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I give up.
The 2020 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is expected to draw about 250,000 people.
It’s going to go on for TEN DAYS.
Ten days of virus spreading fun in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
The revelers come from all corners of the country, and will return home carrying the virus to their friends and families - and strangers who may be trying very hard to do the right thing.
Nice work.
This country is never going to get it together because of stupid behavior like this.
It’s been 148 days since we’ve done anything remotely “normal.”
The irony is the people complaining and not making an effort to follow basic guidelines are prolonging the thing they hate so much.
I saw a great analogy recently. The U.S. is sitting at the kids’ table, and can’t have dessert like everyone else because they haven’t eaten their vegetables. Well - SOME of them haven’t eaten their vegetables, and they are ruining it for everyone else. The kids who have done everything right are stuck at the table waiting for the rest of them to finish. Actually, we’re stuck in our homes. Jerks. I’m disgusted by the selfishness.
Six months ago if you had mentioned something called Zoom I would have thought of the TV show I used to watch when I was a kid.
“C’mon and Zoom Zoom Zoom-a Zoom”
Those were good times, eh? I’m kind of missing the simplicity of the 70’s.
Anyhow, Zoom in 2020 is of course the video conferencing tool we’ve all some to love or loathe. I spend several hours a week in meetings on Zoom, and as part of my job it seems it is my lot in life to become an expert in all of the intricacies of using it.
Did you know that Zoom allows you to double-book meetings and webinars? This can become a big problem when many people share accounts that are used for both internal meetings and library programs. In our organization the etiquette is to add your meeting or event to an Outlook calendar. We have several Zoom accounts, so there is always one available when you need it. We use the webinar feature for some of our events and only have the license in two of our Zoom “rooms.” If necessary, it’s easy to negotiate with someone to move their meeting to a different room in order to free up the webinar.
Last week I dealt with a situation where SOMEBODY DIDN’T PUT THEIR MEETING IN THE CALENDAR, OR DIDN’T CHECK TO SEE IF SOMETHING WAS ALREADY SCHEDULED.
If one meeting is already going and a second meeting is started, the people in the first meeting get kicked out. They inevitably try to log back in, kicking the second group out who then tries to log back in because what the the heck they’ve just been kicked out of their meeting why is this happening?
A battle ensues.
This happened 35 minutes before an event that over 200 people had registered for last week. I discovered a mystery meeting (no clue who it was at the time) logging in and kicking our group out.
That’s a problem!
Thank goodness I was working this particular event and was there to sort things out with my now vast knowledge of our multiple Zoom accounts!
I had to contact somebody to ask them to move their meeting, then set up a new webinar in that room and send the link out to the 200+ people who had registered for the event and already had the link for the webinar that was now being trampled by some unknown persons who had not followed proper Zoom room etiquette.
Whew!
We delayed the start time by five minutes to give folks a chance to find their way there, and in the end had 80 people show up. That is about the number I would have expected anyhow (there are always way more registrations than people who attend).
I did receive one response to the emergency email I sent out with a complaint:
“Very disappointed this program wasn't better planned out.”
Lady! If you only knew the amount of planning that went into this and that we unfortunately discovered yet another sort of glitch that can occur when dozens of people share a Zoom account.
Just call me the Zoom-whisperer…
Time still drags during the day but races by on a weekly and monthly scale. I got a chuckle from this calendar, though I’m pretty sure December should just be crammed into 2021.
This week was pretty bonkers all around. I’m so busy at work, which is a good thing. That’s part of what makes the time fly by. We also had some excitement a few days ago when a high-speed chase ended in our neighborhood. There’s a video at that link, taken by a security camera at the condo on the corner. Rowland and I walk by that corner several times a week on our daily outings. I wrote my own roundup of events in two parts over at 21st Century Plague Diaries.
We are at the height of summer and the long-standing tradition of ice cream trucks carries on, even during the pandemic. I’ve only caught a glimpse of it once (it’s actually a mini van), and heard it twice as it drives by on the next street over. The sound is unmistakeable, and you probably remember hearing it as it drove through your neighborhood. I remember the near-panic of thinking I might miss it as it drove by, and dropping my dime as I scrambled to catch it. Did you ever experience the thrill of running for the ice cream truck, desperate to catch it before it got too far away?
The weird thing about our local “truck” is that it plays - Christmas music? Why yes - that is “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer” I hear. And “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” How surreal.
It took some time, but I finally found some information about the three-wheeled Joe trucks that cruised our neighborhoods causing panic and delight.
In 1961, Jim McCoy bought a quirky-looking three-wheeled truck from a one-man ice-cream operation called Jolly Joe’s. He decided to leave the orange “Joe” on the truck, and Joe Confections was born. Three-wheelers eventually gave way to the Jeeps—mostly ’68 and ’69 Kaiser Dispatcher DJ-5As, if you’re keeping track—and the now Good Humor supplied fleet conquered what is today a 40-plus-route territory, spanning from Bellingham to North Bend to West Seattle.
Also Joe Ice Cream 'keeps on truckin' (Seattle Sun, 2002)
I’ve just spent way too long trying to find a photo of the original Joe three-wheelers, with no luck. They were somewhere between these two (one too old, one too new).
…
I will never forget the sight of one of those little carts tipping over in busy traffic on Bothell Way. We were a bit behind it, and it was a slow mishap. I’m pretty sure injuries if any, were minor.
Hopefully I’ll see the local truck again and catch a picture, or maybe a video with the strange tinkling Christmas tunes.
Only 83 days to Halloween!
Tidbits
Don’t miss Nolan’s new YouTube channel, Botanists in Paradise. He’s got two videos up and many more to come.
The Brooks Falls Bear Cams are streaming live for the season! So much better than bikers.
August 8, 2020 - Heather Cox Richardson: if you read only ONE thing every day, this is what it should be. Her daily recap of the news with historical context is critical to understanding what is going on in this country. If you are not outraged by now, well, I don’t know what to say.
Tell everyone you know to be sure to complete the Census, so it too is not ruined - the deadline has been moved to September 30th, making it difficult to count EVERYONE
Making: I loved the idea of remixed advertisements as a collage prompt, so I gave it a go myself. I also did another of Amy Maricle’s slow drawing sessions, this time for a pattern called Cloth.
Recently eaten: Lancashire hotpot - one of my favorites! It reminds me of camping.
Reading: I finished The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist by Richard P. Feynman. It was a bit dated, but he did have a nice go at astrology and some other irrational beliefs. Started Islands in the Net by Bruce Sterling… which Goodreads tells me I’ve read already? My mind must really be going, as after one long chapter yesterday I have no memory of it. This must mean I can go back and read a bunch of books from long ago and they’ll be like new again!
Eye Candy Corner
As you know I am a big fan of walking around and observing the interesting things to be seen. Both of this week’s featured photographers specialize in very specific subject matter as they travel their respective cities.
The years pass and landscaping grows. And grows… and grows. Eventually houses are obscured from view. Maia LeDoux wanders the neighborhoods of Seattle and documents the homes that can no longer be fully seen. Sometimes it’s messy…
Sometimes it’s tidy.
It’s always green.
Perhaps you are a fan of the wide variety of unusual vehicles that can be seen parked in San Francisco. This is the account for you then!
Video of the Week
This is brilliant.
Recorded live at 41°N 93°W outside of Melrose, Iowa, by Brendan Wells on July 14, 2020
Question of the Week
It was a bit of crickets for last week’s question, and I’ve run dry of clever questions to ask. I’m going to take a rest from this for a while. In the meantime, PLEASE do leave a comment or hit reply to the email and send me a private message. I love hearing from you!
Current Temperature: 64.8 F (18.2 C)
Current Humidity: 74%
Wind (max gust): 5.8 mph
Precipitation: 0.00 in
i gotta know; do you make the hotpot with the kidneys? i have eaten a lot of lamb in my life, but never a lamb kidney. in fact, i'm not sure i've ever eaten a kidney from anything.
Heather Cox Richardson is the best thing in America right now. Thing is, her daily analysis and roundup of Trump’s corruption, stupidity, incompetence and malignancy has become so disheartening. How much more of this idiocy can we take, when such a sizable portion of Americans demand #MAGA2020 in the face of all this evidence?
Oh, I’ll take that tasty orange BMW 2002 in SFO.