Last week saw my first complete week of telework. I'm updating several test data sheets, all of which are in Excel. It's an older version of Excel and even if it were the latest I'd still have to be fighting it here and there. I've had to go online to get help in figuring things out. The data sheets would be usable if we left them alone, but the customer wants these to look like what the data sheets we use for another series of test standards.
With the nice weather (save for yesterday) we've been having, I've been taking the company laptop out on the back patio, and working outside, enjoying the fresh air and watching cardinals perch in the trees in the wash behind my back yard. I watch lizards run along the block wall, stopping every now and then to do "pushups". When I look over the block wall, I might see quail or desert cottontails.
As much I enjoy not having to do the drive, it's strange. It's like I don't have a job....except I do. I just don't go to the office and work from there. I'm not on the test floor since testing is suspended pending the fatass politicians lifting the house arrest orders that they all want us under. I send in a daily activity report to my lead, and then I power down the laptop. If I feel like it, I power up my transceiver, and I start spinning the dial to find some other hams to talk to.
I leave the house once or twice per day. I don't enjoy going to the grocery store unless getting items to barbecue is what I'm there for (I need to start doing that). I go to the store for the purpose of getting out of the house, to grab some items that I don't need but will eventually use, and then I come home. I haven't seen the interstate for well over a week. I sometimes feel the urge to drive down to Tubac or Patagonia, but there's no point, since most everyone there is under house arrest too. Spending time outside is psychologically comforting to me, and that plus the store visits plus amateur radio plus recreational reading are helping to keep me sane. Well, my cats help keep me sane too, in giving me a sense of purpose, which in their case is making them comfortable and keeping them spoiled.
Others are not taking this well. Last Friday during a telework break, I stepped out the front door, and witnessed a confrontation between a couple who live about four houses away from us on the left side of the street that breaks off in front of our house to go north. There were some somewhat loud words being exchanged. The young lady, late 20ish it seems, was walking south, towards my street which runs east-west.
She was being followed by husband, or boyfriend, or domestic partner, or some such something. He would try grabbing her arm and asking her to come back. She reached my street, and then started walking west. I positioned myself to be out of the line of sight of both of them.
When she got to the community mailboxes, she sat down. He reached down and pulled her up. More words were exchanged, and then they started slapping each other. And I'm thinking, great, why do I have to see this? They started walking east, and then turned on their street, with the lady about six feet behind the young man.
Then she bent down to pick up a rock. And I'm thinking lady, if you're going to do a head shot, I'm going to have to call 911. She threw it at him, aiming for his legs. It hit him, he turned around, more words were exchanged, and they walked back to their house.
Last night the cops were at their house. This was around midnight. I didn't see it, but one of my stepdaughters did, and she told Sheila. I heard about it this morning. Whatever is going on there, it isn't good. I don't know if someone got hauled off to the slammer or if the cops left after getting whatever it was under control. I went online to see what police dispatches took place in my neighborhood, but it wasn't posted. The cops don't come here all that often anyway. We have two, maybe three of them, living nearby.
The situation with the Chinese virus does have almost everyone old enough to understand under stress. Some are taking it better than others. I know I'm under it. I believe that China let the genie out of the bottle deliberately, guessing correctly that this would wreak havoc on a nation with a President who will stand up to them in trade negotiations. No, this wasn't biologically engineered in a lab somewhere. It was instead an opportunity to wreak this havoc, and for the Chinese to remove a part of their population since they themselves think they have too many people living there.
To steal a line from an overrated news anchor, that's the way it is, on Sunday, the 12th of March, 2020.
Don't forget to pet a dog or a cat.
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