How are you dealing with life now with the Covid-19 virus situation? (1 Viewer)

[jayembee]

It's starting to dawn on me that I'm going to be telecommuting for likely quite a while longer. Don't get me wrong, I fully realize how fortunate I am to still have a secure and stable job. But working at a major university, once we do open back up, unless COVID straight disappears or a vaccine is developed and quickly distributed to everyone, all schools that have high population densities will do a form of crowd-lessening. It's become clear over the past 10 weeks that my job can be safely done remotely, and I'm pretty efficient and effective in that mode. So when it comes time to deciding who to allot the lessened amount of staff space...I'll likely be asked to stay remote for a good portion of the time.

It's ironic, if you'd talked to me years ago, I would have loved the opportunity to telecommute. Be careful what you wish for...I miss human interaction.

My wife's in a similar boat. She works for the University System of New Hampshire (does budget work for the entire system, which consists of four universities/colleges). Just the other day, HR sent out a memo to expect telecommuting to continue into August. She does miss the human interaction (beyond that of her loving husband) but at the same time, she's not thrilled at the idea of returning to a cubical farm with a common, closed air ventilation system.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

That John Deere could be worth more than you think! It's a tractor that farmers today can still repair themselves!

My dad had a very good idea of the worth of the tractors. He loved going to tractor shows and tractor parades in northern Michigan during the summertime. We think the '46 John Deere is worth somewhere between $3,500 - $4,000. The auctioneer will take a 15% commission whenever the auction finally takes place. The Allis-Chalmers is probably worth around $2,000.

And yes, @Carlo Medina , tractor shows and parades are indeed a big thing in certain parts of the country. Here are a couple of photos I scanned and restored from a 2004 tractor show / parade my parents went to:

Every September, a tractor parade is held from Mackinaw City to St. Ignace across the Mackinac Bridge, which connects Michigan's Lower and Upper Peninsulas. My wife and I happened to be heading to Mackinac Island on the ferry one year when the parade was being held. This is a shot from the ferry:

 

[DaveF]

My wife's in a similar boat. She works for the University System of New Hampshire (does budget work for the entire system, which consists of four universities/colleges). Just the other day, HR sent out a memo to expect telecommuting to continue into August. She does miss the human interaction (beyond that of her loving husband) but at the same time, she's not thrilled at the idea of returning to a cubical farm with a common, closed air ventilation system.

We're told that current telework stance will continue through Labor Day, at least, before moving to the next stage of corporate "recovery".

 

[Nelson Au]

Scott, those scans from 35mm slides are great. I have slides from the olden days and I don’t think my slides will look that sharp or without grain. I have been fooling around more with photography the last couple of years, so that caught my attention. I know this is not a photography thread. Just wanted to say how good the shots are.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Scott, those scans from 35mm slides are great. I have slides from the olden days and I don’t think my slides will look that sharp or without grain. I have been fooling around more with photography the last couple of years, so that caught my attention. I know this is not a photography thread. Just wanted to say how good the shots are.

Thanks, Nelson. FYI, that last shot of the tractors on the bridge was take with my Canon 5d3 digital SLR, but the others were scans of either 35mm slides or negatives.

So as not to derail this thread, if you are interested in scanning your slides / negatives, I have this thread in the Photography section of HTF discussing my project. Feel free to ask any questions there.

 

[Malcolm R]

Starting to see the basic earloop masks everywhere now, at varying prices. Saw in Walmart today packs of 50 for $30. Went to a supermarket later that had packs of 10 for $10 and, oddly, some packs of 20 for $6 by a different manufacturer in a different shelf location. Have also seen packs in convenience stores (10 for $8). I imagine cloth reusable masks will start to appear soon, too. Though the number of people actually using the masks seems to be dropping in my area.

Our restaurants are re-opening tomorrow for indoor dining. Capacity is limited to 25% of maximum licensed capacity and reservations are required.

 

[Robert Crawford]

To Malcolm's point, I drove by a Buffalo Wild Wing''s yesterday and their outdoor seating looked full to me as well as their parking lot. States are having spikes all over the country as I do wonder how bad it's going to get again.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

We had our first restaurant experience yesterday at Apache Trout Grill in Traverse City. We got there just before 5pm, and with their reduced seating capacity there was about a 30 minute wait. However, they had an outdoor tiki bar with lots of social distance seating that they were using for a waiting area -- right on the shore of Grand Traverse Bay. We ordered drinks and enjoyed the weather and view, and our wait for a table just flew by. The dinner was delicious -- I had the seafood linguini. It felt so good having a craft beer and quality meal at a restaurant again.

We stayed overnight at the Fairfield Inn in Traverse City -- we had stayed there quite often when my late father was receiving medical care at Munson Hospital there. The only inconvenience there was the continental breakfast was a "grab bag" with a muffin, granola bar, and apple instead of the normal buffet with waffle maker, scrambled eggs, cereal, etc.

Thge light breakfast gave us an excuse to stop at Fred's of Roscommon on the way back home today for lunch. This is a terrific local place in the northern Michigan town where my parents had lived for 30+ years. Being a weekday, they were not busy, so we got seated right away, and saw some of our favorite wait staff and the owner.

Traffic on the way home was very light until we hit the Flint area, where there was a major accident on I-75 that was causing a 1 hour delay, per Google Maps. I took a detour around it that only took me about 10 minutes out of my normal way, but traffic was very heavy when we got back on the freeway (US-23, in this case). It was heavy for the remaining hour of the drive -- a noticeable change from our last few drives back home from Roscommon during the lock down.

@Robert Crawford , I forgot to ask you if the flooding from the broken dam near Midland affected you in any way? I don't remember exactly where in mid-Michigan you reside. On our way north to Traverse City yesterday morning, I went that way across US-10 (which had just re-opened) and saw the damage. The lake is completely gone -- it's just acres and acres of mud. Anyone with one of those houses on the lake must be devastated.

 

[Malcolm R]

Our local airport would seem to be very busy:

I assume this must be a glitch, as it has been hovering around 15-20% over the past couple weeks, and I've seldom seen it over 90% even prior to the pandemic. Plus I don't know why it would even be possible to go over 100%.

 

[dvdclon]

Perhaps they re-rated the capacity of the garage to allow for distancing and there are still cars there from before the new limit was applied.

Or maybe they increased the value of '1' because of inflation.
Or the migration of the North Magnetic Pole.
Or The Spanish Inquisition.

 

[Malcolm R]

I bet it's the Spanish Inquisition. They probably didn't expect that.

 

[Neil Middlemiss]

It’s Always the Spanish Inquisition!

 

[DaveF]

Well, with the pandemic closing down county parks and school grounds, sports coaches and organizations have been trying to use neighborhood's private property and facilities for their businesses. So, Saturday morning and I'm dealing with that.

Also, the bagel truck wasn't at the farmers' market this morning! Fortunately the popcorn ladies were, so got some fresh kettle corn. And had a cold nitro brew coffew while waiting for popcorn to pop.

 

[jcroy]

Perhaps they re-rated the capacity of the garage to allow for distancing and there are still cars there from before the new limit was applied.

Or maybe they increased the value of '1' because of inflation.
Or the migration of the North Magnetic Pole.
Or The Spanish Inquisition.

1 + 1 = 3

2 + 2 = 5

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I bet it's the Spanish Inquisition. They probably didn't expect that.

How could they? Nobody expects The Spanish Inquisition!

 

[jcroy]

In an alternate earth dimension, the Spanish Inquisition and Spanish Flu merge together and causes the extinction of everything on earth (including cockroaches).

 

[Nigel P]

My dad had a very good idea of the worth of the tractors. He loved going to tractor shows and tractor parades in northern Michigan during the summertime. We think the '46 John Deere is worth somewhere between $3,500 - $4,000. The auctioneer will take a 15% commission whenever the auction finally takes place. The Allis-Chalmers is probably worth around $2,000.

And yes, @Carlo Medina , tractor shows and parades are indeed a big thing in certain parts of the country. Here are a couple of photos I scanned and restored from a 2004 tractor show / parade my parents went to:

Great pictures Scott, my dad would be in absolute heaven there, he did quite a few tractor restorations himself over the years. I remember taking him to a rural museum once and he pointed out they had the wrong year for one of the tractors that was on display.

Things are weird over here, they tried to get all the young children back to school, but some parents just refused to send their kids and some schools refused to open so they have had to change those plans. Then you have some shops opening today for the first time and some of the pictures of people crammed together while queuing were more than a little worrying. I thought queuing was supposed to be the thing we were best at. The other shops being open did mean the supermarket was quieter than usual which was good. Went to second supermarket to try to get a couple of items but bailed as people were not social distancing properly.

 

[Clinton McClure]

 

[ChristopherG]

Earlier in this thread I posted pictures of the garden boxes I built. I just added a 3rd and am now getting ready to but down some pea gravel and stepping stones. Debating on adding two more on the other side of the 3rd....

 

[TJPC]

View attachment 74193

We had relatives visiting us from Britain when I was a child. We were in the car and passed a movie theatre with a large crowd outside. One of my mothers cousins said "That's something we never see at home -- people queueing for the cinema". At first we didn't have a clue what she was talking about.