that compassion and common sense were set aside during this travesty.

        Like brianS, I also have doubts that politics will change for the better. What I do hope is this: Within 2-3 years there will be a comprehensive study of the virus and how nations and communities handled the pandemic. There will be some sort of reckoning in which a number of deaths will be put squarely on the heads of certain "leaders". It will be evident that our tribal approach to the pandemic cost hundreds of thousands more lives than needed to be lost. Enough citizens, across the political spectrum, will have lost friends and family to Covid. This will force many to look into the mirror and say "WTF was I thinking?" This is my hope.

  9. Tomorrow is my Dad's birthday -- 78 -- but today is an important day. He's having his first chemotherapy treatment today.

    He's been battling prostate cancer for years as you may recall. Recently, his PSA numbers shot up and a body scan showed lesions in his bones, but nothing in any organs. The doctors say that it was caught early and I tend to believe that since he has had regular blood tests all along. Still, though, it's scary and I realize that things could go bad in a hurry. We will see. The doctor has said that this treatment should hold the cancer at bay for two to four years, but who knows.

    Butch is in good spirits and he's in contact with his kids pretty much everyday through the magic of his iphone. Good thoughts are appreciated.

    5. Thinking of you SBG and your Dad. I lost my father to prostate cancer right about the time I started to visit the old site. I am very happy that it sounds like Butch has received great care throughout his battle and that he has been able to fight it in such a positive way. We will continue to pray in our household for you and your family.

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