At last, it came to visit us…
January 29, 2022, 3:18 PM
Over Christmas, Elyse and I were in the bag, so to speak. We both came down with some pretty nasty colds. I had congestion that I could feel all the way down into my lungs, a headache, a fever, a general sense of fatigue, and not much else. Elyse had similar, as well as a loss of taste and smell, which I did not have. I ended up missing four days of work for it, which, along with my regular days off, had me out of play for the entire six days between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.
What we had remained a mystery. We suspected that it was probably COVID-19, or as we’ve taken to calling it, “The Ronies,” but we were unable to book an appointment for either a PCR or rapid test, nor were we able to purchase one online, because at the time, the recommendation was for everyone to get tested for any or no reason, and people were eating it right up. We also respected ourselves more than to wait in a line for hours just to rule in or rule out a diagnosis when we already felt as bad as we did. In other words, going out and getting tested wasn’t going to help us get better any faster, and would probably have the opposite effect, making us feel worse than we already did and causing a lot of unnecessary stress. I didn’t need that, especially when you consider that I had spent much of at least two of those days that I was out sick asleep in my bed. We ultimately decided that with a test for an active infection out of the question because of availability issues, we would get an antibody test via blood draw later on to rule COVID in or out after the fact.
In the meantime, with no test to rule the Ronies in or out, we both decided to just treat it like we would any other cold, and drink lots of water, get lots of rest, and do what we could to get through it. Let’s just say that generic DayQuil and generic NyQuil were our best friends, along with Advil® brand Advil (because I like that candy coating on the name brand stuff). I also once again got to experience the joy that is “fever dreams“, which are even weirder than the usual dreams. The best feeling in the world, meanwhile, was when my fever finally broke. Post-fever perspiration feels awesome, not because of the sweating itself, but because it means that the worst is over, and I would be feeling better again very soon.
Continue reading…Categories: COVID-19, Personal health
A weekend trip to Atlantic City…
January 21, 2022, 5:27 PM
From January 13-15, Elyse and I took a weekend trip to Atlantic City, New Jersey. We had been to Atlantic City twice before, both times for a single day each about a year ago. Our first visit was part of a larger weekend trip where we did a little arc across the Philadelphia and South Jersey areas, and Atlantic City was what we did on the last day. The most memorable thing about that trip was watching my drone sail away on South Missouri Avenue, go out of contact, and then locating it about four blocks away, on the roof of Angelo’s Fairmount Tavern. The second trip was a day trip that occurred two weeks later, where we made a day out of the need to retrieve the drone after the folks at Angelo’s had kindly retrieved it off of their roof for us.
This time, we were actually staying in Atlantic City. We stayed at Caesars by Elyse’s request, as she wanted to film the elevators there, which are keycarded (i.e. we stayed there as guests in order to get the access that we needed). I didn’t mind the price at Caesars, nor was it a bad place to stay, so that worked out pretty well. This trip was mostly dedicated to photography, just like the previous adventures in Atlantic City, but with more time to play around. I’m not too much into gambling, but we did make some time for that. We also made plans to get together with family while we were up there, which was the driver for our plans. Therefore, on Thursday, we drove up and more or less made a beeline for Atlantic City. Then on Friday, we had our adventure day. Then on Saturday, we traveled back west to fly the drone, do a few other things, and visit family.
However, on Thursday, Elyse wanted to stop in at Deptford Mall in order to get a screen protector for a new phone that she was getting, as well as film an elevator. I am not unfamiliar with this mall, as I went to this place with my parents back in the early 1980s, and have been a number of times within the past ten years. The mall bears very little resemblance to what it did when I was a child (though there is a Bamberger’s labelscar on the first floor), but it’s still a good, solid mall.
Categories: Family, New Jersey, Photography, Travel
To be salty or not to be salty…
January 10, 2022, 2:45 PM
Recently, news came out that the Washington Football Team, formerly known as the Washington Redskins, would unveil a new permanent name and logo for the team on February 2. For those not familiar with the story behind this, the team had been criticized for many years over its “Redskins” branding, being considered racist against Native Americans. Team owner Dan Snyder had publicly declined to change the name of the team whenever the issue would come up. And for Snyder, that made enough sense. As long as the fans were still buying, there was no real reason to change the name. On one occasion when the issue came up, as it tended to do from time to time, local commentator Chris Core said in one of his commentaries on WTOP that it wasn’t really a matter of “if” but rather “when”, and that given enough time, the name would eventually be changed. I saw it similarly to the way that Core saw it, that the name would eventually change, but only when it became a drag on the team’s profitability, i.e. once the “Redskins” name wasn’t raking in the cash anymore, it would be dropped.
However, I did not like what some of the more “woke” local news sites did when it came to showing their disdain for the “Redskins” name, though, calling the team by anything but their actual name. Some called it the “Washington Football Team” (well before the team formally adopted that name), and some called them the “Washington Pigskins”. I don’t know about you, but I expect my news organizations to present a fairly dry reporting of facts, without any opining in news articles. I don’t care what the writer thinks about the subject that is being reported on in a news piece – just give me the facts. Their own thoughts on the news belongs in the opinion section, and not a part of the news. In other words, as long as the team was formally known as “Redskins”, then you call them the Redskins, no matter what you think about the name.
In any case, that time when the name was no longer profitable for the team came in the summer of 2020. In the wake of the protests over the killing of George Floyd, and the subsequent wave of renamings to purge racist themes from our cultural landscape (this included the rebranding of Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben’s products, as both were considered to use racist names and imagery), the Redskins’ corporate sponsors did what various activists had never been able to accomplish over years of trying, and forced Dan Snyder to dump the “Redskins” name by threatening to pull their sponsorship of the team if the name remained. Unsurprisingly, the name disappeared overnight, and was replaced by “Washington Football Team” as a provisional name until they could come up with something better. The colors remained the usual Redskins burgundy and gold, but the “Redskins” name and branding was gone, with a promise of a proper name in the future.
Categories: DC area local news