Entry 596: All Rise

Well, it looks like Biden is going to get to appoint at least one (and very likely only one) Supreme Court justice. Stephen Breyer announced he will retire, and Biden has already vowed to replace him with a Black woman, which I think makes sense politically (Black women overwhelmingly vote Democrat) and from a representational standpoint. Whomever he selects will be the first Black female justice, a first that's long overdue. This is a case in which it is appropriate and fair, in my opinion, to explicitly consider somebody's race and gender when filling a job vacancy.

Who precisely will it be? I've heard some names bandied about, but the only one I remember off-hand is Ketanji Brown Jackson. But even if I could remember some other names, it's not like I could provide any meaningful insight or analysis on them. I'm not, like, a jurisprudence buff or what have you.

My only wish with this whole thing is that Breyer would have retired at this time last year. Then everything could have been signed, sealed, and delivered by now.  As it is, we all have to hold our collective breath and hope nothing happens to a Democratic senator over the next six months. With a 50-50 chamber, losing just one vote could be an utter disaster. If all Dems are in lockstep, as they should be, it's possible a few Republicans will also vote to confirm (Murkowski, Collins, maybe even Romney), but would they cast a potentially deciding vote? I don't know. I doubt it. At the very least, they would effectively have veto power over any selection.

And we better not hear shit out of Joe Manchin. It he can't fall in line with the president on a Supreme Court pick, he might as well just switch parties, because he's effectively a Republican at that point, anyway. I know that he's frustrated liberal Democrats with his opposition to BBB and unwillingness to change the filibuster rules to allow voting rights legislation to the floor, but one must keep in mind, he represents a state Trump carried by 40 frickin' points. The fact that there is a Democrat who can win West Virginia at all is something of a minor miracle. If he's not there, it's a guaranteed Republican seat. It's not like you can primary him with the next AOC.

I think the track Dems need to follow with him is one of reluctant acceptance and cooperation. He's not going to deliver everything, or even half, of what you want (and he's going to be annoying about it in the process). But without him, there is no infrastructure bill, and this Supreme Court nomination is a whole lot stickier. If all we get from him are these two things, that's still a big win, all other things equal. Kyrsten Sinema... she's a different story. Other Democrats can win in Arizona (if only narrowly). I won't argue if you say she needs to go.

In other news, S is away on work for the week, so I've been single-dadding it. It hasn't been too bad. It's quite easy on school days, honestly. I have to get them out of the house in the morning, but I normal do that, anyway, so it's just the evening that's extra work. They stay at aftercare until about 5:30, and then by the time I get them home and fed, and they get their homework done, it's iPad time (if only so that I can watch Jeopardy! in peace -- don't know if you follow it, but the second longest run ever just ended), and then it's just a half-hour or so until they have to start getting ready for bed.

They are usually pretty good with me about doing their homework and going to bed on time. It's all about finding the right bribe. This week it's been video games. I bought Street Fighter: 30th Anniversary Collection for Nintendo Switch, and it has Street Fighter II on it, one of my favorite games from my childhood. The game play and controls are the exact same as I remember them. It's hard to do special moves because the Switch joysticks are more sensitive than the old Super Nintendo cross-pads, but it's still really fun. It's crazy that I still have the muscle memory to be able to play a game well that I hadn't played in almost 30 years. I can usually school either of the kids no matter what characters we are using, but they beat me just enough to make it interesting. Also, they are evenly matched against one another, which is good. It's not as enjoyable, and it can lead to real fights, if one person is getting beat up on the entire time.

Alright, that's all I got for now. I have to get my half-hour on the treadmill in (still a decent way from my 4 mile goal, but I'm making progress; I'm at about 3.66 now, and more importantly, no injuries yet), and then I have to pick them up.

Until next time...

Update: I ran before I actually posted this entry, and now I'm up to 3.81. Cue the Chariots of Fire theme.  

[I remember as a kid I loved this song for some reason, so I begged my mom to rent the movie for me, which she did, and then I was utterly bored within the first ten minutes.]

Entry 595: Cold

Baby, it's cold outside.

Here in DC, there is a short (and getting shorter) time of the year in which it gets really frickin' cold. We are currently in that period now. From roughly Christmas to Valentine's Day, the temperature vacillates between the high teens and the low 40s, settling in around the mid-20s for the most the day. We also usually get a snowstorm or two during that time. Although I'm glad this period still exists in an ever-warming world, I cannot say it's very pleasant. It especially sucks in the midst of a pandemic, when you are somewhat wary of group indoor activities.

The good news, however, is that cold spells don't last and Omicron is finally starting to recede. The arrow is now pointing down, which means my relatively rosy prediction is on track. If we don't get hit by another breakthrough variant this might actually be the beginning of the end. But that's a big if. We could have said the same thing before Delta and the same thing before Omicron. At some point, you have to think, things are going to break our way, but they haven't yet. It would obviously help if more than 63% of the population was vaccinated. At the very least, the vaccines have proved quite effective at helping your body rid itself of the virus once it enters (as an expert framed it, vaccines act more as a badass army of knights rather than as an impassable moat). The less time the virus stays in our bodies, the less time it has to mutate. One theory of Delta's origins is that it cultivated in a single immunocompromised individual who had the virus for months. It's possible this particular person wasn't able to get the vaccine, but it illustrates a larger point: More vaccines equal less chance of mutation.

Unfortunately, vaccines seem to be following the general pattern of "debate" in this country right now. It seems like no matter the issue, there are 25% of the people who are just going to be unreachable crazy in one direction. Then there are about 10% of the people who are unreachable crazy in the other direction (the crazy usually isn't symmetric), and then there's the remaining 65% of us, who just want to figure it out and get on with our lives. The unfortunate thing about vaccines is that the crazies on both ends are against them. It's mainly coming from extremists on the right, but we all know the anti-big pharma lefties who are also not down with vaccines. In fact, our political right-left model should probably be a circle and not a line segment. There actually is no left end and right end because the extremists on the left go so far, they actually align themselves more with extremists on the right than moderates on the left, and vice-versa.

Anyway, S and I have been coping with everything by material improving our own lives. Seriously, we've been spending a lot of money lately. But why not? You pay your bills, you put away what you need for savings, and if you are fortunate enough to have something left over, what else are you suppose to do with it? I've never been the type to spend money on myself. I just don't want much. I try to keep the same devices forever (not always successfully -- I accidentally put my Bose headphones in the washing machine a few weeks ago, making them my second water-based technological death of the past three months) and my wardrobe is mostly composed of free tee shirts, company swag I got as a gift for my employment, and two old pairs of jeans. But now I'm doing a thing where if I want something that I think will improve my life, I'll check with my financial adviser (i.e., my wife) and if we have the money, I'll just get it -- or I won't and I'll move on. But I'm not going to just endlessly wish I could have it from afar like I used to do.

Here are some recent purchases.

Solar panels: I can tell myself that they will pay for themselves in the long-run and that they're good for the environment, and that's all true, but that's not the main reason we got them. The main thing is that I think they're cool. It's cool technology, and I like the idea of powering our house with them.

New TV: This one was mainly on S. I purchased our last TV in 2012, which was right before it became standard to have all the streaming app capabilities built into the TV. Supposedly, we had a way to set up Netflix directly, but I tried it once and it didn't work, so I just gave up on it. We had a Google Chromecast stick, so we would just cast everything from a device to our TV. It mostly worked, but not always, and it was annoying. Our new TV is much better. Plus, we moved our old TV to the kids' playroom and made it the video game TV, which has also been a quality of life boost.

Treadmill: I already discussed this one in the last entry. I haven't been going into the office because of Omicron, so I also haven't been going to the gym much (my gym is near my office because I like to go immediately after work). With the weather the way it is, outdoor exercise is totally off the table. That treadmill has been a godsend thus far.

Airbnb near my family: This is the one I'm most excited about. We booked a place close to my parents (and my brother and sister and their families) for six weeks in the summer. It took some logistical planning (still not totally done) and some money (although considering we aren't sending the kids to expensive summer camp here and that we would take a trip out there anyway, it's not that much more expensive), to the point that I wondered if it was worth it. But then I thought: What's more important than spending time with family? What do you want out of life, if not that? Not to be macabre but my parents are not young. If you actually do the math on the number of times we will see them again, it's an integer with a relatively small upper-bound. We gotta make the times we do see them count. Ever since I left the PNW, I always envisioned myself coming back in some way, even just a part-time way, and if not now, when?

Tesla: Yes, that's right we bought a Tesla. We pick it up next month. Like solar panels, I've had my eye on an electric car for a while. I put a bug in S's ear about it, and then one of our friends randomly got one, which really piqued her interested. (Remember what I said about S's first thought being We should do that too?) She test drove our friends' car and really liked it and kinda became obsessed with it. The conversation quickly escalated from Yeah, maybe next year to What about right now? So, we bought a Tesla yesterday and made an appointment to install a "juice box" charger on the side of our house. I have no idea how to charge a Tesla or even operate one, for that matter, but I've got a couple months and YouTube -- I'll be fine.

Until next time...

Entry 594: Too Annoyed To Post

I had to skip posting last week because I was too annoyed by life to write anything. That's a little bit of an exaggeration, but not much of one. The most recent annoyance is Lil' S2. He's driving us bonkers. He keeps telling us he wants to do activities, and then he bails when it's time to actually go. He finds a weird reason why he can't do it (for swim lessons today he said the lanes are "too big"), and then he digs in on it -- like he becomes absolutely unmovable. There is literally no reward nor any punishment that can get him to change his mind.

What's worse is that he still wants the after-activity treat we usually let him have, and then throws a massive tantrum when he doesn't get it. It's such a prolonged, over-the-top meltdown that it makes me wonder if something else is going on in his life that we don't know about. I'll often gently probe about a problem at school with a teacher or another student or something like that, but he never says anything that makes me think I should pursue this line any further. (Also, school is one thing he doesn't complain about doing, thankfully.) Maybe this is just his personality or maybe he's just being six -- probably the latter, now that I write it out like that.

Part of it is our fault for putting too much on his plate -- and by our fault I mean S's fault. By her own admission, she signs our kids up for too many activities. One thing about her is that if she hears another family doing something interesting or enriching, her immediate thought is We should do that too. This type of ambitious attitude often serves us well -- it's why she's successful career-wise -- but it does have it's drawbacks. It creates a standard that's impossible to attain for any single family. You can't do all the things all your friends do. It's not trying to keep up with the Joneses; it's trying to keep up with a super family comprised of the best parts of the Joneses and the Jameses and the Patels and the Chens and every other family we see at the playground. But I think she's starting to realize this, because today she said she is only going to sign them up for one activity per weekend at most. I didn't respond, but I was thinking in my head You mean the exact thing I've been saying all along?

There's no need to take a hard line on this now. When you are getting flak from your children, the last thing you need is flak from your spouse. Plus, the boys bother her much more than they bother me. Lil' S2 in particular will follow her around to the point she has to hide in the closet just to eat lunch in peace. It's a vicious circle, too, because the best leverage we have is to take away screen time, but if we take away screen time then they just bother us more. It's hard to know when to use the carrot and when to use the stick and when to throw your hands up in the air because neither approach seems to be working.

It's all hugely exacerbated by the pandemic, of course. And things certainly aren't great right now. I check the stats every morning and although the rate of increase of infections is falling steadily (the derivative is negative), there still is an overall increase. We haven't peaked yet, and it's not clear when we will (hopefully in a week or two). The good news is that most people aren't getting really sick anymore (especially fully vaxxed folks), but the sheer number of positive tests is still a huge problem. A few classes at the boys' school have had to go virtual for a few weeks because so many teachers are out sick. Civil services in DC have been disrupted for the same reason. We didn't get our mail for an entire week.

It snowed here pretty heavily a week and a half ago, which added to the disruption (and another flurry is forecast for tomorrow afternoon). It put us in a bind with a bulk trash pickup. We put in the order to get rid of a broken desk, the mattress for a bunk bed we already gave away, and a suitcase with a busted wheel. We dragged it out to the curb the night before it was supposed to be picked up (no easy task; lifting is not one of S's strong suits), but it was still there at 9:00 pm the next evening. It was supposed to snow in the morning, so, after some deliberation, we decided to haul the trash back undercover, lest it all get buried in snow. So, we did that, and then a half hour later we heard a big truck roll by, stop, and then start going again. We don't know for sure that it was a bulk trash collection, but it probably was. So annoying.

But the ultimate annoyance came in the form of a treadmill I recently purchased. Once it became clear Omicron was going to affect my gym habits (I've only been once this year), I ordered a treadmill. I just wanted something simple and durable. I didn't want a bunch of features and screens where you can run the fields of Kenya virtually or take live classes or anything like that. But I also didn't want some cheap, rickety hunk of junk. So, I went on-line and found something modern, but relatively modest and affordable that got good reviews.

It came last Sunday. It was supposed to arrive between 12-3, but it didn't get here until 5:00, and then it took them an hour and a half to assembled it, so I was already kinda pre-annoyed. (But I'm so glad I paid the extra money for assembly. If it took two professionals that long to do it, I would probably still be trying to figure it out. Plus, they took all the packaging with them.) Nothing, however, could prepare for the annoyance I was about to endure.

After the assemblers left, I figured I would sneak in a run on my new treadmill, even though it was already pretty late in the evening. I put on my workout clothes, got my phone and a towel, and then went to turn the machine on. But I couldn't because there was a giant sticker over the display panel:

THIS MACHINE IS CURRENTLY DEACTIVATED

IN ORDER TO ACTIVATE IT YOU MUST VISIT THE iFIT WEBSITE

What the hell?! I just paid hundreds of dollars for this thing and now I have to activate it before I use it from my own basement! That's such fucking bullshit! Just let me run!

And it gets worse. The only way to get an activation code is to make an account and log-in, and the only way to make an account is to put in a credit card number and become an iFit member which costs like $20 a month. It's one of those things where you get the first month free, and then you're automatically charged after that, so you have to cancel it after you sign up, and that's exactly the type of thing I didn't want to do, and shouldn't have to do for a frickin' treadmill.

But I do it and get the app on my phone and an activation code and everything works, but I can only control the treadmill through the app. If I try to use the machine directly it just beeps at me and doesn't work. So, now I'm really hot, and I'm wondering if I made a terrible mistake and bought a treadmill that only works with an iFit* membership.

You know what's weird? Despite the name, I don't think iFit is an Apple product.

I do some Googling, and I find a very helpful video (thank god for YouTube!) from some random chick who shows me that if you hold down a certain button on the treadmill for 15 seconds, the blue tooth connection to your phone shuts off, and then the treadmill can be controlled from the buttons on its panel like you would expect.

I'm happy that I'm able to actually start running, but then I put two and two together: I didn't even need to make an iFit account or get an activation code. I didn't really activate anything. I just paired the treadmill to my phone. In order to use the treadmill like I wanted to use it all along, all I needed to do was turn off the blue tooth straightaway. When that's off, it functions like a normal treadmill. I was duped! It's so infuriating that they make you think you need iFit when you actually don't. And what am I going to do about it now that I know -- demand a refund and tell them to come pick it up?

I canceled my iFit membership, but they keep it active until the end of the free trial period, which makes me nervous. I have a sneaking fear I'm going to be charged anyway. One of my friends once got out of a gym membership by reporting her credit card as stolen so it would get canceled and the automatic payments to the gym would stop. Although, come to think of it, I'm pretty sure they sent her to collections for doing that, so maybe it's not the best idea.

Anyway, the treadmill is working out quite nicely now that it functions the way I want. Although using it makes me realize how easy I am on myself when I jog through the neighborhood. My usual pace must be super slow, because I'm working hard on the treadmill, and I can barely do 9-minute miles. That's okay, it gives me a good goal: four miles in 30 minutes. I used to be able to do it fairly easily. Of course, that was 15 years ago. Now, I should probably just focus on using it for longer than a few weeks without pulling a muscle. Already my right calf is a little more sore than it should be.

Until next time...

Entry 593: I'm Dreaming of a White Boxing Day

We made it to the PNW and back and didn't even catch Omicron. Yay, us! Our travels were relatively uneventful, thankfully. Our connecting flight on the way there was delayed a bit and our return flight was stuck at the gate for like an hour because of cold weather (apparently there was a line at the deicing platform) but nothing major. We certainly can't complain given all the flights that have been outright canceled in the past week.

The lead-up to flying is truly one of the most anxiety-inducing times for me. It's the anticipation that stresses me out. Once we get up in the air, I'm totally good. Being boxed in for a few hours next to some strangers doesn't even really bother me that much. I just throw a movie or two on the iPad and by the time they're over it's time to land. This year I watched Snowpiercer and Blindspotting on the way there, and El Camino and Chuck & Buck on the way back. Don't ask how I decided on those movies. There's no rhyme or reason to it. I have a giant list, dating back years, of films I heard about somehow and want to watch. Then the night before I travel, I chose a few, pretty much randomly, and download them. My only criterion is that they have to be $5 or less for rental. There's no need to pay more than that with such a long list.

Anyway... we had a New Year's party at our house on Friday -- just a few couples and their kids (seven boys and one girl -- poor K!). One of the guests bought a bunch of rapid Covid tests a few months ago, so we all tested (negative) before we got together. I certainly didn't mind testing -- it gives you peace of mind -- but it's not a requirement as far as I'm concerned. If it's a group of fully vaccinated people, none of whom are showing any symptoms, then that's good enough for me.

It's a weird time. Cases are absolutely skyrocketing -- they've doubled in the US the past week; easily surpassing the previous high -- but serious sicknesses and deaths are barely budging. The pessimistic view is that cases will continue to rise and overwhelm the healthcare system and otherwise wreak havoc, through sheer volume, all while the virus uses us as human incubators to produce the next, worse variant. The optimistic view is that Omicron will relatively quickly burn through the population, mostly leaving vaccinated people unharmed (though not untouched), all while conferring another level of inoculation that will lead, finally, to the end of this pandemic -- Covid really will become "like the flu."

I'm going with the latter view, and it's not just wishful thinking. I'm not an expert, by any means, but I am pretty good, I think, at consuming and filtering expert opinion to form educated predictions of what will happen next. And a relatively rosy scenario is my best guess for now -- "relatively" being the operative word.

In other news, it's supposed to snow here in DC tomorrow, which is crazy considering highs today were in the mid-60s. I guess the white weather is following us -- we got several inches dumped on us the day after Christmas at my parents'. It stuck around too, which is kinda rare for that area. (My sister in-law said it was the coldest it had been in over a decade.) We even got another little flurry the morning we left. It made driving annoying, but otherwise was kinda cool. It actually got the kids out of the house more, because they could go sledding or frolicking in the snow. Prior to that, it was raining almost nonstop, and the one day we got a bit of sunshine, it was so damn windy, we still couldn't bear to go outside for long. I love spending Xmas with my family, but, weather-wise, summertime visits are far superior.

DC Public Schools already announced school is closed for tomorrow. They were already closed for class, but we were supposed to go and pick up rapid Covid tests for the kids, and now we can't even do that. All students have to test negative 24 hours before they return, which was supposed to be on Wednesday, but now is on Thursday, since the test pickup day is delayed. Whatever. As long as they don't go back to virtual full-time, I'm not going to complain too much. And really, really hope they don't do that. Partly it's because it's a huge disruption to my life personally, but more so it's because we've learned that the negative effects of learning loss and social isolation for kids are incredibly damaging. From a public wellness standpoint the tradeoff of closing schools just doesn't make sense.

Alright, let's see some pictures and call it a post.

[Sledding near my parents' house. We also visited S's cousin and her family, and they have a huge hill in their neighborhood the kids went down, but apparently I didn't take any pics there.]

 

[Every time I visit the area, I have to go to Chambers Bay park at least once and snap some pictures. You can see the Tacoma-Narrows Bridge in the distance of the bottom one. What you can't see is the wind whipping my face like an invisible cat o' nine tails.]

Until next time...