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Post by 3piggles on Apr 1, 2021 22:05:46 GMT
Happy April Fools Day
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Post by bazookagoof on Apr 2, 2021 1:37:53 GMT
My wife was caught by a few fake headlines this morning, and was disappointed to find out they weren't real (a local zoo was getting a panda, etc.)
Weather-wise it was a bit cool, about the same as yesterday. Tomorrow is supposed to be about ten degrees warmer, so maybe I can switch back to my lighter jacket for work. After Friday, temps are expected to hit the upper 60's and even the 70's by next week! Work will be interesting; I want to see if I can handle the heat.
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Post by Bean on Apr 2, 2021 8:04:49 GMT
I didn't see any gags this year, but didn't look at any news and that's where they usually are. No japes in the house either, we only really get that when it's on a weekend. Hope your wife saw the funny side and wasn't just disappointed the stories she'd fallen for weren't true!
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Post by 3piggles on Apr 2, 2021 15:41:16 GMT
There was a news segment on April Fools Jokes over the years, and my favorite was when Burger King announced they were bringing out the left handed Whopper! We had a major chuckle over that one! No jokes here, either, but it's just the two of us. A friend in Ohio said she was getting snow, so I asked her to send me some, and a few hours later, we got snow. It didn't amount to anything, but we were still getting snow flurries this morning. It's not super cold out, but when the wind blows, it's cold enough for it to really chill us. I walked to end of the street in my sweatshirt, and was fine when I left, but by the time I got home, I needed to soak my hands in the hot water in the kitchen sink! Won't be many more days of flurries, even. We bought everything we needed to make the Pizzagaina, as we were at the supermarket, and it hadn't gotten totally crazy. I think hubby is happy not to have to wade into the craziness, tomorrow. Also, for an Italian American, he can't speak Italian at all, even to say Mortadella, Prosciutto or Sopressata. I ended up ordering the meats for the Pizzagaina, while he spent the whole time looking for canned whole mushrooms. I'm a power shopper. I look at the list, figure out which comes in what order, then get it done. Anyway, I have mortadella, Genoa Salami, prosciutto and P&P loaf(pickle and pimiento) to go in the Pizzagaina. I bought the pie crusts, so don't have to make those, and will try to get as much prep work as possible done today, so I can just make the pizzagaina tomorrow. I'm using a deep dish pie pan with a fluted edge, since it's an egg, cheese and meat pie, so it should look nice, if nothing else Sunday we cook the ham, and between the two, should have food for next week UPDATE: Since I posted, a driver rammed his car through a checkpoint barrier at the Capitol building, killing one police officer and injuring another, before exiting his vehicle apparently brandishing a knife, and being shot and killed by authorities. WTF? Oh, we don't need the barriers up around the capitol. We don't want the capitol of the free world looking like a war zone. HUH? Remove the barriers, and they will come Oh, and unlike during the Capitol riots, the national guard was on the scene in two blinks of an eye, instead of waiting 8 hours to show up, only to police the area that wasn't under attack!
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Post by Bean on Apr 4, 2021 8:03:49 GMT
That was really sad. It's awful that the tiny minority of people that commit these senseless acts can affect how so many people feel in terms of safety and peace of mind. It's sunny but cold here and apparently there's a chance of snow showers tomorrow - glad I didn't get too carried away with the recent sunshine and plant anything delicate out! Happy Easter everyone.
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Post by bazookagoof on Apr 4, 2021 15:36:58 GMT
My wife announced she was able to get an appointment for the Pfizer vaccine this week! Since she's taking my daughter to a volleyball game out of state at the end of the month, it puts my mind at ease she'll be partially protected. Still no chance for me, but I figure by end of May there ought to be an opportunity. Oh, and I just made Platinum with this post!
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Post by 3piggles on Apr 4, 2021 20:10:37 GMT
Congratulations on making platinum Excellent Can you take time off from work to get the vaccine, as it does take some time? Here in NH, if your spouse gets an appointment, you can go with your spouse, and get vaccinated, too. We've also gone to 16 and over for vaccinations, so there's really no more age restriction to getting vaccinated. I hope you get vaccinated soon. Glad your wife will be vaccinated for the trip!
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Post by bazookagoof on Apr 5, 2021 0:45:55 GMT
Congratulations on making platinum Excellent Can you take time off from work to get the vaccine, as it does take some time? Here in NH, if your spouse gets an appointment, you can go with your spouse, and get vaccinated, too. We've also gone to 16 and over for vaccinations, so there's really no more age restriction to getting vaccinated. I hope you get vaccinated soon. Glad your wife will be vaccinated for the trip! Regrettably, there is only one shot available for Yili- so no point in me going. Besides, she's the breadwinner in the family so it's vital that she not get sick. Especially since she's the one taking Vicki out of state. When there's a shot available for me (unlikely any time soon) I'll go when it's time. I doubt they would object at work if I needed to leave earlier, or come in later, as it's for a good cause. I'm hoping the age restriction gets lifted soon; I would feel better if Vicki was vaccinated- she's the one who's out being sociable the most! Right now it's not too hard to get a shot if you live in Chicago, but I'm in the suburbs... so it's still going to be a while.
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Post by Bean on Apr 5, 2021 7:21:46 GMT
That's great your wife's getting the jab soon, especially if she's travelling. It gives you all some peace of mind.
We're onto people in their 50s at the moment and working down (some areas are ahead of others depending on their population), but the vaccination rates have slowed down a bit because of supply issues.
They want people in households with school children/ teaxhers to get tested twice a week too, to give more data on how schools going back are affecting infection rates. The lateral flow tests were touted as being pretty unreliable so I wasn't to enthusiastic about them at first, but I don't know of any false positives (a positive is always confirmed with a PCR test, and that result taken as the true one if they differ) and they've definitely picked up a few asymptomatic cases in all the schools round here.
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Post by 3piggles on Apr 5, 2021 18:49:03 GMT
I think colleges are still doing regular testing, but the testing site at the vaccination site(it used to be for both) seems to have closed. As far as I know, only people planning to travel on public transport(plane, train, bus) have to provide a negative test within 48 hours of traveling, so maybe with all who have been vaccinated, the testing demand has dropped. I don't know.
Our vaccinations are open to 16 and older, now, with the hope of having everyone 16 and older vaccinated by May. Don't forget, we only have 1.4 million people in the whole state, so getting us all processed isn't the logistics nightmare it is in other places.
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Post by Bean on Apr 6, 2021 7:20:54 GMT
The routine lateral testing has just been rolled out to the whole population, so anyone can request packs of the tests to do their own checks twice a week. It's entirely optional, and many people won't as they don't want/ can't afford the chance of having a false positive and having to take time out. But as well as providing more data about how the virus is moving around communities, it might give some more vulnerable people peace of mind to know they and the people they're meeting with can do a test before any, even distanced and outdoors, socialising.
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Post by 3piggles on Apr 6, 2021 23:47:16 GMT
I think it's basically a really good idea. The potential for the false positives is unfortunate, as people who live in constantly changing bubbles(taking mass transit to work, working in a public service job with lots of interaction with different people, having children in schools and in bubbles of their own, having spouses/partners in different bubbles, etc), need to know if they're contagious, so they can be taken out of all the bubbles, yet as you said, they can't afford not to work or go to school, so they won't use the tests At least the most at risk people can, as you said, have their bubble tested, and know it's safe Warmer weather for a few days(as far out as the report went), so it's nice to be able to go out and feed the critters without needed 10 minutes of getting dressed in warm clothes.
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Post by Bean on Apr 8, 2021 6:56:55 GMT
I've got some some posh bird seed - I wanted to test my neighbours' theory that the birds don't like the cheap stuff as much! We've been getting more goldfinches than usual recently, so I hope it encourages them to stick around. They're so pretty.
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Post by 3piggles on Apr 8, 2021 19:08:34 GMT
Wow! What a gorgeous bird! Our goldfinches don't look anything like that. Definitely stick with the better food. There's far less waste.
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Post by Bean on Apr 9, 2021 6:38:53 GMT
I don't get any waste from the cheap stuff - it disappears and if some of the birds are being fussy, the pigeons and squirrels hoover up what they don't want! But we'll see if this stuff goes down even better.
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Post by 3piggles on Apr 9, 2021 21:26:54 GMT
We feed enough that the hulls and seeds that fall make quite a mess. Birds and squirrels are messy eaters. We've raked up pounds of waste, and there was still a lot of seed in it all, which I'm sure has been eaten since I shoveled it up onto the berm.
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Post by bazookagoof on Apr 12, 2021 1:41:46 GMT
I spent the weekend cleaning up and organizing my space in my basement; I noticed my bookshelves were getting out of hand and needed care. I also threw out some junk and was able to find places for odds & ends that were lying around for a few years. It felt good; I try to do this whenever I notice things getting messy down there. One interesting item was a receipt from a gas station; It wasn't mine, but belonged to my buddy Andrew. I imagine it was in his car and I thought it was mine, and pocketed it for disposal later (and forgot to do that). The date said November 25, 1997, and gas was just $1.19 at the time!
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Post by Bean on Apr 12, 2021 6:15:10 GMT
Sounds like a productive sort out. I'm more likely to start one and then get bored halfway through and wander off leaving even more of a mess...
I'm pretty sure when I got my license (so early 90s) it was under 40p a litre - it's 3.5x that now. Not as crazy as the changes in house prices over that period!
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Post by 3piggles on Apr 13, 2021 0:11:10 GMT
I got my drivers license in 1970, and gas was 36 cents a gallon. I remember when prices jumped to 50 cents a gallon, when we had the gas shortage in the mid 70s, and thinking that was highway robbery. We also had lines over a mile long at the gas stations, a $5 max purchase, and the start of car pooling and subcompact car sales. Subcompact cars weren't new, but they were cheaper, were bought pretty much by college grad females starting their first jobs, than by the majority of the public. The Ford Pinto didn't get any better gas mileage than the larger cars, as it was heavy. I had a Chevy Chevy Chevette, which did get good gas mileage.
Gas has gotten to $4/gal in the parts of the US, but when it gets very high here in NH, there seems to be a mass stoppage of driving, followed by a major loss in toll revenue, and a return to semi-decent gas prices. I don't know about the rest of the country, and do know Connecticut and NY have higher gas prices than we do, because they have higher taxes on gas sales than we have. Last I checked, their gas prices were up to $2/gallon than ours. A former member who lives in San Diego, CA, said gas is over $5/gal there.
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Post by bazookagoof on Apr 13, 2021 0:32:47 GMT
Gas has gotten to $4/gal in the parts of the US, but when it gets very high here in NH, there seems to be a mass stoppage of driving, followed by a major loss in toll revenue, and a return to semi-decent gas prices. I don't know about the rest of the country, and do know Connecticut and NY have higher gas prices than we do, because they have higher taxes on gas sales than we have. Last I checked, their gas prices were up to $2/gallon than ours. A former member who lives in San Diego, CA, said gas is over $5/gal there. We're fluctuating between $3.15-$3.30 a gallon in the Chicago area. I'm surprised it's more expensive elsewhere, as for a long time Chicago had the highest prices in the nation. Whenever I would visit my buddy in Indiana, I would always gas up over there, as it was almost always fifty cents cheaper per gallon across the state border. Unrelated, but I'm a tad miffed- I tried to get an appointment for the vaccine and was told they had appointments open- but I needed to schedule one through my Walgreens account. As I couldn't remember my password (It's been years since I used my account) I had to reset it- which only took about five minutes- and in that time all the appointments were booked. Everywhere else within a 25 mile radius is unavailable; either there are no appointments or they are out of vaccines.
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