Psychological Time-Warp

As I look at my calendar in my office, I am struggling to accept that it is almost June.  It just doesn't seem like it should be this late into the year.  I find myself thinking such thoughts more often as I get older.  However, this feels different.  Usually I have those thoughts because time seems to be traveling quickly.  Now I feel like the opposite has occurred: time has stopped.  The COVID-19 pandemic seems to have altered my interpretation of time.  Case-in point: Memorial Day Weekend.

Memorial Day Weekend is one of my favorite weekends of the year.  It's a four day weekend, it's the start of summer and grilling season, and it is Indy 500 weekend.  Usually a group of friends gather at the house to party and celebrate (and attend) the race.  None of that happened this year because the race was rescheduled due to the pandemic.  I should be sad about the situation but I'm not.  In fact, I wouldn't have even thought about it had it not been for the group text I'm apart of with my racing friends.  There has been no other racing on TV, no qualifying, no Carb Day, nothing to indicate the race should be going on.  It's almost as if it doesn't exist.  The same can be said for all other major events.  I had a great holiday weekend.  Hung out outside with family, grilled, and I was off work.  It certainly didn't feel like late May, however.  It could've just as easily been a weekend in March when the pandemic and closures happened.  Hopefully as restrictions are lifted and we return to a "new normal" and events start again, my perception of time returns.  Until then, it is almost as if I'm stuck in place back in March.

The Nintendo Switch Is Finicky

I bought a Nintendo Switch in the fall of 2017 for the sole purpose of playing Breath of the Wild.  I had no intentions of playing any other games and had no other reasons to own the system.  However, I love Nintendo games and the system has a great library of games and I quickly changed my attitude about the system.  In fact, in the two and a half years since I purchased a Switch I have played it significantly more than my PS4 during that time.  It quickly became one of my all-time favorite gaming systems.  That's the good news. Now for the bad news.

The Switch is finicky.  I've already had to send a controller in for the joy con drift issue.  The repair solved the issue, but what a random thing to happen. I can't remember one time in the past where I had a controller stop working correctly.  Now, I can't get the system to turn on.  All I get is a black screen on the TV and the device itself.  After doing some investigation, I read that rebooting the system, unplugging the power adapter from the wall and the dock, then plugging it directly into the system resolves the issue, and it seems to do so.  However, I now have to do this every time I want to turn the system on. Otherwise I get a black screen.  I haven't been able to find any additional advice on this situation on the internet so I am probably going to have to call Nintendo. I'm not looking forward to this call, mostly because I'm afraid it is going to mean that I have to send the system to them for repair.  I think something is causing the system to not want to come out of sleep mode.  I say this because I get a black screen on the TV and device until I reboot the system.  The other possibility is that there is an error with the dock.  However, the system stays charged on the dock so the power is at least getting to the system.  The dock itself doesn't respond well to loss of power, requiring unplugging the power and HDMI cables and forcing you to plug the power cable first, then the HDMI, to reset the dock.  If you don't do it in that order it won't work.  Again, I can't think of a single time I've had a game system that required reboots every time to get it to work.  Then again, I had like three PS2s due to disc drive failures and the original NES cartridges wouldn't work half the time, requiring you to re-insert them or blow on them to get the system to read it correctly.  Just so unusual that a modern system would have so many oddities to it.

Getting Closer To Cutting The Cord

I found this draft of a post I started in August of 2017 and wanted to provide an update.  As I have recently mentioned, yeah, this happened.

Knives Out

As sports have fallen off the radar, my movie consumption has went up.  I think getting Apple TV and having easier access to movie options has contributed as well.  While Dish had on demand and PPV available, using a streaming service with the available apps seems much more intuitive to find content.  Generally I watch very few movies, maybe 1-2 per year.  We recently rented Knives Out.  I like murder mysteries and enjoy Daniel Craig as Bond.  As the reviews show, this movie was quite good. Very entertaining.

In addition, I have found myself watching "alternate" TV stations as well.  I have been watching a bit more AMC and IFC, and have taken a liking to Aerial America on the Smithsonian Channel.  With May the 4th past us and the newest Star Wars movie now on Disney+, I have another movie to add onto the queue.  Although currently I am much earlier in the Star Wars saga, watching the Clone Wars.

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!