There is never any silence in our house. Someone, somewhere is watching a TikTok video or there’s music thumping in one of the rooms or there’s the snippets of bad music blasting from an Instagram feed. It’s never quiet. There’s never silence.
Yesterday it was a little chilly when I sat in the gazebo playing around on my iPad. I was reading about various subjects and occasionally the silence was broken by an airplane flying over head as they departed the local Air Force Base or the coyotes would rustle in the wash. I didn’t find these sounds distracting.
As I get older I find that I can’t manage distractions as well as I used to when I was younger. I’ve never been good at managing distractions. My ability to tune out the rest of the world is slowly dissipating with age. Others in the family don’t seem to have this impediment. Perhaps I’m focused on different things.
Zayre Electronics is the name of my home-based PC building and repair business from the late 1990s. I had a couple of contracts during that time and was able to make a little cash with the venture before deciding it was ultimately not profitable and winding it down. It was a little side hustle that offered me growth in my IT skills more than anything else. I’m happy to have that as part of my past.
I’ve enjoyed tinkering with computers since the mid 1980s. I was fascinated with the assortment of Apple ][+ and Apple //e computers in the “computer lab”, which was actually a converted class room in the math department. The math teachers taught computer education back then. Shortly after I graduated high school in 1986 the business department took over the responsibilities. I don’t know what year they finally ditched the IBM Selectrics, I was long gone.
I have a fully functional NCR RealPOS cash register setup here at the house. I don’t have a cash drawer hooked up to the system, as I don’t have that much cash to put in the drawer, but the rest of the system allows me to mess around with various point of sale software program suites and related software offerings. There’s a whole community of us point of sale geeks and we talk about they way things used to be and the way things will be in the point of sale systems space. Sorry to say, self checkouts are here to stay and that saddens us all.
I fire the register up from time to time and work on the software package I’m writing to keep these older machines running beyond their ill-timed shelf life. There are many things one can do with old technology, nothing is really obsolete unless it’s given up the ghost completely. I’ve turned old telephone system terminals into file servers with a few modifications to the operating system.
My husband and I went for a ride yesterday. We’d been in the house since Tuesday and really needed some fresh air, so we moved our quarantine area to include the car. We both enjoyed drive thru food, wore masks while in the drive thru, and enjoyed being out in the desert sunshine in early February. It was good to see some landscape. Our home is beautiful but with the five of us in various stages of coughing and the like, the fresh air did us some good.
I’m on the mend and feeling better. Other than the lingering cough and a few instances of feeling winded when I don’t usually feel winded, I feel like I won the battle against COVID-19. The rest of the family feels the same way. We are continuing to maintain distance from the rest of the world per the CDC guidelines. This probably means I will not be flying again this week. I don’t want to risk getting my Flight Instructor sick in the close quarters of a Cessna 172.
I’m missing flying. Even skipping one week in my training has me gazing at the clear, blue sky whenever possible. I catch a glimpse of a Tucson Airport bound flight passing to the north of the house on approach and I really look forward to getting up there again as soon as possible.
Prior to testing positive for COVID-19 I did everything I thought I could to be as safe as possible, for my family, for those around me in public, and for me. In common areas like the supermarket I wore a mask, even when it was just suggested, I maintained social distancing, and I did my best to be in unconfined areas with plenty of airflow. And yet I still contracted (presumably) the Omicron variant. As I mentioned late last week, I am very thankful for the science that brought us vaccinations against this thing because I can imagine the experience being much, much worse than it was for me or for the family.
If you’re not vaccinated, I strongly urge you to follow suit and get vaccinated. It will probably save you a hospital visit in the future.
Truman has many moods. This week I have received the look of impatience and the look of “I’d rather be alone”.
Truman awaits indication that I will leave my office chair and find him some t-r-e-a-t-s.Apparently I don’t have enough heat in the bedroom, even though we live in the desert.
It’s been over four decades since its heyday but I still enjoy disco music very much. There’s a lot of bad disco out there, but there’s also some great disco that never saw the light of day back in the day.
Originally recorded in 1979 but shelved until the late 1990s, here’s an extended remix of Karen Carpenter’s solo disco track, “My Body Keeps Changing My Mind”.
I just finished watching this interview from 1973 of Katharine Hepburn on The Dick Cavett Show. I found Ms. Hepburn absolutely fascinating. I really enjoy her practical approach to life.
It has been an interesting week. Tomorrow is Friday and due to circumstance and the like, have absolutely no plans for the weekend.
I took a few moments to sit with Truman and gaze out the window to ponder the meaning of life. It was nice to enjoy the quiet. He is true to form even when I’m not feeling well, he’ll be nearby to offer support but he’s not going to cuddle.
I woke up with the sniffles on Sunday morning. The sniffles and a raging headache. I figured I had one too many glasses of wine on Saturday night (drinking at home during the pandemic is so much fun, he types sarcastically) and my body was mad at me for doing this, so I had a hangover and the sniffles. I took a couple of Advil and made my way through it.
Sunday night I couldn’t sleep. I went to bed early because I was exhausted and I could just not sleep. I was hot, I was cold, I was hot, I was sweaty, the bed was soaked, and the headache was back. I took my temperature, 98.3ºF which is actually a little high for me. Historically my temperature hovers around 96ºF. I found my way to Monday morning.
The headache persisted. I felt a little bit of a cough. It didn’t feel like the flu. My mind was telling me, “this is unlike any cold you’ve had before. It just doesn’t feel like anything we’ve experienced”. I’d feel warm then cold then warm then cold. And the headache was centered on my forehead over my left eye.
Trying to sleep Monday night was a repeat performance of Sunday night. The same headache, sweats or lack thereof, no temperature above normal human levels, a bit of a cough.
Yesterday the headache continued. I decided to use one of the free COVID-19 test kits that had arrived courtesy of the U.S. Government. In fact, everyone in the house took a COVID-19 test.
I alone turned up positive. So yes, the cold that felt completely different than anything I’ve felt before is COVID.
I am vaccinated. We were vaccinated as soon as we were eligible to be vaccinated and we got our second shot right on schedule and six months and two days after that I got my booster shot. As I had to report to work after finding out I was testing positive for COVID-19, I am vaccinated x3.
I have isolated myself from everyone in the house since discovering my COVID-19 status. I shuttle between the upstairs bedroom suite and my office, wearing a mask during transit and staying out of the common areas of the kitchen, family room, and breakfast nook as much as possible. My husband insists on still sleeping with me.
Because of the vaccine my body has a road map to handling this foreign invader. I’ve worn my mask and kept my distance from others at Target, Starbucks, and the Safeway. To the chagrin of my husband, I have been purposely and completely unsocial in the world. I have done my best to maintain safe COVID practices and I’m hopeful that I haven’t spread COVID to anyone else during this time. I would feel awful about that.
The vaccine is doing its job and as of right now I’m starting to feel a little better. It comes and goes in waves. Still no fever. I feel a little winded walking up and down the stairs, but that’s probably because I’m wearing a mask while doing it. I’m sleeping when I need to sleep, I’m eating when I’m hungry and I’m drinking a heck of a lot of water.
Most importantly I want to keep my family safe by doing everything I can to not pass COVID-19 on to them. Everyone here is vaccinated x3, all right on schedule.
I will survive this, unlike too many others in the country, and I owe that all to the miracles of modern science and getting vaccinated. If you’re reading this and you’re not vaccinated, please get vaccinated.
It’s been a day but all is OK. Earl and I drove a little ways up Mount Lemmon. It was pitch black and a wonderful opportunity to try the night mode on my iPhone 13 Pro.
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
