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Funny enough my old company called back in April and asked for a meeting. I told them that I could only offer a remote meeting, and they said they would get back to me. I've still not heard from them. A couple of days ago a freelancer that worked with me at their company and has been helping with the same project as I've been contacted me and said that in April one of the guys on the team came down with Covid-19 and was out for several weeks. The guy who got sick is younger than me, and a bit sportier and he was down for three weeks. Looks like I missed a bullet there.

Yeah! That's wild, go buy a lotto ticket!

While I can work from home I do like to communicate with my team members. We are such a small company we tend to be like a second family.

We're a 5-6 person company, and for the most part have all been there for 15-20 years, so I get that. We've been keeping in touch w/emails & text, and a few phone calls here & there.

The other thing stressing me out is that I we had the kids at home trying to get their work done,

heh, yeah, two of my co-workers have school age children at home and when I say I don't care if we go back or not, they threaten to send them to me.

and since my wife's work is something that can't really be done remotely, it was a bit stressful when she had to go visit a new baby. Although she took all the precautions it was a constant worry in the back of my head that she might catch something.

Or give it. I'm pretty isolated (not counting Friday night) but still concerned that for all my precautions I'll catch it some stupid way (like from a piece of mail or something) and accidentally spread it...

I'm so glad not to live near the ocean. Those kinds of storms are scary.

I guess I'm used to them lol. First storm I remember was in '83 (and I know I was in one before it but only have faint images in my minds eye). Here I am 50mi from the coast so not as bad as when I grew up right on it.

Sometimes we get storms that make it all the way down from the North Sea. Germany isn't really all that big of a landmass . This weekend we've had our first summer weather. Going to start storming tonight and all day tomorrow though.

I've come to learn that "barometric" headaches are not that uncommon, but there's not way to prevent. Only thing that seems to help people is dosing up on sinus medication when it starts coming... I don't like taking medicines though...

Well here's hoping that your shows will go ahead without problems .

Friday went well! We're on our third drummer and I think he's perfect. The 2nd drummer wasn't in for that long, he was great, still is a good friend, but just wasn't as enthusiastic as I wanted and I felt was bringing the "vibe" down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp-zcbYzFW8

My eldest son has been playing around with my old acoustic guitar for a while now, and I showed him how to read Tab. He was so happy! He's been trying to learn different songs using Tab that he can find online. So we just bought him a book which has some old classics with Tab and CDs to hear the music played.

That's awesome!!

I've always heard Alienware made good hardware. It's usually out of my price range. At least when it is new.

Same... Picked up this one for $400. The specs aren't spectacular, about the same as my HP that is about 7yrs old (which runs win 10 jsut fine... lol) not counting the video card, only because I didn't think to compare them. Will benchmark them eventually.

I recently found out that a YouTube Minecrafter that I watch has his gaming/recording system setup using Win8. His problem is that after every update on Win10 he has to reconfigure all his audio devices.

When I was setting it up, I recall there was one "I guess thats a win10 thing" feature I missed but I can't even remember what it was. I prefer the win10 start menu by far. Otherwise, seems fine.

We're going to be celebrating Father's day a week early. So tomorrow, I've got a Minecraft server setup for the boys and I to play on. They are all excited. Funny enough this was my wife's idea. She's going to play server and bring food and drinks to us at our desks so we can continue playing all day.

lol that sounds very fun!

On Monday I'm back to work, in home office. I'm feeling pretty refreshed and kind of looking forward to getting started again. Although I'm going to miss waking up late and not doing anything until afternoon. Stay at home vacation can still be pretty ok

I can't remember the last time i got to wake up late... These cats... I can't remember if I said before, but my eldest (17 in aug) was diagnosed with the early stages of kidney disease. what that means for now is prescription food & weekly IV fluids.
The weekly IV isn't that big of a deal, I take him to the vet and with the virus thing happening, i don't even get out of the jeep. They come out to get him, give him his fluids, then bring him back out. whole process from leaving to getting back home is usually less than an hour.
but the feeding... first off, the food isn't cheap, so I have the other cat eating a different food which isnt' that cheap either, but it was what I could get him to eat since he wants the prescription food too... In fact, both cats would be much happier eating the others food... so I have to separate them. But here's where the life ruining part comes in... so when I first started (not too long before the work from home situation, which makes it feel like part of that) the schedule was:
7am while getting ready for work
12 noon while on lunch break
5pm after getting home from work
9pm before winding down for bed
BUT... that 7am keeps getting earlier and earlier... this morning was 4 ducking 30 am... for a while i was thinking "ok from 9pm to 7am is a bit of time, they can't help being hungry" but Friday night, I was out till midnight or so, and as a result they ate at 5pm, midnight, and had me up to feed them again at 5:30 am... (i managed to go back to sleep for a bit, but of course, eating that first meal so early means lunch is also 2h ahead of schedule... so they woke me up again before 10am... I'm going to try to push everything as late as possible today, starting to think maybe they need more food over the course of the day... right now its 1 can, .5, .5, and 1. for a total of 3 cans in a 24h period... maybe if i up those halves to wholes... will email the vet tomorrow.

Does the wife have a honey-do list for ya?

Yeah I had a few things that she wanted to get done. I did my best to procrastinate but then we finally did them today.

Sounds nice! I'm happy when I ignore work/projects for an evening, then feel guilty later Remind me to not take on any more freelance ever again

Deal!   Funny enough my old company called back in April and asked for a meeting. I told them that I could only offer a remote meeting, and they said they would get back to me. I've still not heard from them. A couple of days ago a freelancer that worked with me at their company and has been helping with the same project as I've been contacted me and said that in April one of the guys on the team came down with Covid-19 and was out for several weeks. The guy who got sick is younger than me, and a bit sportier and he was down for three weeks. Looks like I missed a bullet there.

I enjoy working from home quite a bit. Granted, I can get distracted at times, and there's been a time or two I've been so into my project that I kept working past quitting time.

While I can work from home I do like to communicate with my team members. We are such a small company we tend to be like a second family. The other thing stressing me out is that I we had the kids at home trying to get their work done, and since my wife's work is something that can't really be done remotely, it was a bit stressful when she had to go visit a new baby. Although she took all the precautions it was a constant worry in the back of my head that she might catch something.

So far so good, we've been having a bit of up & down weather and that does my head in. Hurricane season started yesterday and we're already on the third storm (the first two were off the east coast)... The one currently brewing is one to keep an eye on though... could be a direct hit, will know later this week.

I'm so glad not to live near the ocean. Those kinds of storms are scary. Sometimes we get storms that make it all the way down from the North Sea. Germany isn't really all that big of a landmass . This weekend we've had our first summer weather. Going to start storming tonight and all day tomorrow though.

I'm assuming since we haven't heard from the venue, that our show this weekend is not happening, but I'm pretty sure the one on the 12th is (since that venue had a show last weekend).

Well here's hoping that your shows will go ahead without problems .

My eldest son has been playing around with my old acoustic guitar for a while now, and I showed him how to read Tab. He was so happy! He's been trying to learn different songs using Tab that he can find online. So we just bought him a book which has some old classics with Tab and CDs to hear the music played.

I bought an older alienware laptop off ebay. The person who it's going to belong to had two criteria, purple lights and 11" (and they've always wanted an alienware)... BUT... I wasn't thinking about
older hardware and windows 10 not always playing well... it seems to be running fine (in that regard) though... BUT... after a few days of trying to find proper drivers, and workarounds, the hard drive threw an error in the "diagnostics" and I'm seeing a "battery not recognized" error on boot...
I was already planning to upgrade the drive (is a spinning disk, so SSD would be a big improvement) so I've already ordered one... going to put a fresh win7 installation and see how that goes. Other than **my** desire to have all the latest features, I couldn't come up with a good reason of why she needs win10 (she hasn't had a computer for as long as I know, win7 might be what she had last anyway).
The battery thing though... I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

I've always heard Alienware made good hardware. It's usually out of my price range. At least when it is new. I recently found out that a YouTube Minecrafter that I watch has his gaming/recording system setup using Win8. His problem is that after every update on Win10 he has to reconfigure all his audio devices.

We're going to be celebrating Father's day a week early. So tomorrow, I've got a Minecraft server setup for the boys and I to play on. They are all excited. Funny enough this was my wife's idea. She's going to play server and bring food and drinks to us at our desks so we can continue playing all day.

Last weekend we visited my wife's parents. It was a long train trip, especially since we had to wear masks for the entire time. It was a nice visit though. My in-laws really wanted us to visit, so we made sure that we were a good week home before hand so that we were fairly sure we didn't pickup Corona.

On Monday I'm back to work, in home office. I'm feeling pretty refreshed and kind of looking forward to getting started again. Although I'm going to miss waking up late and not doing anything until afternoon. Stay at home vacation can still be pretty ok

Woo Hoo Vacation finally. Ok more of a stay-cation since we're not going anywhere.

Does the wife have a honey-do list for ya?

At least I've got a couple of weeks off to try to unplug a bit.

Sounds nice! I'm happy when I ignore work/projects for an evening, then feel guilty later Remind me to not take on any more freelance ever again

Stress with working from home has run me pretty ragged.

I enjoy working from home quite a bit. Granted, I can get distracted at times, and there's been a time or two I've been so into my project that I kept working past quitting time.

How's things for you?

So far so good, we've been having a bit of up & down weather and that does my head in. Hurricane season started yesterday and we're already on the third storm (the first two were off the east coast)... The one currently brewing is one to keep an eye on though... could be a direct hit, will know later this week.

I'm assuming since we haven't heard from the venue, that our show this weekend is not happening, but I'm pretty sure the one on the 12th is (since that venue had a show last weekend).

I bought an older alienware laptop off ebay. The person who it's going to belong to had two criteria, purple lights and 11" (and they've always wanted an alienware)... BUT... I wasn't thinking about older hardware and windows 10 not always playing well... it seems to be running fine (in that regard) though... BUT... after a few days of trying to find proper drivers, and workarounds, the hard drive threw an error in the "diagnostics" and I'm seeing a "battery not recognized" error on boot...
I was already planning to upgrade the drive (is a spinning disk, so SSD would be a big improvement) so I've already ordered one... going to put a fresh win7 installation and see how that goes. Other than **my** desire to have all the latest features, I couldn't come up with a good reason of why she needs win10 (she hasn't had a computer for as long as I know, win7 might be what she had last anyway).
The battery thing though... I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

Woo Hoo Vacation finally. Ok more of a stay-cation since we're not going anywhere. At least I've got a couple of weeks off to try to unplug a bit. Stress with working from home has run me pretty ragged.

How's things for you?

How's it going? Still hanging on?

Same 'ol here. Still working from home, with no sign of that changing. Our office is an older building in an area where people want to put "mid-rises." We found out like the day before the pandemic that our landlord sold and the buyer was finishing the details on buying the building next door (the other side had already been transformed in the past 10 years and 10 years before that across the street had been, so no real surprise). The past couple months they've given us reduced rent, and my boss says if they raise it, we'll just move out. I don't have an issue with that, my equipment here is much better anyway.
Speaking of, I realized that my computer only had 8gb ram. it maxes at 32, and since that 8gb was 2x4, I just got 2x8 more so it's at 24gb now I honestly never noticed it but since I don't have band stuff, or shows, and my freelance is winding down, I've resumed a video game or two and some were ram intensive.

We're starting to open up here a bit now. Although our planned vacation to Denmark has been canceled. We're working on rebooking everything for late summer. Hopefully that will work out.

Yeah, it's a bit confusing what's open and what the "rules" are now. Bars can be open, but everyone has to sit, no one is allowed to go to the bar and the bartender brings drinks. How that pertains to venues is uncertain. We had a show May 30th that we thought was happening, but has been postponed till who knows when. We have one on the books for June 6th, waiting to hear from the venue, and supposedly just booked one for June 12th... we shall see.

At least we are able to socialize a bit now. Last Sunday we visited some friends. Spent the afternoon in their garden with appropriate distances. It was nice. The husband was saying that it's difficult for his band since they can't play together. They try to talk once a week though zoom or skype.

One of my bands has gotten together once (on the 14th) and the other one has gotten together 3 or 4 times. Other than that, and a once or twice a week visit from a ladyfriend, it's just been me & the cats I did go to church for mothers day :o (was masked up for that, it's a tiny church even when everyone is in attendance, might have been 20 people there at the time).

Hope everything is good on your end.

Thanks, same to ya!

How's it going? Still hanging on?

We're starting to open up here a bit now. Although our planned vacation to Denmark has been canceled. We're working on rebooking everything for late summer. Hopefully that will work out.

At least we are able to socialize a bit now. Last Sunday we visited some friends. Spent the afternoon in their garden with appropriate distances. It was nice. The husband was saying that it's difficult for his band since they can't play together. They try to talk once a week though zoom or skype.

Hope everything is good on your end.

Beginning my 5th week of working from home. I can honestly say I'm not excited, but after discussing things with my boss, it seems that we are going to do a phased return to the office starting likely next month. Since I have blood pressure issues and asthma I'm likely one of the last to return to working from the office. While I'm actually more productive programming at home, I'm also losing out on the social contact with my co-workers.

How's it going for you?

We're still at home till further notice. I miss band practice and am more than willing to go if my other members would agree...

I need more eggs.

You should start a garden

I need more eggs.

Beginning my 5th week of working from home. I can honestly say I'm not excited, but after discussing things with my boss, it seems that we are going to do a phased return to the office starting likely next month. Since I have blood pressure issues and asthma I'm likely one of the last to return to working from the office. While I'm actually more productive programming at home, I'm also losing out on the social contact with my co-workers.

How's it going for you?

So I've been working from home this week. My boss sent us home last Friday to do home office. Now the Bavarian government is locking things down. Only grocery stores, banks, and doctors offices are remaining open. We've all been told to stay home unless we really need to go out.

That's where it stands for us now. How is it for you?

Pretty much the same here... Got told Monday to take what I need to work from home (using Teamviewer for something I have to have access to my work pc for, backing up logs & deleting old ones since the hard drive stays at near capacity... ), most everything is shut down, restaurants are take out/delivery only. They are allowed to takeout/deliver alcohol now, which was a no no before. There are rumors of "marshal law" which I assume will just be the "Only grocery stores, banks, and doctors offices are remaining open" you mentioned. Supposedly starting Sunday. We shall see I guess.

Grocery stores are hit or miss depending on what you need, I might make another run in a bit when I go pick up food.

Be safe!!