Zoom fun

I am going to have some fun with Zoom for the next few days.

First of all, I am on a Zoom call even as I type, for users of the Orbit braille device that I own. I figure I can learn more about it this way than any other thing I can think of.

Then, next Saturday, there is going to be a "Come As You Will Be" party, where some folks with whom I took an online class will be dressing as the person we want to be five years from now. I have decorated the mirror wall behind my computer seat with various window clings for summer and the beach, and I will be dressed for the beach with my swimsuit top, coverall, sun hat, and sunglasses. 🌞🌴🌊

In other news, it looks like both of my normal side gigs are back up and running! Not only have I resumed interpreting, but my deafblind friend and his mom are at a point where they are ready for me to resume being his aide on Fridays. So life is good on that score. I'm seriously missing the income from the OT that I can't work, and losing the two side gigs was just an extra financial kick in the rump.

I also am on a mailing list that keeps suggesting work-from-home ideas, so I have been following those suggestions to see if I can come up with any that will replace the missing OT income.

Meanwhile, there are an awful lot of COVIDiots out there flouting safety precautions. Unsurprisingly, now the numbers in the USA are starting to rise again as a result. I could scream. Science really doesn't care if you believe in it or not; it's going to be true regardless. Unfortunately, what's true is that if we don't take safety precautions, we are going to spread this blasted virus at an ever-increasing rate. If the risk-takers were only harming themselves, I would say that they have the right to apply for their own Darwin Awards. The trouble is that they are also hurting lots of other people who did NOT sign on to take any such risks. Not only are they infecting innocent people, and possibly killing the medically fragile people in their lives, they are also causing infection numbers to rise. This, in turn, creates delays in the reopening of society, which then hurts small business owners and their employees. IMO, no one has the right to hurt other people in that way.

I can't blame people for being tired of taking precautions. We're ALL tired of taking precautions. This has been going on since the middle of March, with no end in sight. But the world doesn't revolve around our entertainment, and the virus isn't going to say, "Oh, you're fed up with masking? OK, I will stop spreading." The same precautions we needed in March are still needed now, and whether or not we are bored with doing these things is not a factor. We have to put our grownup pants on and just deal with it.

Wash your hands, wear your mask, and keep your 6' distance from people.

From Yellow to Green

I am seeing headlines about some counties in PA turning from yellow to green on June 12, but I am not seeing any indication that Philly is on that list.

I wanted to get back to being an aide for my friend Joe J, which I was doing on Fridays after work when we were pre-COVID-closures, and I was all set to do it when Philly and Delco both went to condition yellow. Trouble is, now he has freaking SHINGLES and his mom got attenuated chicken pox from his case of shingles.

So now, we are waiting for both counties to be yellow AND for them to be free of shingles and chicken pox. Grrrrr.

I am just crossing my fingers that the reopening of PA and NJ doesn't precipitate a big spike in COVID cases. I need my dose of Vitamin SEA, dang it! I will be really irked if things start closing back down right now. 😉 If that happens, I will comply, because preserving lives outranks even doses of Vitamin SEA, but I will also reserve the right to grumble about the timing.

Holy Moley

This arrived in my email at work today:

As [employer] pivots to resume normal operations across the system, we know many members of our team who have been working remotely during the pandemic are awaiting details about plans for when they may return to the workplace. Employees who quickly pivoted to working from home at the start of the pandemic, and those who are flexing or rotating their schedules to reduce density, have made it possible for our clinical teams to remain safe on site.  At this time, those who can work from home–for some or all of their hours–should continue to do so until after Labor Day.

 My employer, not I, added the bold print for emphasis.

This tells me that my employer does not expect COVID to just disappear magically any time soon. They are taking precautions at least throughout the summer. Moreover, there is not any indication that after Labor Day, they will reduce their precautions appreciably. Rather, it appears to me to be a case of "We will revisit the policies and see whether to extend them or not".

It looks like I get to keep my ten-second commute for a while longer.

It's heeeere

Good news! My laptop arrived this afternoon, at least a day earlier than I had expected it to. I will take tonight and tomorrow to make sure anything I need to migrate over to the new machine is safely stored in my Dropbox, so I can jump in and Retrieve All The Things and install them on the new machine over the weekend.

Tomorrow is our 21st anniversary. We usually go to Popi's on our anniversary, but of course that isn't an option until the lockdown restrictions are lifted. Therefore, we will get takeout from Popi's instead. The food will be just as good whether we eat it in their building or ours, lol.

Due to computer problems, I spent a couple of days where I was just too mentally exhausted to practice with the braille book.

But then, I got back on board with the braille last night, and I noticed something. Something must have been percolating in my subconscious during those two days off, because there was a noticeable leap forward in my ability to feel the letters. I think our brain must keep processing lessons whether we are actively working on them or not. So if we keep at them, and don't let too much time lapse, it seems as though we not only might not lose ground, we might gain a bit of ground if we play our cards right. Interesting stuff.

That moment when you are working on THREE PCs at once

I strongly suspect that the hard drive on my main PC is on its last legs. Argh grumble mumble swear cuss growl.  The disk usage has been tending to be in the 90-100% range consistently, even when I'm not doing anything particularly intensive.

Therefore, this is the setup I have going today

First, I have my main computer set up (after having spent about 30 hours between yesterday and the day before doing resets and a bunch of other "Dear Lord and Patron Saints of Tech, let this work" stuff. We are finally at a point where it takes a little under 10 minutes to boot up. Which is better than getting stuck infinitely during the bootup and not actually booting at all.

Second, I have my main computer remotely connected to my work computer, so that's two PCs I'm using.

Third, I have my netbook open, so that when things are calm on the work front, I can look up fixes for Windows 10 excessive disk usage, and not cause my main PC to use its disk any more than it absolutely has to. Because too much disk usage equals frozen computer, which equals 10 minutes spent recovering from frozen computer, and I do not need that while I am trying to actually get freaking WORK done.

So there you have it. I am working on 3 PCs at once, because I'm just that much of a geek.

P.S. I have also started to apply any of the fixes I find that don't involve a restart. We have gotten the disk usage down to somewhere in the 80% range.  Go, me! That's still way higher than I want it, but it makes Frozen Computer Syndrome less likely, so I will take it.

To Do List

I have been building up to starting to write on Medium for a while now. I would say it's been two or three months since I made the decision to start submitting articles. But first, I prepared by creating a list of topics to write about.

It amuses me that the article I submitted last night actually started out as one topic, but quickly morphed into expounding on a different topic. Here I was, thinking that I was going to cover one particular situation, and then my brain said  NOPE and veered off in a different direction. I just went with the flow, edited accordingly, and hit Publish.

In retrospect, maybe I need to go through that topic list and make sure that there aren't redundant entries on there. Perhaps a few of the items on the list are a little TOO closely related to one another, and they can be categorized as a single topic.

I had forgotten how much I enjoy writing.  I just heard Todd Rundgren's "Bang on the Drum All Day", and it reminded me of how enthused I am to sit at a keyboard and just create.

Fortunately, the past few workdays have been offering me ample opportunity to deploy my brainpower, which means that I am already in high gear when I log off at the end of the day. I have started handling electronic medical records requests, and it has been a bit of a travail trying to send faxes via email. Once I got it working on my end, the Gremlins started acting up on the receiving end. I got an email yesterday afternoon, saying that we are now to email the requests to a new address set up for this purpose, rather than using Outlook to send the faxes.

It's all good. I started sending the medical record requests the new way as of today, and it works. Take that, Gremlins!