Robert Hall

After almost 3 years of doing WFH full time, I'd find it difficult going back to cube life. At some point, though, I probably will, down the road..a cube somewhere out there...will be interesting to see how things in IT and office work in general evolve once things 'return to normal' in 6-18 months or whenever...

Today is such a Monday at work. Most of the people I work with in the Scottsdale and Tampa offices are WFH, but our data center in Miami had a major hardware failure and all our DEV/QA/PROD systems and servers are down--internal and external systems. Email, MS Teams, and the VPN and my VM are still working as they are in the Scottsdale office. Also the A/C is out in the Scottsdale office.

A great 80s pop song w/ an apocalyptic video..love this song.

My Dad was born in 1921, spent WWII in the US Army Air Corps stationed at Miami Army Airfield..spent the war there and in the Caribbean, stayed in until '46, then went to the U of Kentucky on the GI Bill for college and grad school. He worked in an airplane factory in Baltimore before the war (Martin?). Very handy guy, could do anything w/ tools it seemed....furnace installations, roofing, framing and sheetrock, etc. I learned how to dig and install septic tanks, paint a barn, remove an engine, bleed brakes... though I haven't had to use those skills because at an early age I really wanted to be an academic (which led to my long time in grad school and career in IT). I dug so many ditches as a kid...'family drainage projects'. And so much mowing (6 acres out of 150 were usually treated as lawn).

1960.

I've ridden the funiculars in Pittsburgh and this one from Como to Brunate in Italy.

Neat funicular. Couldn't imagine something like that in Iowa..

Had heavy rain last night and this morning.... windy, sunny and 70 now..sitting out on the patio...chillin'. Going to grille some steaks later. Have a glass of wine or a few. Pretend everything is normal...

38k for a 3cyl econobox. Insane times.

Time has a way of doing that. Some people look barely older after 30+ years, some unrecognizable. And looking at my yearbooks, those 80s hairstyles and fashions...

I miss my high school..it was a campus w/ about 10 single-story buildings in Marathon, Florida..had it's own beach on the Atlantic. I think the buildings dated from the 30s, no heat, no A/C, just jalousie windows open w/ the ocean breeze blowing through. In the 90s it was razed and replaced w/ a modern hurricane-proof monstrosity, all locked down w/ gates and looking like a prison rather than a school

I'm sure they hung around a long time..my elementary school dated from around 1900, had a lot of old furniture when I was there in the late 70s. Alas, it was torn down for building a new school in the early 00s. Alas, every school I went to from kindergarten through high school no longer exists..all been torn down and replaced with modern prison-style schools.

Now that the weather is getting springy, I'm doing a few projects around the house and outside. Installed kick plates on the lower part of the door leading to the basement (the dogs have eaten away large parts of the wood). A temporary fix until I replace the door w/ a steel one. The screen door on the side entrance to my garage opens very roughly, something wrong about the aluminum door frame and how it meets the door..too tight. Removed the frame side, redrilled the mounting holes to move it further from the opening by maybe 1/2 inch.need to reshape it or file some on the edge of the door so they don't bind when the door is shut tightly. Got some mulch, top soil, fertilizer and grass seed to work on building up a low spot in the yard and re-seed some bare spots...working on ideas for places to plant additional trees... If I could be 1/10th as good of a handyman my Dad was, I'd be happy..he was so good with all sorts of tools and had a lot of common sense and practical skills..he could bleed brakes, set timing, do bodywork, install bathrooms, rewire a house, bee keeping, planting orchards, etc all while being a school administrator. . working w/ tools and stuff is still pretty unnatural to me.

I remember using that style of desk in elementary school in the late 70s. Same details.

I have done that on occasion...let a professional do it, though.

My bald head is low maintenance...I run clippers over it periodically.

My county today released a COVID-19 diagnosis map by zip code. My zip code is in the 0-1 range. Interestingly, the zip codes w/ the largest # of diagnoses are mostly upscale east side suburbs...maybe medical professionals live in those zip codes and have been more likely to have been tested?

My county got an 'A', -41% change in average distance traveled. 125 confirmed cases.

Yeah, if you look at the curve on China data, it seems unlikely to have such a dramatic stabilization.. https://www.bing.com/covid/local/chinamainland Then you have Russia where the numbers seem extremely low relative to their population. https://www.bing.com/covid/local/russia

That looks like something that would be around $75-85k around here.

This house besides being empty for about 8 years (w/ leaky roof) hadn't been updated in decades, still had 1970s appliances in the kitchen. I don't know how much they put into it in remodeling, but they bought it for $130k w/ back taxes of $95k, and are now asking $275k (down from $295)....this in a neighborhood where similar 1967 houses from the same builder w/ the same floorpan/design are going for $165-185k.... the house on the other side of me (same design) is for sale by owner for $185k, looks to be last updated in the late 90s...

The house next door that had been empty since around 2010 (I moved here in 2017) sold last June and was remodeled slowly over the last 6+ months. It's been on the market for a month now, and they've cut the price 3 times, down by $20k now...it needs to go down another $80-100k to be in line w/ other houses in the neighborhood, I'm afraid. I walked through it when they did the first open house, it's been updated in typical current style of gray everywhere, white painted over natural wood, and the generic suburban oval window front door..nothing particularly unique. Not much storage space. Backyard needs a lot of work. The problem for these flippers is the amount they bought it for + the back taxes is considerably higher than what comparable houses in the neighborhood go for, not even including the costs of their refurb.

Starting to see signs of spring in my yard..

Now the Trump trash are accusing Fauci of siding with the 'deep state'.. https://mavenroundtable.io/theintellectualist/news/trump-supporters-turn-on-dr-fauci-claiming-he-s-a-member-of-the-deep-state-NewK4dKgLUCIK9Dn-jzr9g/?utm_source=SP&utm_medium=SP&utm_campaign=SP&utm_term=SP&utm_content=SP&fbclid=IwAR0DVHrGrtMgEhpR1snrlGXtajvREmk1pJyUgtzMvpOp74Nwa9WpqOJUisc

I enjoy Phil, both solo and with Genesis...esp. his 80s work...