10 Second Commute

My 35 minute commute had been replaced with a 10 second walk down the stairs.  I can now wake up with just enough time to take a shower and get dressed and make it to work within seconds.  No traffic jams, wrecks, or bad drivers to deal with.  At the end of the day, when work is finished, I am instantly at home.  This also allows for more time hanging out with my kids and family.  I can get started on my evening activities much earlier as well. 

Online Concerts

In an effort to support local artists, shortly after social distancing started restaurants and bars began streaming concerts that were scheduled to appear in person.  We watched a few of them and they were good.  Considering that we have two young kids, we actually never got to see concerts like this in person before Covid, so it was nice to have the opportunity to watch them perform. Larger, more well-known artists are participating in online concerts as well.  Just a few weeks ago Radiohead announced that they would have a new concert to watch every Thursday on YouTube.  With live sports being non-existent at the moment, these Radiohead concerts have become our Friday evening entertainment.

Social Distancing

It's been a little over a month since we were told to "hunker down" and social distance.  Life has dramatically changed.  I'm mostly working from home.  Social locations are closed.  Common items like toilet paper have been difficult to find in stores.  And while there has been some preliminary discussion about slowly re-opening society, the longer this goes on the more likely it seems like life may never be "normal" again.  More to come on that I suppose, but there are talks of this lasting months or even oscillating in recurrence for years, much like how flu returns every year.  No question there has been a lot of negative consequences of this virus.  It is easy to focus on the negative, and I find myself doing so from time to time.  However, I want to focus on the positive because I think some good is going to come from this experience.  As time allows, I plan on doing a series of posts where I focus on positive changes that have occurred in my life because of this virus.  Some changes are small, others are potentially large.

Today I want to focus on a small change that may have big health benefits.  I was supposed to have a dental appointment sometime this spring and of course it has been cancelled.  It is somewhat normal for my teeth to feel like they are due for a good cleaning around the time of my dentist appointment.  I mentioned this to Sarah and she recommended that we both get electric toothbrushes.  My dental team has been recommending this for years but I never pulled the trigger.  However, now that I can't see my dentist as easily I decided it was time.  I bought a middle of the road brush from a price perspective and have used it a couple of times now.  I can say that I notice an improvement in how my mouth and teeth feel after brushing when using the electronic brush versus a traditional brush.  I'm hoping my overall dental health improves and my dental team notices the next time I get a check-up.  For now, I'm enjoying cleaner teeth!

Mythic Quest

When we decided to switch from satellite to streaming, we had to pick which hardware platform to use.  We almost did went with Roku.  However, after reading a few articles detailing how Roku was essentially an advertisement company, I got a little nervous.  I already had a few Firesticks but they were slow and underpowered for serving as a main TV option.  Plus I hate the home screen layout that the Firestick uses.  We decided to go with Apple TV, which is a bit pricier, but a nice product.  It helped that we are already heavily invested in Apple hardware infrastructure in our house so it seemed to make sense.  With that purchase came a free year of Apple TV+.  I generally don't have much use for Apple TV+, but there was one show that caught my attention: Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet.

My interest in the show is mostly because of Rob McElhenney.  But also because of Charlie Day, who was one of the show's creators.  And Rickety Cricket.  OK, I love It's Always Sunny.  So their involvement interested me immensely.  The fact that the show was about video games interested me as well.  They pretty much hit all the nails on the head.

The show is good.  It got a 7.5/10 on IMDB which I agree with.  It has its enjoyable moments, not hugely memorable, but fun and enjoyable.  If I still have Apple TV+ when season 2 comes out, I'll watch.  Honestly, watching this YouTube clip of Rickety Cricket makes writing this whole article worth the effort.

Welcome To Virtual Reality

Practicing social distancing has become the new normal in an effort to decrease spread of the corona virus.  One of the interesting consequences of social distancing is the rise of meeting virtually.  We are seeing very few patients in the clinic.  Our appointments are almost exclusively done over telephone or video.  While some health systems have mature video visit infrastructure already setup, most don't leaving those systems scrambling to figure out how to deliver video visits to patients.  The urgency of the situation has greatly increased the speed at which these problems are being solved.  As we begin to offer people virtual visits and their acceptance increases, it will be interesting to see if this becomes a new normal in terms of delivering healthcare, and to what extent.

The other area where virtual meetings have increased is sports, specifically racing.  E-racing series were already a thing, and iRacing has been huge for years.  However, the forced shutdown of sports was a perfect catalyst to increase E-sports presence for the mainstream, and racing has jumped on board without hesitation.  NASCAR had an iRace last weekend at Homestead that attracted nearly a million viewers and Indycar is set to debut their virtual series today.  

Meeting virtually has been an option for years but the COVID-19 situation has forced virtual meetings to become more mainstream.  It will be interesting to see how much of this continues to occur once the pandemic calms down.  I can now reject your reality, and substitute my own.

Covid-19

Shockingly, Sinclair media and Youtube TV came to an agreement for the Fox regional sports networks.  I didn't think there was anyway that would happen considering previous deals with seemingly all other tv providers had not been renewed.  A few channels on the coasts were left out, but luckily I live in the middle of the country so we should continue to get the Pacers as well as Fox Sports Midwest.

This past week the Covid-19 virus released havoc on our society, altering work schedules and school schedules, as well as sports schedules.  With essentially all sports either delayed or cancelled, for the moment there is absolutely no benefit of having the regional sports networks.  I bring all of this up because with sports disappearing for the time being, it is amazing how open my evening and weekend schedules have become.  Sports play a central role in my personal schedule, and the absence of events leaves a huge void in my evenings.    I am going to try to take the opportunity to catch up on some TV I've been hoarding on the DVR or maybe pick up video games again.  While this is an opportunity to watch TV, like everyone else, I am looking forward to the virus slowing down and returning to normalcy.  I've never experienced anything quite like this before.

Sinclair Media and the Regional Sports Networks

Fox was forced to sell their regional sports networks (RSN) when it was acquired by Disney.  Sinclair media purchased the RSNs and has been playing hardball with the price since obtaining the channels.  The RSNs were pulled from Dish network and was one of the reasons why we switched from Dish to YouTube TV.  Last week we were notified that the Fox RSNs were being pulled from YouTube TV due to a contract dispute with Sinclair.  I knew this day would come at some point but was hoping it was further in the future than just 4 months after switching service providers.

The regional sports networks are important to us because they carry Pacers and Cardinals games, so having a TV service without them doesn't make a lot of sense for us.  Due to restrictive MLB blackout rules, we have to get MLB.TV regardless, but we would have no way to watch the Pacers if our carrier didn't have Fox Sports Indiana.  Not even subscribing to NBA League Pass works because they assume we can access Fox Sports Indiana and thus we are blacked out on that service.  

Luckily for us, I can access Fox Sports Go using my dad's DirecTV login.  I don't usually take other people's passwords but I don't feel bad about it in this case.  Since they initially announced the channels were being pulled from YouTube TV, they have since delayed removing the channels, leaving them on the guide while a deal is worked on.  But I am not enthusiastic that a deal will get signed.  The channels have been dropped from several carries since Sinclair came in charge.  They don't seem to be playing nice and carriers are not biting.  It will be interesting to see what happens when the DirecTV deal needs renewed since DirecTV seems to dominate the restaurant and bar scene and losing those locations would be huge to advertisers.  The availability to get the channels is dwindling, and there is a breaking point where advertisers and leagues will have to jump to another channel for their content.  I fear, however, that their endgame is to make the RSNs a premium channel so that they can charge to stream their own app.  More to come, I suppose.  In the meantime, I will enjoy the channel on YouTube TV or Fox Sports Go while I have access.