Category: ebola

Cool and beautiful, if it doesn’t rain.

Yesterday was very nice outside, and I spent far too much of the day inside.

I did get up on the roof to swap out one camera for a new one. The new one looks great. The old camera was state of the art when new, homeland security grade, and very expensive. The new one is very capable, pro-sumer quality, and cheap. The low light and IR capabilities are fantastic, and it’s 8 Mpx, so digital zoom looks awesome. As a bonus, it’s a dome and is a bit less visible and intrusive. Certainly more modern and streamlined than the enclosure on an arm it replaced.

Some other minor gardening, and cleanup, and one ebay sold item and that rounds out my day. NOT productive by any means.

Oh, I did use my new battery charger to charge up an old yellow top battery I have in a carrier with a medium sized inverter. The battery took a charge and ended up on Float charge. I forget the name but it’s one of the expensive ones, ultima? with the grey body and yellow top. Some have a red top. I wish I’d found a forklift battery or some reconditioned marine batteries before all this hit, but I’d only been looking for a short time. I would like to work on the solar array project, but I don’t really have batteries. Or for that matter a charge controller. Add it to the list.

I also desperately want to go to the range and put a box or two through a couple of toys. I really need to function test one, and I’ve never fired the other. One local range is open but I don’t want to risk the exposure.

It is a risk too. Every case in the ER in a week will have been contracted this week, most likely through community spread. Don’t go out and play in it.

Dinner was pork chops, a cheesy pasta side dish, and fresh asparagus. Dessert was the triple layer cake my 8yo made for her grandpa’s birthday. We ate it, he admired it on Facetime. It was bright red cake, dark chocolate frosting, and M&Ms inside and out. She did it all on her own from the various boxes, with very little oversight. Very visually striking 🙂

Kids had school video conferences today. They had fun seeing their teachers and friends. It was mainly a ‘work out the bugs and give this a try’ session. Seemed to go well after the slow start. The school uses Zoom. Borepatch noted on his site that WebEx is offering their video meeting product free for the duration. If you have a group you get together with, but have stopped for the wuflu, you might want to check out a group conference. Funny what happens when there is competition.

Lots of stuff needs doin’ today. I better get to it.

n

Cooler and windy. Rain in the forecast.

Yesterday was another hot beautiful day. Weather station said high 90s. Certainly in the sun that was possible. I got a bit overheated in the back yard. Didn’t feel well at all. Still on Cipro, and probably shouldn’t be in the sun at all. It was very nice in the shade in the late afternoon. Spent some time on the swing with the kids and on the porch with my wife.

Got some more shelving up. Had to order clips, but was able to steal some from other shelves to get started. You can pack a lot of food in a small space with some good shelves. When I get them all together, maybe I’ll share a picture. I don’t think it would be an OPSEC issue to see some shelves…

I posted a youtube link yesterday to one of my favorite guys, an old guy with a very clever mind and active hands… the link was for a potato tower made in a trash bag. I’ve wanted to do a tower but didn’t want to do the work to make one, and don’t have an extra barrel to use either. His is the first one I’ve seen that was so dirt simple. I’ve even been saving some of the heirloom potatoes to use as starters.

I spent some time getting one of my new surveillance cams config’d and ready to mount. I was up on the roof and think I’d like to mount it on my fireplace chimney. There is a great clear view toward the open end of my street. It won’t be subtle, but that has pluses too. I’m pretty sure I have an appropriate mounting arm somewhere in the stack. If not, under the eve it goes. I picked a spot for the other to look toward the other end of my street too. I’m just going to replace the cam that points that way now. I need to find the IR emitter for the back yard too, and finally get that installed. Backyard is likeliest avenue of approach for bad guys, and is dark as a tomb at night.

Listening to the scanner, there has been a lot more encrypted traffic on the tactical channels than usual. Can’t do SIGINT, but can do traffic analysis. I’d try for some HUMINT in normal times, but sitting at home doesn’t bring me into contact with any of the guys I know in LE. Seem to be a lot of choppers in the air lately too. Filed under Hmmmm.

I’ve been sleeping late. I’ve been really tired, so I’ve been letting myself. This is not the time to be getting run down and vulnerable. Still, it feels like slacking. I had a sense of urgency for the last week before locking down, and now it feels like settling in for a long haul.

I better do something to get started on the day’s list…

Stay safe, stay in.

nick

Warmer, and possibly a bit drier.

Yesterday got HOT in the sun. My weather station said 99F. It’s in a heat island, but will accurately reflect the temps in the driveway. So I avoided the driveway.

Moved stuff, gathered in some more stuff, and cleaned up pollen stuff from the trees. Between the tree pollen and the leaf mold, I’m not feeling great. And that is problematic because I’m monitoring for signs of sickness. Daughter 2 is suffering from a runny nose and sore throat too. No fevers for anyone in the house.

It’s been beautiful weather, and eerily quiet outside. The highway noise is significantly reduced and the lack of airplanes is noticeable. Feels like there should be chainsaws and generators running… but it’s not that sort of disaster.

It’s a disaster for sure. One unfolding in slow motion for the nation, and in super quick time for New Orleans and NYFC. From ‘nothing to see, go on about your business’ – to stacking bodies in freezer trailers in 3 weeks… that’s pretty quick.

It also points out the absurdity of the numbers from China.

That’s absurdity that will end up costing lives in the rest of the world, and appears to have probably cost a whole lot of Chinese lives too. Round two is getting underway and it will be interesting to see what their curve looks like this time around.

Interesting but not really helpful. Which is my feeling about a whole lot of reporting on speculation and models and expert opinion, especially expert opinion AFTER the fact. We’re at the point now where there is no way through but forward. And still the best advice I’ve seen is “try damn hard NOT to get this.”

Stay in, stay safe.

nick

Warm and damp.

Get pretty warm yesterday and had a nice breeze in the afternoon. I was sweating like crazy loading my truck.

Much to do today. Stuff to stack and organize. Stuff to retrieve from storage.

I will be in and out throughout the morning and then gone in the afternoon.

I looked at TX numbers last night and we were ~1000 cases. Wasn’t I b!tching about suspiciously low numbers in the 50s and 60s just a week ago? THAT’s how fast this thing is. And a little birdy told me there are SO MANY patients that are presumed but not tested and identified yet…

Take a look at the responder numbers — https://iafc.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/3813d2f872224d8a93c52f05cd392b8c drill down to YOUR area. Watch the trend.

Harken back to my review of the CDC pandemic advice to hospitals, and the points about when EMS fails, when they make decisions in the field to NOT transport, etc. Think about the other points too. That’s what’s coming.

Stay in, stay safe.

nick

Cool and wet. Still.

Got some stuff done yesterday, but I’m hard pressed to make a list.

I guess I did some ebay, I’ve got 8 packages waiting by the door.

I did some moving and organizing of stuff, but very little.

Rained most of the day which did limit my outdoor activity.

Managed to get a couple of things done outside- planted the new (replacement) blueberry bush, blew the pollen fuzzy caterpillar looking things off the roof, walk, and porch. MUCH easier to do when they are damp and not spraying pollen everywhere.

Spent time on the phone with a friend.

Wife and daughters did a heavy clean on the bathrooms and kitchen, especially the floors.

Wife and kids started playing Portal 2 in co-op mode. None had played before. I played through single player mode when it came out. Which was 8 years ago. Jeez time flies.

More of the same today. Piles to shift, maybe a trip to the secondary…

I need MOAR of all the things!

n