Worried about everyone here.......

[Short Balding Guy]

A disappointment summed up best recently by Jonah Goldberg when he said, "What an amazing stupid time this is."

Good luck to you, your family and your business, Eric.

And to Jared @jlee562, and any other FL member who owns & runs a small 2nd - 3rd generation family business or company during these difficult times.

Thanks Jack. I offer apologies for my vent. Sunday is prep for the upcoming Mon-Sat. week of activities for me. Doing business stuff, lesson plans, athlete planners, updating athlete recruiting plans, trying, without our National governing body's assistance to plan for the 2020-21 season and updating state/fed forms has me at time vexed today. I will take a long walk and vent to the local wildlife.

It is certainly my musing about the upcoming week which prompted me to share the challenges in getting prepared for another 70+ hour week. I empathize that I am not as much complaining as am frustrated. Moral, ethical and business survival concerns keep me anxious all week.

If I had a wish it would be that the folks making decisions would check in with the common man, or uncommon man I am as my wife reminds me.

Darn right Jack a BIG best wishes to Jared, Alan and the many those who have their companies and businesses on the line.

 

[jlee562]

Thanks HJ, Eric.

Still chugging along here. Although our state had a good start, it looks like corona fatigue is starting to set in. Transmission is on the rise all over, and state and local officials have drawn back on re-opening. Though the bay area still has relatively low case counts (a larger proportion of the state's cases are down south), hospitalizations are on the rise and several bay area counties are now on the state watch list. I never got around to re-opening the storefront to walk-in customers, because it's honestly just safer for me to be avoiding most person-to-person contact for the time being. I've made the decision to only be working four days a week, both to limit my exposure and so as to not over-stress my body, which can exacerbate my autoimmune symptoms (I usually end up sick after floral holidays, for example). But I've been keeping plenty busy during those days, I've brought back my delivery driver for the past few weekends and even had an elopement this week that needed bridal bouquets. This shift in work towards fulfilling website orders and not having to keep "normal" business hours actually works out for me decently well, I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a better sense of work/life balance. I had my annual check up with my doctor last week. He'd asked if I was able to keep up my levels of physical activity and I told him, yes, and actually my dog lost a few pounds. It's so far worked out as sustainable course of action for navigating through this pandemic. Knock on wood.

I'm trying to keep a glass half full approach in my head. I've been reflecting a lot on my maternal grandparents, who were forced into Topaz internment camp during the war. They didn't talk a lot about that time in their lives, my grandfather told me more about his time the 442nd than he did about the camp. But I know my grandmother played piano in the camp band, so I try to keep that with me in these trying times, gotta keep on playing. They made it through that, I can make it through this.

 

[Hurricane Jack]

Thanks Jack. I offer apologies for my vent.

Your friendly neighborhood observations help to put things in proper perspective. No apology needed to me, Eric.

They made it through that, I can make it through this.

Good foundation on which to accept & prepare for the challenge, Jared. Thanks for the update!

 

[Hat and Rehat]

Well, considering the recent events I'm heading out to stock up on toilet paper. In every crisis facing the U.S. people run out to hoard it all up. So I'm going to load up before the hoarders and looters take it all.

You can't even get a good Sears Roebuck catalog anymore!
Save the hat and firearm pages, of course.

 

[Hat and Rehat]

In the last 3 months I have been to Costco 3 times....each time buying Kirkland TP. I figure we are good for a year now so promised my wife I would not buy any more......but a year and 3 months supply would be safer is my response.....she is unconvinced......I hope I am not proven right on this.

Just install a bidet. Didn't you always want one?

 

[Short Balding Guy]

Thanks HJ, Eric.

Still chugging along here. Although our state had a good start, it looks like corona fatigue is starting to set in. Transmission is on the rise all over, and state and local officials have drawn back on re-opening. Though the bay area still has relatively low case counts (a larger proportion of the state's cases are down south), hospitalizations are on the rise and several bay area counties are now on the state watch list. I never got around to re-opening the storefront to walk-in customers, because it's honestly just safer for me to be avoiding most person-to-person contact for the time being. I've made the decision to only be working four days a week, both to limit my exposure and so as to not over-stress my body, which can exacerbate my autoimmune symptoms (I usually end up sick after floral holidays, for example). But I've been keeping plenty busy during those days, I've brought back my delivery driver for the past few weekends and even had an elopement this week that needed bridal bouquets. This shift in work towards fulfilling website orders and not having to keep "normal" business hours actually works out for me decently well, I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a better sense of work/life balance. I had my annual check up with my doctor last week. He'd asked if I was able to keep up my levels of physical activity and I told him, yes, and actually my dog lost a few pounds. It's so far worked out as sustainable course of action for navigating through this pandemic. Knock on wood.

I'm trying to keep a glass half full approach in my head. I've been reflecting a lot on my maternal grandparents, who were forced into Topaz internment camp during the war. They didn't talk a lot about that time in their lives, my grandfather told me more about his time the 442nd than he did about the camp. But I know my grandmother played piano in the camp band, so I try to keep that with me in these trying times, gotta keep on playing. They made it through that, I can make it through this.

Good for you Jlee. Sounds like you have found a rhythm and balance for this situation. Gotta keep playing!

Glass half full; An aside, as an engineer we are trained to see the glass as full. Full. Full of H2O, water and ambient air. Just plain full given the temp/pressure/ and contents of the air(mostly nitrogen/oxygen (about 99%) and other gasses). I always puzzle folks with my answer that I was schooled on in college.

Continue to be you Jlee. Eric -

 

[Hat and Rehat]

All well here in London. My job (I'm a university lecturer.... I think my equivalent is an Assisant Professor in the US system) has pretty much just carried on as "normal" with the exception I've been doing it all online. I'm just at the end of a week teaching students in Beijing - normally I'd have gone out there, but this year I've been doing it all online. Mostly pre-recorded lectures, with a live tutorial tomorrow morning for me (late afternoon for them).

As someone who has always preferred to work in the office for the most part, I've converted to worknig at home fairly well - the only problem is I really struggle to separate home and work life; I'm intending not to work this weekend, the only weekend I'll have taken entirely off since, I think, the Easter weekend (which was a first for some time also). I need to get a grip on that, as this is going to be my new normal for some time to come. Interestingly, I don't mind the lockdown - I guess if it was only me (my other half is on a list of vulnerable persons, so I am currently living as if I am too so as not to take any risks with her health) I'd be in serious FOMO territory, but this mass shut down I'm dealing with pretty well. The biggest problem here in London has been conflicting, vague and often absent official advice/instructions / basic information. But we're getting there.

I have noticed that since all we're buying, really, is groceries, we've saved quite a lot of money, so there may be a new hat or two come Autumn... Maybe I'll dream up some new bash and dub it the Coronoa Crown.

There you go! Lemonade from lemons.

 

[Hat and Rehat]

If I hadn't gotten sick, she probably would have killed me.

I'm glad you're on the mend, Greg. A word of advice: fake it.

 

[Hat and Rehat]

Whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger.

Maybe.

 

[belfastboy]

Just install a bidet. Didn't you always want one?

No, too French!

 

[Hat and Rehat]

Thanks Jack. I offer apologies for my vent. Sunday is prep for the upcoming Mon-Sat. week of activities for me. Doing business stuff, lesson plans, athlete planners, updating athlete recruiting plans, trying, without our National governing body's assistance to plan for the 2020-21 season and updating state/fed forms has me at time vexed today. I will take a long walk and vent to the local wildlife.

It is certainly my musing about the upcoming week which prompted me to share the challenges in getting prepared for another 70+ hour week. I empathize that I am not as much complaining as am frustrated. Moral, ethical and business survival concerns keep me anxious all week.

If I had a wish it would be that the folks making decisions would check in with the common man, or uncommon man I am as my wife reminds me.

Darn right Jack a BIG best wishes to Jared, Alan and the many those who have their companies and businesses on the line.

I suggest an over/under .22/.410 on the nature walk. Put a baby bottle nipple on the barell. Soft hollow points for the over round, medium shot on the under.
This is just the way I think, and I'm still kicking ---- in spite of myself.

 

[M Hatman]

Yes, my business has been much effected too (initially down 90 percent we are back to about 50%).....

Here in Illinois the positive tests have gone through the roof BUT the hospitalizations and deaths have dropped just as dramatically at the same time.....it seems many who are now testing positive HAVE ALREADY HAD THE VIRUS and now have the antibodies. So...GOOD NEWS. However we are being warned that with all the civil unrest throughout the state a couple of weeks ago (no mask wearing of course) ..that may not be the case going forward.

Here where I live, the Tri-county area has had less than 30 cases this whole time!!! (less than .0003% incidence!!!).....with all but one recovering from home. We have had just one hospitalization.....(for a 90 year old who then succumbed to Pneumonia).

The larger cities with 30,000 or more had to suffer an additional hit with the vandalism, arson and looting costing many untold millions of dollars in losses.....for far too many, that additional loss has closed their doors permanently.

But on the upside we CAN still listen to YODELING!!!!!!!

I don't know.....it just makes me smile!!!!!!

 

[belfastboy]

We are now just into a phase 3 reopening of businesses and so far so good. New cases are single digits per day and I think the deaths are still just number 170 or so in a population of 5 million. The sad stat is that in Canada over 80% of the deaths have occurred in LongTermCare homes. So if you back out those numbers we have had just over !500 deaths in the entire country. Given those numbers I can certainly better understand the cavalier attitude of many, particularly amongst the young. Me, I never go to the beach anyway!

 

[Hurricane Jack]

Yes, my business has been much effected too (initially down 90 percent we are back to about 50%).....

Glad to hear it Mark. Figuring out cash flow to make it all work can take away a lot of productive time.

 

[M Hatman]

Glad to hear it Mark. Figuring out cash flow to make it all work can take away a lot of productive time.

So very true.......initially the cash flow lead me to actually selling some things (things I had bought to sell or trade eventually anyway). I have far too much cra.....er....stuff. I have even been selling off some trade hats.
But, things are slowly getting better..................AND

MY closet is slowly clearing out!!!

 

[GHT]

Just install a bidet. Didn't you always want one?

Bidet? What's that all about?
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/2a87a140-9ad7-4528-b601-ce819ec1d2e7

 

[Jhoff_1979]

I and the family are alive and well. Thanks for asking.

 

[Rmccamey]

Stay safe, Eric.

Backdrop: In Minnesota, our small business has been open a month. We have only opened 2/5's of what was our normal operations. The daily operations of cleaning, distancing, confirming health status has become a temporary normal. Spacing our athletes out in the gym, separating groups (pods) has meant work time has expanded to 7:00 - 9:00pm days. The recent social upheaval in recognition of systemic racism has contributed to a small spike in the Covid contagion. It continues to be a very challenging time.

I add this to this thread only to express disappointment at my fellow "neighbors behaviors." I have chosen to live a strict regime of almost NO non-essential shopping trips, visits, or travel in an attempt to protect my those around me, open the business and to set an example to the athletes our business serves. My "neighbors" have begun to make decisions that put me and those around me at risk. I see social gatherings, daily trips and even vacations that increase our risk. As one example, I will have the terrible moment on Monday of asking an athlete to "quarantine" for two weeks. Her parents took her on a "vacation" to a recent Covid hotspot. She will be devastated. This is only one of the many questionable decisions I witness. Honestly it has been very frustrating to watch the decisions of all my neighbors.

To have the US be the "worst" country on the earth by having the highest infection rate and fatality rate combined with the recent chaos and civil unrest is disheartening.

I work hard every day at having and sharing hope and resiliency to my small circle of contacts on our planet. Today I will work on filling my "weeks bucket" of hope and resiliency.

Cheers to all. Good wishes for all. Be safe, be strong and see you on the streets soon, Eric -

 

[RBH]

But on the upside we CAN still listen to YODELING!!!!!!!

I don't know.....it just makes me smile!!!!!!

I was able to meet Kristyn and her friend Hailey Sandoz in Fort Worth a few years ago. I was with Buckaroo Hatters at Red Steagall's Cowboy Gathering. Kristyn and Hailey came in Mikes booth and Hailey bought a hat.

Hailey is wearing her Buckaroo Hatters hat.

 

[Hat and Rehat]

When feeling disappointed, Eric, in how others are behaving, you might consider keeping in mind that there are several schools of thought on the severity, risk and course of response to the COVID virus. While I'm sure there are many who have simply taken a "screw it all, whatever the facts," attitude. Others however interpret the importance of the facts differently.
I consider myself in that number. I do not see social distancing as stopping the spread of the virus. At best it will slow it, but I've seen no viable end game. Is this the new normal in perpetuity? The lock down and associated responses may have made some sense to allow the medical field breathing time to prepare for cases, but I believe the danger of overwhelming the system has been responded to adequately and is no longer much of a risk. I also believe the economic repercussions of continuing to hinder trade and supply chains are placing us all in dire danger of equally life threatening scenarios.
Suicide rate sare on the rise, as are domestic violence cases. Other deaths of despair, such as drug overdoses and deaths related to alcoholism, are also increasing. Focusing the entire medical industry on COVID means that other treatable ailments are going untreated or inadequately treated, sometimes due to new protocols and other times to fear of infection which makes some people voluntarily go untreated rather than set foot in a hospital. Those are deaths in the developed world as a fallout of the COVID response. Things are much grimmer in the undeveloped world which has only recently emerged into the world of modern medicine from the historic norm of mass starvation. If markets are not allowed to function they could be set back decades and starvation as well as diseases that have finally begun to be managed may bloom back to levels that seemed to be in the past.
Hope is being held for the development of a vaccine, but no viable vaccine for any corona virus has ever been created to date, so it is an extremely high hurdle. I'm not fond of the term, but some level of "herd immunity" seems to be our best chance to return to a pre-COVID normal. This means that people need to be infected and develop antibodies, the natural defense to pathogens. Certain populations, the elderly and people with prior compromise of their immune system, need to be well protected (nursing homes have been particularly effected by deaths and should remain under strict control), but fatalities in young populations are statistically insignificant, even if extremely painful to the families who have had to experience those rare cases.
There seems to be a significant number of people who are infected, remain asymptomatic, or have minor symptoms like a flu or cold. The more of those people there are in the general population, with antibodies, some level of immunity, and much lower likelihood of carrying the virus to others, the safer things become for those more at risk. Less people they come into contact with will pose a risk. The concept of "herd immunity" is somewhat nebulous, and is under ongoing debate in the research medicine field of immunology. Some argue that true population immunity requires approximately a 90% rate of antibody dispersion. Others claim a 40% rate can bring the COVID death rate well within that of a seasonal flu. I don't know where that debate should be settled. I do know that the immune system and antibody production was one of the few things in school that truly fascinated me. This is, as someone with no medical training, my forte in the discipline if anything is. I still remember the cartoon images of little antibody armies mobilizing to fight off the invader. 8th grade? But the science is supported by logic.
A pathogen invades.
The organism develops an army of antibodies to overcome and eradicate it.
A. The pathogen replicates faster and kills the organism.
B. The antibodies replicate faster and destroy the pathogen.
It is a binary equation. It is either A or B. Depending on the ability of the organism to produce antibodies, the war might be long or short, but except for adequate antibodies the organism will die. Medical procedures can at times flank and weaken the pathogen, but only antibodies kill it.
Antibodies always provide some level of immunity. There are no exceptions. A standing army is manning the barricades. Until they die off, which takes time, any new assault by the pathogen meets instant resistance. It is wiped out at the gates.