Oct 25 - Oct 31, 2020 - St Petersburg, FL - No more lockdown, pandemic continues







Oct 25, 2020

Coronavirus US Cases    8,439,681

Coronavirus US Deaths  212,703

 

Oct 31, 2020

Coronavirus US Cases 8,914,804

Coronavirus US Deaths 217,905

 

Interesting things that happened this week

  • Last weekend I was able to do 10 miles on both Saturday and on Sunday.  I have been doing only one ten mile day and then on the second day doing 10k.  My Saturday 10miles was done in 3.5 hours.  Not great, but not bad for me.  On Sunday my 10 miles was done in 4.5 hours.  My energy levels were obviously lower and I think I need to pay a little more attention to what I’m eating Saturday after my walk.  
  • Took Gil to the botanical garden in Bradenton Sunday.  I'd forgotten I'd been there before but it started coming back to me as I was driving there, its about a quarter mile away from Robinson Preserve and I used to pass it all the time.  Checked it out with the parents at some point in the last few years.  Its a beautiful garden and Gil loved it.  I got some nice pictures.
  • George has quit or been fired from 3 jobs since he’s moved in with Gil.  I’m starting to see why he has a hard time finding lodging and why he prefers to pay off part of his rent with manual labor.  It allows him more stability as his work salaries aren’t consistent.  But apparently, he’s in a specialty field of electrical construction and its enough demand that he always gets more work.
  • I’ve decided against getting the annual pass.  It probably isn’t going to be worth it unless I do every Saturday.  On second thought, if I’m going to be here until October 2021 rather than March 2021, it may be worth it.  FYI - I bought the pass.
  • I’ve been chatting with some of the travel buddies on line and people are accepting the fact that Asia isn’t going to be open by March and they are canceling their trips.  I was still thinking I had a 50/50 chance to go.  Now I’m thinking that I may be delusional.  I did some research on some of the SE Asia countries to see when its being estimated they’ll open for tourism.  Some already are…to specific countries that have controlled the virus.  But the requirements for travel are ridiculous.  Cambodia wants you to pay for an expensive medical insurance policy that is only good for 2 weeks and wants a $2000 down payment to cover medical expenses that may arise from any Covid related issues.  So even if I CAN travel in March, I’m not sure I want too.  OH, and Disneyland Paris just closed again as France enters another lockdown to try to control another spike in Corona cases.  Yeah, I’m being delusional.
  • The White House announced this week that the Covid-19 virus was not controllable.  A few days later Trump announced that the pandemic was almost over.
  • I finally got my butt back to the library and put together Gils Birthday video.  In total, I spent around 6 hours to put together a 3.5 minute video.  Downloading the video clips is simple enough, but there wasn’t enough space on my computer to download all the clips at once, so I download everything onto the external hard drive than worked the clips.  I used both GoPro Quick and Windows 10 Video Editor.  They are both simple programs but they do different things.  I think I can do most of the things that I’d like to do by utilizing these two programs.  I can cut them all down to workable pieces with Quick and then string them together with Windows.  Windows allows building clips and but it keeps the whole video intact during the process.  This is good so you can go back and change the clip but it does take up a lot more space on the computer.  I can make small clips in quick and use those in Windows and it will let me work with lots of smaller clips instead of all the full clips.  Windows also allows text and I can make fast motion or slow motion and I get more control over the transitions of the clips.  I think I got some things figured out.  I’m hoping my next project will take less than 6 hours to complete.
  • I have spent a stupid amount of money in October.  I stopped being able to donate at the plasma donation, so that has hurt my savings and I spent all my FIS money.  I’m going to start going back to plasma donation on a limited bases to see if that helps my protein levels stay higher.  I’m also going to start working with something Gina has tripped across called DScout, it’s a website that will pay you for opinions, essays, experiments etc.  If I use the time I would normally use at Plasma donation to work with DScout, maybe I can make the same amount of money on the side.  Regardless, I need to stop spending money. November, I’m not spending anything that isn’t pre-planned for.  Food, gas, Xmas presents (because Black Friday is coming) and I’m going to try to keep my spending under 500.  That may be too strict, but I think if I really put my mind to it, it can be done.

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