Day 3877

Wednesday has turned into house cleaning day. Don't look at me. I have lost all interest in cleaning, but I don't want to be a slacker. I still try to do my part. Today I vacuumed the house. I used to think the Dyson was amazing because it appeared to pick up so much dust. Now I suspect that the clear plastic cylinder is just a marketing gimmick to make you notice the dirt. The house doesn't seem any cleaner than it did with our old fashioned vacuum. It certainly was easier to empty a paper vacuum cleaner bag than it is to clean the Dyson. I have to go outside and use a leaf blower to get all the residual dust out of the canister after I empty it. Oh, well. The carpets and the Dyson are clean again until I have to repeat this exercise next Wednesday.

We got a later start on our morning walk today, but we got lucky with the weather. There was heavy overcast and a nice breeze that kept things cool. It didn't seem as humid today either. If you can manage to avoid the sun and the humidity, even August isn't quite so bad. We must be having a hot summer though. Our August electric bill hit an all time high. Something was fishy about that bill though. I know we have had hotter summers. I think the electric company just raised our rates.

At first it was baffling to me why the stock market was doing so well at the same time there was record unemployment and well known companies were going bankrupt every day. Now the answer is becoming clearer. The economy didn't shut down at all. It just changed. Some companies lost, but other companies were big winners and are doing better than ever. It seems like the pandemic just accelerated the rate of change that was happening anyway. Even Luddites like me have gone digital now. A wide varieties of companies have been urging me to use their mobile app, go paperless, and try online payments for years. All it took was a global pandemic to get me to change my ways.

I'm always curious about long-term trends. I think it will be five years before we realize how much has changed. I used to think everyone would revert to their old ways as soon as the lockdown was lifted. New habits are emerging though. We aren't going to be comfortable around strangers for a long time. Nobody even wants to ride in an elevator with me anymore. Handshakes are no longer going to be a common ritual. Ghost kitchens will become more popular than restaurants. Sports fans are going to have problems with the new normal, but ticket prices were becoming exorbitant anyway. Fewer and fewer people could even afford to go to a professional football game. Maybe fans will learn to love players in empty stadiums. I guess the big question is whether schools can safely reopen. If the kids have to stay home indefinitely, we are in for a world of hurt.

I guess we're just going to have to learn to live with the changes. Some of these changes were going to happen anyway. Just not as fast. Change is never easy and it is seldom fair. I'm certainly having problems dealing with all this. I need to remember the importance of staying flexible. Youth was all about staying flexible and seizing opportunities. It was only when I became older that I became set in my ways. We'll see how it goes. There will be winners and losers in the days and months ahead. It would be nice to be a winner.

Tomorrow we're going to try to get up early again. The flashlights are ready. I don't know how ready I'll be. I was never a morning person and it's not easy to change old habits. I'm convinced that the future will be all about changing old habits. I might as well get good at it.

Morgan is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3765

This is an amazing time to be alive. I don't even think we realize the magnitude of the changes we are going through right now. I may be wrong, but I think the history books will record this moment kind of like the start of the Industrial Revolution, or the end of the Middle Ages. When was the last time the entire world was experiencing the same threat at the same time? I don't think it has ever happened before.

In an odd way I feel vindicated. I was aloof and kept my distance long before social distancing became a thing. I was way ahead of the curve in running a business out of my home as well. Ditto for bringing manufacturing home and not depending on China. I've been wary of globalism for as long as I can remember. My reluctance to embrace a global society had nothing to do with avoiding a plague. It just seemed to make sense. I watched the computer industry make the shift from centralized mainframes to distributed computing and the birth of the cloud. Having a multitude of nodes made systems failsafe.

Why didn't the entire world operate like the Internet? It is almost impossible to break the Internet. Nothing is centralized and nobody is in charge. If a server goes down, data is automatically rerouted on a different path. The network fixes itself. Having manufacturing countries like China send goods on a one way path to consuming countries like the United States seemed a lot like the old fashioned mainframe computing model to me. What we really needed was a lot of little countries, all making their own stuff and following their own rules. If one country fails, the others just keep chugging along.

So here we are. Everyone is clamoring to bring back essential industries to the United States. Virtually every country in the world is shutting their borders. Nobody feels comfortable getting too close to strangers. What is going to happen when none of this feels strange anymore? I think society has fundamentally changed. The longer the world remains in lockdown, the more permanent the changes will become.

I wouldn't want to be in the commercial real estate business right now. A lot of people aren't going to want to return to an office and a lot of companies aren't going to want the expense of a large office if they don't need it. I read recently that NASA is now operating the Curiosity Rover from team member's homes. Jeez. If you can drive a Mars rover from your bedroom, I'd say you don't really need to go to to the office for a status meeting.

Do you ever look down when you are flying across the United States? It's mostly empty. Why are we still living in cities? Cities are obsolete. The virus is proving that it's not that good to live all bunched together. We could spread out and all have nice homes with several acres of land. There's plenty of room. Little factories and research labs could provide jobs almost anywhere. Amazon drones could bring your stuff directly to your front door. Telemedicine could provide access to good doctors even if you lived in the middle of nowhere. Crime would diminish when there are no victims nearby. It all sounds pretty good to me. Some of you might be lonely, but not me.

Our new forehead thermometer arrived today. Now that taking your temperature has become a thing, we couldn't remember which of our thermometers had been up a dog's butt. This new toy will take care of that. Janet and I weeded a messy front garden this afternoon. Some of the weeds were the size of small trees. Oh, well. Better late than never. The cleanup effort was a lot of work but it was oddly satisfying. The area looks great now. I may add a layer of smooth river rocks to make the garden look a little more polished.

I'm not sure what we'll do tomorrow. Whatever it is, it's a safe bet that there'll be plenty of time.

Krissy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day