Samurai Bucky

The population in Florence County where our cabin is located is smaller than than have contracted Covid-19 in Milwaukee. Crazy...

Hotels, at least, have a roof. Better than the leper colonies 2000 years ago.

The Rock is having a Drive In in Franklin: https://www.jsonline.com/story/entertainment/movies/2020/05/15/pop-up-drive-movie-theater-works-ballpark-commons-franklin/5199042002/

I am lucky to be sized accordingly. My sleeves cover my wrists and no further. I can wash the dishes without them getting wet. Team Jim with the victory! As for the tri blend shirts that stout mentioned above, I'm glad to leave those on the rack for the rest of you. They are often too thin and clingy, or they are cut for a fitter, younger person. On a similar note, why are there long-sleeve shirts / tops that have thumb holes?

What happens if the hospital care providers catch COVID and all of them get hospitalized/sent home for 2 weeks? You are missing something -- what happens to those who have been exposed to a COVID patient? The person may be a carrier. Do we send them home, too?

Where do you think the states will be diverting their money? I could see a temporary dip in funding to provide social assistance and small businesses, but wouldn't it come back at some point?

The 14,800 is not what we are actually testing. Or even can test at this time. Wisconsin actually did about 4,200 tests yesterday. https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/05/06/wisconsin-coronavirus-cases-up-335-testing-ramps-up/5175162002/ That's a record for the state - but we are no where near being able to run nearly 15,000 tests. My wife's organization is listed as having the capacity of testing several thousand people a day - but the reality is that they can only do a few hundred. Sorry for the broken record, but they just can't get the supplies to do the tests. They are ready to do the tests. They have the facilities and the people ready - but they don't have the supplies to actually do the tests. And it's killing them. They are losing a ton of money, and need to start doing more procedures and so forth - but they just can't. Things are getting better - but we have a long way to go. We've got to get a reliable supplies of materials to make it happen. This might have been covered in a previous post. I apologize if it has been. Is one of the main causes for the lack of available testing because there isn't as much manufacturing in the US?

To follow up -- People complain that voting in Wisconsin was an incubation chamber for the virus to spread... ... but it is really cool to see people lined up to get tacos on Cinco de Mayo. [sarcasm]Let's do a study in the next couple of weeks and see if any COVID cases can be traced back to people standing in line for tacos.[/sarcasm] Love the Sarcasm feature...

Bingo. I have one daughter who works as a CNA at a Senior Care facility. My son also works there as a dietary aide (started the job about 3 weeks ago). It is tough enough when things were normal for many of the residents. Now with the Stay at Home order, the residents are, to coin a phrase, in solitary confinement. They are high at risk and cannot really come into contact with anybody except for the caregivers. Early on, there were some social workers who were not taking this seriously and introduced COVID into the facility. The first person who was diagnosed was taken to the hospital. Now, the people are placed in a wing that is isolated. Also, only nurses are allowed to be in that section. As far as I know, none of the residents have died from COVID, but there are so many variables, who really knows? Post-mortem, if there is any trace of the virus in their system, I'm sure it will be tallied as a COVID death. All of the workers, even my son (who also doubles as a dishwasher) need to have a test. Currently, it takes 48-72 hours to get a result. The facility they are at is already running very low on nurses and CNAs. If somebody turns up positive, that is going to put an even bigger strain on the staff. They have been asked to start working 12-hour shifts. When one of the first people was diagnosed with COVID, my daughter had contact with the resident. She had to keep a log of her temperature twice a day, report it to the facility each day, and (I think) give the end result of the log to the local health department in our community. Very very stressful for all.

As a scientist who writes academic papers, I would never, ever believe anyone who cites a single academic paper as evidence for an argument that goes against common knowledge in the field. I do think provocative and creative ideas are a good thing and often a ton of good science comes out of people debunking bad science. Ultimately people just need to listen to the top experts. If I see a controversial paper in my field my immediate reaction is to ask several top experts in that area what they think about it. Which is exactly what good journalists do. And the best experts will acknowledge where the gaps are in the science and be open about where their personal opinion differs from established ideas. I don't write academic papers, nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. But I need to ask -- what happens if you, as a scientist, find evidence that contradicts common knowledge in the field? What percentage of people need to agree in order to be considered common knowledge? I don't know how Galileo and Mendel would have answered this question. The challenge today is that there is simply sooooooooo much information, that it is difficult for people -- even highly educated people -- to know what is "right" and what is "wrong." I'll keep coming to bf.net for the right answers...

I'd bet they'd at least hear you out if you asked them to randomly choose 1-3 out of every 100 Facebook friends they have, then tell them that those people represent those that would have died without the social distancing measures. We know that it won't resonate with them until it personally affects them --- they can't relate. Now, if the J Crew employee knew somebody who did die, then I'm sure their perspective would be much different.

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/coronavirus-disease-2019-vs-the-flu How about this: Because it is new, extra precautions should be taken. So, while it isn't the same as the flu, it is a virus. People have had the opportunity to develop immunity to the flu, however many people still die from it a year. Bottom line is we are still learning about Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2). Patience is required for science to catch up with our anxieties. However, I don't know how I could say that to a J Crew employee.

If it bleeds it leads. We got the bubble-headed-bleach-blond Who comes on at five She can tell you 'bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye It's interesting when people die Give us dirty laundry Can we film the operation? Is the head dead yet? You know, the boys in the newsroom got a running bet Get the widow on the set! We need dirty laundry

... but then they moved on '04... I guess the Bucks will move in 2030...

... and in other news... we had to go away from our primary lender / banker and do something online. We were approved yesterday and received the $$ in our account today. We waited 2 weeks at least after submitting our application with our primary banker. Weird... So, the magical unicorn did come... once we found it...

The shareholders won't let them...

The Rashan Gary pick last year made me shake my head. You know he had an injury -- yet you still drafted him. Too many times this past year, the WR core looked like receivers in the Electric Vibrating football games. Should a $30MM quarterback be able to throw them open? Absolutely. However, if they are not going to read and recognize, then that is a problem.

From the article: Yeah... good luck with that...

Can someone explain to me why average citizens living paycheck to paycheck are realistically expected to save 3-6 months of living expenses, but companies are bleeding after one month of reduced profits? Why can't they apply the same principles of saving 3-6 months of expenses in the event of a global economic catastrophe? Not sure it really is any different. The problem is they are the backbone of the entire economy...them going under has an enormous domino effect. For instance if you lost your job you would cut expenses, would you not? You would do that whether you had a rainy day fund or not. Well, a great way for the airlines to cut expenses is furloughing everyone without pay. This goes for pretty much any company that can't do business. Government is essentially giving them an incentive to keep paying their workers even if they can't actually come to work. I agree that so many people and companies don't anticipate pandemics or catastrophes. I'm not sure we can use a broad brush to paint over every company. My software development company, for example, tries to keep at least 3 months in the bank. However, when clients pull their work to have people in India do the programming instead, we can't keep up. We have less than a handful of people working for the company, so we can't lay anybody else off without folding up shop. Retail (grocers specifically), for example, works on razor thin margins. When I worked for a grocery chain in Wisconsin, I often heard about little things that could make or break the store. Upsetting the apple cart (pun intended) has unforeseen consequences. Other decisions need to be made -- if I have $100,000, do I put it in a savings account where it earns .0000000000000001% interest, or do I try to invest it in new technology, products, etc.? If I don't invest in those items, I can't keep up with my competitors. Personally, we have probably 5 months liquid ready to go in checking or low interest accounts. It helps having a Financial Advisor as a wife... for sure!!!!

If the goal is to simply instruct, then online learning works well. My son yearns to go back to school, however. Not for instruction, but for the social interaction. Can't get too much of that with Zoom. Teachers are also more effective when they can see a student's body language. They miss the interaction as much as the students do.

This works well in an urban / suburban environment, but maybe not in a sparse, rural environment. There are also older folks, like my parents, who refuse to get a smart phone. This is for a few reasons including the cost. As an aside, I went up to their house this past weekend and without too many details, their neighbor told me to get off his lawn.

Hmmm... I guess the magical unicorn that was previously mentioned as a major helper for small businesses made a detour to larger, publicly traded companies. That would explain why a company of three people who applied twice can't get a loan. https://www.orthospinenews.com/2020/04/22/here-are-the-largest-public-companies-taking-payroll-loans-meant-for-small-businesses/ Who in the heck approved these loans?

A quick update -- the magical unicorn known as the SBA is still not a reality for my company. Hurry up and wait.

Gordon is Megatron and Percy is Optimus Prime. Book it... One thing's for sure... don't trust that Sir Topham Hatt guy... nothing but trouble.

I was torn on where to post this because something that bugged me ended up being something positive. For the second time in two months, we had a dog get sprayed by a skunk. After the first dog was sprayed, we used a typical concoction we found online (baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, etc.). After that, my wife thought we should get some Skunk-Off just in case. I think we had put a little bit of it in the wash with some of the clothes and household items that smelled like skunk. This time around, we did the first smart thing -- keep him outside on a leash while we got our bearings. We used the Skunk-Off shampoo and sure enough, it got the smell out!!!!! Our house smells like it normally does and the pup had no traces of skunk smell this morning. I wanted to share the product. http://www.thornell.com/product/skunk-off/ Two of the three dogs have been sprayed. Sigh...