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What you doing at home during this pandemic?

Rancher

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Are you a student studying programming from home? Are you an employee who is working from home ? Or are you a self-employed freelancer? Has your work shifted during this time?

This is so me

Life is but a BREATH

Stephan van Hulst

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Yeah that's pretty much me.

Although my girlfriend is home more as well, so we play board games or do jigsaw puzzles together more often.

Campbell Ritchie

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Counting loo rolls.

Knute Snortum

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The "During COVID-19" panel for me should be a picture of me trying not to touch my face.

All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable.

Stephan van Hulst

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I noticed I became very conscious of it while doing shopping though. At home, nothing much has changed for me. But on the few occasions I go out to do shopping, I'm very careful I don't touch my face after I've taken a shopping basket and I wash my hands as soon as I get home.

Campbell Ritchie

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It'e probably better to wash your hands as soon s you leave the shops, if possible. Unfortunately, only the larger shops have WCs.

Stephan van Hulst

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Well, if you didn't bring gloves you're back at zero if you have to use a knob to open the door.

Rami Mik

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Make the moose on this site wear a mask. It will be fun

Java Is Great!

Campbell Ritchie

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I don't think the virus affects moose. Flies maybe, but the fly is too small to put a mask onto.

Tim Holloway

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Campbell Ritchie wrote:I don't think the virus affects moose. Flies maybe, but the fly is too small to put a mask onto.

Well, the moose can always lead by example

I think the best way to eliminate possibly virus transfer from doorknobs is to use explosives. No door, no knob,

I did bring a small bottle of alcohol and some paper towels with me on the weekly shopping trip. Was good to see quite a few patrons wearing gloves, as were some cashiers. The place where I usually go had been providing sanitisers by the front door, but I didn't see any last time. Maybe they ran out. State law requires publically-accessible restrooms in all businesses, including shops, so that's not an issue here, but the restroom is typically in the back, so you still have to navigate the store after washing.

I have no idea what the people buying up all that bottled water are at. We may not have the best-tasting municipal water here, but it's OK, and even hurricanes with multi-day power outages have never interrupted it.

A Senator from the US Midwest has suggested that people deal with the TP shortage via a traditional method: corncobs. Oddly, no one has suggested the Muslim route: using stones. I can laugh. Installed bidets about 2 years back.

The secret of how to be miserable is to constantly expect things are going to happen the way that they are "supposed" to happen.

You can have faith, which carries the understanding that you may be disappointed. Then there's being a willfully-blind idiot, which virtually guarantees it.

Campbell Ritchie

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Tim Holloway wrote:. . . sanitisers . . . but I didn't see any last time. Maybe they ran out. . . .

Around here, I would presume the sanitiser had been stolen.

I have no idea what the people buying up all that bottled water are at. . . .

Maybe because they don't have bidets.

Randy Tong

Rancher

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Lockdown extended...

Life is but a BREATH

Tom Joe

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I have dog cone around my neck to prevent scratching and 6 foot disc around my belly to enforce social distancing. I am mostly in front of the computer, learning stuff to prepare for interviews.

Tom Joe

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Campbell Ritchie wrote:Counting loo rolls.

Get a bidet and count liters instead.

Tom Joe

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Stephan van Hulst wrote:Yeah that's pretty much me.

Although my girlfriend is home more as well, so we play board games or do jigsaw puzzles together more often.

Side note - I have always seen nerdy people & couples playing games that require a lot of thinking, even after their day job of "thinking" (ex. programming). I wonder how they get the energy and will to do even more thinking. I guess I'll never know because I am not really nerdy or sharp.

Campbell Ritchie

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Tom Joe wrote:. . . 6 foot disc . . . I am mostly in front of the computer . . .

You must have very long arms

Tim Cooke

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Since we have to exercise social distancing I find that going to the supermarket is a lot like playing pacman. The dots are groceries and the ghosts are other people.

Tim Driven Development | Test until the fear goes away

Piet Souris

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Hmm... don't tell me you're hoarding

There are three kinds of actuaries: those who can count, and those who can't.

Tim Cooke

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No hoarding. In fact we've gotten it down to going to the supermarket just once a week, then round to the local for perishables such as milk, eggs, and fruit (and more crisps and chocolate).

Tim Driven Development | Test until the fear goes away

Paul Clapham

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We're allowed to go out, so the current social-distancing measures where I live match pretty well with the life-style we already had. Only, going out to do useful things is a bit weird. I had to go to the bank to deposit a cheque today, so first I had to find a branch which was still open. And then there was a guy at the door checking to hopefully ensure I wasn't a covid carrier. (I too hope I'm not.)

Liutauras Vilda

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Tim Cooke wrote:(and more crisps and chocolate)

Oh, you seem to be in trouble too.

Liutauras Vilda

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Randy Tong wrote:Are you a student studying programming from home? Are you an employee who is working from home ? Has your work shifted during this time?

I am, student and employee. Yes, do work from home, just finished 3rd week now. Work shifted only in the sense that not going to office which I like doing actually, also not going to lectures physically (doing from home too), but session ended anyway, just exams due. After having worked constantly from home for few weeks, I didn't realize before I can quite like that too, got in gear basically.

In evenings after work I try with my family to go for a short walk. We haven't done that for past 4 days, so today started feeling unproductive and a bit nervous actually.

But we do take this thing seriously and I personally don't find it difficult. It is a very simple thing to do (be in quarantine) once you understand what it is for and why.

Tim Holloway

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The joys of European living. Here, the supermarket is "the local" and it's a weekly thing for me. I haven't been there for 2 weeks now. It's about 1 mile away. Slightly closer is "the chemist" (Walgreens/Boots), which carries milk and eggs in addition to meds. No convenient convenience store however.

As an elevated risk, I'm considering Instacart delivery, but they're still fighting over combat pay, so I'll wait. Been building a list though. Eventually we'll run out of caffeine.

Actually, the first shortage in the larder came up today. Ran out of milk. I've got powdered that I use for bread-baking, but I've always found that stuff to be awful. Wife is looking at oatmeal with water only until we stock up again. On the bright side, bangers and mash are on the menu tonight and I realised once the potatoes were steaming that they needed milk. Got about a pint left of half-and-half a month ago that I thought was only good for biscuits ("savory scone" type, to be inexact, not tea-dunkers). Amazingly, there's still no tang. That stuff seems to last a long while under ordinary refrigeration.

Home game-playing doesn't have to be grandmaster chess or anything intensely cerebral. One of the classics is pachisi (spellings vary), which was common along the Silk Road, where the board was often cloth that could fold up for travel and the "dice" were cowrie shells. Or if you prefer, backgammon, which is a game of skill where you can be as intelligent as you like and then get wiped out by a series of bad die rolls. For something really historical, try the Royal Game of Ur, which, unlike similar games of the era, actually had recorded instructions from ancient history. Don't worry, the cuneiform has since been translated.

Nine Men's Morris, anyone?

Tim Holloway

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Speaking of survival skills, the fine art of making sourdough has taken an uptick, since apparently yeast got cleaned off the market shelves.

And there's gardening.

I decided to thumb my nose at the homeowner association and plant corn, since it's about the only grain commonly grown around here (I think rice was at one time, but not commercially now). But my mail-order seed store has also been swamped and is not taking any more orders at the moment.

One thing I did put on my grocery list was raw peanuts. I planted them for ground cover back when the house was new and the lot was barren. They grow well (no surprise, Jimmy Carter's peanut farm is perhaps 300 miles away). Main problem is raccoons dig them up and eat them.

Paul Clapham

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Tim Holloway wrote:Speaking of survival skills, the fine art of making sourdough has taken an uptick, since apparently yeast got cleaned off the market shelves.

And at least where I live, chocolate chips have been cleaned off the shelves too. Less of a fine art, though, chocolate chip muffins.

(Okay, maybe this comes under the heading of "First World Problems".)

Tom Joe

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Tim Holloway wrote:The joys of European living.....Ran out of milk.....anyone?

Have you considered freezing milk ? I always buy one extra and freeze it. It works quite well.

Campbell Ritchie

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Tim Holloway wrote:. . . raccoons dig them up and eat them.

Saves you having to dig the garden.

Tim Holloway

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Tom Joe wrote:

Tim Holloway wrote:The joys of European living.....Ran out of milk.....anyone?

Have you considered freezing milk ? I always buy one extra and freeze it. It works quite well.

I did that with sour milk. The acid makes biscuits rise better. We don't actually use that much, since I don't drink it, abd no kids. Just half-a-gallon a week or so, so it's just part of the standard shopping list.

Campbell Ritchie wrote:

Tim Holloway wrote:. . . raccoons dig them up and eat them.

Saves you having to dig the garden.

Yeah, but the idea wasn't to garden peanuts for raccoons!

As if that wasn't bad enough, my garden is just above a retention pond full of wildlife. About late May, turtles crawl up out of the pond and completely harrow the garden, irrespective of what I might have been growing there at the time. I try and place bricks in strategic areas, since they won't dig around the bricks. They did dig heavily around the roots of an orange tree last year, which greatly reduced the health of the tree and the winter orange crop.

Campbell Ritchie

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Tim Holloway wrote:. . . the idea wasn't to garden peanuts for raccoons! . . .

Can you eat raccoons?

Tim Holloway

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Campbell Ritchie wrote:

Tim Holloway wrote:. . . the idea wasn't to garden peanuts for raccoons! . . .

Can you eat raccoons?

I believe so, although the more popular game critters are squirrels and possums. A bit gamey, I think. They make good hats, though. When I was a tyke I had an official "Davey Crockett" coonskin cap.

On the other hand, I've seen these coons. I wouldn't hunt them with anything less than a bazooka. They're about the size of VW Beetles.

Jeanne Boyarsky

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Tim Holloway wrote:I decided to thumb my nose at the homeowner association and plant corn, since it's about the only grain commonly grown around here (I think rice was at one time, but not commercially now). But my mail-order seed store has also been swamped and is not taking any more orders at the moment./quote]
The homeowners association telling you off about it doesn't seem like an essential activity!

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Tim Holloway

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Actually, nothing in the by-laws explicitly forbids it, it's just that I figured that a stand of 6-ft cornstalks wouldn't go over very well.

City law allows keeping up to about 5 chickens though, and usually state and local ordinances overrule HOA's. Not going to go that route, though, since I'd be up to my nose in eggs considering consumption my rate.

Paul Clapham

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Tim Holloway wrote:On the other hand, I've seen these coons. I wouldn't hunt them with anything less than a bazooka. They're about the size of VW Beetles.

I think I heard about them. They are the genetically modified raccoons which are bred in a colony in Cuba and smuggled into Florida to destabilize its economy, right?

Campbell Ritchie

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Tim Holloway wrote: . . . size of VW Beetles.

Is that bigger than stag beetles?

Paul Clapham

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I'm not being told to stay at home here, just strongly urged to do so. But the other day I had to go to the bank to deposit a cheque.

First of all, not all of the banks' branches are open now, just a few. So I had to find a nearby branch that was open. And when I got there, at the door were two guys in masks who were asking questions, for the purpose of excluding people who might be infected.

It was only later that I realized, it used to be that if you had masked men in your bank branch then you were in trouble. Now it's the opposite.

Campbell Ritchie

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No difference; the masked men now stand outside the bank. It's only the colour of the mask that has changed.

Tim Cooke

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Very cynical Campbell.

Here in Northern Ireland masked men historically have a very different vibe.

Tim Driven Development | Test until the fear goes away

Campbell Ritchie

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You are too young to remember when they came across to England. Thank goodness that period is now over.

Consider Paul's rocket mass heater.