Working from Home - Day 15

Today was the first day without any video chat. There was some activity on Slack but I missed seeing other developers. I admit, bench time is always a little lonely. You are not on a team so there is very little reason for people to hit you with random chatter. Hoping that things get better next week. I will have a part time gig, and if I can pick up one or two more I will be in a very happy place.

The particular GCP developer training has been irritating me all day. The AWS Developer training I had was longer, more intensive. It was pretty glitch free. I am finding the GCP Developer training to be dull, literally reading the display material. The labs do not appear to have been updated recently. I know Linux Academy was acquired recently. I suspect that they were looked at as a potential profit center.

The next door neighbor’s kids are keeping my spirits up. I am spending my time after lunch on the back porch. I get to listen to them on the trampoline, chasing the chickens around, avoiding chores and general kid stuff. Our friend down from down the road stopped by with a bunch of baby carrots that nobody could use. I figured someone with chickens or horses would want them, but she said I should feed the kids until their skin turned orange.

We are up to the top of the refrigerator in eggs now. My neighbor is starting a brood of a dozen chicks again. I know a few of the under-performing layers will be in the stew pot, but it makes me wonder what everyone will do if they cannot get chicken feed. Few of my neighbors raise ruminants, so the lack of shit to attract flies will lead to a bunch of starving chickens.

I had to spend my lunch break mowing around the laundry lines. My "bright" son thinks chores are a waste of time and we already had two baskets of laundry ready to be hung up. He is a bright kid but does not see his place in the family. All of us have picked up his slack for a few years, that is beginning to be a liability.

My other son wanted to hit baseballs into the back yard. I started the dinner and went out to shag balls while he did his swinging. I almost burned the rice and fish, but we pulled it together. I did not get supper on the table until after 18:30. The kids wolfed it down and were back outside playing ball before 19:00.

Everyone wanted a fire so I had them bring the fire ring out while I went up to the garden to get some logs. I keep the firewood up there to keep the termites away from the buildings, which tends to keep the moles and voles up there too. They piss me off in the garden, the moles break ground but bust up my rows too. Voles eat my roots while looking for insects. The insects eat the tops. I plant twice what I want, I know that I have to share.

I left building the fire to my two oldest. I went for a bike ride with the youngest. We had a hard time earlier when he had to finish his chores. I do not handle anyone slamming doors. I have to fix them after their exit. Made him come back and exit like an adult with self control. I prefer a walk, cycling is not a good way to communicate, it can be a good way to meditate. Communication is probably more important now.

I found a New Your Times link,footnote[https://www.nytimes.com/article/how-to-make-face-mask-coronavirus.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article] to how to create a DIY mask. I have a stack of t-shirts that could be re-purposed so I printed the instructions and tried to figure out how to get the sewing machine working to execute the instructions. Mindy took over the sewing machine problems. My mom always took the sewing to herself, I never learned how to use the machine. All of my sewing is by hand, learned from the Boy Scout Handbook. Useful, but it does not scale.

I did manage to stencil the components and get them cut out of the test fabric. It was much easier once Mindy gave me sewing scissors, dull blades will piss a monk off. I grabbed the first pair I cold find, which lead to a hacked cut. The machine itself was giving us trouble so the first mask will have to wait until tomorrow morning. We know we will need these next week. Our governor and health director seem to be sensible. Next step is for people to cover their breath.