Day 33-Quarantine-Paranoia

Posted on 19/04/2020 by Grumpa Joe

During my walk yesterday an incident occurred which caused me to become paranoid. The trek was nearing one hour and I was just a couple of blocks from my home. I took a path that followed a power line. It is little traveled but very scenic. It passes a three acre lake that my back yard swamp (wetland) empties into. A father played with his young son. Their house backed up to the power line easement and thus they had a huge back yard. Dad was pitching and the son was batting. I heard the knock of the bat against the ball and watched the ball head toward me. It dropped about twenty feet in front of me and rolled to a stop in the tall, rough grass. Being a good citizen I trotted over to the ball and slung it back to the dad, as I did he shouted “we’ll pick them up at the same time.” They must have had a dozen balls to practice with. Then it occurred to me, what if the ball had the virus on it? From my perspective, I could have gotten the virus just by picking up that ball and throwing it. But, the dad was thinking that old guy just passed the virus to me. None of us knows if we have it, and we are all enemies of each other. It is a cruel, cruel thing when you have to distrust everyone that comes close to you to feel safe.

When I sleep I dream. My dream this morning concentrated on a real quarantine. Particularly from my point of view. How would I handle a true quarantine? A strict quarantine where I am not allowed to leave my house. I experienced a true quarantine when I was fifteen years old, but I was too sick to notice how restrictive it is. At my current age and health being locked in a house without any freedom to go outside is the same as prison. I don’t think I would deal with true quarantine very well. Yet, the chances of me having to live through a quarantine are pretty high. At this time if a person is tested and found to have COVID-19, but is asymptomatic, (meaning he has no fever, aches & pains, no drippy nose or cough), or if one has the bug, he is to go into quarantine for two weeks. I am not anxious to go into a strict quarantine, but I will if necessary. I’d rather play by the rules with Stay In Place to keep from picking up the bug.

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Day 32-Quarantine-Science and Common Sense

Posted on 18/04/2020 by Grumpa Joe

I watched with great interest as Dr. Birx explained the process she and her team were using to analyze the corona virus. My mind flashed back to one of my trips to Singapore. I never went there for pleasure it was always a two week minimum troubleshooting and training trip. This particular time we were having trouble maintaining our production output with our most popular product we fondly referred to as the PLT1M. At home, we could maintain a production rate of over 98%, in Singapore they had dropped into the eighties. The molds were the same in both places but their’s was older than ours. I suspected the tool needed maintenance. I was not disappointed when I got there. The production team was being flogged by Corp to keep the numbers up. It was tantamount to running a car on bald tires on a cross country trip and stopping only long enough to pump up the flat with air before proceeding. They knew they needed new tires, but didn’t or couldn’t stop to find, buy and install new tires. Needless to say, these stoppages were killing their production.

Our production manager was in a quandary. He knew what was required, but didn’t know how to make it happen. His allegiance and pay check were dependent upon his making product as promised to Corp. I spent the better part of three days talking to the maintenance crew, production foreman, set up men, asking what their biggest problems were. When the mold was downed for maintenance, I was there to help the toolmaker analyze the problem and watched him repair. While I was doing that, the general manager visited the bench at least every twenty minutes to determine how fast the mold could be put back into service. President Trumps COVID-19 task force is faced with a similar situation, i.e. too many questions and not enough answers. The pressure comes from the public in the form of reporters asking dumb questions about when will? Problems of this magnitude need careful analysis. then, each problem needs to be prioritized for urgency and magnitude. Dr. Birx has reported each time with the most emergent problem. Behind the scenes others are working on more analysis, and solutions. She delegates everything she can, and reports progress on the most important issues.

In my case the problem I came to solve required some serious toolmaking capacity. I learned from the staff all the projects the tool makers were working on, and listed them. What phase were these projects in, and why were they needed? As I experienced in our home toolroom the number of projects were endless, but at home if an emergency popped  up we were trained to respond to the needs of production. Sadly, molds to make new products always lost out to the current money makers. Our staff in Singapore didn’t have new products to work on so I had to dig deeper. In their case whenever a mold needed repair they deferred making spare parts. My job became one of determining how they could use available resources to solve their problems. They were using the bulk of their capacity fixing the flats.

In the middle of my visit I came down with some sort of flu that caused me terrible discomfort. I locked myself in the conference room and began to analyze Singapore’s toolroom capacity. Thank God for spread sheet programs. Without same, I would still be there trying to do the job. By the end of my flu, I was able to show them how to use their available capacity, and how to prioritize projects to get their production up. At the same time, when I came home I initiated projects to make new tooling to replace the tired tooling Singapore was using. At that same point in history I was on a task force of Chief Engineers tasked with implementing a new concept to utilize all of the toolroom capacity of our combined divisions to run projects to completion quicker. The team leader was looking for projects to test his new concept. I happened to have a few for him to take on, and he did.  That is not unlike the COVID-19 Task Force finding and sourcing both government and private sector laboratories, and equipment to use idle capacity to its fullest.

A couple of years later I sat in a meeting with our CEO and overheard him ask one of the division managers how we got to the point of production over capacity in Singapore. It was then, that I knew my trip was productive.

President Trump’s effectiveness is derived from his experience working in the private sector at real jobs like building skyscrapers. He learned from hands on experience to troubleshoot, look for the root cause of the problems and to prioritize. The members of his task force all use the same methods, Trump’s leaderships evident in his ability to follow up on all aspects of the most important issues. His daily involvement conveys the seriousness of the solution to the team. He is also a great cheerleader, his positivity and optimism are contagious

I am confident that we will get through this corona virus problem. What we need to brace for is the political battle that looms on the horizon. All of the political blaming will be in the category of Monday Morning Quarterbacking. The party out of power will be placing blame on Trump. They will come up with, what if he had done this, or he screwed up on that. But the problem will be over and it will be mute questioning and blaming because we don’t get a repeat. If we do get a repeat our health care system and testing is improved and will be better able to function as a result of COVID-19.

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Day 31-Quarantine-Conventions

Posted on 17/04/2020 by Grumpa Joe

For three years I registered for the Lions District Convention. Peg was still with me and my philosophy was that if she was well enough I would go. Since the convention is located within twenty miles of home I planned to go for the main day, attend meetings and the dinner. Peg was never getting better, so I never went. I forfeited the registration and dinner fees. This year was different. Peg had passed, and I had no excuse to not go. I registered for all three days, and booked a hotel room at considerable expense. Then, I told myself why not attend all the conventions, go to the State also, I registered. The flyer came for the Lions USA/CANADA Leadership Forum in Louisville, Kentucky. This was another meeting I wanted to attend all three of those years, but they were too far away, and needed several days. I opted out of all of them, until this year.

You know the rest of the story, all of them are cancelled. Today was supposed to be day one of the District Convention. They aren’t even having a virtual meeting to elect officers. I will spend this  weekend the same way I have spent all the previous weekends, hunkered down in my palatial home wondering in which room to spend the day.

Yesterday, the President announced his phased plan to restart the economy. Good luck with that. I don’t think I will be too quick to respond to entering crowded restaurants and venues after the last six weeks of brainwashing to keep a distance. In fact, it’ll be a very long time before I am convinced it is safe enough for me to gamble outside. That is what it will be, a gamble. Each time I come within a foot of another human I will be wondering if the corona jumped the space and landed on me. Maybe I’ll zip myself into one of those big plastic balls and enter society that way. Or I’ll attach my feet to roller blades, and roll through crowds faster that the corona can leap. Or maybe, just maybe, I’ll stay at home and not gamble with any of it. The next few years may be my end of life experience. Not such a bad one when I think about it, but nevertheless not such a good one either.

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Day 30-Quarantine-Target On My Back

Posted on 16/04/2020 by Grumpa Joe

Wow! The news today has certainly shifted from reporting how many deaths are occurring due to COVID-19 to how soon can we stop the madness created by shutting down the economy. Let the political bickering begin. At least for the past thirty days we didn’t have to endure the constant Trump bashing and democrat accusations about Trump killing people with his new weapon COVID-19. The joke of the day is VP Joe Biden accusing Trump of not taking any responsibility for all the deaths. If anyone in the country took responsibility, it was Trump. He shut off the flights from China, Europe and caused the commerce in our country to nosedive. He warned early on that we would reach a point where a dead economy will cause more harm than the virus, He worked and still works diligently to provide resources to all the fifty lame-ass states that were caught unprepared to handle their citizens. Blame, blame, blame is all I hear today. All of it points at Trump. None of the blame belongs to him.

There is an important fact that we must all remember from our second year high school civics class, i.e. States Rights. Each State is in charge of keeping their residents safe from harm and to provide essential services. States do an outstanding job with police, firemen, and EMT’s but it all stops there. Ask any governor how much he budgets for emergency management. Most likely it is a number close to zero, or the salary of the Emergency Management Czar he appointed to the job.

Democrats place blame on Trump for everything, Republicans accuse him of redistributing the wealth better than a socialist. There doesn’t seem to be any happy medium. In the meantime the president continues to do what he believes is important which is to save our ass from the grave and to restart the engine that drives us all.

The one thing I want to see happen is a continued effort to test people for COVID. I saw a news bit yesterday that praised the Iranians for inventing a COVID meter that detects the virus within 100 meters. Now that’s what I’m talking about!

What a great idea if it really does exist. If it does, why did Iran have to dig mass graves to dump all the COVID bodies? Since I’m in the target age group the virus loves to kill I am concerned. All of  you going back to work with strong immunity and me without any. All I have is social distancing and face masks. I figure by the time we finally get a vaccine for COVID, ninety percent of seniors will be feeding daisies.

My experience with a virus that does not have a vaccine goes back to the polio era of the nineteen thirties to the the nineteen fifties. For twenty years all we had were guidelines, stay away from crowds, stay away from beaches, stay away from people who had it. I don’t remember how many more there were. What I do know is that I didn’t frequent the beaches and I never congregated in crowds, and I still got it. The funny thing is that none of my family, who I  lived with got it, none of my friends that I hung out with got it, nor did anyone I knew got it. My body just couldn’t resist the damn thing. The same will occur with COVID until the vaccine arrives. Our lives will be a crap shoot, on some days we’ll roll seven, or seven-eleven, and on other days we’ll roll snake-eyes. Life will go on, people will die everyday from a thousand things and some will die from COVID. Now that we know how the big-bad-monster behaves it won’t be as scary.

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Day 29-Quarantine-Virtual Sports

Posted on 15/04/2020 by Grumpa Joe

How about it folks, let’s do some brainstorming. I’ve heard a lot of people complain that they are in live sports withdrawal. That is not something I readily understand, but sympathize with sports fans. I’ve heard my favorite radio host say he is tired of watching 14 year old baseball games and even older football games. He would like the MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, and live Cricket to return to the stadiums. Lets kick out all the COVID hospital paraphernalia and lay down the grass, wood, and ice once again. That won’t happen until we decide we would rather catch the Covid-19 virus and develop our own immunity, or we get vaccinated.

Here is an idea I came up with, virtual teams playing virtual games. With the advanced gaming technology available it should be relatively simple to set up. The hard part would be in inventing how games would be played in a virtual setting. My vision has each professional team equipped with the latest WII software integrated with the latest gaming software. Players of each team operate using a meeting program similar to Zoom, so they can communicate (huddle) to call plays. The players all have WII controllers and use them to move against the opposing team who is controlling their robotic equivalent in defense. They watch themselves on the screen to decide what moves to make and which way to move and who to tackle etc. Basketball programs are already pretty sophisticated with the players controlling themselves on screen using the handheld device.

Think of the benefits, all players would  be socially distanced from one another. Spectators would be doing the same. Game injuries could be eliminated although some aggressive WII players can hurt themselves even when alone. There would be no need for a Zamboni to make new ice between periods, and for that matter there wouldn’t really be a need to take long breaks between halves and periods because the physicality of the game is so much reduced. Although this rule would not be eliminated since most players would want to grab a quick beer between periods.  Fighting at hockey games is nil because the players are so far apart. Injuries requiring stitches disappear. Instant replays to decide if a player is out of bounds is not required. The computers will know when a foot goes over a line.

Teams would save big money by not having to transport players to far away cities to compete. At worst, the teams can set up virtual game studios with separated Covid-19 play-rooms to keep them safe. This also removes the virtual team  player from his living room so he can relinquish the game player to his kids. Players would be freed from having to be in top physical condition since there isn’t any real contact between human bodies. Instead, players would have to train using game controllers and eye coordination.

Another twist is that the team owners could charge fans a premium play in games. Pick your position, get a controller, and substitute for a professional player. They can charge you by the number of plays you want to play, or you can pay a huge subscription for a season pass, or an even larger subscription to substitute for a season. Because of the new 5G systems available the subscriptions available to play are limitless. Each SS (subscription  substitute) player will be playing the game and watching himself on his TV. You can now play the same position against all your drinking buddies in the exact same game and determine which of you is the best.

You get the idea, right?

What’s that? It’s already available?

Then why am I wasting my and brainpower posting about it

I need some wine.

 

Filed under: Aging, family, Humor, Sarcasm, Technology | Tagged: , , | 3 Comments »

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