Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

As I mentioned, I've been self-isolating since I got home from Montreal a week ago. Before I left for the trip, I bought a home self-test kit, which includes two tests, which you're supposed to take about two days apart. I took the first test two days ago, so today was the second test.

( Negative is Positive )

This is of course very good news, but I have to say not too surprising, given the precautions I've taken, the vaccinations I've had, and so forth. However, even vaccinated people taking care with masking and such have come down with COVID, and after someone at WFC (as I understand it, a "ghost" who wasn't actually a convention member but who hung around the common areas during the convention) apparently came down with it post-convention, it seemed prudent to take these extra precautions, especially given that we have two conventions ahead of us in the next five weeks, one of which is a Worldcon.

Tomorrow afternoon, Lisa and I will go to Sparks for our COVID-19 Pfizer booster shots. That should give us a few days for any side effects (ours were mild to none on our first two doses) before we set out for Los Angeles next Wednesday.

Strictly speaking, we did not need to do grocery shopping today, but we had some coupon offers for things we would have bought anyway that were about to expire, so as soon as I could get away from work (and given that this week I'm having to start at 4 AM instead of 4:30 to accommodate some earlier-than-usual requirements from Day Jobbe, its a little easier to leave earlier), we went into Reno for groceries.

WinCo was wearing, and I hope that we can arrange some of our future shopping there to be early in the morning, because it's just too busy and too full of Covidiots. One person not wearing a mask at all laughed out loud when Lisa shied away from him. It's all a big joke to him. Personally, I have negative sympathy for such people should they catch C-19. They brought it on themselves, and they want to bring it onto us as well.

Raley's was better, possibly because as it's generally more expensive than WinCo, it may be drawing a class of customer more willing to stick with wearing masks. But that didn't stop one of the checkers from wearing her mask well below her nose, just above her lower lip. We waited until another checker came on line who was wearing his mask properly and thanked him for doing so.

Although we got away from the house at 2 PM, that meant it was just about 5 PM when we got to I-80, and that meant around a 15-20 minute slog getting onto the freeway itself, although fortunately the road itself was moving at the speed limit out to Fernley. Lisa drove us home, as it's very late in my day. Many of our meetings are being driven by demands from the offices in Europe, which is bad enough for our people in the Central and Eastern time zones, but worse for me. But I'm managing, and reminding myself that the commute is only five meters and I can work in my pajamas if I have to do so.

In the midst of yesterday's Trumpputsch in Washington, I
tweeted something that seemed obvious to me but did not seem to be getting mentioned anywhere that I was watching, either online or in the news coverage.

Beyond the immediate threats at the Capitol, realize that this is a super-superspreader event. Expect a whole lot of COVID-19 infections in the next two weeks, including among the members of Congress. #trumpputsch

— Kevin Standlee 🧜🏻‍♀️🧜🏻‍♂️ (@KevinStandlee) January 6, 2021

Yes, I think members of Congress got to go to the head of the line for vaccination (even those people who were claiming it was all a hoax last March), but how many of them actually took advantage of it. Given how many people were refusing to mask up or who were treating it as a joke, I'm not confident of coverage. Also, while one dose of the two-stage vaccines appears to give partial immunity, is that enough when everyone is crammed into a relatively small area when they took shelter at an undisclosed location (presumably connected by the network of tunnels that connects the Capitol to various nearby buildings)? And were the Congressional staff also vaccinated with the same priority as the legislators themselves?

Beyond all that, the Trumpians who tried to overthrow the US Government yesterday in favor of installing Great Glorious Orange Leader as King Donald I are probably also mostly covidiots, and it seems highly likely to me that a bunch of them were gleefully spreading the virus hither and yon. Now I really don't care if they infect each other and die, because their Darwin Awards help improve the average intelligence of humanity; however, they also want to take everyone else to the grave with them. Goodness only knows how the Capitol staff were able to do enough cleaning to make the places safe.

Anyway, As of this morning, that Tweet had 283 likes and 113 retweets. That's by no means a viral (ahem) sensation, but I think it's the most liked/RT thing I've ever written. Sometimes I'll get into 2 digits, usually with something about WSFS around Worldcon, but this got more airtime than I ever expected, presumably because so few others (anyone?) in my social media circle had said anything about it.

Expect another big spike in cases in two weeks based on the insurrectionists. And some of the cases are likely to be members of Congress, their staff, and the people trying to protect the nation's capitol.

I forgot to mention because it was good news, but a few days ago, we got the call that the COVID-19 tests we took earlier this month came back negative. Of course, that doesn't mean we can let our guard down, especially given that we're surrounded by people who apparently think that "freedom" means "I have a constitutional right to kill anyone around me."

I have two reasons to stay at home, and one to stay indoors most of the time.

( Second Things First )

The other reason for staying home as much as possible is that Dear Glorious Orange Leader held a campaign rally in Minden (south of Carson City) this weekend, after initially being told he couldn't do the event at a Reno aircraft hanger.

( The National Trumpist Dominationist Party Death Cult )

Anyway, I hope that two or three weeks will be enough before it will be safe to go as far as Reno again.