bjarvis | Entries tagged with covid-19

Well, 2020 couldn't end soon enough for my liking, but despite that, I'm a bit surprised that it's 2021 now. More truthfully, I can accept that it is 2021, but I'm having difficulty wrapping my head around the fact that it is now January. It feels like it should be some other month. Odd.

So far, all of us have avoided covid-19. The county went into lockdown again in December, so there's no dining-in at our restaurants and schools have gone back to remote exclusively. I'm a bit surprised that gyms are still open, but they are now capped at 25% occupancy. Vaccines are being distributed but it's still just groups 1a and 1b: front-line medical workers and the residents of long-term care facilities. I'm not expecting a shot at a shot until late spring at best.

I was awarded my black belt in karate in mid-December. Like other belts I've earned since the dojo closed in March, I consider it to be provisional since we haven't been able to meet in person to do sparring, teaching of juniors, etc.. I plan to re-test when we finally get to practice together in one space once again.

Our ten-day Amsterdam to Bern river cruise last August was scrapped because of covid-19. However, Viking River Cruises offered us a 20% bonus credit if we rolled over to a 14-day Amsterdam-to-Budapest cruise in 2021, so we took them up on it. If we can't go because Europe is still closed to American tourists, or if we haven't been vaccinated by then, we can still get our money back, but I'm choosing to be optimistic.

Travel to Canada is still blocked. At this moment, I could enter Canada as a citizen, but I'd need a negative covid test within 72 hours to be able to board the plane, and submit an extensive quarantine plan electronically before arriving. Once there, I'd be quarantined for two weeks. I have plans ready in case I need to make urgent trips to southern Ontario or northern Ontario, but I'm hoping we get clear of this damn plague before I need to test either one.

Work continues. Our company is cleaning up all of the various bonus programs and performance metrics into a single cohesive plan, and it's not a bad plan at all. My next pay (Jan 8) will pay the last of the three year signing bonuses from our purchase by Enterprise Holdings Inc.; under the new plan, I'll be eligible for up to 20% of my base salary in annual bonuses. In the next month, all staff should receive a comprehensive benefits statement, including any pay adjustments due to title changes, adjustments to responsibilities, or to keep pace with industry averages. I have no idea what if any raise I might get, but the bonus is nothing to sneeze at, even if it's only half of what my last installment from the old plan will be.

Speaking of work, I've been on vacation these past two weeks. With Christmas and New Year's on Fridays, and with the regular company holidays, it only cost me seven vacation days. There is currently one more full day off before work resumes on Monday, and I'm savouring every hour.

I wish I had more to report about the plague year of 2020, but covid made it pretty boring. No square dancing, no travels, no skating, no visits, no bar nights, no day trips, no weekends away (except to the trailer where we'd self-isolate anyway), etc.. I have no idea if square dancing will bounce back, or in what form. I just want to be able to return to Canada again to see family.

I just realized I haven't written anything here since April. Time flies when a global pandemic is raging.

Short version: We're healthy and doing well, no big issues. Life rolls on.

Now for the detailed version...

Work continues for both me and Kent. Michael's travel business has cratered, as you'd expect with international travel down to a trickle, and global tourism almost non-existent. We're all working from home still with no significant issues or problems.

Square dancing is still also non-existent. Yeah, there's virtual dancing and a lot of 1-couple or 2-couple calling, but it lacks a significant social component and I find it generally unsatisfying. Michael has gone into yoga as an exercise alternative, and I still have my karate (now senior brown belt as of last week).

Kent bought a treadmill a few weeks ago and is doing extended walks on it so he can get some exercise without being exposed to humans, nature or the universe in general.

I started going back to the gym in early August, once the state allowed them to reopen with restrictions. I'm delighted that my crowd there has been 100% compliant with wearing masks, wiping down equipment, keeping spacing, etc.: I've heard horror stories about other gyms where the rules have been utterly ignored. I have noticed that a lot of people have given up on the gym entirely and are no longer regulars: I do wonder what this means for the business viability of the place, although it's nice not having to wait for equipment.

Edwin (three years old next week!) is back in full-day daycare as of late August, although there was a brief scare when another kid's parent was discovered to be an asymptomatic covid carrier. The daycare was closed for two weeks and Edwin & his family were all tested, and were all discovered to be negative. There will inevitably be more scares like that in future though.

Elodie had her fifth birthday at our place in June. She began virtual kindergarten classes this week, but I haven't heard how that works or how her parents are adapting to this. More soon, I hope.

It was announced yesterday that Maryland will be edging into stage 3 re-opening Friday. All manufacturing can re-open, malls & retail can re-open to 75% regular capacity, salons & barbershops can open to 50% capacity with appointments, indoor rec facilities can open to 50% capacity, and theaters can re-open to the lesser of 50% capacity or 100 people. My county is currently reviewing the stats to see which components they may implement, if any.

The biggest inconvenience for me is that I'm still effectively locked out of Canada. As a citizen, I can return but there is a two week quarantine period on re-entry, and a full quarantine plan must be presented upon arrival describing where you'd be staying, how you'd be getting food & care, etc.. I do have a plan ready in case I need to make a dash to see Grandma in southern Ontario, but there are extra logistical issues if I had to go to northern Ontario. And since my preferred airline, Porter Air, is not flying currently, I'd have to fly to Buffalo, then drive a rental car across the border. Let's hope that there's no reason to rush back to Canada for a while.

Our respective extended families are doing pretty well too: no illnesses or major changes. We've all been pretty lucky.

So we're chugging along, doing ok and generally going about our regular business. I don't see any major disruption to this routine through the rest of this calendar year.

The pandemic has shown a lot of things we were told were utter bullshit.

Our Internet and cell phone providers all claimed bandwidth was such a limited resource that they had no choice but to throttle usage. Now the limits are lifted as a public service goodwill gesture.

We were told remote telework was impossible: people can't be trusted to work unless they're constantly supervised. High tech folks already knew that was bullshit, but now traditional industries & services are finding it's not as impossible as they thought. And a lot of workers have gotten a taste of it for the first time and aren't likely to give it up easily. Managers who refuse to permit any kind of remote work are dinosaurs.

Teaching can't possibly be done remotely. Oops, we've now demonstrated much of it can. Not all, to be sure, and there are some age groups which are easier than others, but departments which flatly refused to consider it last year are now embracing it.

Now I'm thinking about future years...

Does anyone still think that Internet access is not an essential utility, like electricity or running water?

If we're going to be keeping our distance from other workers, elevators are going to be problematic. Tall, dense office buildings are going to be a challenge, but smaller buildings with escalators & stairs have a built-in health advantage.

Businesses which embrace remote work won't need large centralized office space. Even if they retain an office for respectability, they wouldn't need a dedicated desk for every employee. This has already been a trend in some fields, but it might now explode into a much larger scale.

If larger numbers are working remotely, do we need the proposed expansions to the beltway and I270 corridor near us? Currently both are flowing at a fraction of their pre-covid levels. Ending the lockdown will bring the load back up again, but if we keep telecommuting at scale, do we need the extra lanes?

We've had a lot of shortages in selected items recently. A large part was hoarding, but a large part was also imbalanced production: producers were supplying a particular mix of office vs domestic versions of their stuff, but needed time to change the ratio when the world changed. We're now rebalancing, but it may need to change quickly again.

Brick-and-mortar stores were already in trouble, but it's even harder now.

Restaurants are problematic. If there are fewer people congregating in large numbers, large (and expensive) dining rooms are no longer cost-effective, esp if there are much smaller lunchtime crowds in concentrated downtown areas thanks to increased remote work. We've always had small take-away shops and food trucks, but we may see more gourmet options as upscale restaurants scale back in-house dining in favour of take-away.

And then there's over-capacity in car manufacturing, as well as used car lots. And insurance will have to change dramatically if there are fewer cars driving vastly fewer miles: work commuting is the bulk of the miles most people put on their vehicles.

Elementary schools are probably still a good thing: the young have a difficulty enough time with focus, and lordy, teaching is hard work which needs trained professionals. But college & university campuses may want to re-think some of their capital budget items: do they need more residences and class rooms if the students are remote?

What will a remote student body do to sports recruiting? I can't wait to find out.

Shopping malls were in decline in so many areas around the country. They're now dead in a ditch in those areas. It will be interesting to see if they can rebound.

Rental car agencies, travel agencies, hotels, Lyft, Uber, Air BnB, and airlines are all in deep trouble. And I'm ok with nearly all of them going belly-up. Dinosaurs have to die off so something new can take their place, and we have huge over-capacity with a concentration of ownership in the hands of bad business managers.

Large stadium events are going to be pandemic hotspots: there is no way to social-distance in such an environment. Professional sports might still make a go of it, since their big dollars come from the television rights & merchandise rather than ticket sales. But when these big, heavily gov't subsidized structures need to be upgraded or replaced, it's going to be a tough sell to get limited public dollars for yet another massive subsidy/bailout.

I'll add more as I think of them, but I think it is beyond doubt that the future is going to look very different soon.

Actually, things are pretty good!

Things still suck on so many levels: unemployment is hard to even measure, the economy is tanking in ways I've never seen before, and US deaths have topped 50,000 with no obvious end in sight. But as ugly as it all is, my attitude is vastly better than it was couple of weeks ago.

My job is still secure, as is Kent's. Michael's travel business is non-existent but that's not for lack of effort on his part. We've fallen into some stable & workable routines, and while I'd like better lighting in my basement bunker, it's all working pretty well.

We're all healthy, as is our extended family: we've heard of friends of friends down with covid-19, but no first or second degree connections.

Some supply shortages have been corrected, others haven't but don't affect us too much. At least the bare shelves aren't getting more bare: the shortages haven't spread into other products or stores. And the seniors' shopping hours are kinda fun if you can bear getting out of bed at such an early hour.

We miss going out to eat, but we've figured out which of our regular restaurants are open, and can handle the new curb-side pick-up procedures, among other variances. Tipping huge, needless to say, trying to help out the tipped wait staff as much as possible.

Zoom-based karate sessions haven't been too bad. It's nothing like being in an actual dojo with a proper non-cement floor and real people, but I'm able to keep a bottle of water nearby and make recordings so I can review new sequences in slow motion later. Michael's zoom-based yoga seems to be satisfactory as well. It's better than nothing.

The closed library system is a pain, but I've had a steady stream of books on my Kindle. I'd be happier if many of the books I wanted weren't already lent out, but I have several on hold and should be able to get them soon-ish.

I'm missing some of the square dance stuff, but not too badly. I like having many of my evenings back, and the lack of extra event coordination & overhead is nice.

I miss the gym. A Lot.

Mostly though, I miss travel beyond our immediate neighbourhood, especially the trailer at Roseland. Knowing that I can't fly to San Francisco for work, or to Canada for family is a fairly severe limitation.

But despite it all, we've largely acclimatized to this lower standard of living. Nationally, I think we've largely hit the floor after a long & seemingly endless plummet, so the bulk of the uncertainty has passed. Now we need to continue the distancing, keep large gathering places closed, and get a vaccine. None of these will happen quickly, but we can tough this out.