COVID--looking into the abyss

I hope my dear readers panicked and freaked the fuck out due to my lack of posting because....last night I looked into the abyss and didn't like what I saw

To Wit:

Today's weather is cold and moist, we are under shelter in place rules and ........the power went out.  Yes, at week five of shelter in place home with two teenagers and a wife whose hair is starting to do weird things locked at home without the internet.....things could get real ugly real fast.

Other disconcerting moments include:

1.  It seems the world ---or at least the roaring fork valley is out of paper towels.....for the past week I have looked high and low, in Aspen, Basalt and Glenwood Springs----at Clarks, City Market, Whole Paycheck, Walmart and Target and there are no paper towels.  Tomorrow is my daughter's birthday and her favorite food is bacon cooked beyond reason in a microwave on paper towels.  Another COVID disappointment.

2.  Speaking of my daughter she is becoming increasingly difficult (fast twitch teenage hormonal girl locked in house with family---no surprise she is losing her mind and sharing that pain with all of us).  My wife tried to console her by saying that she is beautiful and to enjoy it while it lasts.  Daughter responded with 'mom how old where you when your looks started going downhill'.  At that point I took my dogs for a long long walk (and you wonder why I haven't been posting to this blog)?

3.   In the vein of oversharing and too much quality family time---over dinner my kids shared their bucket list of recreational drugs they would like to try.  Is it good that we are having open lines of communication?  Or scary how much interest they have in exploring the full range of hallucinogenics and uppers?

4.  and finally how about this audition for most craven performance by a doctor (who I guess is trying to save our lives but ought to be trying to save us from our president)


Brix selling her soul for a new scarf and a chance to hang with Trump

trump showing off his scientific knowledge

Do you laugh or cry?  For sure if that doesn't make you think we are near the end of days I don't know what will.  I would guess Trump is one of the 4 riders of the apocalypse but he would fall off his horse, blame Jim Acosta and return to his bed to watch TV and eat McDonalds.  How that man garners at least 40% of the vote of Americans this fall is mind-blowing.

And let me grab my stethoscope channel my inner Trump and say with complete confidence (and I am confident because I know a number of MIT grads) that if you ingest Caesium-137 it is completely effective at destroying the DNA strand of COVID-19.  There is even a beautiful gold standard double blind study that has been running for decades proving this---if you look at Chernobyl (ground zero where there is the most Caesium-137, there is zero COVID-19 there.  It just destroys those little DNA strands so fast, like zap and they are destroyed.  And even better we have Caesium-137 in many of our hospitals---we use it already for radiation therapy---lets give people a gram or two to swallow and zap your lungs are clear of COVID-19.  Perfect.  And afterwards please brush your teeth with Alex Jones (InfoWars) silver toothpaste for good measure.  If you have trouble getting some Caesium its your governors fault and you should blame Governor Cuomo because he is the leader of the bad governor pose. 

Did ya miss my posts?

COVID --unintended consequences

Hair is going Bobby Brady style.  Huge unruly mess.  Anyone checked on flowbee stock?

fun with flowbee

But I am starting to let my kink show---I am kinda enjoying the mask thing on everyone---very exciting.

Also if anyone is looking for a job Aspen Junior hockey is looking for a new head of hockey.  Come on Keith Tkachuk ya know ya want to live in Aspen.

COVID in pictures

Those would be from last weeks dump.

Today I am going to jump on the bike and ride to Ashcroft.

With luck I will get a picture of my daughter.....no she refused to be published in blog but she is back to cooking and playing with a hockey puck (I got a pick of her trying to do both at the same time but will not publish)

my son on the other hand has not left his bed.  His sheets actually have faded where his ass rests.  Lazy bum.  The wife suggested we send him and his sister out for a run--I think my wife might want to eliminate one of them.

Son multitasking while doing online school (communicating both with parent and teacher at the same time).

COVID can't kick Aspen athleticism (and hubris)

It is weird everywhere.  That much goes without saying (and yet I said it---duh ouch).

Aspen is home of many amazing athletes, and many of those folks also are as my wife used to say about new sales people (young dumb and full of come)----hey that is come like tree sap, if it was the other kind of cum I would have spelled it correctly.

Anyhow we had a pretty solid dump Thursday and by 11 am Friday there wasn't a clean line to be had on Ajax, Buttermilk or Highlands.  I can't speak to Snowmass because .......well it' Snowmass.

So next thing ya know peeps are heading into the backcountry --check out these sweet lines (bonus points if you know the zone) BUT then I saw them all hanging out together eating food and yucking it up much closer than 6 feet away.  Bad dirtbags. Bad.

Anyhow the day before the wife was x-country skiing in northstar and low and behold a number of Aspenites were out on their SUPs.  I always have a bit of cognitive dissonance when I am on skis and someone 100 yards away is on their SUP.  

Goodnews Aspen is staying active and strong.  Bad news--sometimes folks are just a wee bit too close to each other (which is kinda ironic because we have sooooooo much space to play in).

Stay safe---thinking about going sledding with daughter around lift 1a (not A1 as some of our visitors called it.  That side of town is not named after a steak sauce.  

Tomorrow I plan to get her on a balance ball stick handling and see how much she has really recovered (if she fights me a lot I'll know she is 100% healthy).

COVID-19 death

It is just a matter of time before we all know someone who has died of COVID-19.  That happened for me yesterday.  Not a close friend;  he was an older gentleman (in his 80s) who felt sick went to the ER and didn't even make it to intubation. 

Sadly in a month or so everyone will know someone who died from COVID-19.  One of the things that is so weird is how fast this is all going to hit.  In the World Wars or Vietnam the deaths were spread out over a long time--I fear we will have 100ks of deaths in the next month or so. 

Shit as I type this my wife just told me of another friend who died.  That makes two (one in NYC one in STL) dead in the past 48 hours.  Old white guys seem to be particularly susceptible (maybe the Dems should nominate a younger woman whose selling point might be "I will Survive".)

i will survive ---excellent cover

Also an up close portrait of courage---an elementary school friend who is (was) a retired ICU nurse leaving two sets of twins at home to return to the ICU.  The hospital is putting her up in an extended stay apartment so that she doesn't have to decontaminate daily, but she is still putting herself at risk every day to save lives and putting herself in harm's way to do it.  A portrait of courage and selflessness.  I pray to God she stays safe.


on a super duper light note ----if a symphony can jam with sir mix a lot then anything is possible

best vid you will watch today

COVID--OMG we are all going to die

first things first--my daughter is feeling much much better. 

So much so that she doesn't want to isolate.  She doesn't want to have me bring her food.  She wants to head to the kitchen and cook.  She is going to kill the rest of us.  (and to those who propose putting everyone who might be positive in their own hotel room to isolate---how much psychological damage do you think you are going to do to kids age 0-14)?????

Being a guy who stays on top of the news, I was aware that the Trump Administration is going to recommend wearing some kind of mask to reduce the spread of COVID-19.  These are the same team who said do not wear a mask, only people who are symptomatic can infect others, provided a CDC test kit that didn't work, thought it would go away when it's warm (Donald J being a biggly believer of that forget that its summer in Australia and COVID is doing just fine in warmer weather thank you) and went from no social distancing to wanting to lock down the whole country after COVID-19 community spread is everywhere.

this is me standing in line for the grocery in my new TRUMP approved  COVID prevention outfit

Please note the AVSC buff and the Make America Deep (POW) cap, supporting our local causes.  The woman in line behind me asks me to move closer to the person in front of me, I said no I am standing 6 feet back.  I then look over my shoulder and find her standing about 1 foot behind me.  I told her to get the hell back 6 feet.  The EXCELLENT thing about wearing a buff is I can be even more of an asshole and maybe not be recognized.  Thank you President Trump.

So now we get to the OMG we are all going to die.  I get back in the car post shop and turn on CNN and Dr. Brix (one of the so called adults in the room) who is answering a question concerning false negatives being possibly as high as 33% (and still talking like anyone can get a test not just actors and prices and senators).  She said well that can't be the case because in NY and NJ the tests are coming back 35% positive so if the false negative rate was 33% then it would be 100% positive.  She then kinda, but not completely corrected herself to say the positive rate would then be 66%.

Dear readers are you smarter than Dr. Brix?

If 35% of people tested are positive and the test has a false negative rate (i.e. it says your negative when you are positive) of 33% then what percent of people are positive:

• A   100%
• B   66%  (per Dr Brix basically adding 33% plus 35%)
• C   0% if you are a Trump supporter and 100% if your a democrat
• D  33% (there are so many 3s the answer must have lots of 3s in it)
• E   12% (35% X 33% right?)
• F   none of the above

If you went with none of the above you are right and Dr. Brix is wrong.  The answer is 56% (or 56.45 if you want to be exact).  Assume a sample of 100 people---35 test positive---put those folks in lock down for the second step of the problem.  That leaves you with 65 negatives, of those 65 negatives 1/3 are actually positive (that is the false negative rate of 33%) --that is 21.45 people.  Grab the other 35 positive folks and add em up and you get 56.45%.  How big of a difference is 56% vs 66%.  Well its about 32 million people if you want to look at the US population as a whole.  Also if you take that kind of a screw up and shove it into exponential growth you have widely different outcomes.

Might I make a suggestion---all online school should be basic math ( in particular statistics).  Forget geometry, if I run into one more person who tells me if the stock market goes down 50% and then up 50% they are back to even on their investment (you are 75% of the way to where you started) or to put it in current terms the S&P high to recent low was a drop of 36%, but to regain the highs the S&P must go up 55% from its recent low.

Of course maybe the kids should skip the math, and just get drunk and have sex cause with the jokers in Washington in charge we are all gonna die.