My second book is another old mystery, this time by Edmund Crispin, and is considered by some writers to be one of the top 5 mysteries of all time. I certainly enjoyed it! I had fun tracking a copy down. 😊 📖
For this week I think I’ll recommend some “out of the way” books. Most people know A.A. Milne as the author of Winnie the Pooh but he also wrote an excellent mystery, his one and only. I really enjoyed it.
This morning’s sky: big sun, ribbon of cloud, tiny balloon. 📷 ☀️☁️ 🎈
Scoob! 🎥🍿
I played Dragon Quest XI on the Switch a lot but put it aside in October to pursue some other games that caught my attention. I put off returning to it for fear of being rusty but that was baseless. It is a very easy game to pick up again even after months. 🕹
The food bank I volunteer at also takes donations of goods for resale/recycling. They closed for awhile and when they reopened last weekend got more donations in a couple hours than they normally get in a week and have closed again. So clearly people cleaned house to kill time.
I've modified Swift code for some personal projects but I've never written Swift from scratch so I'm studying via 100 days of SwiftUI. Everything seems straightforward to me so far except Closures. The syntax variations are making my brain hurt. Seems too "clever" to me.
Today's retail sales report was more dismal than expected with areas like clothing down more than 50%. Over the past couple of weeks I've checked prices on some items I'd like to buy and not a single one is offered at a discount. Seems stupid to me. No incentive to buy.💵
Counting on a vaccine to help re-open the economy is a false hope
I see a lot of people counting on a vaccine to dramatically reduce the threat of COVID-19 and helping re-open "life" within a year. I think that is a false hope. It is going to take several years to get an effective vaccine deployed worldwide. It could take even longer if the virus mutates regularly. Look how long we've spent working on flu vaccines and they still haven't been perfected yielding widely varying effectiveness from year to year. It is scientifically possible there will never be a highly effective vaccine.
I hang my hat more on developing effective treatment and better isolation for those with major underlying health conditions that place them at high risk. I don't think COVID-19 is ever going away and the idea we can defeat it before re-opening is fatally flawed. We're going to have to rely on being able to cope with it effectively instead.
I just watched the Unreal Engine 5 demo running on a PS5. Mighty impressive!
But I’m more driven by smooth controls and fast scene loading than realistic graphics. I think I have about 6 months to wait to get an idea how the PS5 actually performs.
I wear this hat when I go out to exercise hoping it sends a “stay 6’ away or I’ll be triggered” message.
Probably people just think I must be a grumpy person. 😊
The kids asked about signing up for Disney+ to add some entertainment diversity. I signed up today but haven't told them yet. I'll let them know on Friday when they'll have finished this semester's school work.
The kids have been away from their schools for more than 2 months now. Even though they've had school work to do it has felt more like summer break. No idea how to avoid going stir crazy until school starts again late August.
It just dawned me that the kids’ won’t get a chance to sign each other’s yearbooks. Yet another ritual killed by the pandemic.
A mint chocolate chip ice cream cone sounds really good right now 🍦
Our main Mother’s Day activity: taking a 1 hour family walk on a forest path. Weather was perfect!
One good thing about the distancing thing: I’ve visited a lot of places I would never have seen in real life. Granted via YouTube 4K videos but it doesn’t suck. My most recent kick is scenic railways of Norway. 🚊 🏔
Sunshine on a cloudy day 📷
Peace. 📷
The Blue Angels literally flew directly over our house 15 minutes ago. Very very cool experience. Closer than they would be at an air show. I actually had to zoom out to get the formation in frame. 📷 ✈️
Things that never happened before:
- A Kona Ice truck stopped in the neighborhood resulting my my wife and teen daugther running outside with joy
- My wife shopped for and ordered clothes online
- My wife also shopped and ordered items from Etsy
Ch ch changes… 💵
I went to the grocery store for the first time in 2 weeks. That feels like quite an accomplishment since there are 5 of us. It felt like a much calmer experience than before. I suppose the others and I have better adjusted. The good news is there were no shortages.
Big sky with even bigger humidity. It is only about 70F but it felt much warmer (i.e. hot).
I’ve never watched a NASCAR race in my life. However being starved for live sports I might make an exception this month… Ewww
A couple of smart home updates completed this week. First, I replaced all of our Eve brand HomeKit devices with Aqara (faster & more reliable). Then I replaced our Insignia garage door opener adapter with an iSmartGate. Overall fewer frustrations with these.