GregHowley.com

Quarantine, Week Two

March 23, 2020 -

It's Monday, starting the second week we've been officially quarantined, and I've been working from home. The kids are starting legit learn-from-home online schooling today, and Linda's doing her best to work from home despite the fact that the building department has closed.

I've been so busy since this whole thing started that I haven't posted anything on this site, or on Geekdad.com. I'm typing this up now mostly because I feel like this is a crazy time in all our lives, and not putting something down here would be losing a moment.

We've had time during evenings and weekends to enjoy television, movies, and books. I finished reading The Mistborn Trilogy, and started The Alloy of Law, and I'm also finally reading Alan Moore's The Watchmen. We've done the rounds on the plague movies, watching Contagion, 28 Days Later, Outbreak, and even the entirety of Steven King's The Stand. M-O-O-N, that spells The Stand! We also started watching Stranger Things with my 12-year-old, making it through half of season one in a single night.

We did a good amount of yard work over this weekend, which is good because it's snowing pretty hard right now. We also got to play a decent number of board games with the family, which was fun. I even won a couple.

I've got my office space set up in the newly-redone basement, although the sawdust from that process seems to have gotten into my main PC and completely fried it. Dusting out the case with compressed air did nothing - it still overheats within about ten minutes any time I use it. I had enough foresight to grab a loaner craptop from work, but I'm not completely happy with it. Plus, I'd really like to play some games. I've hooked up the old PS3, and I've been replaying Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and playing through Trine again with my daughter, but I'd really like to finish Dishonored 2.

So that's the beginning of my quarantine story. We've got enough toilet paper for now, and we try to do takeout once or twice per week to support the local businesses. Heck, we've even got a place that will deliver booze. It's surprising what you can get from home in 2020. I only wish I could have a haircut delivered. I was due for one on the day the whole thing started, and I'm going to be shamefully shaggy before this thing is over.