Even in the best of times things just go by faster than we wish.

In this pandemic, normal routines are no more while we try to find new ones.

The last few weeks have just ratcheted up the base stress levels. Seeing fellow humans killed with no accountability. Knowing that their killers will face few repercussions. Even though one killer has been charged I have no faith that he will face much time or be rehabilitated.

The President has wasted another month by doing nothing to lead us in this pandemic. at least 100,000 Americans have died from covid19. Many more will probably die. Even those that do survive it might have debilitating life long side effects that we still finding out about.

On the other hand, there are a few great days where the weather is great and you can do a fair bit of yard work and some gardening.

Then realize many of your fellow Americans went out to the streets and protested the killing of black men and women. With the police dropping tear gas on them. Firing rubber pellets into them. Attacking and arresting journalists.

This feels different than what was happening during the Ferguson protests. Somehow it feels the same as all of the others the people have tried to be heard for prior assaults and deaths.

The days are passing by too slow but aren't coming fast enough.

My mood today is affected by the 6 weeks or some the feds have wasted in creating adequate testing and tracing capacity.

We see that the White House tests the fuck out of everyone any near it, and still they get hit with people getting infected with Covid19. Don't get me started on how Trump judged how effective testing is (or whatever you call his gibberish) when the VP's press secretary tested positive.

The WH has probably the most rigorous testing in the USA right now and are having problems dealing with it.

How are the rest of us able to even able to make effective and rational decisions when we are at a minimum of half the of the low end of recommended capacity (200K/day vs 500K/day) and nowhere near the middle of the band suggestion of 5M/day ( 35M/day is a really high bar to hit).

So, the shelter in place stuff was intended to give hospitals time to deal with WTF was happening and to get us the resources needed to handle it going forward.

Instead, we got nothing but 80,000+ people dead, about 2K/day dying, and people fucking tired of dealing with the stay at home stuff.

Personally, I need to stay at home and deal with whatever vectors the rest of my family create when they venture out to do the minimum to get by. I need to wait until we have effective treatments and a vaccine before I can feel remotely safe.

The states have always basically implemented stuff coming from the feds. They can't order companies to switch production to make more PPE, or ventilators, or testing materials. The Feds get that job and all it's been used for is to keep meatpacking plants open which were shitty places to work before all this started. Now it's even worse to work there because it is no literally a lose-lose proposition for the workers. Go to work and maybe die, stay home and lose your job and deal with that without even the meager resources their jobs did provide.

So, Fuck Trump and his administrations mishandling of their response to this pandemic.

We won't know how fucked we truly are until June.

To see if we wasted yet another month.

To see how many more people we are ok with dying on a daily basis.

Spent a very cold Saturday getting ye olde truck running. I had let it set idle too long. It wouldn't jump start, mostly I think because of internal combustion reasons more so than battery reasons. It was able to start a couple of times but wouldn't idle.

We got a battery charger thing and later that day it was able to start it and let it idle. I left it to charge overnight.

I had started some dough late Friday. I got it ready and baked it just prior to dinner. It turned out ok even though I might have let it sit too long before shaping and proofing. Nonetheless the 4 baguettes turned out ok, and the boule I baked in a dutch oven looked good as well.

Today I made waffles for lunch. My spouse ran some errands and during that I went looking for a bike storage system. It raises a bike up and out of the way. I wasn't able to find it but my spouse found it right after returning.

We spent some time cleaning things up in our warehouse to make some space for a nephew and niece to store some stuff since their semester finished. It's more convenient to store it here.

After that we got the system rigged up and it worked as well as I was hoping. So, now I need to think about how to make effective and better use of the space for all of our bikes.

The afternoon was fairly boring. Just puttering around the house. For dinner we got some Indian carry out. My spouse went in to get it and said it was pretty busy with carryout and gig economy delivery services. So busy in fact not to do the usual small talk.

It was good as usual.

Then we watched some shows. I forced the kids to watch The Repair Shop. I liked it, the kids had a mixed reaction to it. The youngest just wanted to watch Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. or The Mandalorian, which we watched after 2 episodes of The Repair Shop.

Then it was putting the kids to bed, writing this, and working on a rough draft of a rough draft for a talk I need to give on Wednesday.

Not much to write about.

Just a crap day or two. I think mostly to lack of sleep.

Handling of the pandemic here is just...so less than optimal.

Just slogging through because that's all there is to do some days.

Yesterday was a day.

Both kids, now teens, were in a bit of a fuck. Our youngest in a mood that we don't usually see. I hope we can help them sort that out.

The oldest, just getting hit hard with teenagerness. They haven't ever really enjoyed school. Almost resent it even. However, the pandemic elearning at home mode isn't helping things. Even with a spouse that used to be a teacher isn't helping. So, we are doing the best we can and hope to just get through the next 2 weeks.

I rushed the start of a preferment 2 days ago for some bread for last night's dinner. I also cooked down some vegetables in preparation for making meatloaf.

After my spouse got back from the weekly grocery store run I had the bread I needed to make the panade for the meatloaf. I mixed everything together for it over my lunch time. When all was finished I ended up with 6 pounds 10 ounces of meatloaf mix. It got to hang out in the fridge until I was ready to bake it.

Speaking of baking, that preferment was mixed into the final dough and rested over night. Then yesterday I pulled it out around noon and shaped at about my 3pm break. Then baked just before dinner. No fun to time the baking of the bread at 500F (I should have dropped it to 450F after I put it in and steamed it) and also bake the meatloaf at 350F.

So, the 3 one pound blobs of meatloaf got some time at 500F and then dropped to 350F.

The bread didn't get much of an oven spring and had a really overdeveloped crust, for me, and I like a good crust. It was still tasty. I sort of knew that this was likely to happen. In the end, it doesn't matter because home made bread is usually better than grocery store bread.

We have been watching Agent Carter. My spouse and I really enjoyed it when it came out. We still enjoying it with our kids. I think I dig the spy nature of it and my spouse likes the period piece setting of it. It really deserved another season or two. The kids are really swept up in who the story just twists and turns and reveals the various conspiracy threads.

I wish we had started a few weeks ago so it would have integrated better with our watching of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I still think the kids will pick up the crossover in content that happened.

I also did a little prep for tonight's gaming session. I still have more to do but that is task for..well today.