Ellipses...

Since we're going to be without "Worth a Look" posts for a while maybe I should actually write something...  Campus has been downright sleepy this week.  I keep going occasionally since it is easy.  It must not be easy for most...  Today we had our first snag after changing health insurance carriers.  The consent decree isn't all that apparently.  Looking for a new doc...  Although it was spread across two locations I went to the gym five days this week.  I think it is unlikely that will happen again...  That posit I made in the last post about an additional database and a more efficient query?  Gemini says it is possible and a better idea.  Maybe I'll try to implement it in the next few weeks...  We went to the first of what I am sure will be many many child performing arts shows last night: K though 12 dance recital.  It was better than it sounds...  We have this plumbing vent in our driveway with a cracked grate I have been meaning to repair maybe since we moved in here.  I made an honest effort yesterday - talked to a plumber and everything.  It appears that the part I need may not be manufactured anymore.  I cloodged what I could find into service, but I would still like to have the real one...  Pretty serious rain here today.  I used to like rain.  Now less so...  Purdue Global is a rebranding of Kaplan University.  Just in case it comes up in an online search you happen to be doing...  I was thinking today how formative my going to Tomcat U turned out to be all those years ago.  That trip took us to FTSI Navigator and everywhere we've been down that road.  All from one professional development trip...  Writing blog posts without really talking about kids or politics is pretty difficult...  I am starting a couple of summer lists.  Being that one month is gone already I might be behind, even though I am technically off...

Ellipses...

Long time no type...  Gonna give this thing a go again for July, guess we'll see...  4th of July fireworks are still too late at night for our family...  One of the kids got a new bed.  The flat pack experiences in my life keep getting more complicated, but I am up to the challenge...  Going to try to stay away from politics...  Had to replace my bike.  The new one is supposed to have arrived by today but I haven't heard...  Saw Inside Out 2 in a theatre this weekend, pretty much the only people there...  The weather in Pittsburgh keeps getting more and more exciting.  I could do without exciting...  The TSA lines at the airport have been so bad in the morning they are telling folks to arrive 3 hours early in the morning.  For some plights that's before there's anyone there to check you in...  Paul Riser was on TV this morning and I could not tell who he was...  Teaching in the CMU Precollege Program again.  Something like the 20th time...  I am now reading my third paper book in a row.  Pretty sure my Kindle is confused and lonely...  I'd like to write a book this month.  It is feeling less and less likely every day...  With the replacement bike comes a replacement lock and a replacement helmet, lots of replacement shopping to do...  Trying to get to season 3 of The Bear, but have to finish season 1 of Palm Royale first - and then I bet The Olympics will get in the way...  June is supposed to be home project month, but I didn't get to much this time around.  I'm hoping to get to some things in July.  We'll see...  Every time the Thunderbirds have a home game the weather looks like rain.  I hope that stops soon...  Pluto TV has DS9 and Stargate SG-1 FAST channels.  I'd previously deleted it, but had to bring it back...  Someone was hit by a car just down the street from us.  It's easy to forget we live in a city sometimes...  PPS is starting a process that is probably going to muck up our local school.  That's going to be a real bummer...

Ellipses...

I guess I didn't really get too far upping the posting tempo...  We have an unplanned two week gap between summer camp and school.  Oops.  Gonna have to come up with some programming...  The military wind down on TV is really hard to watch...  I have a new boss again, the third in two years.  Things here at the SOD have been a little turbulent...  While we were briefly away the neighbor cut down a whole bunch of trees on the property line I really wanted cut down.  There's a bonus...  We're watching "The Rook" on Starz.  So far it is really engaging.  Anything on that channel that isn't "Outlander" is a bonus...  The boy swam every day at camp this summer and you can really see the difference watching him in a pool - even if he didn't get to their deep water test...  I do not appear to be able to grill chicken without giving it a healthy char.  Perhaps that's a skill I should develop...  We have seven days until classes start.  I have a lot to do in the next seven days...  The Steelers are 3-0 so far in the pre-season.  I am remembering they were like 6-0 last year in the regular season.  That 3-0 probably doesn't mean much...  I read a book called "Binti" last week.  It was pretty decent.  I think I got the title off a list to expand the kind of author I was reading.  It seems like a worthwhile exercise...  Our PTM Welcome Back Party got cancelled/postponed over Delta concerns.  It was the right call but still kinda sucks.  I'm waiting to hear about the full SOD Welcome Back Party now...  It looks like Delta is also going to put the kibosh on any bus commuting for the time being.  I hope DR is OK with my bike in the hallway...  I shouldn't be allowed to do home repairs.  After I finish them I spend a lot of energy concerned the repair will fail.  It almost never happens but that doesn't change my response...  After searching for a new trunk organizer I settled on a milk crate - a snazzy collapsible milk crate, but still a milk crate.  I'm a little bummed the new car doesn't have much in the way of hidden storage...  This is traditionally the week we race to finish class materials before the copier breaks.  For a couple semesters I haven't done any hard copy and haven't had to deal with the copier.  I think I'll make that a tradition...

Ellipses...

Well, here we go again: PPS changed the first day of school adding a two week delay...  I used to really think storms were cool.  Then I bought a house...  Getting used to driving the new car, but I still think I need lessons on how to work everything...  I haven't been bringing my office stuff back to my office yet.  I guess there's still part of me that wonders whether we're really coming back in person...  If anyone has a source for in-stock N95 or KN95 masks sized for children I would really appreciate knowing about it...  My office computer monitor has become intermittent.  I wonder if leaving it unused for the better part of a year has anything to do with it...  If I had to choose between the reconciliation infrastructure bill or the For the People Act I would pick the latter over the former.  Guess we'll have to watch and see...  I watched The Suicide Squad on HBOMAX.  I think it is better than the earlier film, but I still think they haven't quite figured out what to do with that content...  I still haven't archived my 2021 documents.  There's part of me that still feels like we're just finishing up the 2019-2020 summer...  The news out of Afghanistan is really unfortunate...  I really hit a home project hard in June but I slowed down a lot in July.  I've pretty much just stopped here in August.  I should get back on it...  I also took on a writing project in June.  I made a little dent at the beginning but really hit the skids after that.  That one needs a jump start too...  I like the idea of Pluto TV.  It is nice to have TNG and Classic Who on tap, but it really seems like the Who titles are significantly limited and the TNG episodes have this annoying habit of backing up 15 minutes.  It is really unwatchable...  I really hope we don't wind up with a PA version of the AZ "fraudit."  We really don't need that...  The bike is proving hard to park at work.  Popular consensus is you shouldn't lock up and leave an e-bike outside, but finding a spot in Purnell is difficult...  Did you see there was a football game last week?  I wasn't ready for football yet.  Here we go...

Ellipses...

I've been putting things on my calendar for September.  We're only halfway through precollege, but it is seriously time to be thinking about the fall...  The Olympic Opening Ceremonies are tonight - well on TV tonight, they were actually this morning.  I caught a snip of some real cool drones...  I should have made myself the instructor for Applying to College.  As it turns out I wind up sitting through every session.  Might as well have gotten some dollar bills...  Ripl3y has decided she is a fan of Blue Slide Park.  We live like right around the corner from the new Wightman park, but when I say "do you want to go to the park?" she says "Blue Slide Park!"  So we go to Blue Slide...  If I were making book on the return to school this fall I think I would judge there to be a 30% chance it isn't going to happen the way people are currently planning.  I hope it lands on the 70% side...  At some point I am going to have to move back into my office.  I was there the other day and suddenly realized how much stuff I had brought home.  It is functional, but there's a lot of stuff I need in my basement...  Fetterman emails and asks for money like every day.  It still feels early for that but I guess they know what they're doing...  Now that we struck the patio from the backyard we're going to try to improve the drainage.  That's making an unfortunate trades coordination project for me.  I think I finally got it sussed out today.  This way I can worry about what will go wrong rather than worry about not getting it set up...  I bought a new car, well a 2020 but that's a big step up from the 2009 I've been driving.  In my head I think this is maybe the last gasoline car I'll probably own...  The neighbor's house got hit by a falling tree.  All of a sudden clear cutting all the trees starts to make sense.  It is more than two weeks later and there are still dozens of roofers and gutter guys and tree service trucks in the neighborhood.  Trees are pretty when they aren't falling on your house...

Ellipses...

Long time no type...  It is the second child's birthday today.  I think a good time was had by all.  There was singing of "Happy Birthday" well into bedtime...  I think the CFO is going to take the hit.  He would have rolled by now if he were going to...  So far, rainy days at camp don't seem to be any worse than sunny days at camp - at least if you listen to our camper.  That's a real achievement for a camp...  A donor endowed the grad program I attended so as to make it tuition free in perpetuity.  Briefly I had the thought: "would it have been so hard to make that retroactive for 20 years?"  But then I realized that wouldn't be long enough.  I am old...  It would be nice, when ordering a half sheet cake that they would tell you that the printed graphic frosting is formatted for a quarter sheet cake.  Then maybe you could tell them to fill in the empty space.  Just saying...  The garage looks better than it has in months - maybe years.  If anyone asks, that's what I did with June...  I've finally joined the ESTA TSP Rigging Working Group.  I probably should have done it a decade ago.  I guess I had other plans (that didn't come to pass)...  You would think a year's worth of free PTM magazines would be a large pile.  It really isn't...  It occurred to me yesterday that my relationship with rain really changed at some point.  I think it was when I bought a house...  I need a series of YouTube videos or something to teach me the features of the car that replaced the Xterra.  I feel like I am not making proper use of it...  I've been to campus twice this week.  It is really sleepy.  The vending machine in the student lobby is empty...  I though they told us that Citizen's United made it so there was more money in the system than anyone could need.  But they still keep sending emails looking for my $3...  Maybe tomorrow I will post a birthday photo...  I don't remember how long these posts need to be to be worthwhile.  Let's guess this long...

NYE Ellipses...

2020 is almost over.  I wish turning the calendar page did so much more than just change the date...  I've been teaching from home for one and a half semesters now.  It's different, but not as different as some people make it out to be, I think...  Gib5on has been going to online school for one and a half semesters - or the equivalent thereof.  Academically I don't think it has made much of a difference.  Socially, well that's another story...  I have had a broken foot for several weeks now.  It is some kind of penance for Gib5on's broken leg earlier this year.  Here's hoping 2021 proceeds without fractures...  We have a nice pandemic pantry.  Nothing too irrational, but a good stock.  To date it has been unnecessary...  Finishing the basement last year turned out to be prescient.  All this home time would have been much more difficult without it...  Sabian is like *this* close to talking.  I don't think she's really noticed the stay at home much even though she's been out of daycare for one and a half semesters...  You would think that having a kid out of daycare would be a financial windfall.  You'd be wrong...  My bike has been sitting in the garage since I broke my foot.  It might be there for months now.  I had thought I'd lost the keys, but they turned up in Gib5on's snow boot...  Mrs. TANBI continues to revolutionize American health insurance.  COVID has meant no work trips for her, but for some reason way way more meetings...  It would be really nice to go on a trip, or go to a movie, or see some family but it all feels like too big a risk these days.  That's too bad...  I really hope the leadership has their crap together for the Electoral College tally.  We keep saying things won't happen these days right up until they happen...  No First Night for us this year.  Another on the list of things we won't be doing: Kennywood, Idlewild, Sandcastle, Phipps Winter Lights, Pirates, Steelers...  The kids haven't seemed to miss that stuff and we say we do those things for them - maybe it is a little for us though...  Here's to a happier and healthier 2021...

Ellipses...

The NBA had COVID right first.  Maybe the NBA should be in charge.  I hope the NBA doesn't fumble this. Tonight they sure look like they have their finger on the pulse of the nation...  I've got three schedules for three classes, and the schedule for the fourth class is coming together - I've delegated it...  That shooter crossed a state line for the purpose of committing a felony.  That would make it a Federal offense I think.  In less interesting times that would be confidence inspiring...  Getting a new work computer tomorrow.  Going to have to go to campus to get it done...  The Hatch Act is a law not a guideline.  Our system has no way of enforcing these laws.  The system is seriously broken...  We folded and bought another bookcase.  Not all the books are going away after all.  Now I have to do a round of un-culling...  The other day there was an entertainment production news article about the Eco-Challenge Fiji race show on Amazon.  Now I am watching the show so I can read the article without spoilers.  That feels like the long way around...  It is possible that messages on Facebook and financial donations are no longer sufficient.  I realize I am late coming to that conclusion...  I wonder if the RNC speeches will have the same COVID issues as the Tulsa rally or Sturgis.  I hope they don't...  Classes start on Monday, for me and for Gib5on.  His teacher has started to make contact and get us up to speed.  I'm glad to have the guidance.  Still don't know how many hours of synchronous class he's going to have...  Mrs. TANBI used the new upstairs hardline internet today.  We've now got a second reliable workspace...  I don't know how voters are supposed to navigate their choices when there really isn't good faith campaigning.  Spin is one thing.  This time around it is something else...  Amazon cancelled Altered Carbon.  I don't have a great record picking shows lately...  The plan to offer the books for sale in batches didn't get any traction...  They've pretty much finished repaving the street in front of our house.  It'll be nice to wake up to something other than back up alarms...  Two days ago that double hurricane scenario looked pretty terrifying.  Now it looks like one will be more than enough.  Stay safe folks...

Ellipses...

They paved the road in front of the house today.  At 4:30 in the afternoon.  With no notification.  Kind of a crappy time of day to close that street...  Going back to the diet next week.  I don't think I'll enjoy it, but it seems like the right thing to do...  I'm not sure how you can go in front of Congress, acknowledge that things are going downhill significantly and still believe you ought to keep the job...  Hoping to be out of the storage unit soon, with everything back into our house or disposed of responsibly.  I wouldn't bet on it though...  We haven't even gotten the Fall bonus curriculum going yet and I'm on to looking at the spring.  This week has always been hectic, but this year is extra special...  If we'd known we were going to be working from home exclusively and that school was going to be from home and that daycare was going to be from home, if we'd known all that we'd probably have made different choices about our home...  I think I am just going to monitor the convention coverage rather than watching in real time.  That will likely give me enough of a taste to know what is going on...  More and more I wonder if the nationwide coin shortage is due to some kind of malarkey in the bureau rather than the pandemic...  Delete, delete, delete.  I wonder if this will ever be like it was once?  Probably not...  If I replace my car, should I get another car or go back to a truck?  Based on all the driving I do now I should probably be giving strong consideration to nothing at all...  Just couldn't get in the groove today.  I don't know if it is about being home or something else, but crossing things off my list is harder than I remember - and that's without the constant addition of new items...  Gib5on's new teacher texted today with some instructions.  I texted, emailed, and answered through the new app (that was what the text was about).  I fear that we haven't gotten to the first day of class and I may have flagged myself as a problem...  I finished "Sea Change."  Pretty good book.  Nice to read something dystopian that has a new slant to the triggering event...  Haven't got my mail in ballot yet.  Really wondering about sending it in once I do get it.  I guess I can hand deliver it...  I was watching the Penguins while they were in it.  Then I thought maybe I would watch the Golden Knights, but I think I might have been too slow...  No rain tonight.  Should probably go put some miles in on the bike...

Ellipses...

That was swell, but really I was hoping for more...  Riding through campus tonight it looks like there are fewer signs than there were weeks ago...  Pitt extended remote classes a week past our schedule.  Keeping track of this really requires something you can erase...  I got 150' of Ethernet cable today.  The weak internet availability in the guest room will not last forever...  Do you think people would pay $1 per book for a whole box of sorted books?  $20 for 20 Star Wars paperbacks?  Me either.  Books are Kryptonite...  There's this guy I have come into class every year and every year for some reason he doesn't get emails from my work account so I have to email him twice, the second time using my personal account.  Or maybe I am just an impatient noodge...  Firefox doesn't think "noodge" is a word.  Google says otherwise...  I'm taking a vacation from my diet again.  Being stuck in the house all day long I just don't have the discipline to stick to it.  I'm not really even hungry.  Just have to keep an eye on the scale I guess...  Tonight I had the thought that maybe the administration should have told all of us to cut the workload for each of our classes in half for the Fall.  I have the feeling that classes are going to be particularly draining in this mode.  Of course, in that instance people might want to pay half...  I need recommendations for replacement office chairs.  The chairs in the home office are not "all day" duty.  If you have one you like - that isn't a million dollars - let me know...  This morning I played "Life" with Gib5on.  On what used to be called "day of reckoning" in the current version you collect $50k/pet and $100k/child.  I'm not sure the people that designed the game have pets or children.  Or perhaps they don't really believe that the game should be scored with money...  In the grocery today I was looking for Little Debbie Peanut Butter Wafers but couldn't find any.  Probably a good thing...  Also, they had Halloween Candy out.  Someone should explain to them that it is August and that holiday is basically in November.  That's a pretty far horizon in this day and age...

Ellipses...

 I took a week off.  Did you miss me?  Tell the truth, you didn't even notice I had stopped...  We had a work meeting today about coming back to work.  I didn't leave the meeting feeling much better about it than I did going in.  Not a whole lot worse either...  Screw the wireless.  We've had enough.  I am running Ethernet upstairs...  The light on my bike doesn't appear to me to be doing much good.  Thankfully I haven't been riding in the dark...  I listened to the first night of the DNC.  I don't miss the stuff that isn't there (although I would if I were trying to sell them scenery)...  The "crowdsource" class has a name: "And One More Thing."  If we do it again in the Spring maybe I'll call it "And One More One More Thing."  Or maybe not...  The median net worth of an American family is less than $100,000.  The median net worth of Congress is more than $500,000.  Maybe there's something there that needs fixing...  MSNBC cut off Billy Porter singing.  Guess I'll need to find it on YouTube...  UNC - Chapel Hill reverted to 100% remote classes after only one week of school.  The 2020 version of "The Old College Try"...  I finished "Tales From the Loop."  It looks like there's a new season of "3%."  Maybe that'll be next...  Finding a ride in my neighborhood that doesn't include climbs would consist of riding in a circle in front of my driveway.  And even that isn't totally flat...  The boy went back to Camp Corona today.  We've got maybe three more weeks until school starts for the fall.  We're still waiting to find out exactly how that will work, but we're confident we have an infrastructure to handle it.  Fingers crossed...  The announcement came today that Spring production will be remote.  Now we're back to determining what that means for Technical Directors...  I don't think you can paint it more brightly than "If you don't think things can get worse, they can."  Now it just comes down to if people are listening...  Those cube storage things from Target; they're not really intended to mount horizontally on the wall.  Going to have to come up with a modification...  I took the kids for a walk this morning and fully expected that when we walked by the mailbox at Wilkins and Shady that it wouldn't be there.  It was.  Today...

Ellipses...

I did my first errand today that I would previously have done with a car.  Had to install the lock to do it, and even with it locked up I was still twitchy about walking away from it...  Sounds like Pittsburgh dropped of the Corona Task-force "you're totally screwed" list.  So that's a good thing.  100 new cases reported today...  We've been walking around the neighborhood a lot lately.  Gib5on has been playing Pokemon Go.  I've noticed there are a whole lot of kids in our neighborhood that we don't know...  The NRA news is interesting, but I keep wondering what happened to the story of how the org funneled foreign money into the 2016 election.  Be nice to know if there was any truth to that, and if there was why nothing came of it...  I REALLY DON'T LIKE MY THURSDAY FAST DAYS.  I WANT A SNACK ALREADY...  My in-laws inform me that there is a shortage of Coke Zero.  Is that for real?  Since I haven't been in the office I've really been limited to Sodastream - of which there is also an existing shortage...  Still kinda twitchy about posting political opinions on the internet.  OK posting links to articles.  Less OK commenting or posting anything original; even if it is funny...  I think I know the proper use of semi-colons.  I am probably wrong...  With fast food restaurant dining rooms closed, where do people go to the bathroom on long drives?  Asking for a friend...  I moved my classes for the fall to online today.  I'll revisit it in a couple of weeks.  Maybe it will look less risky then...  Still don't know what to do with all the records and books we're looking to downsize...  Somehow a query posted in the PPS website system has yielded me the direct email for the school principal.  Something about that seems wrong...  MSNBC is available on TuneIn.  TuneIn is available on Alexa.  Listening to MSNBC is pretty much the same as watching, but there's less couch...  A while back, mostly because of the bike, I obtained some 3/8" drive allen keys.  It is possible that these tools have seen more use than any previous new tool in my possession...  30 year old me would have had much less trouble moving that treadmill than 50 year old me.  But 50 year old me got it done - with a little help from my friends...

Ellipses...

So what we really needed along with everything else that's going on were fires and hurricanes.  Super...  The Pens won game two.  They've still got a pretty steep hill.  Speaking of hills, tonight I passed another bike riding up a hill.  Part of me thinks there should be some kind of etiquette thing about e-bikes passing standard bikes on climbs.  I felt kinda dirty...  Today I started making Gib5on a quesadilla before realizing the only shredded cheese we had on hand was for Lasagna.  So instead he got a pizzadilla...  I sat in on an online rigging class today.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't what I got.  If nothing else I got some renewal points...  We got an oblique hint that the online learning Gib5on is going to be doing will be in the morning.  That works well for us, better than the afternoon.  It sure would be nice if figuring out these things weren't like reading tea leaves...  Every day and every article it seems less like a good idea to come back to campus in person.  I get that the world may not be able to wait for a vaccine, but it does seem like we ought to be able to wait for available, fast turnaround testing...  I finished watching The Girlfriend Experience and started Tales From the Loop...  Sabian has decided that everything in the world exists for climbing.  We might have to get her a helmet...  Mrs. TANBI and I are both doing telecommuting meetings in the same space.  If you have any advise on microphones that can filter out the other person talking in the room we could use it.  Otherwise we're going to have to create another office in this house.  Although, now that I think about it we're not likely to use the guest room anytime soon...  The treadmill does not fit in a Toyota Highlander.  Gonna have to try the bed of a Tacoma.  It'll be nice to get out of the storage unit if it works...  Thinking about a mid-August Lego sorting extravaganza.  I think I did that two years ago and it was great for my mental health.  Harder now that any dropped piece likely becomes a snack...  I finished reading Logan's Run today.  Often I find that the novels films come from are way more interesting than the movie.  That's not the case this time.  There's some cool parts, but I think the movie is better...  The dentist that's been cutting our grass got his dental license and sold his yard work equipment.  So if you know anyone that might be looking to pick up another yard please let me know...

Ellipses...

I joined a whole bunch of new groups on Facebook.  Remember when Facebook was for keeping in touch with friends?  I guess it isn't so much for that anymore...  Whoever first said "its all downhill from here" probably lived in Squirrel Hill.  The second half of these evening bike rides are requiring a lot more PAS than the first half...  I tried to watch some of the Attorney General appearing before Congress today but I had to turn it off.  Listening to Jerry Nadler admonish committee members about wearing their masks just didn't convey the high level discourse I was anticipating...  I am out of hot ramen.  I ordered more...  Gib5on did a mini-Snapology at Camp Corona today, just using his one bin of Legos.  I told him that maybe before the end of camp they could do a Snapology day using all of the Lego.  That will require rearranging the house.  I'm not sure they will appreciate it enough to make it worth it...  I emailed a used bookstore in town about buying some of our departing stock.  I don't have a lot of confidence it will yield much in the way of revenue, but maybe it will help move the process along...  The COVID snag that MLB found itself in today has me really thinking about in person teaching next month.  I'm slated to be in the room for TD1 and TD3.  Thinking about content I am not sure it is necessary.  "Necessary" is not the index they asked us to use in making the decision.  Maybe it should be...  We're losing the dental students that have been cutting our grass for two years.  They finished school and are becoming dentists.  Doesn't seem fair to hold that against them, but I'm not sure we're going to find a replacement that will meet their price...  If I keep up the bike riding I am going to need a different seat.  I believe I am heavier than the person they think is riding the bike...  Basketball starts up again on Thursday.  I like Basketball, but I don't know if I have the bandwidth these days...  Speaking of sports, how is it they get hundreds and hundreds of fast response COVID tests while people who don't get paid to dunk are still being triaged in order to get a test at all and those tests take way too long for results?  Might be time to light up your Congressfolks...  Converting my existing lecture notes into PowerPoint decks isn't too steep a hill.  I don't think I could have a Grad Assistant do it though.  Just enough judgement involved to mean editing would be harder than composing.  Might make sense to have someone look for or generate better visuals though... 

Ellipses...

If you want to open schools in the fall then make it safe to open schools in the fall: more space, more teachers, more gear.  More money.  A lot more money.  Don't just try to feel better about more people dying...  We finished season one of Upload on Amazon.  Pretty good ride.  Really set up for binging.  We'll watch season two when it comes out (if it comes out)...  I rode three miles tonight on the bike, eleven miles so far for the week.  I know people that ride more than 11 miles/day.  But I haven't been on a bike for more than a decade...  I did what I think was a pretty good distanced CAD class today.  Pretty sure I found a nice way to integrate AutoCAD and PowerPoint over Zoom...  Now that we're trying to clear out the storage unit and move the stuff we'd cleared out into the basement we need a new place for a lot of books.  Mrs. TANBI would prefer that place not be in this house...  Today Gib5on managed to lose one shoe.  It must be in this house.  It is possible his sister may have helped lose it.  There's very little she enjoys more than a shoe...  This law enforcement action in Portland is scary as hell.  All my life states have had the right to ask for help, not have the Federal government decide and send their own forces.  When the Guard deployed to New Orleans after Katrina it was a HUGE deal.  That was nothing compared to what is happening in Portland right now.  Write your Congressfolks...  Yesterday I set a new high score at CostCo.  The quarentine has not been great for my spending habits.  There are boxes arriving from various online vendors (alright, it is mostly Amazon) pretty much every day.  Every trip to the grocery is like we won't be allowed to go back for a month...  The President tried to parlay the office into scoring a golf tournament for his club.  When they write the book on this administration it won't be called "Inept" or "Disaster."  It will be "BRAZEN."  Every day a new revelation...  If we would stop buying ice cream I would stop eating ice cream.  Duh...

Ellipses...

What do you write when you are too lazy to write?  Ellipses...  I PUT THE BIKE TOGETHER!  Now I just have to ride it, which will require reading a manual.  I learned to ride a bike more than 40 years ago, having to read a manual seems odd...  PPS had a Facebook event tonight where they informed us that school will either be (our choice) part time in person/part time asynchronous distance learning or full time synchronous distance learning - with the added option that they could at any time take everyone 100% online again.  Gonna have to give it some thought...  We had over 300 new COVID cases today in the county.  They're saying some of that load is lab lag - which might explain yesterday's rosy 70 new cases.  Still going in the wrong direction...  I said "drank the Kool-Aid" today in class.  As I was saying it I began to wonder if that was another expression that should just drop out of use.  It is pretty morbid, and I really don't need it...  Work got me a graphics tablet with a pen for writing in Zoom sessions.  I was afraid it would look like I was drawing in crayon and had some kind of tremor.  It does.  I am going to have to look around in the drivers and the configuration to see if it is me or the settings...  RBG is in the hospital again.  2020 really is pulling out all the stops.  Here's hoping it isn't anything serious...  In less than 8 weeks I am supposedly teaching class in a classroom on campus.  Yesterday I got an email from campus facilities saying if I want to go to my office I have to email for permission and give them all the details of my intended trip.  A whole lot is going to have to change in 8 weeks for us to get to where they are thinking...  I had a tele-medicine appointment today.  It gave me a chance to use our scale, pulse-ox meter, non-contact thermometer, and blood pressure meter.  Over the years we have acquired a whole lot of personal diagnostic apparatus...  Today's Zoom class had a PowerPoint composed from half a class outline and yet it took the whole class session.  I'm glad I didn't convert the entire outline into the deck.  Although eventually I'll need the other half of the lecture.  Not until well into the fall though...  We're trying to decide if we want to go back to 20-25 person regular framily dinners in person.  For months we've been "gathering" online.  With the Allegheny County case counts going the way they are I am unconvinced this is a good idea.  My doc today concurred.  Guess it will have to wait...  I watched "The Old Guard" on Netflix.  Decent movie with good people and good performances.  I knew nothing about it before I started and was pleasantly surprised.  TANBI recommended...

Ellipses...

Thursday nights all I do is think about lunch on Friday.  But I guess that means it is working a little.  Maybe...  I knew I was going to have to find a way to dispose of LPs from my folks house.  I hadn't anticipated offloading box after box of books from their house and from our house, but since they've been in storage for months - some for years - and we haven't missed them, maybe it is time for them to live with someone else...  I bought this bike, weeks ago.  It is still in the box it came in.  I should do something about that...  As always I think the court victories today were not as exciting as the folks on MSNBC are making them sound...  We got a Pikachu mask for Gib5on.  He seems thrilled.  Gonna need a lot of masks that thrill toddlers if we're going to have school any time soon...  I got formal approval to add the three adjuncts we've been developing and at almost the same time all three of the people we were scouting said they were interested.  I love it when a plan comes together...  Last week I told the dentists that cut our lawn that we should skip a week.  Really I could make the same call this week too: no rain, no growth...  The President is running a terror ad about defunding the Police on MSNBC - it might just be on TuneIn.  This ad is changing zero minds in this position...  The finish out on the laundry room really does make the space look a lot nicer.  Sometimes the utility of changes is unclear.  This isn't one of those times...  The COVID cases in Allegheny County were finally down today.  Here's hoping it is a trend rather than a blip...  I did a PowerPoint for class today in which I committed a chart I have been drawing on chalkboards for 20 years to a digital slide.  Feels like some kind of milestone.  Probably won't be the last time I feel that way...  Our first generation Echo seems like it is showing some age.  It is occasionally just incapable of playing music.  Another certain 21st century problem.  I wish I could remember what we did before we had the device.  Oh, I remember: nothing...  Mrs. TANBI and I are looking for new show recommendations.  We recently finished this season of Top Chef and have nearly worked our way through current episodes of The Profit.  Something with a story would be nice...  It seems pretty likely that COVID has taken Sabian out of infant daycare for good.  Gib5on's school is talking about coming back in August, but we're hearing it will only be two days/week.  I'm not sure I see the utility of two days/week...

Ellipses...

COVID cases, day over day, in Allegheny County are up 1000% in the last two weeks.  We're doing it wrong.  I hope we figure it out soon.  Wear a mask...  Gib5on has expanded his Pokemon obsession to Pokemon GO.  We still haven't figured out how to make the social aspects of the games work for him.  That probably isn't a bad thing...  As the person often bemoaning the last of room for humor in many of today's discussions I am being remarkably snappish on Facebook to people trying to be funny.  Oops...  It has been really hot out the last few days, so I set up a portable shade on our front porch.  We're anticipating being contacted by the realtor from the house next door any day now...  Some things are proving very difficult to buy these days, although they are real 21st century problems.  But if you've got any basil, Mrs. TANBI would like some, and let me know if you see any Sodastream Diet Cola syrup (bonus points for caffeine free)...  One of my Facebook friends posed an Amazon listing for a face-mask featuring the President's name arranged in a Swastika.  That's not something I would have expected to have ever seen...  It sounds like the Popular Vote Compact got a big boost today.  I guess that's a good thing.  A unanimous Supreme Court ruling is somewhat striking these days...  It hasn't been very long, and I don't want to jinx it, but it looks like my weight is creeping down again.  That'd be a good thing if it is real...  My boss, who was going to retire at the end of next spring, decided to move up his timetable and leave at the end of September...  My wife has this cousin that posts some really vacuous stuff online. I don't know why, but I can't help but engage.  I don't think there's any room for a change of mind, but I feel compelled to call him out...  It has been like three weeks now and I still haven't opened the box my bike came in.  I hope it is in there.  It will be embarrassing if I drag my feet long enough to not be able to resolve problems if I find them.  Maybe this weekend...  Tomorrow is the first day of teaching for me this summer in the abridged summer program.  Since we're on Zoom I had to convert an outline I first made 20 years ago into a PowerPoint.  Here's hoping it goes well in that format...  Our 4th was uneventful.  No fireworks.  Honestly I don't remember the last time we went to a fireworks display.  We spent the evening watching Hamilton.  Maybe there's a tradition to be had there...  Between the two of us my wife and I have more than 5 online calendars.  Getting them all to work together requires an IT manager...  More and more I am becoming concerned that the November election might be in peril.  I have this recurring vision of villains twirling the ends of their mustaches declaring we won't even know what hit us.  Keep your head on a swivel...  Sabian is now one year old...  PPS is saying there will be in person public school at the end of August (that's the end of next month - see the first line of this entry)...

Ellipses...

All of a sudden it's the end of the day again...  The TD cohort from work met tonight on Zoom.  I gave them the scoop on what we're thinking for the fall.  Now it has to work...  We're starting to bring stuff back to the house from the storage unit.  Really it seems like we should just take it to a dumpster...  I still haven't put my bike together.  Maybe this weekend...  Gib5on has become obsessed with Pokemon GO.   Just when you though there wasn't any more Pokemon to get obsessed about...  Tomorrow is Sabian's first birthday.  Not sure she'll know the difference...  Debating shrinking the bubble in the wake of increased Allegheny Country COVID numbers.  It is a bummer to have rewound all the way to April.  I hope people enjoyed their time out of the house...  This latest Russia story is awful, but I hope it doesn't do so much damage that we wind up with Pence running for President in the Fall...  Not sure I understand people's objection to wearing a mask in public.  It isn't too much of an imposition and it makes a big difference.  Plus it is the right thing to do...  When you keep an eye on everything the current administration is doing you wind up wishing maybe you hadn't...  The basement is making good progress, which is good because under the new normal I spend an awful lot of time in the basement...  Somehow I wound up with a full day of meetings tomorrow afternoon, plus a family Zoom at 7:30 AM.  I feel like I'm in Clerks:  I'm not even supposed to be here...  Camp Corona is going pretty well.  I have to make some more shirts...  I teach a week from today.  That's pretty soon.  I should probably get some stuff together...  We can't seem to grow grass on the lawn.  No problem growing grass in the driveway though...  We're supposed to see Hamilton in the Spring.  Should we watch it online first?  I mean, every day it seems somewhat less likely we'll be seeing it in a theatre in the Spring...  The world has shut off travel from the US over our infection rate.  We're supposed to be a world leader.  I wonder what happened...

Ellipses...

Keeping after the writing is a lot of work.  We'll have to make do with a lot of Ellipses...  Justice shut down the prosecution of Micheal Flynn today.  Congratulations, we now live in a Banana Republic.  Laws don't apply to the President's Men...  People are protesting in the street over loss of lives and the administration is detailing guards to watch over endangered statues.  That might be a good definition of tone deaf...  Today I found out that what I had been told "rule of thumb" came from, it didn't.  But it doesn't matter because it somehow got codified as being about that anyway...  We're making real progress on the fit out of the basement in the house.  It is certainly coming along nicely...  Do you know anyone that wants a treadmill?  How about an exercise bike?  We might have a couple of spares...  I'm pushing through House of Lies for the second time.  It is a really well done show, but some of it doesn't hold up too well culturally...  Sitting at this machine late into the night - to do the blog or to do anything else - is dangerous to my wallet.  Online shopping is really a curse, just way, way too easy to spend money...  There are 16 post-its on my desk with ideas for posts on this site.  For reasons I don't understand it is really difficult to get from post idea to post...  Today as a result of a selfish complaint at work the whole group can dispense with what was clearly an unreasonable ask.  Just goes to show, if you don't ask, you don't get...  The social distancing protocols have me thinking about buying an ultra-small desktop TV to be part of our entertainment center - pretty much exclusively for use doing Zoom sessions.  The next thing on the list of things we really probably don't need...  Gib5on and Sabian both had house call visits from their doc today.  Both seemed to be doing ok.  Nice to have professional confirmation...  The new bike has been sitting in a box in the garage for a couple of days now.  It isn't doing anyone any good in there.  Got to do something about that...  We're working on what to do about shows in the fall.  All things being equal the discussion seems to be moving backward.  Probably will make a leap forward in a day or two.  Here's hoping...  Allegheny County COVID cases were up this week.  People aren't taking the mitigations seriously.  There were people at the store today without masks (which is just slightly worse than the masks not covering their nose).  Gonna get worse before it gets better I'm afraid...