I’m a retired physician who now lives with his wife on a farm in West Virginia. Isolation has been easy although we do miss the grandkids. Ordinarily it would be golf season by now, but that has been put on hold. So I’m getting a lot done on the railroad and the Maryland Midland Rwy is coming along a lot faster than I anticipated. Buildings are getting built and trains are running. No hobby shop though.I’m having to rely on our once per week trip to Walmart for paint and glue. Amazon and Ebay have been helpful.
Of course, when I ought to be working on my layout, I’m instead catching up on Star Trek:Enterprise. I sort of skipped it all when it was originally on. I gave up on DS9, right before it got really good apparantly. Voyager bored me to death, and I only managed a few episodes of Discovery. I’m actually liking Enterprise, I guess I always liked Scott Bakula from the Quantum leap days.
Now, a weekend update. We now have 4 people in the township testing positive. It would be nice if they told us if these were all from a single family or a specific area.
Countywide there are now 110 positive out of 1323 tested.
Attention Randy Rinker: I hope you used some of the plywood you bought to board up your windows. I’m just to the right of you on the map, so the virus is coming your way. Cue the Jaws music.
The better half is starting to get paranoid. Shes wants me to wash my hands after I read my emails. I’ll have to do a Google search to see if Norton sells a Corona antivirus for PCs.
Almost got down into the basement to gather material for some train related projects, but wifey got me hooked on a computer game. Oh well, there’s radon in the basement anyway.
I saw something interesting on Jesse Watters show tonight. He had a video from a NY doctor treating coronavirus patients. They believe that 99% of the people infected got the disease by contacting the coronavirus with their hands and then touching their face. The virus enters the body through the mouth, nose, or eyes. If you refrain from touching your face with your hands, there is little chance you will become infected. I don’t know if this has been verified or not, but that is what this doctor is claiming. Of course, that is easier said than done. Just refraining from scratching an itch is difficult. It’s almost an automatic reaction that you might do without even thinking. The real problem is handling food. How can you eat a sandwich without bringing your hands to your mouth. Just prepping food is going to require you to touch it. I guess the answer is to disinfect your hands, thoroughly washing and then applying sanitizer, before handling any food. Probably a good practice anyway but it seems imperative now.
I’m just the opposite. I have a basement layout. I only find time to run trains in the cold weather months. That might change this year with the golf courses closed until further notice. I figure to get a lot done on the layout at least in the next few months.
I almost believe that it is psychological. Never wanted to do it until told you can’t.
When I worked at a nuclear plant they gave you a psychological test with a bunch of questions before they allowed you on site. For example, one of the yes/no questions may have been “I liked to torture small animals”, or “loud sounds wake me up”.
The one I specifically remember was “I liked to pull the fire alarm when I was in school”. Never in my life would I have considered that. Now after being asked that same question multiple times, I have this strange compulsion. I make sure to avoid all the fire alarm boxes now.
LOL, you may be serius but that fire alarm thing is the funniest thing I have read in awhile. I bit the bullet today and started laying track, so far so good.
I did that a few times in first grade. Somehow I thought it was the timecard punch for the nuns. Wondered why the fire dept kept showing up…then someone spotted me in action, I guess. I was summoned to the classroom of the principal nun. In front of a whole room full of 8th graders, I was interrogated about what I’d been up to, which I stumbled through as I told the truth as best I could. Needless to say, I haven’t felt the urge to pull an alarm since - now that I know what they do. I’m not sure it helped my case that my recently departed maternal grandpa had been an assitant fire chief in the local FD.
So I have been catching up on things that needed ctaching up on. One was building a memorial display honoring one of the long time members of our division, who passed away last year. He was a well-regarded professor, but also a pretty amazing narrowgauge modeler. Being the historian I am, I couldn’t resist documenting the highlights of a life well spent in educating young people while also building some righteous models in HOn3 and, earlier, in TT. He also dabbled in the rather arcane 5.5 mm scale, which operates on TT track (12 mm gauge) using it to represent 2’ gauge, apparently explained by other evidence of his interest in the Maine 2’ lines.
His estate donated a lot of stuff to the ITD, includiong a collection of MR that dated back to Feb. 1939 when he started reading it, but also including a bound copy of MR’s first year he’d pciked up along the way, Then there were the various Timesavers and other modules he built or started. I finally got around to do an inventory and came up with 18. This is what it looks like in the attic of my shop - at least until we find homes for some o
My life is completely on hold! The planned emigration to Denmark has been postponed indefinitively, all modeling activities have been cancelled. I spent most of my time sourcing food and the most important paper there is. In fact, I spend more time outside than ever before, as stores seem to be selling “sorry, we are out ofs”, instead the groceries we need. This is sheer madness, and I just hope that our leaders come to reason soon!
“There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I dasn’t scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my back, right between my shoulders. Seemed like I’d die if I couldn’t scratch. Well, I’ve noticed that thing plenty times since. If you are with the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain’t sleepy—if you are anywheres where it won’t do for you to scratch, why you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places.”
Leaders can’t do anything about panic buying. The fault for that lies with the consumers or as Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves.”. When I was in Walmart a few days ago, I asked one of the clerks why there was almost no lunchmeat. He told me people are buying it almost as fast as they can put it in the coolers. There is no supply chain problem. The merchandise is getting to the stores. Hoarders are just taking way more than they need for the short term.
I found out about the shutdown when I called my favorite LHS to see if they had curtailed the hours and got no answer. I have to drive almost an hour so I thought it would be best to find out if they were open first. It just happened to be the day after the shutdown which took effect the previous midnight. Since there is no answer, I’m sure curb service is not an option.
I’m retired too and social distancing, especially in the cold weather months is nothing new for me. It was nothing for me to go days without face to face contact with another human being. The only people I would see were the ones driving their cars while I was out walking my dog. Now that’s lasting a week or more. The only time I have left my property in the last 3 weeks has been to go to the supermarket which I have done twice. At one point I went ten days without seeing another human being other than the driv
Prior to when Corona hit, my wife and watched all the way through Star Trek Next Generation, something I’ve been wanting to do for a few years and finally convinced her. Then we started watching DS9 but yeah, the first season or two I may have to drag her though. After Picard, she’s feels Cisco is a weak character and some of the first season episodes are really daft, but the show gets some big story arcs later with the Dominion and Gem H’dar.
CBS All Access is offering a month free, so being a fan of Patric Stewart we watched the 10 episode Star Treck Picard series. On the one hand, it’s great to see Patrick back in action although I wished they didn’t wait until he was so old, but he’s still a great actor. The show has an exciting plot and the latest special effects.
Having seen the whole Picard series now, it’s very dark, and Gene Roddenberry must be rolling in his grave. The writers take a very pessemistic view of the Federation and Genes optimistic view of the future is turned upsidedown. While it was entertaining and exciting and had moments of nostagia, the ending of season one left me feeling very empty and depressed. Not the good old Star Trek story and writing of the older series. My wife felt the same.
As for Star Trek Enterprise, I really liked it and it’s a shame it was canceled after what, 4 1/2 seasons?&nb
That’s good to know and should make for an interesting comparison with Norway, Denmark, and Finland. Right now Sweden has about 700 fewer confirmed cases but almost five times the confirmed deaths as Norway. 25 to 121. Finland only has 11 deaths but Denmark has 72. Sweden has about twice the population as those other three countries.
I suspected from the beginning that we have overreacted but because there were so many unknowns, I kept my mouth shut and went along. I bowl in the winter and play golf in the warmer months but that has all be taken away so I have no place to go anyway. I’m much better off than the people who lost their jobs and the ones who did get sick. My pension and SS payment keeps getting deposited and now I think I’m getting $1200. That will just about pay my golf course membership for the year if the course ever opens up.
I don’t think anyone knows how this is going to play out. Everybody is making educated guesses. Somebody has guessed right but we won’t know who that is for awhile. Hopefully we are learning fast how to treat it once people get severely sick so we can lower the death rate.
Never pulled a fire alarm, but cam close to trading blows with drunk morons who did it in college - not only did we have to all go outside, we all got charged for it if it was a flase alarm. ANd being on a small hall with only about 12 people to divide the cost vs some of the other floors with 10x the people made it hurt even more. Not that I was against drinking, I certainly drank my share in those days, just not every weekend and 4 or 5 nights a week (maybe low load business students could handle that, but as an engineering major - no way), but even on my worse night I never considered pulling the arlam.
I did, in kindergarten, get sent to the principal’s office. I had afternoon kindergarten, and the last previous use of the bus I was on was to take the high school kids in the morning. Well, I found a book of matches on the floor at my seat, all burned - like someone lit the whole pack at once. Window was open, so I started tearing off matches one by one to see what happened when they went out the window in the air flow - always a nerd, I was doing science! But the bus driver didn’t agree and reported me to the principal. And no getting out - my elementary school pricipal was an old high school friend of my Dad’s. I don’t remember how it all turned out but I think they did believe me that I wasn’t lighting them and dropping them out like the bus driver said, they were already burned.
As for Star Trek - I’m not so sure I totally agree with that article. I’ve only seen the pilot of Picard, so I’m not sure all of what happens (and I don’t want to know until I see it for myself), but this claimed utopia vision of the Trek universe is sometimes I think wishful thinking and perhaps Roddenberry getting a little senile in his old age. The original series leaves out most discussion of things like pay and any sort of commerce, although we have mining colonies and smugglers like Harry Mudd - so clearly there has to be some value gained. There certainly is plenty of conflict - Kirk’s solution to problems are either seduce it or shoot it (I’m being cynical - I’ve always loved the original series - but really, that’s pretty much what it comes down to. The few times he takes a different way out, it end badly - Khan, anyone?).
The first season of TNG is about the only time this “utopia world” was discussed. And it was HORRIBLE, in retrospect. Yeah, we sat trhough it, because it was Trek, back on a weekly TV series. I was in college - we made drinking games to it. Chug when Westley saves the day, drink when Picard says “Make it so”, or “engage”, etc. But compared to the following seasons when Roddenberry was no longer involved - it was HORRID. It got way better. The first few seasons of DS9 - boring as hell. Sounds like it gets MUCH better. After I finish Enterprise, I may go on to DS9 and catch up on all that. Though it now will be hard to see O’Brien as anyone other than Doc Durant.
Enterprise seems to be a lot of the reality of the world hitting home - they WANT to be peaceful explorers, but the rest of the universe seems to be saying “not so fast”. At least that’s the impression I get at 3/4 of the way through the first season.
Discovery - first couple of episodes it was “wow, this is going to be good” Then a few more and it was like - what…? I made the mistake of