Author: tychay

light writing, word loving, ❤ coding

A keeper

Clara Health has asked Checkr to run your background check

One of our current clients requested that we do background checks on individuals. Being on maternity/paternity leave, I’d normally ignore it until later, but Checkr is quite persistent when you ignore them, so I got it off my queue before what-pathetic-excuse-counts-for-sleep last night.

This morning:

I had to announce my relief to the company.

Me: Got my background check back. Relieved to find out I’m not a sex offender anywhere.

J—: im happy for you

Me: I’m relieved too! Forwarded it to M—. She mentioned she knows the CEO of Checkr from a mobile startup, and then said, without skipping a beat, “Okay, baby, we can keep daddy around now that we know he checks out.”

(This is probably revenge for all the times I look at my son and declare to M—, “I guess I think we’ll keep him.”)

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Rocky moments in parenting

Anyone else do the beginning Rocky training montage before changing an especially poopy diaper, or is it just me?

I do it right after I pop open the wet wipes and ready a fresh diaper, but before I start changing. M— always laughs when she sees the air punches.

If I haven’t been peed on and he isn’t crying by the end of it, I totally do the top top-of-the-Philadelphia-Museum-of-Art-steps thing.

Otherwise, I’m cuddling and comforting him. I totally relate to the unfunness of having cold water touch your pee pee area.

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Russia and COVID

It wasn’t that long ago that some people were claiming that totalitarian/authoritarians were better at handling COVID-19. That came from counting China and Singapore as such and ignoring South Korea. But a bigger one was basically taking unbelievable numbers at face value: Iran being lower than Italy, Russia only having a single case at the time, India having none.

Yesterday the top three countries reporting new cases are:

  1. United States: 24,409 new cases
  2. Russia: 6,411 new cases
  3. Brazil: 6,398 new cases

They all have something in common. Nominal democracy or not, it seems the virus doesn’t care your politics, but it thrives when denial/lies cripple the response.

For well over a month, I’ve been waiting for Russia’s numbers to be in line with reality and that is starting to happen as the number of cases and deaths are becoming too great to categorize them as "pneumonia."

Russia just passed China’s totals and is now having record-setting infections and deaths. And remember when Putin sent a planeload of PPE to Trump? Well now he’s run out of PPE. The crazy thing was that was the beginning of this same month. I wonder how that stuff plays in Moscow now? Probably about as well as when Americans realized the United States sent 18 tons of PPE to China back in February. While Putin’s pathetic planeload was just a publicity stunt, Trump really shouldn’t be faulted for February, it was not replacing that, and doing far worse in that month and the months following.

I want to juxtapose that reality with this Reuters poll on "should the economy and business open even if the virus is not fully contained?" spells further disaster for Russia as it ranks #1 among countries (60%) compared to the 23-50% among western nations. I imagine Russia’s number is so high because their economy is in the toilet after Putin crashed the oil market. Nonetheless, this probably means their lockdown isn’t working despite the draconian punishment they are doing.

(Despite, all these astroturf "protests" in the United States, the U.S. is only at 35%. That number is probably a local peak as the U.S. is opening up in states that have regions of some of the highest new infection rates in the country. We won’t have to wait the requisite two weeks to call that experiment a failure.)

Guess that’s what happens when you are the world’s proponent for calling a pandemic "fake news." You end up getting high on your own supply when the virus hits you.

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Lila’s first bicycle

I took off Tuesday from work to hang with my cousin, Peter.

After the recent death of his father, he was inspired to take up bicycling again for his health. I helped him buy a gravel bicycle. He also purchased a bicycle for his daughter, Lila.

We spent the day building and testing both bicycles and talking about a lot of stuff. Because we grew up six years apart on different coasts, this was the most time I think we’ve ever talked.

That morning Peter told Lila, “Uncle Terry’s going to come over while you’re in school and help me build your bicycle!” She asked if I’d still be there when she got back.

Well, even though I had insomnia the night before and gotten very little sleep, I had to stay. It was well worth it…

Lila's first bicycle!

Karen said Lila was telling everyone in her class how excited she is that she was getting a bicycle. Lila doesn’t know how to ride a bicycle just yet, but she already sticker-bombed her bike like a boss.

I wish them a long lifetime of happy trails. Hopefully, I’ll get to go on a couple rides with them.

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2020-01-20 Australia: bush fires and how civilizations collapse

What is going on right now in Australia is horrible. It will, no doubt, make far future history books (if there is a civilization left) as an example of how we were staring obvious Collapse in the face, and said, “Whatever! I’d like more of that.”

This inspired Jay to mix his love of boardgaming and his bleeding heart to make this video on the game Hotshots and raise money for the bush fire release.

Continue reading about a socio-political irony after the jump

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2020-01-25 Ree Family Eating SLC

Ree Family Eating SLC

My aunt, Gia sent this photo to the group on January 25, 2020.

On the back of the photo is written:

#1
Around table: Mrs. Ree, Dr Francis (bro., dr,. physics), Joan, Dr. Alexis T. (dr. chem), Bernadetter (languages, psychology), Taresa (chemistry).
SEP 60 Miss 38A 0%

Given the misspelling of my mom’s name, I have a feeling this was an outtake from this article which was published later. This photo, unlike the others, has Francis in it, which makes sense as that was just before he went looking for a job with his newly-minted Ph.D. (beating my mom by a single semester).

As expected, even in a posed photo, Francis is enjoying eating.

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January 21

On January 21st, as I was down with the flu, I received this e-mail from my cousin:

Hi everyone,

My dad passed away this afternoon very peacefully. My brother played a song that reminded my dad of his parents. My dad opened his eyes and looked directly at Peter – the first time he’s done this in many days – and then waited for my mom to come to the room, and then passed away.

We haven’t figured out yet when the funeral will be but I will let you know as soon as it’s decided.

Thanks everyone. It’s been a long journey and also a very special one.

Christina

I had a task entry for over a year, “blog about Francis” which I finally deleted yesterday. It has a huge number of notes, and in a different time I might revisit them. There is so much to write about my Uncle, I don’t know where to begin.

Continue reading some past Francis stories after the jump

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