[Coronatime]So, how is everyone doing?

Go to vertigo brewery and get a growler filled with their vanilla porter, and if they have it on nitro even better.

Trapped in an apartment with New York’s most beautiful woman.

On Freakonomics we learn that familiarity breeds contempt, therefore, being trapped with the most beautiful woman in the city can only lead to feud, strife, and brooding revulsion. Your best bet is to be trapped with in a comfortable but disinterested relationship where you can stay in your own corner happily.

Unless you have kids, in which case, like me, you’ve already watched a few nuclear explosion meltdowns, and by keeping your distance as much as possible, now have giant crosshairs on you because how dare you not have melted down yet with the rest of us…

I’ll tell her!

Fortunately she’s just trapped with some schmoe :)

First day of being laid off for me. Applied for unemployment over a week ago and haven’t gotten any paperwork yet. I was told to keep my laptop with the intention of them bringing us back when this is over, but since no one knows how long this will be or what it will look like when it’s over, I’m pretty stressed, which is why I’m awake at 7am when I don’t even have to go to work today.

I have enough money to make it through into May if unemployment is delayed due to too many people filing, but I’d prefer that not happen. First time in 30 years I haven’t had a job to go to. This sucks. I guess I’m holding up by trying not to think about the alternative.

Sorry to hear about your troubles Dave. Just keep banging away at that system to get the benefits you’re supposed to get from unemployment. I’m sure they are streaming under the increased load these days.

As for me and my SO in NoVa, we have been isolating at home with few problems. I am able to work from home with very few disruptions, since it’s software development, and since my employer is a government contractor we have very little to fear on the layoffs front. The contract is going to continue to run until it’s done, which is at least another year. I do have to go into a government building about once every week or so, but they are on 25% staffing so you don’t run into many people when you do that.

My wife has a compromised immune system so she has been avoiding most trips outside the house. And I have had a few difficulties doing the occasional grocery shopping trip. We have a really great bike/walking path behind our house and we use or our neighborhood on regular walks.

Both sets of parents have passed away so we don’t have any very old people to worry about.

We are doing fine.

I have a job that is about as secure as any job can be right now so money isn’t a pressing worry. Our retirement funds are hurting I’m sure but I can ignore them for a while. We are decently healthy right now and in an area that has some hope of maintaining a functioning healthcare system.

We haven’t killed each other so far in the past month of sheltering in place so it seems like we’re unlikely to start. There are decent walking, biking, and hiking trails so we have some hope of getting out of the apartment without feeling like we are compromising the social distancing. Grocery shopping once a week feels like an acceptable mix of fresh veggies versus staying in. If things get worse in the immediate area we have plenty of food to skip a trip or two. Restauraunt delivery and takeout are still operating and are a good option.

I worry about parents, kids, and siblings but they are doing all the right things. Which is really all that anyone can do. So it becomes just a time of wait and see.

It’s strange, but not too bad actually. I started my own business on Febr.1, so the timing is rather unlucky, to say the least. However, I was already working on one large assignment which will provide sufficient income for the coming months, and last week I was contacted for two other large jobs, one of which is now confirmed. All this I can easily do from home. Together with my wife’s income, who has a very secure job, that takes away any financial worries I might have, so that’s great!

Somewhat more difficult is working from home while also having the kids here. They are 11 and 13, so they mostly take care of their own stuff without too much supervision, but concentrated work for a prolonged period of time (for example when I try to work on my PhD, which I planned to complete before the summer) is difficult. Even more so because we had to replace our bathroom after a pipe started leaking, so we have workmen coming in on a regular basis. They are nearly finished now, luckily!

All this means my PhD isn’t progressing as fast as I would have liked, and I’m still struggling a bit to get a good routine going. But considering the alternatives, that is quite alright.

Gee I’d’ve been happy as a pig in shit at age 12 to be told to keep myself busy at home, as long as I had a steady supply of comics, novels, video games and movies… that still sounds like heaven. My kids are 3 and 7 and disturbingly in need of constant attention, but we’re drilling into them some self reliance since both my wife and I are working from home, albeit only myself full time. But yeah, lots of Zoom meetings on mute while my wife goes to see why they’re both screaming at each other. They’re really missing other kids, and the only other one is across the fence and right now convincing my daughter ladybugs are poisonous and are going to kill her. sigh.

Ha, same here. I am constantly repeating that to my 16 year old daughter who was already complaining of boredom on day three of Stay At Home.

Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Go, Blu-Ray/DVD collection, a ton of video games for various consoles, Kindle with access to many titles, books, laptop+internet and she’s “got nothing to do”. When I was 16, I didn’t have a gamer dad and was lucky if I could get a whopping TWO video games per year (birthday, Christmas)!

The wife and I are both working from home. I’m a one-person department and have been at this company over 20 years so I’d like to think the chance of losing my job is low, but I’m a little anxious about what the future holds if this continues (we’re a footwear company and right now retail is pretty much at a standstill for apparel/footwear). Wife works for NYU and they have deep pockets, but half of her job consists of recruiting for research studies at a hospital a few hours a week and that’s not happening so she hasn’t been as busy and is worried a little about losing her job.

I’m in NYC (Queens) and haven’t been out in two weeks - I have some cardiac issues so probably at higher risk of being annihilated by COVID 19. WFH suits me just fine, I’m an introverted homebody. Wife is getting some cabin fever. She’s been going out for early morning walks daily, which helps, but general stress about the situation (mom with Parkinson’s and a 95 year old dad who behaves like he’s 55, both in SC) have made her occasionally edgy which has made me occasionally edgy.

I have a ton of time to catch up on my backlog now (also on a shortened work schedule) but have not been gaming all that much except for occasionally on the Switch. Made it a point this week to spend a lot less time reading the news/surfing the web, and try to focus on gaming, reading (for pleasure) and playing my basses (bought two in the past year and have barely touched them!). Got some recording software (Studio One) 6 months ago that I planned on teaching myself to use which I have also barely touched.

Stay safe all.

Well, I doubt my daughters would complain if that were the situation… but it isn’t. They have a fair to large amount of school work to do, online classes to follow, therapy sessions for the oldest… it’s a bit of a a challenge to make sure they do all that, in time (and, related: it’s a hell of a challenge to keep up with all the emails from two different schools!). So we have a schedule, which, amazingly, works rather well. Also, the girls are having a lot more fun together lately than they had in the months leading up to this ‘intellegent lockdown’, as our prime minster calls it. Which is a blessing, because they couldn’t be in the same room without some sort of teenager-fight before that… :-)

In a way, I’m lucky. My personality–probably an undiagnosed personality disorder–is such that I typically stay mostly at home. Several of my friends told me this was custom made for me, and, in many ways, it kind of is. I’m also used to it. I grew up in rural Minnesota and homeschooled from grades 8-12. It was mostly my dad and me for pretty long stretches of time. He would go to town (16 miles away) for grocery shopping once a week. As an adult, though, I’ve always lived in cities or towns; I like the convenience of going when I want for groceries or whatever, even though I often typically just get groceries once a week still.

There are no confirmed cases in the county where I live or in the county just south of us. However, there are confirmed cases to our east and west and just north, in southern Minnesota, is where the first hotspot outside of Minneapolis emerged. I went to get groceries (via a pick-up service which I’d never used before) on Saturday after being at home for about 2.5 weeks. It was kind of dead on the streets, but not really much significantly moreso than I would have expected. If I hadn’t known a pandemic were on-going, I probably wouldn’t have thought about it.

I can tell, though, that I’m under stress. Part of that is because, while I love working from home and I wish I could teach from home all the time, online instruction should be planned as such from the beginning. Just moving in-person classes online never works well, and that’s certainly true here as well. I’m also unimpressed with my community college’s handling of the situation. They are being very reactive and not at all proactive. (I don’t want to sound unduly harsh. But when I compare their actions to those of a college I adjunct for and a university I’m taking classes at, they do not compare favorably.) Students are also understandably stressed not just as what’s going on around the world, but by all of a sudden moving to an online modality for learning math. I know I’m stressed because I’ve started having stress dreams. I taught K-12 for 15 years before moving into higher ed full time. The last 8 years were teaching primarily gifted education in Kansas. In Kansas, gifted ed is considered part of special education for most purposes including having Individualized Education Programs [IEPs]. While there aren’t quite as many guidelines as for federally-mandated special education, most of them exist. So my stress dreams involve realizing that my IEPs are expired or that they are about to and I have to call 50 parents or that I haven’t sent out quarterly updates for objectives. I had some combination of all of those in my dreams for 2 of the past 4 nights.

Even though I’m super introverted, I also like contact with people. It’s one of the great ironies of my life. I’d love, if not lots of friends, at least a small coterie of them, but my introversion makes that seemingly impossible, or at least improbable. It makes me maybe more resilient right now, but I do miss even the professional interactions with others.

I’m also stress eating, but for the most part I’ve settled into a pretty decent routine. I spend most weekday mornings making videos for my classes. That’s roughly 9-11:30. Then I take a nice lunch break. From 1-3 I have virtual office hours via Zoom which no one has yet used. Then from 3-4:30 or 5, I work on more videos. I have announced that I’ll only reply to email in the afternoon, and I’ve tried to limit checking of work email at night and over the weekend. I’m not 100% with that yet, but I’m getting a little better.

The good news is that I’ve been able to game more than otherwise. I have a nice like Xbox achievement streak going for the first time in a long time!

Ha, ironically that’s the one I had in mind! I pass them every day biking to work, and always meant to swing by.

And good call, porters and brown ales are my favorites. Will definitely get some now!

Things are going well for me. Wife makes most of the money in the house and her job is secure. My company just announced their layoffs today and I was spared (for now). So that’s good. They did cut everyone’s pay by 10% (or more for higher ups), but that’s fine.

I worked from home four days a week anyway, so this is fine. The big change is having the wife and kid home all the time. It’s a bit frustrating. I no longer have any alone time. I’m alone in the office and close the door, but it’s not the same. Wife is on conf calls literally all day so I have to wear headphones to block it out.

Just got our Instacart delivery yesterday after a six day delay. It was generally fine. Probably got 90% of what we wanted. Very expensive, though. We’re already putting together another order for Target for Easter supplies and pantry foods.

The kid Facetimes with his buddy and they play Portal Knights for hours, so that’s great for him.

I’m mostly fine. No problems staying home, since that is my natural state, but I have to go to the office in the mornings to make sure servers are up, firewall is OK, etc. Job is fine for now and that shouldn’t change for a while; my wife was hit harder, as she’s an acting therapist. As for the disease itself, I’ve been careful and all, taking care of myself and everyone around me. I’ve been following developments on the disease, recommendations from the WHO, and everything.

That said, the ******* ***** who happens to be the president of my country is willing to get a lot of people killed just to “show who’s boss”. And this country is filled with people who are still supporting him, who think a flat-earther will know better than cientists and field experts. And that part gets me angry and frustrated as all hell.

So yeah, it’s not the coronavirus that’s making me tense. It’s people. As usual.

Well, the governor has announced that schools in the state of Washington will not be reopening for the rest of the school year. So I’m probably working from home until the fall, unless some summer camps open up. Which I guess is possible, there are indications that this state has hit its peak and my start seeing a decline in new infection. But I guess my wife and kids and I are in for the long haul.

Ain’t that always the issue?

I will be the odd one and say my life is actually better. I got rid of my hour plus each way commute on the bus. My work was forced to make changes to the way they did things that are for the better and my work from home setup is far better than my desk at work. Plus I can get more done without all the interruptions.

Outside of work, my life hasn’t changed, as pathetic as that might be. Saving a ton of money too since I can’t even eat out.

Oh yeah, my credit card bills have been cut by like two thirds. Definitely saving money. Of course it’s money I would have spent enjoying myself, so that isn’t really a bright side.

Holding up OK, all things considered. I’m three weeks into a new job (the company closed the office the day before my start date, so everyone’s been adjusting to WFH as I’ve been ramping up trying to learn everything). My wife has been home with the kids for the past few years anyway, and is putting the time to good use tackling stuff that has needed to be done. The kids have had their squabbles, and are really missing their regular activities, but have done a pretty good job rising to the occasion, being adaptable and helping each other out. We stocked up on necessities before things got really bad, and have managed to supplement a bit with orders and grocery pickup options. Daily life is simpler in many ways – our worries are for the state of the world and our high-risk parents rather than for ourselves.

I am at home with the wife and my 30 year old +/- daughters. Three of us are on a paid hiatus from work. My oldest is still working, and she is trying to be real careful. We have only gone out for groceries, and one trip to a nursery to stock the vegetable garden.

So far reading and video games are the major distraction. Man, regular TV sucks during the day. I suspect as time goes on I going to have to find things to do in the yard. We have already cleaned up closets, book shelves and other storage places.

I am saving a lot of money on gas. When I worked it pretty much restricted my eating out (work evenings) so there isn’t much cost savings there. My daughters have both found numerous places that are still supplying food, both fresh and cooked. We even know a couple local breweries that open for pick up of crowlers and growlers.