Warm and moist.
Yesterday got almost hot in the afternoon. Very light sprinkles just added to the moistness. I walked to my auto mechanic to pick up my truck and was sweating when I got there. $4350 in all, which included changing the trans fluid and filter. Runs smooth and quiet.
Found a place to sell my powered respirators (3m PAPR) so I’ll drop them off today. Absolutely have to move some stuff from secondary to home. That’s got some inbuilt challenges.
Hit Walgreens, Costco, and HEB yesterday. So glad I made my primary run before the others caught on. I haven’t seen toilet paper in days. I’ve got a ton of stuff to get put away.
The wuflu situation is changing so rapidly that most people I talk to have no idea how bad it’s gotten just in the last couple of days. And it is bad. Will it get bad enough fast enough to keep my wife home from WDW? I hope so, because otherwise I’m facing a pathetic post-apoc novel of a trip. As noted before, humans are bad at exponential growth. I’ve had to say the doubles out loud for people to believe me.
We’re heading into Spring Break this Friday, which was the impetus for our trip. My prediction is we don’t come out of Spring Break, ie. schools just stay closed. By any doubling rate, we should be well on the way to 10s of thousands of cases by then, maybe more. That’s why I don’t want to go, by the time we’re ready to come home, even if we’re not sick, I think things will be shutting down.
So little time left, and every trip outside increases the risk of bringing it home. If you’re set, start your isolation. I wish I could.
n
Minor emergency at the house last night. Pool plumbing and pump is in the garage. Wife knocked a ladder over and the ladder struck the pump discharge line to the pool. Pump is below the level of the pool, in fact located at the lowest level of a 8 foot deep pool.
You can guess the result. A massive torrent of water from a 1.5” line. Scrambled to to plug the discharge openings in the pool. Several hundred gallons of water in the garage before the flow was stopped. A back flow preventer valve in the line failed to close.
After the flow was reduced to a trickle I removed the back flow valve, it was a threaded connection. A quick trip to Ace Hardware to get a cap for the pipe. Flow is stopped for now. Cleaned up most of the water, fans getting the rest. Most flowed out the garage door.
Next step in a couple of days is to replace the discharge from the filter piping. Will replace a regular valve in the line that is currently brass. Chlorine is hard on brass and the valve is showing signs of age.
Woke up coughing. Kids both sore throats and occasional cough. None of us have fevers though.
Part of me thinks I F’d up somewhere big time, but the more rational part says, “no fever” no problem.
Dr wrote me for a blood test this am so I’m fasting. I better get out the door and done so I can eat before I get ‘hangry’.
n
Woke up coughing. Kids both sore throats and occasional cough. None of us have fevers though.
Part of me thinks I F’d up somewhere big time, but the more rational part says, “no fever” no problem.
Live Oaks are waking up early in Austin due to the mild winter. Houston is probably worse.
Definitely tree pollen in my case. I had a good reserve of 3M allergy filters for the AC system, and I change them every month. Of course, that reserve got drawn down because someone in the house thinks there needs to be space in cabinets.
I’m changing them today, and I’ll have two changes left. But that’s only because I went to change them and had none, because the JIT amazon delivery didn’t. We had to actually order some additional filters to get me any stock at all.
BTW, I’d bet that 3M will convert some filter production to mask production as soon as they can. If you like their furnace filters, better get some.
n
“The Florida Department of Health announced late Tuesday there are an additional eight positive tests for coronavirus bringing the in-state total to 23.
Of the cases, 21 are of Florida residents and two are of out-of-state visitors. Another five Floridians who had traveled to China also have tested positive for coronavirus, but they are being treated out of state and yet to return to Florida.
Officials say the eight people are being cared for and isolated. The seven new Florida resident cases are all labeled as travel-related. They include a 68,year-old man from Nassau County, 73-year-old man and 68-year-old woman from Collier County, 67-year-old and 64-year-old men in Pinellas County and a 46-year-old man in Pasco County.
The new out-of-state case found in Florida is of a 68-year-old female Georgia resident in Alachua County.
To date, the state also has found four cases in Broward, two each in Volusia, Manatee and Lee counties, and one each in Hillsborough, Santa Rosa, Charlotte and Okaloosa counties.
Two of the Florida cases have proved fatal, both individuals who had traveled internationally.””
–sounds like it’s pretty widespread to me. Funny hole in the middle of the state.
n
BTW, I’d bet that 3M will convert some filter production to mask production as soon as they can. If you like their furnace filters, better get some.
Our downstairs unit has a whole system filter at the blower intake. That gets changed maybe once every couple of years, and it was still ok at the last inspection. Variable speed fan so I defer to the techs’ expertise and advise. Dust and allergies have been under control in the house since the new unit went in almost three years ago.
For the upstairs unit, I buy whatever is the next step up from the blue media, either 3M or similar. I learned a long time ago in Florida that the high pressure Trane units don’t like 3M “ultra allergen”, and I bought NaturalAire at Home Depot, made at a factory not far from our house.
–sounds like it’s pretty widespread to me. Funny hole in the middle of the state.
The inland counties on the Peninsula have a lot of poverty, and I’d put Orange (Orlando) on that list. The locals are not going to hop a jet to China. The exception would be Alachua, which is home to Gainesville and the University of Florida, and Lake-Sumter, where the famed (infamous?) fascism of The Villages spreads across a huge chunk of land.
If anyone in The Villages got sick, everyone would know. Pinchfaces and busybodies.
The coastal counties up the west coast from Pasco up to Apalachicola are also not shining examples of economic vitality. The tradeoff is that they’re fairly isolated except for areas near US 19 or I75, and they may never see a problem.
Most of Florida has decent medical infrastructure due to retirees holding traditional pensions and benefits up until 20 years ago. Absent those, a lot of Boomer retirees have Medicare supplements which, along with low salaries to providers, will keep the hospitals and doctors offices solvent for another few years until Medicaid For All begins.
Again, watch Disney and Publix. Disney is typical Corporate America but they have a lot of investment in Florida with their own special governing district. The employees own Publix completely — no Wall Street of bowing/scraping to the Feds — and the current occupant of the FL Governor’s mansion was not the company’s first choice to sit there but they will probably support his bid for reelection.
As an aside, I think Whole Foods would have been better off in Publix’ hands, but Publix abhors debt and wasn’t interested in Whole Foods at the (over) price Amazon paid. Who knows — they may get another shot yet.
Here in the desert, we have many different plants, each in relatively small quantities. Some people have allergies, but we don’t. I have a home made, depth type filter on our furnace, mostly to protect the electric elements and to avoid burning dust, which can be toxic. It is definitely not as efficient as the modern disposable electrostatic filters, but we have been fine for decades. Advantage is no need for supplies.
I bought an active electrostatic filter for the furnace when we were building, but never installed it. Didn’t need it, and grew fearful of ozone generation. I once worked in a building that had electrostatic precipators and steam humidification, and it was amazing. No dust or odors in an era of indoor smoking.
Our evaporative systems act as giant depth type filters, and we also like the fresh air. With care, their rigid media last more than ten years. That’s a lot of air passing through. I have tried prefilters, but found them unnecessary.
FEMA finally activated.
They have their State Emergency Operations Centers either up or on standby for several states (30) and they’ve rostered their Mobile Emergency Response services, ie. generators, water, hvac, and Comms on trucks, with 36 of 68 assigned.
Nice to see them finally moving, but also ominous.
n
Friends were going out to dinner last night (taco Tuesday) and were surprised when I declined on social distancing grounds.
I haven’t heard of any cases here in the California high desert, but it’s time for someone in their 60s to start being careful.
I have a dermatologist visit at a Kaiser tomorrow, and if I hadn’t missed my December appointment I’d cancel this one. Ugh.
A friend scheduled to give a talk at a major professional organization’s conference in two weeks in Anaheim says they emailed her this morning that they are planning to soldier on. Astonishing.
For economic cascade considerations beyond WuFLu the following talking head roundtable discussion:
Goldmoney Video
TLRL: Skip ahead to 53:04 to miss talk of 2019 economic events, although interesting reasoning for prediction of oil price collapse is made.
Tiny Switzerland has 652 cases, more than Japan, more than UK at 456.
Minuscule Bahrain has 189.
India reports 62. Anyone think that is likely?
Right on time FL doubled. Actually a bit more than doubled. And Greg, the 4 home grown cases are poor folk working the Port Everglades cruise dock. So they either got it from or are giving it to cruise passengers. FL has had more deaths and has more people under surveillance than TX.
n
For now… I would not predict anything other than the weather two weeks out, and we all know how well that goes.
Today is Debunking Day.
So are we really in a crisis?
Maybe not.
Where are the death statistics for the last 10 or 20 years? I’m talking about total deaths from all causes. I haven’t completed my searching for credible statistics (all seem to be obfuscated to some extent) but from what I have found is that if you count all deaths and plot them by month what is occurring right now is within statistical norms.
Is it any coincidence that the most WuHuFlu is occurring in cities that have a ban on disposable plastic grocery bags? The WA State “legislature” just gave the goobernor what he wanted, a statewide ban on disposable grocery bags and a 9¢/bag charge if you want a paper bag.
Welcome to the People’s Republic of Jay Inslee.
Hey, did you see that Plugs is sweeping yesterday’s Primaries?
(No I haven’t read all of today’s post yet)
Yesterday got almost hot in the afternoon. Very light sprinkles just added to the moistness. I walked to my auto mechanic to pick up my truck and was sweating when I got there. $4350 in all, which included changing the trans fluid and filter. Runs smooth and quiet.
Congrats. One year of usage makes it paid off. And new Expeditions are incredibly expensive which is one reason I bought a F-150 4×4.
A back flow preventer valve in the line failed to close.
You need two backflow preventers in series. And even then Murphy shows up regularly.
I have seen the hinges broken on backflow preventers several times. Or, the plate totally missing (where did it go ???).
Right on time FL doubled. Actually a bit more than doubled. And Greg, the 4 home grown cases are poor folk working the Port Everglades cruise dock. So they either got it from or are giving it to cruise passengers. FL has had more deaths and has more people under surveillance than TX.
Got it from passengers more likely, but Broward is a wealthy, albeit stratified, part of Florida with an upper middle class so people travel, just not the same demographics as those working the docks.
“Fort Lauderdale” is a lot of little separate areas, as if everyone dwells on different planets. My wife lived down there for med school in Hollywood, and we used to go to conferences there at least once a year.
(You’d pass out if you saw how the big, sweaty guy running the pizza oven at DiSalvos in Emerald Hills cleans his spatula, but that never stopped me from eating there regularly. He’ll probably be the first on lockdown. 🙂 )
It is definitely possible that things could get ugly in the state. H1N1 got out of hand in FL before Obama finally got off his a**. I had neighbors who caught that bug. Reaction has been quicker this time, however, and the Governor is not the moron Obama-hugging RINO that Charlie Crist was.
When Brightline opens to Orlando airport running straight to a station at Fort Lauderdale airport, the cruise and theme park markets will become joined at the hip, but Orlando/Port Canaveral and Port Everglades are separate travel populations for now, using separate air travel facilities.
We’re heading into Spring Break this Friday, which was the impetus for our trip. My prediction is we don’t come out of Spring Break, ie. schools just stay closed. By any doubling rate, we should be well on the way to 10s of thousands of cases by then, maybe more. That’s why I don’t want to go, by the time we’re ready to come home, even if we’re not sick, I think things will be shutting down.
I suspect that you are right about the schools. And the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, an event regularly attended by millions, is apparently shutting down in the middle of it.
https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/houston-rodeo-shut-down-coronavirus-concerns-15123010.php
“As of Monday more than 566,000 people had attended events on the rodeo grounds. Last year’s total attendance was more than 2.5 million people over 21 days.”
“Houston’s rodeo generated $227 million in total economic impact in 2019 and supported nearly 3,700 direct jobs, according to a study by Economic Analytics Consulting commissioned by the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, which measured new spending in the region generated by outside visitors and spending by the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Inc.”
I am not sure what the infection rate and death toll is going to be in the USA but the economic toll is going to be high, very high. And this is a presidential election year. Rush Limbaugh stopped just short this morning of accusing the ChiComs and dumbocrats in collusion to destroy the world’s economy.
Is it any coincidence that the most WuHuFlu is occurring in cities that have a ban on disposable plastic grocery bags? The WA State “legislature” just gave the goobernor what he wanted, a statewide ban on disposable grocery bags and a 9¢/bag charge if you want a paper bag.
Welcome to the People’s Republic of Jay Inslee.
Inslee is Costco’s chore boy, bought and paid for. Costco doesn’t offer bags, and Amazon’s new cashierless grocery store, located in an urban core, is suddenly at a disadvantage, along with Fred Myer, Safeway, and the other traditional grocery stores.
Things that make you say hmmm.
Vancouver, WA didn’t have a plastic bag ban when we lived there, but reusable bags were encouraged. One case so far as of this morning. Probably a coincidence, but an interesting pattern.
Does Pierce County have a ban? Four people have died there.
Austin — still no cases — had their plastic bag ban overturned for some reason I don’t recall, but I doubt it was the city council suddenly gaining sanity. The last time we went to Phoenecia in Houston, we had to buy a reusable bag, but most of the cases there are, as I noted yesterday, related to a Taiwanese group who took a cruise in Egypt.
I reuse every plastic grocery bag that I can get when cleaning the litter box. I’d have to *buy* those bags if we didn’t get them at the grocery store.
So are we really in a crisis?
Maybe not.
Where are the death statistics for the last 10 or 20 years? I’m talking about total deaths from all causes. I haven’t completed my searching for credible statistics (all seem to be obfuscated to some extent) but from what I have found is that if you count all deaths and plot them by month what is occurring right now is within statistical norms.
“A Biothreat from China Is Accomplishing All the Goals of Trump’s Enemies”
https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2020/03/11/what-you-cant-say-about-the-coronavirus-panic/
“CALLER: Rush, many prayers to you. Just to put this in perspective, these are statics from the National Institutes of Health and the CDC. Over 70,000 people in 2017 died of opioid overdose. There were 38,000 auto deaths last year in the United States alone. These statistics are for the United States alone. Nearly 99,000 people died in the United States alone in 2018 when they entered hospitals. It’s called acquired — like, staph, strep and other — illnesses.”
“RUSH: Right. They were perfectly fine, they went to the hospital, they got infected, and they didn’t get out. Yeah.”
“CALLER: And they died. It was confirmed today, there are over 220 confirmed cases of malaria in New York City alone. In the last flu epidemic of 2018, 41,000 people died. In 2016, 62,000 —”
A lot of people die in the USA every year. Disease and accidents.
Just looked at the Anaheim web page. Four organizations with 50,000 attendees have already canceled for March at the Convention Center.
I wonder about liability exposure? The state and county have declared a state of emergency, the CDC is recommending social distancing and the WHO has (finally) declared this a pandemic. How is an organization going to counter any medical claims and costs – there’s way too much warning for it to be an “act of god”.
As people have pointed out, actual deaths and cases are few, relatively speaking, but still…
Took a day off work today – call it a mental health day.
I went to two different Home Depot’s looking for cedar fence pickets so I could make another raised garden bed. Sold out. In fact, none in the entire area. I picked up 4 food grade buckets while it was there. I went to Lowe’s for the gamma lids, as they were cheaper and I get 5% off with my Amex. Oh, and Lowe’s didn’t have any cedar fence pickets either.
Lowe’s was completely sold out of wipes and hand sanitizer.
Lowe’s was completely sold out of wipes and hand sanitizer.
I live in fear of people flushing a wipe down either of my septic tanks. That means a quick $500 pump out.
Took a day off work today – call it a mental health day.
I need to take a mental health year.
“Lowe’s was completely sold out of wipes and hand sanitizer.”
I live in fear of people flushing a wipe down either of my septic tanks. That means a quick $500 pump out.
It isn’t good for the typical sewer system either, especially the smaller scale MUD systems which are common in the suburbs around here. Baby wipes are meant to be disposed of in a trashcan or “diaper genie”, not flushed.
The sewer systems breaking would be a much bigger problem than Coronavirus.
The drain lines in some commercial buildings have shredders specifically designed to tear apart things which shouldn’t be flushed but which commonly are.
gentlemen
need to buy a new phone, and I remembered someone here said about a site swap phone or something similar
if you can, please tel me the correct name
thanks
PS NY trip, cancelled voila!
Really? Why are these things so “powerful”? Personally, I have never used them, so I guess I am “asking for a friend.”
@Nick – You asked about India. All of Dell in Round Rock is working from home this week.
The upside of the slave -er- H1B labor in this situation is that they tend not to associate with anyone but other people from that part of the world. However, it is obviously in the local community, they shop at HEB like everyone else, and what we would consider a “lie” is viewed differently.
https://patch.com/texas/round-rock/dell-worker-tests-positive-coronavirus-after-round-rock-visit
What the story misses is that Round Rock, Dell, and a lot of the employees do not live in Travis County. Dell HQ is right at the border between Williamson and Travis.
The Madness is Afoot!:
Here we go…
President Donald Trump Says U.S. Will Suspend All Travel From Europe For 30 Days In Effort To Mitigate Coronavirus
https://deadline.com/2020/03/donald-trump-coronavirus-1202880429/
And more…
Tom Hanks & Rita Wilson Test Positive For Coronavirus As Outbreak Hits ‘Elvis Presley’ Film
https://deadline.com/2020/03/tom-hanks-rita-wilson-test-positive-coronavirus-elvis-presley-movie-1202880431/
And even more…
NBA to suspend season following Wednesday’s games
https://www.nba.com/article/2020/03/11/nba-suspend-season-following-wednesdays-games
March ‘madness’…
NCAA announces Division I men’s and women’s basketball tournaments will be limited to essential staff, family attendance
https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-men/article/2020-03-11/ncaa-announces-division-i-mens-and-womens-basketball
>”You need two backflow preventers in series.”
I think the ideal would be a system that has a built-in self test that verifies the operation of the check valve every time the pump stops. That would make it much less likely for a failure to cause such an inconvenience.
I live in fear of people flushing a wipe down either of my septic tanks. That means a quick $500 pump out.
Really? Why are these things so “powerful”? Personally, I have never used them, so I guess I am “asking for a friend.”
The pipes are 4 inch PVC so those are ok. But the finishing tank has the pipe from the middle tank flowing over a bed of chlorine tablets. Any solids making it to the finishing tank (and the wipes float at times) will start a blockage over the chlorine tablets. The three tanks use gravity flow, only the finishing tank is pumped to the back yard sprinklers.
Well, I got the wife to agree to delaying our flight, canceling our hotel and Seaworld plans (before our arrival at WDW) and waiting as long as possible for Disney to cancel so we get our points back.
If I didn’t have two sick kids, I’d be very happy. As it is, I’m breathing much easier.
n
I really hope you guys took one of the bounces as a chance to exit the markets.
n
@greg, even the Drs in FL don’t believe Orlando is virus free…
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/coronavirus/os-ne-health-coronavirus-information-confusion-20200312-wqzfkwyievesteujydqmh7eguy-story.html
Forbidding travel is a reasonable move, but why Europe? If Trump is going to take this seriously, then *all* nonessential travel should stop. It’s irritating that he has to fingerpoint for no reason.
Switzerland has a lot of cases per capita, because we were testing early. The numbers are now going to be less reliable, as we enter the exponential curve.
Italy lost control fast, because it’s full of Italians. “What, I’m under quarantine? That means I need to…shop, go to the pub, go on vacation…” Much the same for France, or Southern Europe in general- I think they have no idea how many cases they have. Germany and Northern Europe are staying on top of things, so far.
It’s all about flattening the curve…
Trying to time the market is not a good investing strategy. No changes to my investments and monthly contributions will continue to go in as usual.
@greg, even the Drs in FL don’t believe Orlando is virus free…
People are twits and break the rules so I have no doubt it is in the community, particularly among the elites and/or Asians who travel, but it would be political suicide for the various government entities to hide cases for the sake of the tourism industry short term. Short term is toast regardless.
Ron DeSantis and the Republicans are looking at a decade of dominance in an increasingly purple state after suffering with nearly 30 years of a left-dominated FL Supreme Court interfering with redistricting. The last thing they want to do is screw that up.
Biden’s biggest Dem endorsement from FL this week was Nikki Freid. Nikki Freid is the *Agriculture Commissioner*.
@greg, even the Drs in FL don’t believe Orlando is virus free…
People are twits and break the rules so I have no doubt it is in the community, particularly among the elites and/or Asians who travel, but it would be political suicide for the various government entities to deliberately hide cases for the sake of the tourism industry short term. Short term is toast regardless.
Ron DeSantis and the Republicans are looking at a decade of dominance in an increasingly purple state after suffering with nearly 30 years of a left-dominated FL Supreme Court interfering with redistricting. The last thing they want to do is screw that up.
Biden’s biggest Dem endorsement from FL this week was Nikki Freid. Nikki Freid is the *Agriculture Commissioner*. If the Republicans were hiding things, the Dems would scream bloody murder.
Also, be careful about the Sentinel. They took a meat axe to their staff at the end of last year, firing the better reporters and columnists. Whats left will do things like get quotes from doctors in Indian River County, marginally Central Florida but mostly rural and dominated by the Mormons’ ranch land along I95.
I really hope you guys took one of the bounces as a chance to exit the markets.
Stocks still have a long way to go if you need to sell, and someone is using a lot of money to manipulate the price of gold. This is a really strange bear market, but the bull market was even stranger.
Re: market timing… the best and oldest advice is as true today as ever.
Buy low and sell high.
The people making the market will say or do anything to keep people in it. In Vegas (the other gambling center) they talk about “playing with the house’s money.” It’s not. It’s YOUR money. The market makers know that if you keep playing, you will give it back.
Wall Street transactions involve two parties, with opposite beliefs, and who both can’t be right, so they are BOTH encouraged to keep playing.
“Timing the market” refers to a consistently applied short term system for trading based on price changes, not VALUE changes. Ie. it’s guessing and gambling.
“Profit taking” refers to actualizing any gains. IE selling when an asset is up (and traditionally when the value of a company increases not just its stock price).
Professional fund managers almost never just buy and hold no matter what, although they tell retail investors to do just that (and I know there are funds that purport to do that although they can’t seem to resist the urge to meddle). Very often they do the same (bad) thing as retail investors, buying high and then selling low driven by emotions.
The good ones rationally set points to buy or sell a particular asset based on research and then execute when those points are met, without any emotion or cliche’s driving their decision. (Buffett is the supposed king of this) LOTS of money flowed out of the stock market in the past year to “lock in gains”. Lots of suckers said “wow it’s really going up, I need to get in on that” while the so called “smart money” was happy to sell to them and shift into other assets. There is a reason Blackrock got out of the market and into real estate back in the day.
If your time line is long enough you can recover from almost anything, but you will be down for a long time vs everyone who cashed out, waited for the fall to recover, then got back in.
There is a lot of study around the idea that almost all of the true gains in the stock market come during short periods.
The whole thing is moot, as everyone makes their own choices (two sides who both believe they have the correct idea) and we all think we’re the cleverest monkey… and people will do and believe what they are inclined to do and believe- me included.
My wife thinks I’m too conservative. My advisor thinks I’m spot on and claims he’s doing the same thing. People whose job involves trading will always look for trades, and make poor decisions based on need to trade rather than other factors. They’ll always be interested in maintaining a pool of people to trade with too.
If you are comfortable with your decision, then that is the right decision for you.
n
(and that’s really all that needs to be said about that /forrest gump voice.)