I’m going to shamelessly steal an idea from Dave Rupert and David Walsh and do a bit of a vibe check. This one will be more of a downer but let’s get the negative vibes out of the way and then I’ll talk about some more exciting stuff.
COVID-19
This week we passed the one year anniversary of the NBA suspending their season. For many Americans, I feel like this is when everything clicked that this was serious. A year ago, we had hoped vaccines would arrive in 18 months and in less than a year we started vaccinated. Truly a modern miracle and we all owe a debt to the scientists (and trial participants) who made it happen. However, now that we are a year in, a couple of things are sticking out as a pain points. I should start by saying I’ve been incredibly fortunate. None of my immediate family members have died from this disease. I, and my family, still have our jobs. It’s gone as well as a pandemic can for myself and loved ones. Now on to the complaining.
I think it will stick with me forever, how much people chose not to care. Maybe they cared for a couple of weeks but when things were at their worst, a number of people decided that this wasn’t serious. I can’t wrap my mind around that. I’m sensitive to certain compromises. Doing what you need to do for your mental health is a great example. However, if someone does something for their mental health and it comes at a cost of someone else’s physical or mental well-being, how good is that? I don’t know. Doing something for your mental health to get through this? Good. Doing it without the necessary compromises to help others? Bad. It’s a fine line.
A year into this, I’m mentally weary as well. Clearly. I just want to be clear that if you’re trying to strike a balance between what’s good for you and still helps, none of my rant applies to you. It’s the anti-mask, anti-vaccine, yahoos that I have an issue with. Speaking of which…
Anti-Vaccine Discover Feed
I spend too much time on the Instagram discover feed. I do find more running and dog accounts through it so it’s useful. Somehow, I’ve run into an uncomfortable amount of reels of “anti-vaccine, 30 year old mom of a 2 year old” type of thing. I’m sure it’s because I watched one and now the algorithm is like “oh you watched that? Here is more”. I know I should just hit whatever button says “don’t show me” this type of thing anymore but I usually just close the app in disgust.
Cold Weather Go Brrrrrrr
I’m so sick of it being cold. We had really nice weather this past week. Spring is coming.
Web Stuff
The main site I work on, TranquilityProducts.com, has a new navigation and home page. This is very exciting. While we are updating the entire site in chunks, this is a big step. My main goal right now is to get rid of all the Bootstrap. I like Bootstrap but it’s been a bottleneck on our performance so it’s time for it to go.
I’m working through the official React tutorial. Just as a refresher. I think I’ve got the syntax and how-to(s) in React figured out but I really need to just…build something…with it. I wish Halo had more API access. The only games in the API are Halo 5: Guardians and Halo Wars 2. Ironically enough I’m playing more of the Master Chief Collection and Halo Wars, than the aforementioned games.
I really need to clean up my social feeds. I often lament that social media was more fun X years ago. I’d imagine part of that is there was far less noise.
See? That ended way nicer than it started. Like many folks, COVID-19 is the daily struggle in one way or another. We walk on.