Monthly Archives: September 2021

Feeling Fall

Ray Whiting -- Posted on by

As promised, a cool front came through overnight, and today is about 15 degrees cooler than yesterday. How marvelous. Most importantly, I FEEL much better. I didn’t sleep well during the night, and I’ll have to make up some of the missed sleep later, but for now I feel lighter and brighter, if that makes sense.

I saw a weird twist of thought on FB, concerning some well-known people being sick with COVID-19 because they delayed (or simply failed) to get the vaccine and now they’re begging friends and others to get the vaccine before it’s too late, across several media stories posted to FB. And then there are other people insisting that the media should instead report on all those people who got COVID-19 and then recovered and are doing fine. They think it is “fear-mongering” to be telling about people who are deathly sick and begging others to get the vaccine.

The problem with this mentality is that nobody knows who will contract the virus and spring back just fine, and who will become deathly ill or actually die. Sure, some people who are vaccinated will get sick anyway. And even with the vaccine, you might still contract the virus and spread it without ever knowing you’ve had it because the vaccine protects most people from the worst of the virus. What we do know is that ~95% of people hospitalized and/or dying from COVID-19 have been UNvaccinated; not 100%, there are a small number of cases where even vaccinated people do get sick. But that’s not a valid reason to dismiss the vaccine.

I don’t understand why people are resisting the vaccine, other than for political reasons. And, you’d think that with more right-wing vaccine resistors dying, the GOP would change their tune when they see more of their base dying. But, maybe they’re just not that bright.

Life is never static

Ray Whiting -- Posted on by

Today is the first day of fall (at least in the Northern Hemisphere), and it was another hot day — 96 °F with feels-like 109°. Tomorrow it is supposed to have a high of around 80º which will be much better. I might be able to seriously start walking. I did walk up to Alderson last week and it wasn’t too bad, but I need to be able to walk to Kroger and back, so I will be glad for the better walking weather. I’m not decided if I should attempt a trip to Kroger with my granny cart, or maybe take my walker and make it a small shopping trip. Obviously, I can lean on the shopping cart as I walk, but the rolling walker has better handles and I have a place to sit if I actually feel like I need it.

I may have mentioned that when my last computer died last February, I was given an amazing touch-screen 27″ computer, along with someone else surprising me with a brand new laptop. The big computer was an older one, well-used and well-loved, so I was disappointed but not surprised when the hard drive failed and simply would not start up again. But I was very much grateful that I had an external hard-drive where most of my essential files were kept, along with keeping my most essential files on a cloud server. I’ve been using the laptop for several weeks now, figuring out how to do what needs doing, especially taking pictures and posting them for the yarns.

And I just now discovered that the video making and editing software I purchased last February had been stored onto my external hard drive. Whew!! What a relief. AND I found the emails with the registration and licensing info. So I can install them on this laptop and start working on making videos again. Not that I have a large audience or a lot to say, but it’s nice to know I can once again access the tools I want to have at hand.

Since the laptop doesn’t have a lot of screen real estate I am hoping to get another computer like the one I had before — probably a little larger, but it will depend on what is available and what I can afford. I truly do NOT like working on a laptop. At All. But it does the job and I’ll make it work.

I am considering posting less on Facebook and putting more of my thoughts on the blog here. It seems like FB is getting stricter in their algorithms and I also don’t particularly like getting involved with people arguing on my FB posts. I say what I want to say and people can just scroll on past without a bunch of unnecessary drama.

But for now, I’m awaiting a stack of salads from MOD pizza. It’s too hot for me to cook, and I actually have nothing set out and ready to cook tonight anyway.