Frail forms

I’ve been listening to a range of music while working at home. One song I keep returning to is “Hard Times”, which turns out to date long before the Great Depression. It’s actually Ante-Bellum Stephen Foster.

But history sometimes seems to be cyclical, and hard time do recur. They take different forms, but we know them when we see them.

For myself, I consider 2020 to be not so much “hard” as “moderately firm”—I have a job, I have a house, I have food and access to medical care. And I’m doing something that’s worthwhile—I work in cybersecurity. But for many millions here in the US and around the world, these are indeed shockingly hard times. So—listen to Mavis Staples singing “Hard Times”, and take what comfort you can.

Lawmaking Barbie

Hey, who’s happy to bail out Boeing, a company that can’t manage its way out of a paper bag and kills its customers' customers in their hundreds as a business model? Or the airlines, who used the last two bailouts to buy back stocks, tack on billions in “fees” for their customers and pay executive bonuses? Or the cruise lines, who register their ships outside the United States to evade paying taxes, adhering to labor regulations and obeying anti-pollution laws?

Yeah, me neither.

But hey—whatever gives the lazy-ass sycophantic Senate the balls to take the next three weeks off work, because “legislating is so hard”.

Also—would someone please, please, PULEEZE bitch-slap that smirk off Mnuchin’s face?

  

Solve for X

Obviously it’s been a while since I’ve been out shooting, so here’s one from my files:

Dunno whether it’s Cadet Ten or Cadet X. But at least s/he’s clear about the anti-Navy sentiment.

Below normal but okay

Health update: went to my orthopod’s office yesterday for my second of three injections in my knees. The practice is located in the local People’s Republic hospital, so you have to enter the actual hospital to get to their offices.

This has meant undergoing a “screening” at the entrance. The screening involves answering questions about travel to or contact with people who’ve traveled to places, and whether you have any symptoms of covid19.

This time, however, I arrived at the office on the third floor to discover it closed and patients directed to the fourth-floor office. Where a masked staffer asked the screening questions again, and took my temperature, which she wrote down on a yellow stickie, which had to be turned in to the reception desk. (It also went in with me to the exam room, where I assume it was added to my chart.)

BTW—my temperature was 96.7, two degrees below normal. And I haven’t taken any Tylenol or aspirin in a couple of weeks.

According to the PA who’s giving me the injections, they’ve cancelled a lot of surgeries, are restricting appointments and therefore consolidated the two offices. Tough times.

Otherwise, I’m okay. Except for tearing an interstitial rib muscle on my right side from all the coughing. (Fortunately, this happened once before, while I was in grad school, so I knew what it was. Otherwise I’d have been freaking out.) I’m at the stage now where it doesn’t so much feel like someone’s sticking an X-Acto knife between my ribs as a butter knife. But it turns out that everything you do involves your ribs, including sneezing, clearing your throat and shifting a manual transmission.

I cannot wait for this to be over. Then I can deal with whatever I have to.

Gratitude Monday: thanks

One of the constants of tech conferences is swag—it’s how exhibitors lure people into their booths in hopes of turning the scanned badges into sales prospects.

Frankly, I’d expect the badges-to-leads ratio is pretty crappy, especially inasmuch as some booth staff scan your badge is you just pause before the display.

However, that’s the way it’s done, and I basically will never have to buy a tee shirt for the rest of my life, between the various conferences I’ve attended over the years.

The RSA Conference last month was no exception. By the time I left, I had 25 tee shirts, two umbrellas, five stress squishers and miscellaneous other stuff.

One of the tee shirts was destined for our office manager. SF runs the monthly office events, the weekly free lunch Tuesdays, the stocking of snacks and beverages, the in-office massages, local comms and dozens of other things. Without her, we’d all fall apart.

SF is a huge fan of Baby Yoda. I don’t know the story, but from images and GIFs posted to Teams, that’s clear. So when Juniper Networks handed out tee shirts with Baby Yoda on them, I reckoned that was a small thing I could do for her. I sat through the presentation a second time (they didn’t care—by the last day of a tech conference, exhibitors are practically heaving swag at you so they don’t have to pack it up and schlep it home) and got one for her. Not a major effort, tbh.

She was very pleased when I gave it to her—had to fend off the hug because of my cough. But it made me happy that the idea was a good one.

So I was flummoxed to come in the office two days later and found this on my desk. The sweetest thank you note ever. For a swag tee.

Honestly, it cheered me up no end that millennials are writing thank you notes and that my silly tee shirt was deemed worthy of one.

And that’s my gratitude for today.