I still haven't been able to purchase toilet paper. Or eggs or chicken. But ground beef is back!
New Jersey has 269 cases of Covid-19 now. We may be headed for a situation like in Italy; if you're not sure what that means, listen to this episode of The Daily.
It's grim.
Adult get-togethers have petered out, but my kids are still going out into the world some. They've gotten together with other kids to play Magic, and Alex has been over to Rutgers a few times with his rocket-club. The leader of the club has a key card, and they've been getting into some building they call "The Cage" in order to use the 3-D printer, aeronautic software, and other technology to build their rockets. But, sadly, this seems to be coming to an end. And the big launch has been canceled.
We've started virtual school, and our district is really on top of things. Some teachers -- including my wife-- are using live-streaming video to do lessons. The students seem happy to do the work, as many of them are locked down in the house. I had my Creative Writing kids just write down some observations of the new normal. One girl saw kids playing basketball while wearing masks and gloves.
I've gone on a few adventures with the kids. We went to the liquor store and stocked up on wine, beer, and good tequila. No problem there. Then we went to Costco in North Brunswick. Supposed to be less crowded than Edison. The parking lot was full but not overwhelming, and when we entered the store, we thought we might be okay. But the kids scouted out the lines and they were endless. They stretched to the back of the store. And there were a lot of old people there, waiting in close quarters. We beat a hasty retreat.
A random upside to this crisis: more people in Donaldson Park than ever before: running, biking, walking, playing tennis. Everyone keeping a six-foot distance. All this hanging around, not going to bars and restaurants and malls, may spark a fitness revolution. People are so bored they are taking walks. More importantly, I think this influx of active people has scared the damned geese away.
The virus is starting to get politicized, and rightly so. Trump did an absolutely horrible job preparing the country for this. He's trying to revise things now, as he does, but read over his timeline of tweets and comments. It's absurd. In February, Trump said "it's fine" and "it's a hoax" and the stock market is great and the virus is going to disappear. He was worried about numbers and optics, he didn't get ahead of the curve on tests, his payroll tax cut proposal targets the wrong people (and is more of a stimulus measure for AFTER the crisis, not during it) and countries like South Korea and Vietnam are doing a far better job testing and tracking possible cases.
Trump: you make America suck.
But that's what the people wanted. So be it. I hope he gets it together and devises some kind of package specific for people who have been hurt financially. Frankly, I don't need a payroll tax cut, but there are people out there who are really hurting because of this.
Last week, I sold all my stocks and ETFs. Just in time. This week, I've been day trading some stocks on terrible, uneducated hunches. I bought Merck because they might have something to do with reagents. I bought Skechers because I've seen a lot of people walking and running. I've got some other dumb ideas I might try-- contact me privately and I'll let you know . . . but I charge Warren Buffet-like financial advisor fees.
I'm trying to exercise as much as possible, but I'm also eating out of boredom. I'm trying to limit drinking to a few days a week, but that's hard as well. We've been killing time with tennis, ping-pong, Bananagrams, Better Call Saul, Letterkenny, and Kim's Convenience.
And RISK. We bought RISK for ten dollars on the Nintendo Switch. Ian crushed us. I had some trouble navigating the controls but got better as the game went on. I had a bit of a headache from all the 3-D map graphics, but the game is much faster than the board version.
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