Warm and windy, [77F and 82%RH]
Yesterday got up to “pretty dang hot” in the sun. I was moving in and out all day. I did get space cleared, shelves installed, and some food organized.
Today I’m going to continue that project and push forward on a couple others.
I might make my Lowe’s run, or not. Sunday morning might be better.
I’ve got the generators to get running too. And I might start that today too.
We are supposed to get rain at some point. That will shift all the stuff around.
I did some updating in comments last night, take a look.
Work to do, and so do you…
nick
Chickpea pasta, pinto beans and lettuce: Even in a crisis New Yorkers don’t want to stock up on these as still fill supermarket shelves
Wow. The lettuce is understandable, but I have a big bin of dried pinto beans as part of the core of our stash.
At a guess, you know how to cook and have the equipment to do so.
Disneyworld, Universal Studios, and then AFTER COUGHING UP BLOOD, mother fukcer GOT ON AN AIRPLANE.
There is a definite personality type and economic factors driving the problem which weren’t a factor even 10 years ago.
More so than is the case with the other recent media mergers, Disney has made a point of acquiring properties which cross the fetish line for a lot of people. They shouldn’t receive a bailout so they can continue to sit on the Fox library, Marvel, and sports coverage contracts they can’t afford.
At a guess, you know how to cook and have the equipment to do so.
Dried pinto beans aren’t rocket science. There is a skill to make them taste like something.
I always conceded the point of our late host that dried beans require a high energy input along with potable water, making them a questionable prep item, but power and water are still available in NYC.
Looking at houses around our area six years ago, it was obvious that a lot of high end kitchen remodels in Austin never get used in a meaningful way just based on physical impossibility of actually cooking in the configurations. Even in WA State, until we moved out, our landlords at our rental were clueless that the range vent didn’t go outside and simply exhausted through a metal filter into the cabinet above the burners. Of course, that didn’t stop them from dinging us for the stains on the ceiling near the cabinet door.
(Before anyone asks, it must have been legal. Despite all the “damage” we caused, the house sold 20 days after we moved out.)
I have no doubt that a lot of food going out of the doors at the local HEB this week will simply get thrown away or donated to the school canned goods drives next Fall. The meat and produce will go in next Wednesday’s garbage pickup for a start.
Pinto beans. MrsAtoz called to tell me she just put on a pot (we always have dried beans on hand). Bacon, onion, cilantro, Adobo, sliced wieners, and a bottle of beer at the end. We call them Boracho Beans.
Larry The Cable Guy on Celebriturds singing *Imagine* on Twitter:
“Here’s a message from people with a lot of possessions that can take a year off of work and not flinch telling everyone outa work to imagine a world with no possessions while people are living in the street a half mile away from ‘em. “
I’ve got borracho beans in cans. Staple here in Houston.
“Borracho” meaning “drunk” in Spanish of course…..
I’m sure the celebs thought it would be “comforting” and a great way they could “contribute.-” [without risking or actually doing anything] like the people singing out their windows in locked down cities.
I dislike the Beatles phenomenon, most of their music, and John Lennon in particular. Like Elvis, they are ‘of a generation’ and the kids today that didn’t experience the phenomenon don’t get it. A bit like blackface.
n
“Here’s a message from people with a lot of possessions that can take a year off of work and not flinch telling everyone outa work to imagine a world with no possessions while people are living in the street a half mile away from ‘em. “
Gal Gadot? Publicity push for “Wonder Woman 1984”.
My former corporate masters need the flick to work in a big way. “Westworld” ratings are awful.
They picked a lousy time to pull the “Wonder Woman” reruns from “MeTV”, with everyone holed up at home and Lyle Waggoner passing within the last week. The best Warner could do this week was a new poster.
First I like Walmart Neighborhood Market for grocery shopping. Earlier in the week I went at 6 am, their new open hour only to find they had changed their time to 7am. I just skipped it. Now they have announced a senior shopping hour. Tuesday only 6am for seniors. Really? Crazy thinking if you ask me.
What does that give you other than a crush of old peeps at 6am on Tuesday? Convenience? Not so much.
Albertsons is two hours Tuesday and Thursday and just up the road. Higher prices of course.
dkreck, the store is freshly cleaned for the oldsters to come in. 6AM might be a bit early, but it’s probably the best compromise that can be made.
As much as I normally dislike the People’s Liberation Army’s American storefront, I have nothing but good to say about their actions in the past few weeks.
If tRump really closes the southern border, he should deploy a Corps down there, locked and loaded.
I’m not complaining about the early hours. I get up early and was going at 5am when that was their opening. It’s the one hour a week that seems crazy. Could we have two, three days? Just to be flexible and not have a senior rush hour.
As I said, I like WNM.
Follow up article. Long, good read.
Describes the downfalls of the mitigation strategies.
Urges an idea the author is calling the hammer and the dance.
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56
Looks like Bangladesh should be exploding in 5-10 days…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8134015/Massive-Bangladesh-coronavirus-prayer-gathering-sparks-outcry.html
India cancelled all inbound flights for a week.
Hong Kong is seeing second wave infections – in bigger numbers than the first wave.
n
Another self interested and self important celeb
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-8134587/Rita-Ora-steps-wearing-self-designed-stop-spread-coronavirus-motif-T-shirt-mask.html
Steps out to encourage people to stay in. FFS.
n
Steps out to encourage people to stay in. FFS.
And a dozen photographers are there to capture the moment.
The only bad press is your obituary.
Drizzle started before breakfast this morning. Overcast and wet. Just picked up into rain. OF COURSE the kids want to play outside TODAY. The dog wants their attention, but is too smart to go out and get wet.
One side benefit of my surveillance cams is being able to keep an eye on the kids while sitting at my desk.
Oh, and I changed the batteries in my weather station, and got it talking to its old display in my office and the new display in my bedroom. Old display said 99%RH this morning while new one said 82%. Old one says 99% so often I thought it was stuck. I’ll report from the new one. Maybe there is a firmware update for the old one…
n
The “press” are usually exempt from shelter in place orders. So, whether your beat is headline news, baseball, or celebrity gossip you’re exempted equally.
Note to self: Google up how to get a set of press credentials.
The “press” in this case might be one guy who hangs around the lobby of certain apartment buildings. Or it might even just be her manager and an instagram upload.
In any case, I didn’t see how the tshirt and hat sales would actually benefit anyone besides her.
n
I think we need to push a new term, “the Parasite class” being those who couldn’t live without a host body to suck on. Almost every ‘celeb’ or ‘influencer’ would fall into it.
Tax day delayed 3 months
https://www.redstate.com/brandon_morse/2020/03/20/tax-day-from-april-15-to-july-15-under-trumps-direction/
Good if you owe.
Went to our Urgent Care last night.
Only patients allowed inside. Call from car when you arrive, info taken over phone. Paperwork brought to your vehicle, wait your turn from your vehicle. Escorted in when your turn directly to exam room.
Two hour wait to be seen, maybe 6 vehicles in lot when we arrived. Another hour or so inside.
Urgent Care closed at 9 pm. Husband was seen at about 9:30. Chest X-rays. Left about 10:15/10:30 pm. Pneumonia. Bacterial. Several good points – office had everything on hand needed to treat so don’t have to go out again. Not viral, which is apparently pretty deadly combined with WuFlu. And he did get seen and treated, who knows how that’ll be in a month.
And this was the wait with only 12 cases state wide. Staff looked pretty stressed and tired. I’m feeling old because they looked like high schoolers playing dress up in their masks and gowns and gloves.
Balmy spring weather (no sarcasm actually). Over 32 as everything melting and rainy. Ran the engine the whole time mostly to ensure air movement and provide light to patient child enduring in back seat.
Called in sick. I need to thoroughly disinfect the house and ensure child and I don’t contract it too. Small house. He will isolate himself but with a single bathroom -shrug- we can’t completely avoid additional exposure.
Also – fresh Emergency Order in our town. Veterinarians, dentists, etc. basically businesses that routinely use PPE have been told to cancel tasks that require usage of PPE and stand by to have it reallocated to health workers.
I follow the logic, particularly with the 1,500 air / 3,000 mile road gap between us and the lower 48. But dang. JIT has made a real mess.
https://www.muni.org/departments/mayor/pressreleases/documents/eo-02%20final.pdf
@jenny, that’s a heck of a mix of bad and good… glad he got care. Any way you can get whatever he’s getting for treatment NOW in case it’s not available later? Family Dr, etc?
Do what you can to prevent getting it.
Stay home.
Good luck.
n
JIT and penny pinching and letting money men run healthcare….
I’ve said it before, the hospital administration and board of directors made decisions about how much to stock, vs counting on being able to get it when needed. Those decisions were driven by the desire to meet performance numbers imposed by outsiders with little or no medical knowledge or common sense. Outsourcing, rightsizing, JIT, six sigma, or any other process that squeezes every last bit of redundancy (another word for excess capacity) out of a system became de riguer when actually growing the business became hard to do. Texas TAXES business property including fixtures and furniture that you’ve already paid tax on when you bought it. Keeping supplies and inventory is penalized by the state and TPTB and wall street so businesses responded with new policies. They looked at the numbers and rolled the dice. Worked for years. Came up craps this time.
That’s hopefully going to change.
n
MOST disaster scenarios are regional, with help available from outside the region at some point in time.
WWide pandemic is not one of those. You start with what you’ve got, and far too late you finally get gobs more than you could ever use, see also WWII.
Wearing a procedure mask, no less.
I wonder if Cankles is cackling over her cauldron putting a spell on Plugs to croak from COVID? She can just ride her broom in and scoop up the nomination.
jebus wept …
https://twitter.com/DRileyamusing/status/1240923403919515648
Texas joins other states that are issuing ‘stay at home’ restrictions:
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/03/19/texas-restaurants-bars-closed-greg-abbott/
I suspect it will be extended past April 3rd.
My mom just figured out how behind she is.
She went to the walgreens drive thru, looking for rubbing alcohol today.
“I went through the drive thru at Walgreens and asked to get a couple of bottles of alcohol. They had none. Impossible to get hand and surface cleaning supplies. I waited too long.”
–that’s gonna be the phrase o the times.
n
@nick
Any way you can get whatever he’s getting for treatment NOW
Possibly. We’ve got a resource that may be able to assist.
Mix of bad and good. Life in microcosm.
In an eye rolling ‘Really?’ I cooked the pork shoulder roast (all day, low temp, oh man tender good) instead of roasting a chicken yesterday. I’ll roast the chicken today so I can make The Worlds Best Chicken Soup (my recipe, varies every time, but dang is it good). Chicken Soup is invalid soup. Shredded pork not so much – that’ll get portioned and back into the freezer until it can be appreciated (and not wasted).
And about 90% of government “work”ers, many consultants and providers of services which no sane person would voluntarily pay for, 90% of never-married mothers who are living on welfare. The list goes on.
From each according to his ability…
“The Naked Sun” & “The Caves of Steel” Certainly in the top ten of my SF reading list…
Top 100 of my list. My top twenty are special, very special to me. Number one is “Mutineer’s Moon” by David Weber.
https://www.amazon.com/Mutineers-Moon-Dahak-David-Weber/dp/0671720856/?tag=ttgnet-20
New fad among the Zoomers?
Cops investigating ‘disturbing trend’ of teens coughing on produce
Oh, goody.
I suppose public flogging is out of the question?
“Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU)” on March 20, 2020
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
Worldwide Total Confirmed 265,495, an increase of 30,091 from 235,404 yesterday
Worldwide Total Deaths 11,113, an increase of 1,328 from 9,785 yesterday
USA Total Confirmed 14,631, an increase of 3,876 from 10,755 yesterday
USA Total Deaths 210, an increase of 56 from 154 yesterday
Hat tip to:
http://drudgereport.com/
At a guess, you know how to cook and have the equipment to do so.
Dried pinto beans aren’t rocket science. There is a skill to make them taste like something.
Yeah. Buy them in a can from Bush.
https://www.heb.com/product-detail/bush-s-best-pinto-beans/120121
I used to have to shell some kind of beans with my grandmother. We would shell 5 to 10 lbs at a time. My fingers would hurt at the end of the day.
I dislike the Beatles phenomenon, most of their music, and John Lennon in particular. Like Elvis, they are ‘of a generation’ and the kids today that didn’t experience the phenomenon don’t get it. A bit like blackface.
What ? Say it is not so ! “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” is one of my favorite records of all time.
https://www.amazon.com/Sgt-Peppers-Lonely-Hearts-Club/dp/B0025KVLTM/?tag=ttgnet-20
“I’m fixing a hole where the rain gets in and stop my mind from wandering …”
“When I get older losing my hair
Many years from now
Will you still be sending me a Valentine
Birthday greetings bottle of wine
If I’d been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I’m sixty-four”
I played this album for my 32 year old daughter on New Years. She liked it.
Yeah. Buy them in a can from Bush.
We buy the cans and stash them for quick work night dinner sides, but the dried beans keep a long time. I never let our 40 lb capacity dried bean bin drop below 2/3 full, rotating the beans while filling.
Beh. I’m with Nick: don’t much care for the Beatles. Some of this probably is reaction to having “greatest rock band evah!” shoved down my throat.
They had some catchy tunes. I’ll give them that. But they put out a lot of cr@p too, Hey Jude being one of the worst songs of all time, that somehow gets into your brain like a virus or a worm.
And pretentious? Some of the new kids can’t hold a
candledouble decaf, half caf, artisanal, sustainably grown, served in sustainably harvested cup, ‘venti’ soy latte to the OGs in the beatles.n
The sales logjam has finally broken after more than a month. My sales person has given me three new sales contracts in the last three days. I was really getting worried that we would be cast by the wayside in this crazy new world of $20/bbl crude oil and $1.80/mmbtu natural gas.
Now back to bug fixing. I have decided that my efficiency in bug fixing has gone done so much because I am having trouble making decisions for people. All software engineers make decisions for their users and we make a LOT of them. Looks, functionality, features, the repercussions of bug fixes, etc, etc, etc. I allocated four hours to fix a bug on Tuesday. That bug fix spawned three other bugs that I am still fixing today. Sigh.
If tRump really closes the southern border, he should deploy a Corps down there, locked and loaded.
If they could just keep pregnant women off the fence, I would be happy.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/03/13/pregnant-teen-falls-el-paso-texas-border-wall-dies/5040371002/
One of the places RBT and I disagreed (a bit anyway) on LTS and bulk food was when to consider the energy and effort cost along with the commodity cost.
Baking bread is a waste of energy and time. Tortillas and flatbreads rule in resource constrained environments and cultures.
Canned beans will last a LONG time and already have not only water (which has to be obtained, purified, etc. all with costs) but also only need to be reheated, and that only for taste. Uncooked beans need water, and have long cook times.
Funny thing was, he did acknowledge that home canning probably didn’t come close to buying canned goods in terms of costs. It was still an important skill to practice for later though.
Trade offs, always trade offs.
n
Bacon and eggs (first time in 10 days) and a Boston Lager for lunch.
The Beatles and Stones never caught on with me. I play Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, etc., all the time. Classical, Jazz. New Age/Spa to sleep by on my Home Pods.
Amazon has Keystone ground beef for sale April 9. Limit 4. They ran out of the Keystone Turkey before I placed my order. Idiot (me !). And the ground beef is gone already !!!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B59QDEC/?tag=ttgnet-20
I passed up on 3.5 oz six packs of canned chicken for $5.58 at Sam’s Club yesterday. I may go back today as I scored a full size Bounty package, limit one. Everybody in the store had one Bounty in their basket, it was kind of surreal.
https://www.samsclub.com/p/member-s-mark-premium-chunk-chicken-breast-3-25-oz-6-ct/prod9690189
Some good news, Open Source Ventilator Development:
https://m.slashdot.org/story/368574
And, yes, I know, Slashdot commenting is usually mind numbing, but some good comments in among the garbage.
DAMMIT!
Thanks.
You just plain stink.
Eh, maybe. It’s important if you expect society to collapse so far that you can’t get canned food from elsewhere. If that’s the case then you should learn how to modify your internal combustion engines to burn alcohol or biodiesel and to find coal and iron ore.
More good news, Elon Musk to make PPE.
I expect his millionth shipped by The middle of next week.
First, he’ll have to raise 2 or 3 billion dollars with promises they’ll be 138% better than current ventilators, require no maintenance at all until they catch on fire, and only kill the patient by making their own decisions “a few” times.
n
Can the muskilators also “phone home” regularly to report on how they’re being used “to help in developing a better product”?
I can make it better.
Oh, Mandy
Well, you came
And you gave without taking
But I sent you away
Oh, Mandy
Well, you kissed me
And stopped me from shaking
And I need you today
Oh, Mandy
A Tweet from CNN Politics:
Trump peddles unsubstantiated hope in dark times | Analysis
What kind of trash fracking news organization would put out garbage like that? The MSM has to end.
More good news, Elon Musk to make PPE.
I expect his millionth shipped by The middle of next week.
PR to cover a report from NTSB issued today pointing fingers at NHTSA as well as Tesla in a fatal autopilot crash in 2018.
The upside of the virus is that The Real Life Tony Stark (TM) meme is over unless Musk suddenly comes up with, say, 100,000 ventilators in the next week.
I’ve read that 80% of people won’t exhibit symptoms (or symptoms so mild that they wouldn’t raise an alarm), so it’s probably safe to assume the majority of that 80% won’t report to a hospital or get tested. So, that 265,495 probably only represents 20% of those infected. So, the infection number is probably more like 1,327,475. Probably significantly higher if you figure on those who are symptomatic and self-quarantining without going in for testing.
I expect large jumps in the counts of infected as testing because more accessible. I also think the numbers of recovered are extremely misleading owing to the aforementioned 80% who are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic (how are you ever counted as recovered from something you never knew you had?)
I am beginning to see a little push back from the private sector about why we’re “shutting the world down” for a virus that once the dust settles and the math is done will maybe only be 0.5% fatal in developed nations. Depending on how long this drags out and how many businesses fail that grumbling could become quite a chorus.
I passed up on 3.5 oz six packs of canned chicken for $5.58 at Sam’s Club yesterday. I may go back today as I scored a full size Bounty package, limit one. Everybody in the store had one Bounty in their basket, it was kind of surreal.
The Sam’s near our house had eggs and milk today when I went in early to look at the fresh meat situation. Limit 1 to each household.
I snagged a milk, but we have eggs. The Subcontinent couple behind me were audibly anxious that I stopped to think about the egg situation at the house before getting out of the way.
When the expired milk and eggs start going in the trash that will be the end of that particular panic buying. Always joke every time around here there’s a huge snowstorm and the milk section of the store gets looted. Why do icy streets and the schools being closed for 2 days mean you need 6 gallons of milk, 3 dozen eggs, and a half dozen loaves of bread?!
What got hit hard around here was frozen pizza. I guess we know what school age kids are eating for lunch during this pandemic.
@Nick,Greg. Re:Musk.
Heh, yeah, point taken. Though I’d rather subsidize PPE and ICU equipment over solar crap.
Big takeaway is that every other manufacturer now knows they need to get off the mark, the clock is running…
What got hit hard around here was frozen pizza. I guess we know what school age kids are eating for lunch during this pandemic.
That’s a new one. You can *still* practically hear crickets chirping in the parking lot of the Papa Murphy’s near our house, and their product isn’t much more expensive than frozen.
And the dirty secret of Papa Murphy’s is that they can accept food stamps.
I am beginning to see a little push back from the private sector about why we’re “shutting the world down” for a virus that once the dust settles and the math is done will maybe only be 0.5% fatal in developed nations. Depending on how long this drags out and how many businesses fail that grumbling could become quite a chorus.
From Jenny, Follow up article. Long, good read.
Describes the downfalls of the mitigation strategies.
Urges an idea the author is calling the hammer and the dance.
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56
The author of that article is claiming with no quarantining, the dead in the USA will be 10,000,000+. Then he claims with quarantining, the dead will be 4,000.
Those numbers are to the extremes of each other. Very extreme. The Power That Be are shutting down the USA economy based on them.
There will be much second guessing when this is over in 18 months.
I predict that China will not pay us or anyone one red cent for this mess they started.
Armour Star Roast Beef With Gravy, 12 oz. for $7.52 available on April 3
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DPNY9UG/?tag=ttgnet-20
I predict that China will not pay us or anyone one red cent for this mess they started.
They’ll pay. Halloween and Christmas cr*p -er- general merchandise isn’t getting ordered.
And I had so much Chinse-made SWAG with the company logo accumulating in my cube from the last year that I simply put it in a landfill a few weeks ago. If unemployment really goes to 20%, not much of that junque is going to get ordered either.
More cases in Alice Springs than Beijing, according to the Sky News graphic I saw a while back.
Assuming any legal remedies, China trade is toast.
Aren’t we also assuming any numbers coming out of China right now are correct?
Austin VA is out of masks and recommending the staff use bandanas in the screening areas at the building entrance. That’s not going to end well.
Soak pintos overnight (8-12 hours max)
Pressure cook for ~1½ minutes post full pressure.
Relieve pressure immediately.
Drain and save hot juice if wanted for other stuff.
Been doing this for years. Old beans seem to take a bit longer.
Where’s the great energy loss?
Borracho beans! Ha, Love it.
*****
Some cool science movies:
https://tinyurl.com/tel3fok
Been doing this for years. Old beans seem to take a bit longer.
Where’s the great energy loss?
Borracho beans! Ha, Love it.
Getting into the fall before RBT went into the hospital, I think he did some research and concluded that dried beans would make more sense than he originally concluded.
We have a Korean pressure cooker rice pot, but I’ve never quite mastered the gadget.
@lynn
I’ll read the article again with better brain. When I quickly skimmed it this morning it seemed reasonable.
Some cool science movies:
It takes some work to find, but the BBC’s “The Challenger” has decent performances from William Hurt as Richard Feynman and Bruce Greenwood as General Kutyna.
The most interesting aspect of the movie, however, is the reveal that General Kutyna used Feynman as political cover on the Rogers Commission to protect his real source about the Shuttle O-rings, Sally Ride, so she could continue to make money in speaking engagements as the first female astronaut from the US. The only unanswered question at the end is when did Feynman know he had been used that way.
In case you haven’t seen it. UK Chancellor of the Exchequer announced Government to cover 80% of wages of those not actively employed in companies. Plus other announcements increasing benefits to unemployed and some benefits for self-employed. Major intervention by the state to protect those affected by the crisis. Also pubs, leisure centres, theatres etc now to close.
London the main crisis centre in the UK. Certain hospital critical care beds now full, and having to redirect cases.
The big numbers for deaths are after the current ICU system gets saturated. At that point, everyone that would die without a ventilator, will die. That’s what’s different about Italy vs china vs South Korea. SK has an astounding number of ventilators, probably in reaction to having a madman on their borders. China has a bunch of vents, and just locked people into their apartments to die uncounted after a certain point. The videos are available of the locking up, and the carrying out of the bags…
Once we get saturated, EVERY one of the 6 or 8% dies instead of recovers, and if the big pulse happens then, the numbers are truly huge.
The article was reasonable against other stuff I’ve found and read. The deaths will never be at his lower bound, because we’ve already crossed the point where the remedies would have needed to start. His upper bound is a straight extrapolation, which even he said doesn’t happen in nature.
If there is no long term immunity — and we don’t know for certain that there is and evidence exists that you may not get immunity — then it’s all up for grabs.
There are additional deaths too, because once the ICU system is saturated, no one gets any care for ordinary things. The things that fill the ICUs on a weekly basis in every major city in the US. One of the numbers includes those millions of people too.
Slowing the doubling rate is the only thing, short of effective treatment, or prophylaxis, that will help. And God save us if there is no acquired immunity or the virus mutates.
nick
Pinto beans – not a favorite, we ate way too many when I was growing up in a big, poor, family.
But you can solar cook pinto beans, so it’s not a real energy suck. At least in good weather.
Solar cookery is a lot like crock pot cooking, though I’m too lazy and impatient for either generally.
“Certain hospital critical care beds now full, and having to redirect cases. ”
–that is an additional killer as I’ve noted above, once saturated, every additional case, no matter the cause, is in trouble.
TPTB have announced that Hospital Ships Comfort and Mercy will be tasked with non-CV trauma and ICU cases. Without a swab test, I’m not sure how they’ll keep it off the ships, but they will try at least initially.
n
Hmmm, like Jenny I put 6 pounds of pork shoulder in the crock pot today. I’m cooking rice from a bucket, with a gamma lid, and opened a can of pineapple rings. Hawaiian pulled pork, rice, fruit.
Tomorrow, I’ll put the remaining shoulder in with carnitas sauce and stew that for taco night.
Used my butcher’s knife to cut and debone the shoulder. Worked great and I now understand why that shape knife is used by the butcher.
Chocolate chip cookie brownie from (several year expired) mix for desert. Tasted fine raw… probably taste REALLY fine cooked 🙂
Sending my mom a care package. Two boxes mountain house, 3 pounds spaghetti, can of meatballs, small dak ham, peanut butter, jello, cookies, one can lysol and one bottle hand sanitizer. Couple other cans to fill out the box.
I’ve been begging people to get ready for years. No one did.
n
Made a Sam’s Club run late this afternoon. Wouldn’t have gone out but my mother-in-law’s prescription had been filled. This is I think the third grocery run in a week, almost all for stuff for my wife and her mother. (Today I picked up a few snack things for my daughter and I’ll use some of the eggs and potatoes. The other $120 was stuff for them.)
About average crowd for the time of day. Couple people wearing surgical masks. No one wearing N95 masks. No customers wearing gloves but all of the employees were.
Food areas were pretty picked over but there was still fresh meat (mostly the expensive stuff), some frozen food, some produce, some packaged goods. Bakery products were fully stocked. Household paper products were completely gone. Sanitizing products were gone. I saw one woman with a couple gallons of Pine-Sol. it’s possible she just wanted to clean the floors and baseboards while she was home. It’s possible…
Employees looked tired but not grumpy or exhausted. I told a couple “thanks for being here when I’m sure you’d rather not be” and they greatly appreciated it, and agreed they’d rather not be there.
The capstone to my little excursion: my wife is pissed off that I left the house again and possibly brought germs in. She’s the one who said that Grandma needs her medicine. She’s also the one who had no food (for her and Grandma) in the house a week ago but who is afraid to go out and buy food. I’m tempted to gather up everything that I bought for them and donate it to some charity and let them starve. I won’t, because it would make my daughter sad, but I’m tempted.
wrt Energy loss cooking beans- not loss, just takes more heat energy, which might be in very short supply during a disaster, to cook beans vs. re-heat canned beans. Potable water might be in short supply too. So if you don’t have to carry them, canned beans are a better choice for all but the longest lasting disasters.
=n
As Nick says, slowing the doubling rate is critical.
The plot of “total us cases” at worldometer, first plot after the big table, has a logarithmic tab option. Click that. The number of cases make an almost a perfect straight line plotted that way, since March 2nd. No curve bending to be seen.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
The impatient I understand in this context, but not the “lazy” part of that. Unless you’re comparing it to heating up something from a can, you can’t get much easier than a meal in a crock pot.
Pork and beans: throw a pork shoulder in the crockpot before bed and cook on Low all night. In the morning pull out the bone(s) and stir up the meat and fat until it’s basically pulled pork. Drop in a pound of dried beans (pretty much any kind) and add a cup of white vinegar and four cups of water. Add a good amount of salt and black pepper, some brown sugar, and other spices or herbs as suits your taste and the contents of your cupboard. Cook about ten hours on low. Total “you” time is about ten minutes, and you’ll have supper for a mob meals for a week for a couple people.
Stew is barely more work. You throw in a whole chicken (tip: take the giblet bag out first!) or a goodly chunk of pork with plenty of fat; beef you’ll probably want to cube though you don’t have to. Chop up some root vegetables and maybe some other vegetables. Throw in some seasoning to suit. Cook about seven hours. Pull out the bones and stir. Again, supper for a mob for about ten minutes of effort, with most of the time spent on chopping the vegetables.
There are a lot of crock pot recipes which take more work, but I generally don’t do those. I usually make crock pot things first thing on a weekend morning then take care of things all day and have supper waiting for me.
SK has an astounding number of ventilators, probably in reaction to having a madman on their borders.
SARS and H1N1 scares. Plus they have an actual manufacturing base.
Yeah. I quit telling them. Because it seems I’m some sort of retarded crazy old man. And they “don’t have room” in a three bedroom house of oh, 2600 sq ft with just two folks living there. Plus a huge attic.
I don’t tell them what I have. They’ll figure it all out for themselves.
What got hit hard around here was frozen pizza. I guess we know what school age kids are eating for lunch during this pandemic.
One of my neighbors is taking care of her five grandchildren during the crisis. They just ran out of spaghettios.
@lynn
I’ll read the article again with better brain. When I quickly skimmed it this morning it seemed reasonable.
The article is not unreasonable. He is using extremes to illustrate his point. And the White House is singing the same song, just not to the same extremes.
The article does a better job of making me understand “what if”. If we undertake a complete economic destruction of the USA, the number of deaths might be in the thousands. If we continue normal business in the USA, the number of deaths might be in the millions, even as much as ten million.
The complete economic destruction of the USA is a little hard to take. 18 months of lockdown in our homes seems excessive. Shoot, 18 days of lockdown in our homes seems excessive.
No matter what, we are talking about a complete economic destruction of the USA. And we seem to have made that decision and are heading down that path at 120 mph.
I wonder about the melt down.
How much of Wall St is actually useful?
Vast sums of fiat money are sloshing around, but it’s been fantasy money for decades, what one algorithm thinks that another algorithm thinks about a thirds prognostications about derivatives of woman’s skirt lengths… only not so straight forward.
What if … nothing happens?
The effect of the near total loss of our medical system, 10% of our Drs and staff, and even a million old people (who are the owners of all those businesses and all that stored wealth, would tank the economy anyway. It’s not either or. It’s tank the economy and loose that many or tank the economy and lose fewer….
The economy is already tanked. Just how far down, and how long to get back up are the only questions.
nick
Say you cook a dried pinto bean in 3x its volume in water.
It doubles in size and reduces the remaining water by 1/3.
You’re still going to have a ~1/3 of a pinto bean extra water left over compared to canned, so I guess you’re right: cooking dried beans requires 33% more energy.
I’ll leave the resident rocket scientist to check my math.
Yoohoo, CowboySlim!
Don’t forget, COVID could be around on an annual basis until a vaccine is developed. Or cure. We’ll be like Ants for 9 months until the Grasshopper comes around.
Today, I had my accountant pay all bills through April 5, including our March 31 payroll. I am getting ready for a shutdown, quarantine at hone, in Texas. The problem will come if the shutdown lasts longer than two weeks.
My father-in-laws girlfriend is still visiting him every day. She goes to his nursing home, stands outside his window, and yells hello to him. He then asks her why she is not coming inside and calls for a nurse who explains the lockdown to him. Again and again.
“An open letter to @GretaThunberg and other assorted climate wackadoodles”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/03/19/an-open-letter-to-greta-thunberg-and-other-assorted-climate-wackadoodles/
“Dear Greta,
So you got what you wanted.
“System change & Economic Slowdown” is a real thing now.
Airplanes, industry, jobs, restaurants, recreation, and schools are all shut down.
Instead we have fear, poverty, misery, joblessness, economic ruin, and a bleak future.
Happy now?
Anthony Watts
(and thousands of WUWT readers)”
Don’t forget, COVID could be around on an annual basis until a vaccine is developed. Or cure. We’ll be like Ants for 9 months until the Grasshopper comes around.
How is that cure for the common cold going ?
I really want somebody to take the vaccine in front of me. I don’t want a third kidney. Or my two kidneys destroyed.
Today, I had my accountant pay all bills through April 5, including our March 31 payroll. I am getting ready for a shutdown, quarantine at hone, in Texas. The problem will come if the shutdown lasts longer than two weeks.
Did Texas announce a change late today?
Travis and Williamson counties announced new guidelines for patients entering doctors’ offices tonight. Something tells me that the Austin VA approach with staff wearing bandanas in lieu of masks and accepting the patient’s word about any fever doesn’t meet the standard.
I may have to call a Prog Congressman’s office on Monday and talk like a snowflake to get something done out at the VA. I feel so dirty already.
I really want somebody to take the vaccine in front of me. I don’t want a third kidney. Or my two kidneys destroyed.
The anti-vaxxers in Vantucky weren’t totally nuts last year. The Measles pandemic was a complex situation involving many factors. Kaiser was stupid with stock bottles of vaccines a couple of decades ago, and people in the area have long memories.
It isn’t recommended that I get the Measles vaccine or the flu shot due to an egg white allergy, but I’ve had doctors tell me that, in their opinion, the benefits of the flu shot outweigh the temporary problems of the reaction.
Fortunately, the flu shot is still optional. I get the feeling that the Coronavirus vaccine will be mandatory, especially if the US develops it first.
Today, I had my accountant pay all bills through April 5, including our March 31 payroll. I am getting ready for a shutdown, quarantine at hone, in Texas. The problem will come if the shutdown lasts longer than two weeks.
Did Texas announce a change late today?
Nope. Hinted at and legal procedures put in place.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-health/2020/03/19/gov-abbott-announces-temporary-statewide-school-restaurant-gym-closures/
If I cannot go to the office with my accountant, we cannot pay our bills. I am being cautious. I don’t buy the crap that people have no repercussions for not paying their bills. Plus, I have professional and ethical requirements that I pay my employees and landlord (me !).
The federal council announced the latest changes to Corona measures yesterday. No huge changes, mainly a new measure aimed at idiots who aren’t taking things seriously: Any gathering of 5 or more people can now be broken up by the police, and the individuals fined.
Otherwise, they’ve announced a massive financial assistance program that will support individuals and small businesses impacted by all the closures. They’ve done this very cleverly: if you need financial assistance, you just go to your normal bank. The bank is responsible for vetting people, and giving them a reasonable amount of money. Officially, this will be a loan at a near-zero interest rate, and mostly guaranteed by the government. A lot of these “loans” will turn into direct payments, but the bureaucracy will take months to sort out. Since many small businesses can’t wait, they can get the loans immediately and worry about the details later.
The federal council also took the opportunity to say “I told you so” to all of the nitwits who complain about the government running a surplus every year, instead of spending on endless social programs. “See, this is why we don’t run deficits in good times, because we need the capacity to spend money in bad times.” Which (cough) is also an unintentional poke at all those countries that do run continuous deficits…
Yuuup!