Schif

Villanova has officially stopped tracking Covid numbers and we are in class maskless on campus now.

I'm hoping to get up there at some point in July.

It's not a loft but I'm on the third floor. On cooler days it was fine turning it off during the day but not with these temps. It just felt like a waste to run the AC for the 14 hours I am usually gone

I turned the AC off when I went to work this morning. Saving money yes, but it might have been a mistake. This was the thermostat when I walked in from work.

I would rather be outside in the kind of weather that tries to hurt you, like at the top of Sugarbush, than a baking hot summer day. I made the mistake of turning off my AC for over 24 hours and on Sunday it took forever for it to get back down to the 73 I set it at.

The stuff underground in NYC is astounding. Between the subway tunnels, the steam tunnels, the storm sewers, sanitary sewers, all the utilities from the past 150 years and I'm sure much, much more it's insane to me to think how much is just stacked in criss crossing lines under that city. Also if you want to read some interesting stuff, start reading about Andy Byford, the public transit guru who has been at a number of major cities transit authorities and has been a Godsend for them in terms of making the systems better. He spent two years at the MTA in New York before the heavy hand of Andrew Cuomo was too much and he resigned. He's now the head of London's system.

I think that handwritten note thing is pretty sweet actually.

I can't tell if pictures like that on tombstones are cool or tacky, I think I lean towards tacky, but it's kind of cool to put a little more on there than just your name so in 100 years someone knows a little bit about you.

I can't remember the last time I went more than a day or two without just playing around on Google maps. There's always something to see or find on there. I do most of my searching for restaurants or stores on there.

I didn't realize the Chester Valley Trail was once a train line

I had a professor like that last semester. Fully masked up throughout every single class. He came for beers with us after the last class of the semester and it was so strange to see the bottom 2/3 of his face. Speaking of out for beers, anyone want to go to La Cabra or Levante?

Napa wine train from last week

My lifelong dream has been to drive a train......

I saw a bridge.

I don't know if I would say irresponsible, but I get what you're saying. It seemed like a "hedge your bets" kind of situation from the doc and the most practical thing was to start antibiotics to see if it would knock it out rather than waste time or go through a ton of tests which may or may not be conclusive and take a bunch of time. It really has got to be hard to be a doctor because I get the feeling that the answer that they want to give most of the time is "it depends" but a sick person absolutely doesn't want to hear that and has an expectation that a doctor knows everything 100% of the time and can fix them.

Attaching it to the truck on the front like a snow plow would be pretty grate

Interesting Covid related thing that happened to me yesterday. I went to the shore two weeks ago and when I got back I started to feel not so great. Cough, congestion, runny nose, post nasal drip, sore throat, all the annoyances. It wasn't horrible but I definitely spent the long weekend mostly sleeping. So it's still lingering yesterday and I decide to make a doctor's appointment. 1. Out of an absolute abundance of caution on Friday I went to CVS for a covid test. it came back negative. 2. It was pure luck that they took me at all because I made the appointment online and if they had known I was coming in for a respiratory illness they would not have accepted me. "We don't see sick patients here at the office right now". Luckily it was a good doctor and he ended up seeing me. 3. So this doctor checks me out, listens to all my symptoms, I reiterate that I had the vaccine, I had a negative covid test and that I did not have a fever and I never lost taste or smell. He then tells me that the vaccine is only 95% effective, and we don't have a lot of data on it yet so there's still a 5% chance and in addition to that it had been a few days and since I had the vaccine I might not be shedding much virus and that the test is only as good as how much virus hits the swab. Also he mentioned that we don't have data on false positives or false negatives. Long story short he said that with these types of symptoms the default is to assume it's Covid at this point, but in case its not he gave me some antibiotics. I think this just kind of illustrates that our medical system has been absolutely rocked by this pandemic and at the end of the day what we don't know far outweighs what we do know. PS The medicine is working and I feel better already.

Has anyone thought about putting a coat of protective paint over all the junk that's currently on the chair to kind of preserve it and avoid a lot of work?

Heat is back on after breaking down and using the AC last week.

Dispensary*

I saw a few people in grocery stores walking around with masks on their chin. In the mask vs no mask debate this is a whole new level.

I would prefer if he put wheels and a hitch on it so that he can offer towed rides when he cuts those lines.

I just ran into a Giant a little while ago. Muscle memory had me pop a mask on as I walked in. Saw half a dozen unmasked folks and decided to try out this newfound freedom. Definitely in the minority but it was kind of nice.

In Narberth

The bike shop I went to yesterday required masks and they were only letting a few people in at a time, enforced by a locked door so you had to wait on the sidewalk