Good ole Zoom.
Sheltering at Home, May 9, 2020 – We are under a freeze watch from the National Weather Service. Believe it or not, I’d rather be sleeping in my tent. Why not? There’s no baseball to watch, no WNBA, and the news is not optimistic from a pandemic perspective. Better to be backpacking somewhere far away from it all.
Mostly sheltering at home is just that, staying home. Going to the grocery and drug stores are about all there is in an age of gas mileage measured in weeks per gallon. The exception is when I can spend a day with the ridgerunner. Otherwise committee work, staying fit, and the honey do list fight for attention. Some days you drag your feet in fear of running out of things to do.
The trails will open as soon as we can figure out how to help hikers and maintainers stay safe. That is the mission of the Adaptive Recovery Task Force. We won’t be back tomorrow, but it won’t be forever either.
The three ridgerunners we planned to hire this year were going to be my salvation. They could keep me busy and on the trail.
Unfortunately Shenandoah National Park is $millions short on its gate receipts and the ridgerunner and other seasonal employees have become casualties in the war to make up for the shortfall. The park will eventually open, but without a full complement of seasonal workers.
We also did not receive the full grant we’d hoped would fund the ridgerunner in Northern Virginia. Sadly, Witt will not grace our ranks this season. That leaves Wes as the sole survivor. He’ll be patrolling Maryland through October.
Trail Patrol Executive Committee Meeting.
Sometimes Zoom is fun.
Sam and I have started virtual training sessions. This is my view.
This is Sam’s view of the gym I made in the corner in the basement where I store my camping gear. She can coach my form and push me on workouts. Most importantly, she gets paid.
I decided to move my office out of a spare bedroom that doubles as a sewing room.
At this point, disassembly was well underway. The desk and bookshelves look better than they really are. This installation was really designed for a school kid. Too narrow and not nearly enough room for an adult to spread out.
Assembling the new desk and attaching it to the wall wasn’t difficult.
The Ikea drawer set appeared to be something else.
Thank you Ikea.
Coffee and Girl Scout cookies are stress reducers. I was planning to eat the full sleeve. After all, that’s a single serving.
Turns out it wasn’t a big deal. A half of a cookie sleeve was left over for the next project. The ring light is for Zoom calls.
Meanwhile I’m looking for another reason to hike with our ridgerunner.
Sisu
Nice job on the installation. How many parts did you have left from the kit?
Remember that study you passed on to me a few weeks back? I responded to them. They got back to me this week with a short survey to see if I was eligible. They are to contact me again if I pass. If I get the virus, I’m out of the study. Fingers crossed.
Good to hear about the study. Had extra screws and connectors from the desk. The IKEA printer stand was on the money. Years ago I took a class and a fellow student was a senior manager at a GM factory in St. Paul. I don’t remember the exact number, but he said the company could save $ millions by taking a couple of inches of copper wire out of each wiring harness they made. Makes you wonder about the extra nuts and bolts in these flat pack furniture kits.
I think we had one of those GM cars with missing wire. We drove our Olds down a country blacktop one moonlit night when the headlights went out. I slowed down. They came on again. I sped up, they went off. There was a short in the harness said the garage guy.
Before Six Sigma for sure.
Also, it’s better to have too many screws and parts. I know lots of people who operate with too few.
I see some of them on CNN every day!
Isn’t that the truth?
Will you have a pleasant day in the weather dept? Our last 2 were great. Today, 42˚, clouds, NW wind of 30+ mph. Feels like winter. It won’t last long. Our solar panels really churned out the recent 4 days. On track for a negative net in the next bill.
We had freeze warnings the past two nights. Back to normal this week. I’d gladly trade March weather in May for May weather in July or August.
we had freeze warnings too in northern IL. Things are just crazy in world right now. On the upside, we all have the a chance to get those ” someday when I have time” projects done. We have been checking out the multiple forest preserves around here that we have never been to. They are hidden gems here. Who knew !!
Now that it’s going to warm, I’ve got a bunch of projects – cleaning the garage, power washing the deck, repairing the tool shed, painting, etc.