Ron Guest

Big sky

Eating a mini-cini on the back porch this morning. Lovely but the background music of a leaf blower could be better. 😉

Naive teachers at our high school: “Would you kids like to have a zoom meeting with your classmates so you can checkin and see how everyone is doing?”

Kids’ honest response: Heck no, I see my friends any time I want, for the rest of the class no way I want to see them again.

Living in a tornado 🌪 prone area means having a designated safe room/place. We always joke we will get fat if stranded in ours because it is the same place as our main pantry. Room for 5 people + 🐕.

It’s an “elevated risk” day per the NWS with spotter activation likely.

Starting to see social media posts from friends in our area that they’ll be returning to their offices in the next few days. They seem comfortable with the idea.

Droplets on a dreary morning. Severe weather expected later today.

Part of our backyard garden in the background. Mostly we grow seasonings for my wife’s excellent cooking. Very convenient especially during the virus crisis. 🌱

The crisis is over. Our grocery store has Peter Pan peanut butter in stock 😀

My one regret in prepping for the quarantine situation is that I didn’t buy a second Nintendo Switch. We’re all hesitant to use the one we do have in case someone else in the family had plans to use it. 😝 I’m too cheap to pay the inflated prices on eBay, Amazon etc.

I wonder if I’ll buy a Switch later this year “just in case”? Seems extravagant and the PS5 is coming out. Our affinity does lean to Nintendo these days rather than PS4/5. 🤷🏻‍♂️

I write in a journal virtually every day. With the virus easing off I decided to create a sort of timeline with a one-liner for each day. Nothing deep or personal here, no politics or prose, just basic observations. Massive changes in a tiny time period. Covid day-by-day

I wanted to write up a few events from the past 2 months of Covid-19 so below is a timeline with nearly one entry for every day. No deep thoughts or personal observations. I saved those for my journal. I also made no effort on prose or formatting. Putting together this timeline was instructive and helps put things in perspective for me.

Feb 20: Attended a meeting with about 150 people…
Feb 21: First mention of it in my Journal. I noted shortages expected since China factories were closed.
Feb 24: I noted a stock market drop of around 3%
Feb 25: I noted the CDC became more concerned and said the virus was coming to the US. Market down again. I decided to sell some of our assets and park the money in cash for now.
Feb 26: I created a list of emergency supplies. Some, like Advil and allergy meds, were long shelf life items. Others like milk and bread were items we wanted to keep an eye on to ensure we didn’t let ourselves get too low in case of panic buying or closures.
Mar 1: I used the end of Feb to assess the market’s crash on our Net Worth. Of course it wasn’t positive but neither was it large enough to be worrisome.
Mar 3: Made a trip to CVS for Kleenex, Advil etc as the outbreak in the US spread
Mar 5: Asked myself if we should get out during our spring break to go to an arcade or something and my answer at the time was ‘yes’.
Mar 9: Made note of the oil price war started by Saudi Arabia and Russia and it’s effect on investments
Mar 10: Our daughter went to the mall with her best friend as well as a movie to celebrate the friend’s birthday. We weren’t really concerned about it.
Mar 11: I went with my wife to the grocery store to do a bit of stocking up. No shortages and no one seemed worried.
Mar 12: School’s announce they will be closed. Thought about selling more assets to cash but it didn’t feel warranted. My wife and I had planned to go to our favorite BBQ place for dinner but she decided to cancel it due to the virus. She also decides no take out food until this is over.
Mar 13: Trump announces a national emergency.
Mar 14: My wife and I drive through the countryside. Folks weren’t changing any behaviors at this stage.
Mar 15: Contemplated how to react to nearly 0% interest rates. Came up with provisional budget cuts for this year and next.
Mar 16: The stock market opened limit down and closed down as well. Wished I had sold more in Feb of course but nevertheless comfortable with our allocation.
Mar 17: I went to the grocery store and picked up some routine items. Meat was running a bit low as well as certain fruit. My wife checked our freezer and decided with “shelter in place” orders looming we should pick up some more meat so we made another trip to the grocery store. By this time of day people were a bit frantic.
Mar 18: School closure announced the rest of this month and home learning announced in its place. I took my son to his dentist appointment and our dentist told me they were closing starting Friday.
Mar 20: Markets seemed to be stabilizing. Cases in our county and the area still very low
Mar 21: I implemented our budget cuts and updated our financial plan accordingly. With great reluctance we agreed our teenage daughter could have one of her best friends over in lieu of birthday activities we had to cancel due to the virus.
Mar 22: Sold some more assets in a taxable account. At least that brings a capital loss against taxes for the future.
Mar 25: Came up with a plan to re-invest in the markets as the worst was starting to feel over. Took the first tiny step in doing so. The market is changing faster than I’ve ever seen before.
Mar 26: Took note of the fact I expected the virus to pass long before its economic impact does.
Mar 27: Went to the grocery store when they opened. Much busier than normal and a lot of basics were gone.
Mar 29: We took another drive in the country. This time the little towns looked pretty deserted.
Mar 30: Bought a little more stock and sold bonds
Mar 31: I dug out my woodworking masks just in case… Government project 100K-240K deaths. Schools to stay closed for all of April.
Apr 1: Cases in our county have leapt up including hospitalizations. Of course nothing like NYC. Market has a bad day.
Apr 2: I went to the grocery store when they opened. There was a line of people waiting to get inside.
Apr 3: My wife starts making cloth face masks
Apr 5: I noted I had let my exercise fall away. But also that there was a hint of optimism in the air for the first time.
Apr 6: With some encouraging data from NY I bought equities again. I had a sore throat which worried me…
Apr 7: Sore throat gone.
Apr 8: Customers at grocery store nearly all wearing masks.
Apr 9: Finished plan for re-investing my cash and made more equity purchases
Apr 11: Our investments have recovered enough I could rollback some of our planned budget cuts.
Apr 12: Easter. It just didn’t feel like Easter for us.
Apr 14: Virus cases here have clearly leveled off. Hospital beds and ICUs are only about 50% occupied. Hospitals complain about all the lost revenue from treating heart patients, cancer and so on. My wife gives me permission to get a sandwich from my fave take out place.
Apr 15: Bought some bonds. Our portfolio allocation is make to it’s long term target. Never would have expected to get back so fast.

…More to come of course…

I’m glad the governor is slightly relaxing some restrictions as well as officially closing schools for the rest of the academic year. I’ve felt bad that hospital beds are only 50% occupied but patients have been denied cancer biopsies, surgery to relieve pain, etc. Now those people can be treated.

Today I used the unpaved side of the creek for my exercise. The downside is the path is narrower but the upside is almost no one uses it lately. I only passed one person. I really feel blessed to have these options in our piece of suburbia. Lovely in spite of the clouds.🌳 📷

Well crap! My Twilio API credentials were leaked. This apparently happened a long time ago but someone just started using them. Fortunately it is just a developer test account with limited re-charge and I caught it fairly quickly but fixing all the apps is going to be a PITA.

My accomplishment for the day: re-threading the drawstring in our daughter’s hoodie. ✔️

Unsettling start: Our garage security camera alerted at 1:30am. A guy drove in the alley and tried to open our neighbor’s cars. Then approached our garage. Since we don’t leave cars out he might have intended to try to enter. Our light came on, he saw the camera and ran off. 😱

My desk is a bit of a mess now that I have two transceivers sitting on it. I mocked up a shelf with some spare ¾” wood and comp sci text books as end pillars and it is very functional. Monitor, power supply and VHF/UHF on top, HF underneath. So now I need to build it for real.

Risen

As a new Ham (aka amateur radio operator) I was interested in HF from the start. After studying the available transceivers a bit I narrowed my choice down to either the Yaesu FT-991a or the ICOM IC-7300 .The 7300 seemed the better choice due to its more user friendly interface, superior touchscreen, some better processing as well as a larger body of community support. I definitely have not regretted the choice in the 1 month I have owned the radio.

When researching the radio, and as a newbie, I tried to find out what software was available for each brand and whether there were versions I can run on my MacBook Pro. Windows is by far the most popular platform in ham radio and most of the info (YouTube etc) is targeted there. However it turns out there are good choices for Mac users (and Linux too).

One key piece of software for HF is one that can handle contact (QSO) logging. I found two main contenders: RumLogNG (free) and MacLoggerDX ($95). Free always sounds like a good deal so I initially used RumLogNG and was happy with it. In addition to logging it can directly control the 7300 (tuning, RF power setting, noise reduction setting and so on). However I was making a lot of new contacts hence doing a lot of logging and RumLogNG is only semi-automated for uploading to QRZ, eQSL and so on. Also, RumLogNG has very limited support. I tried MacLoggerDX in demo mode and although it lacks the rig control of RumLogNG I found the logging automation, DX spotting and overal user interface implementation superior. Support email was answered within an hour so I made the plunge. As with the 7300 I’m happy with the switch though I do miss rig control. On the plus side this forced me to better set up my desk (shack in ham parlance) so everything is now more ergonomic.

The 7300 is trivial to use with the Mac. Simply plug in a USB cable and configure the software to port. Here is a screen shot of MLDX configured for my 7300. Most settings are default.

The 7300 settings need to be correct for CAT control as well. MacLoggerDX has a page with the details but it isn’t so easy to find. The details for each radio are here.

In my next post I want to document the software and settings I’m using for HF digital modes like FT8 and JS8Call.

Putting the last couple of pieces in puzzle #6

Lovely bit of sky from the back porch. Sadly this is the leading edge of a storm front coming through in a couple hours.

I can’t put a finger on why but I feel much more energetic and upbeat today. Maybe Good Friday has something to do with it. 🐣

A couple years ago I added defensive assets to my portfolio for the first time. The crash was a good stress test. I spent this morning evaluating how well they did. They worked to some extent but not as well as I wanted so I’ve identified some replacements today. Yea, I’m a nerd.

COVID-19 timeline:

9:00pm last night, wife says she smells French fries
9:01pm last night, wife is in the kitchen making French fries (air fryer)

Note: they were especially tasty!

This morning I was greeted by sunrise while exercising, song birds aplenty and the sweet smell of honeysuckle permeating the air.

Also, it was nicely chill this morning and the high will be 20F cooler than yesterday’s 97F.

We had a high of 97F here today beating the older record by 4F.

Die virus DIE!!! 🦠