Thursday, July 23rd, 2020

Rainy Season

Clearly the rainy season is upon us with yet another thunderstorm tonight starting just after I returned from the pool, so enough time to cover the outside furniture and bring the bin out as it is garbage day tomorrow. By the time they will come and pick them up all recycling items will be water logged, in particular the paper and cardboard bin should become interesting, even though the rain is not as heavy as yesterday, when the bins would probably have just taken a swim down the road as our road turns into a gushing river and sweeps everything in its way along. That has happened once before and we had to chase after them in the pouring rain. We did manage to capture them about a block and a half downhill. Given the rain is nice and warm it is not at all unpleasant to get soak. The lightening and falling trees constitute the biggest risk.

After last nights’ rain it was nice and cool this morning and I spend the first few hours of my 5-hour morning call working from the garden. Around 10:30 it became rather humid and I migrated back into the artificially climatized environment of our home. After 7 hours on MS Teams and fiddling with various powerpoint decks for 10 hours - at times multitasking – I was really done, so much so that I even contemplated skipping my 19:00 swim. I am glad I did not, it is always reviving.

Since I did not do any of my morning practice today, I did a few Katas before heading to the pool. I finally remember the entire sequence and can thus practice the moves alone! Small victories. It seems the Butternut Street folks have a contingent meeting up in Rock Creek Park to practice, so our dojo is not the only one where a small group of members has decided to brave it and meet for weapons practice in the park. I will see if I can join them as well, which might bring practice up to three or four times rather than twice a week. Nice prospects.

EM has signed up for dive practice to make up for yesterdays rained out practice, so I have no sailing companion. Not sure if I will go out alone, with lots of wind maybe, but wind speeds are forecast at 12km/h, which speaks for a slow leisurely sail. Maybe I convince Zaki or Maureen to join.

Meanwhile the USA virus performance continues to dismal at best. In the past month the USA has added one million new infections to its count bringing todays total up to 4.11 million of the globally confirmed infections of 15.4 million. Interestingly, the worldwide recovery rate is 60%, while in the USA so far only 25% of known infected are reported as having recovered. That does not speak for the US healthcare system.

In an effort to find a cure antibody research is advancing rapidly. Researchers have identified a cocktail of anitbodies which could be produced at scale and and transfused into the blood to fight the virus or prevent it from taking hold.

With all this research there is hope yet that one day we may return to life as we knew it.