Maybe I just gotta add something kinda intellectual. That sucks. Maybe the time for physical labor has passed.
I am building a giant tee pee, I planted all sorts of vegetables, I started building a huge flower garden (ran out of supplies). I read a book about cattle rustling, I read a 600 page biography on Rasputin, then a biography on Putin (that’s all I had just laying around, except for a book on google app engine). I hacked my way into the swamp so I can see strange animals and ski back there this winter.
I suppose I could paint something for the State fair next year, or do some programming (blah). I have a huge unfinished painting of a burning ship at sea with a bunch of mermaids. I think I could start playing pickleball with the elderly. They say that they need a medic. If I need something to really get the adrenaline pumping, I could go to Walmart to buy some BS strips.
Thanks for the brainstorming, you guys. It helps. I gotta keep busy or I will go nuts. I really have trouble sitting still. The soles of my sneakers wore through walking Dog. New shoes don’t arrive for another week. Getting puncture wounds in my feet from walking in the forest. Gotta stop that.
This is one of the things I’ve been doing (learning). It seems endlessly interesting and useful to me, but does require a lot of time and concentration. But heck, if this pandemic drags on for years (the WHO has warned of the possibility that there may never be a vaccine), it may be helpful if I need to find a new job that I can do from home.
Thats super helpful, @Tony24! The whole first 1/2 of the pandemic, I was trying to convince the world cheapest lawyer to sue the State on my behalf. Maybe I can do it myself! Hurrah!!!
@Jen, Take a look at those Harvard classes - they might have some useful stuff. (I posted them here: Fun stuff) I’m still kinda browsing them. Let me know if you see something good. There are programming classes.
I watched your space ship video today, @Jen. I looked around for my shipmates and realized that they were clearly exhausted. So, I made sure not to bother them and they slept the whole day.
These are photos of 1/2 of the flower garden. I obviously made it too big. There are local mulch shortages. Construction will be delayed. I’m bummed I can’t show it to anyone. I think its gonna pretty rad when its done.
Your well being is more due to your good fortune of not having to work in a densely populated setting, and secure with income and good insurance. Congrats
@Lefty1 It is her good fortune. but nobody has to work in a densely populated area. You can choose to work somewhere, maybe a different job, maybe a different city, maybe less pay. But it is a choice. I admit not so easy of a choice to change during the pandemic,
And it is always better to look at a glass half full, than a glass half empty. Our outlook plays a huge part in how we feel.
We all have our challenges. I am in a small town of 1500 and we have had a total of 6 cases in town, one at our location. As an essential business, we never stopped, actually our orders in May of this year are up about 50% over last year and we are having a tough time finding additional staff to help fill orders as the incentives for employees to stay home are huge. There has been a lot of friction between our factory and warehouse workers that have to come to the plant vs the office workers which in most case have been working from home. The millennials in the office immediately notified me that I need to cover the office while they need to stay at home and help with the kids and that they can not come into the office because I am in my 70’s with diabetic comorbidity and they would feel awful if they brought the virus into the office and killed me since I am in a high-risk category.
They will be the first to scream when the bonuses go out to the factory and warehouse workers that sacrificed to come to work daily during this pandemic to take good care of our customers and they will be left out because their bonus, in my opinion will have been opting in staying home which was a nice convenience for them but put a lot more strain and pressure for those of us that came in daily.
I used to own a business so I completely understand. It was nuts paying people to stay on unemployment with the extra money per week. I understand the extra money but it needed to maybe be a $2,000 payment once you qualified or a bonus when you go back to work.
Let us know if you have difficulty, @Lefty1. We’ve been working through these hang ups a bit. Let us know your situation if you have ran into insurmountable problems. There are strategies to discuss.
I love it, that is my calling in making a better world for more people. I have to produce products that are essential to customers. Products don’t grow on trees. Additionally I have to make money to support those that live on “other people’s money”. But, I have been staying out of our 67 factories in China and 12 factories in India for the past few months.
Well, thats good. I was talking to my guys in India when it just started to hit there. I have no idea how they are now. How is India doing? Does anybody know? I kinda imagined it as a nuclear bomb if it hit India. But, I haven’t heard any news reports.
Yes, India varies a lot. South India tends to have very well educated people and they are very disciplined so they had very few cases and are in the green zone. The slums around the Delhi area are in the red zone and hurting badly and under pretty strict lock-down. Our factories are in the Northern part of India where the muscle is located, but few brains so those factories are all in the red zone and have been allowed to mostly re-open as of last week under strict exemptions and restrictions.
The bigger problem is that major transportation systems still tend to be down but private truckers can now drive goods to the various ports. The whole country is divided by different color zones and each color zone is allowed to operate certain businesses based on exemptions and restrictions as imposed by central government. The ports are about to jam up with products and we are all going to be fighting this week and beyond to get our containers onto ships.
Ahh, I see. Could be better, could be worse, I suppose. I hope my ex-work colleagues are ok. They said they were gonna take all their PTO and go up into the mountains if it got bad. I was really worried about them. Wasn’t sure how India would handle things.
At least they work the night shift. They guaranteed me that the company had them locked in somewhere that certainly no one wanted to go. I think they are as isolated as one can hope to be in India. They are smart guys. I think they will do ok.
I taught 30 years at a large technical college in a fairly large city here in Wisconsin. I worked with hundreds of people each day, and I am happy that those days now are behind me. However, I also wrote and started teaching SOME classes online way back in 1990, so if I had to adjust to online teaching today, I could do so. That said, teaching adults online is far easier than teaching middle school or high school students online. Some students do well; others do not. Yes, I now take care of myself (as do most of us,) and I am blessed with a stable retirement income. I love to read and to create, so as long as I have the time to do so, I am happy. Oh, I also just finished mowing the lawn and then reseeding it. Not something I liked doing, but I cannot sit inside all day either. Grandma Moses said, “Life is what you make it. Always has been; always will be.” Let’s all try to make this a good day.
