Hi All,
Happy Easter, He has Risen!

Long time no login to the forums but lurking. Happy to say we are blessed that we live where our pond is, and have space so the stay at home orders actually make me happy so I can enjoy our spot without spending 50+ hours a week working. I finally found time to trim my apple trees and plant a few more (mail order), and have pulled all the willows and poplars near the water.

We bought one of the Pullerbears from Canada, and if you need to pull smaller brush and trees, it is actually kind of fun.

I needed a vacation, but not getting one. Working from home as much as possible, but being in microelectronics and developing military and medical equipment, we are allowed to continue on. We have also applied to one of those magical loans, no word yet if it has gone through, but I have very little doubt. Most other employees that are in code writing and not in hardware are working from home. Five of us in a rather large building rather spaced out.

My wife works for the VA as a caregiver support social worker. It took two days between the alert and her moving to working from home! I was very impressed. Managed to get our internet upgraded to support it very quickly once we mentioned that my wife works for the VA and what she does. Again, thankful as otherwise it may have been a month out due to demand.

So, Covid-19. Yes, much has changed. Yes, neighbors on both sides of us have had it, all survived, thank God! But from their personal accounts, there in NO WAY IN HELL I want to try. I already have a chronic cough from last year's lung viral infection that lasted 3 weeks, and this sounds far worse. Especially when you think you are over it, and the SOB comes back with fevers near 104! Scary shiz. Now our babysitter, who moved to WA has it. She got it by making masks and then going out in public to hand them out. She is young and healthy, but nothing hurts more than being charitable trying to help, and then be "punished" for it.

Yeah, and every time my cough acts up, I start to stress out. Particularly this morning after shopping yesterday. Wore my mask though so if I do have it, I wasn't sharing.

So far, surprisingly happy with Cuomo's handling of all of this. Otherwise me and him have a lot of serious disagreements.

A few other interesting tidbits: There was a recent study of sewage near Boston to see if the infection rate could be determined by the mars bars carriers. It seems the infection rate may be more than 10x of what is being reported. That is actually really good news as it drops death rates way down. It also means the infection rates are really high and/or the virus has been around a lot longer than anyone thought. However, I am seeing hints that people who have not had a strong reaction to the virus may not have full immunity either. They can get re-infected if blasted by a very contagious person.

The area in which I live is pretty rural, about 5 families per 100 acres. Yet two neighbor families have gotten it. Neither of them were able to get tests, so they don't count in the stats for the county. This sort of thing is why we cannot make sound judgements when we don't have good enough numbers to make decisions. The immunity tests can't come soon enough to know when we can get back to work! We have to look at the numbers we have, and they look pretty bad, but at least not nearly as bad as first projected.

Lastly, when social distancing is a thing, why in the heck are the grocery stores only selling Hams in the 10+ pound range?!?! Yeah, my family of 3 can eat that much Ham.

Stay safe, and happy Easter!

-Mark