Cool, overcast, possible rain later.<\/p>\n
Well, Thanksgiving Day has come and gone.\u00a0 We here at Casa de Nick have enjoyed another feast, with most of the traditional foods we are used to having.\u00a0 We missed having friends and family over, but it did make for a more calm and relaxing day.<\/p>\n
I actually managed to get some other stuff done too.\u00a0 I went through a bunch of stuff and filled a couple of bins for my local auction.\u00a0 I have more to go through, and the ebay bin will need to be listed, but it looks like progress…\u00a0 And I repaired an item that should sell for hundreds of bucks on ebay.<\/p>\n
My wife continued painting in the kitchen in addition to preparing some really good food.\u00a0 If I wasn’t going to my rent house to do plumbing repairs today, I’d be in the attic getting the range hood installed.\u00a0\u00a0 I guess that will wait until Saturday.<\/p>\n
I’ve never been interested in “Friday of Color” sales.\u00a0 I can often find better pricing, or similar pricing but on better versions of the items and avoid the stampedes.\u00a0 I did look at a few of the cyber- offers.\u00a0 An ammunition reseller had Pelican cases marked down.\u00a0 That was it.\u00a0 They didn’t even have any ammo for sale.\u00a0 Some other places online had weirdo import guns, and small manufactures I’ve never seen before, but no big names.\u00a0 A few, very few, had name brand models, at high prices.\u00a0 Selection and quantity were very limited.<\/p>\n
Fry’s offers were about where MicroCenter is normally.\u00a0 MicroCenter was competitive with Costco.\u00a0 Costco expanded the tech they have for sale dramatically.\u00a0\u00a0 As an aside, a decade after leaving the field of large format, high resolution CURVED displays, the new hotness is curved monitors on desks.\u00a0 I guess once you’ve sold everyone two monitors, and with 3D still a bust, curved looks like a growth space.\u00a0\u00a0 After a decade of putting in curved displays, we determined that they are essentially single user devices.\u00a0 They work poorly for large groups unless the display is HUGE and the intent is awe, rather than work.\u00a0 Large curved TVs had the same issues we saw with our much larger systems and didn’t fly off the shelves.\u00a0\u00a0 Desktop users might be the actual sweet spot for wide curved displays.\u00a0 As long as you don’t need two…or three.*<\/p>\n
It will be interesting to see if the shoppers ignore social distancing and masks in the rush to get cheap crap, like the holiday travelers did.<\/p>\n
I’m not one to panic, but I do take the wuflu seriously.\u00a0 It didn’t kill us like it killed chinese, but I’ll put some of that down to unknown factors, and some down to masks and distancing.\u00a0 It’s hard to catch something if you aren’t around anyone who has it.\u00a0 The number of people traveling this week pretty much ensures that we will see a large spike in cases, on top of the current increases, just in time for Christmas travel, which will either not happen if things are REALLY bad, or will put the nail in the coffin of containment and mitigation.\u00a0 You can argue severity, transmissibility, lethality, and the legality and effectiveness of the actions taken by political figures, but you can’t argue the ACTUALITY that the disease exists, is spread person to person, and makes some percentage very sick, and kills a smaller percentage of those.\u00a0 With very large numbers exposed, we WILL see large numbers of sick, and larger numbers of both very sick, and lethally sick people than we have been seeing.<\/p>\n
That will cause a number of responses, both social and political.\u00a0 I can’t predict which way it will go.\u00a0 I expect political ‘leaders’ to try more, harder.\u00a0 If you are in an area with already repressive government – I think you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.\u00a0 Those of us in less restrictive areas are going to see increasing restrictions.\u00a0 Or despite everything we’ll lose control and it will sweep through like a wildfire, in which case you’ll stay isolated voluntarily.<\/p>\n
Either case or anything in between can be made better on an individual level by avoiding people.\u00a0 Get ready to increase your personal protective behaviors.\u00a0 This isn’t going to be a time to be out shopping or ‘living your best life’.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Get that stuff out of the way NOW, right now, before the wave hits.\u00a0 And stack it high, because a surging hospitalization rate is actually likely to be only ONE of our worries as the next month or two plays out.<\/p>\n
I know it’s doom and gloom.\u00a0 But we ARE living with social unrest (rioting\/insurrection), a global pandemic, and an uncertain election and transfer of power, which could turn into full on fighting in the streets.\u00a0 France fell in 2 weeks to the Germans.\u00a0 Just last month, suddenly Armenia and Azerbaijan were lobbing mortars and bombs into each other’s cities.\u00a0 Venezuela fell to failed state in less than two years.\u00a0 It can happen very quickly.\u00a0 Be ready to live with it and through it.<\/p>\n
Keep stacking.\u00a0 Be thankful for every day without those issues.<\/p>\n
nick<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cool, overcast, possible rain later.<\/p>\n
Well, Thanksgiving Day has come and gone.\u00a0 We here at Casa de Nick have enjoyed another feast, with most of the traditional foods we are used to having.\u00a0 We missed having friends and family over, but it did make for a more calm and relaxing day.<\/p>\n
I actually managed to get some other stuff done too.\u00a0 I went through a bunch of stuff and filled a couple of bins for my local auction.\u00a0<\/p>\n