BS: How did the pandemic down time benefit you?

Subject: BS: How did the pandenic benefit you?
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Apr 24 - 01:02 PM

I learned one aspect of the ukelele.

Teenage gamers and young folks joined the hive mind online and challenged Hedge Fund managers to win at gambling.
Sports betting took over the bookies job and legalized online gambling. Many States legalized pot. Many people claimed pandemic money whether they had a business or not. Some people made NFT's like beanie babies. Cryptocurrencies were mined worldwide. Hate groups and Trump infiltrated social media like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and others while a million people died of COVID-19. Russia attacked the rest of Ukraine.

Subject: RE: BS: How did the pandenic benefit you?
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Apr 24 - 01:13 PM

So the pandemic had lots of scammers scamming but potters potted, painters painted and singers sang. Were lessons learned or was there more tragedy than enlightenment?

Subject: RE: BS: How did the pandenic benefit you?
From: gillymor
Date: 22 Apr 24 - 01:32 PM

It seems kind of callous to tote up personal benefits from that time considering all the death and suffering it brought, much of it caused by the incompetent nincompoop who was POTUS through much of it.

Subject: RE: BS: How did the pandenic benefit you?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Apr 24 - 02:15 PM

I'll have to disagree, gillymor. Self-care must involve looking inward and seeing where we stand in relation to the tragedies you articulated. Last week at the credit union I picked up small bills for a garage sale. I'm happy doing things like the sale outside but I still wear facemasks indoors (at the CU, stores, museums, public places in general). Comparing notes with the teller about how coins have gone out of favor since their common use before COVID. I think of many things as BC and AC - Before COVID and After COVID.

During the pandemic I spent a lot of time sewing, something I hadn't done much of for years, and pampered myself by turning a messy kid's bedroom into an efficient sewing studio. I lost weight, and took up some old projects and hobbies. I listened to lots of audiobooks using the public library app I had previously ignored, and worked jigsaw puzzles. I cleared and organized the sunroom to give myself a dedicated table for working those puzzles.

Family members bought cloth fold-up chairs to keep in our vehicles so if we got together for a takeout meal we were prepared to set up in a park or parking lot. We've retained some of those practices.

Subject: RE: BS: How did the pandenic benefit you?
From: gillymor
Date: 22 Apr 24 - 02:39 PM

I appreciate your perspective, SRS, food for thought. I suppose I was responding to the title, which seems a little mercenary. (pandemic needs to be fixed in title)

Subject: RE: BS: How did the pandemic down time benefit you?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Apr 24 - 04:31 PM

Added text to the title reflect the use of time during the pandemic, as articulated in that first post.

There is a lot of lag time in the statistics reported now about COVID infection, hospitalization, and death trends. The CDC Data Tracker is about 10 days behind (far better than any others I could find and make sense of).

If you go look at the numbers here you can learn a bit more:
COVID Data Tracker - set the geographic area, and choose the left and right axes to get numbers that might make sense. There is a slider at the bottom to move it to looking at more recent times versus cumulative numbers.

People are still reporting getting exposed to it, to catching it, to being vaccinated against it. It's still a big deal, but so shopworn that people ignore it now.

Subject: RE: BS: How did the pandemic down time benefit you?
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Apr 24 - 07:17 PM

I did some rock art but was less active which made a comeback painful.
Only my eldest son got COVID 19 so we were lucky. I almost got movied to death between Amazon and Netflix. When pot became legal I tried it after decades of absence. I didn't like it and wondered what the attraction was so many years ago. The Trump years seemed unbelievable yet stark. Vaccine research got a shot in the arm but the pandemic, unlike the moon, had two dark sides. For parents with young children, it must have been more hellish.

Subject: RE: BS: How did the pandemic down time benefit you?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 Apr 24 - 09:52 PM

The pandemic opened up opportunities for online singing. I went crazy at first, and sang online almost every day. We opened up the Mudcat Worldwide Singaround in June 2020, and it's still going. Those singarounds have allowed me to meet singers from all around the world. Many of those Zoom singing sessions have shut down, but many have continued. I'd love to shut down the Mudcat Singaround and resume my afternoon naps, but the demand for the Singaround is still quite healthy.

Subject: RE: BS: How did the pandemic down time benefit you?
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Apr 24 - 10:14 PM

That was a healthy way to sing Joe.

I learned more history, particularly art history. Lotsa surprises.
Like Rembrandt painted 80 self-portraits. However his students practiced copying many self-portraits so there are even more copies out there.
My favorite Van Gogh Seven Sunflowers with an electric blue background got burned up in Japan on the same day as the Hiroshima bombing.

Subject: RE: BS: How did the pandemic down time benefit you?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Apr 24 - 11:17 AM

During COVID, when we were trying to reduce the amount of stuff we carried around to avoid carrying the (then unknown) virus into the house, I trimmed my wallet down to a small leather folder for my driver's license, a credit card, and maybe one or two other cards. It had room for a few bills but no coins. That went into a slim nylon pouch with a long strap that had room for my phone, a couple of writing utensils, and a small notebook. I struggled with change for a while and finally just gave up and paid for many things with the card instead of bills, and if I was handed coins as change I put them in my back pocket. All coins were dropped in a can in the kitchen.

My pocketbook is back to normal size and the current wallet is back to it's old larger self and though it has a small zip compartment for a few coins I still rarely use them. Most coins go from the pants pocket into the can. Some stores (convenience in particular) are less likely to give the last 5 cents of change, just rounding up. And not asking for coins to cover the 5 or 10 cents of a purchase, rounding down. It must be harder on the till count, but retail businesses seem to have concluded that the fuss of handling coins is a waste of time and must have built wiggle-room into the shift-end count.

Subject: RE: BS: How did the pandemic down time benefit you?
From: Mr Red
Date: 30 Apr 24 - 01:15 AM

Not

Subject: RE: BS: How did the pandemic down time benefit you?
From: The Sandman
Date: 30 Apr 24 - 01:26 PM

I agree mr red

Subject: RE: BS: How did the pandemic down time benefit you?
From: Donuel
Date: 02 May 24 - 12:37 AM

Mostly couch potato itis caused physical degradation but its better now.

Subject: RE: BS: How did the pandemic down time benefit you?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 May 24 - 01:45 AM

I lost 3st in weight

Subject: RE: BS: How did the pandemic down time benefit you?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 May 24 - 05:29 AM

I got out of the loony bin just before lockdown, living alone for the first time in my life. It helped me tremendously to be in *quarantine* rather than in *isolation* - if that makes sense.

Subject: RE: BS: How did the pandemic down time benefit you?
From: BobL
Date: 04 May 24 - 04:22 AM

To get myself out of the house and stay isolated, I did gardening jobs in the local churchyard.
Half a century ago this would have been in the care of a full time sexton, but nowadays the local council cuts the grass, graves are tended by relatives (if still around), everything else is - or was, pre-pandemic - done by half-a-dozen volunteers one morning a month. So I started doing a couple of two-hour sessions every day, weather permitting, either routine maintenance or reclaiming overgrown bits, and I'm happy to say it seems to have helped make a difference.

Subject: RE: BS: How did the pandemic down time benefit you?
From: Donuel
Date: 05 May 24 - 08:09 PM

I forgot but I mastered some classical and pop ukelele.

Subject: RE: BS: How did the pandemic down time benefit you?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 09 May 24 - 07:55 PM

It didn’t affect either my husband or me too adversely: we’re both retired, so didn’t have to worry about whether or how we should get to work. We still had our pensions coming in and were spending less than usual through not going out. Our two grown-up kids live locally so did some shopping for us or we got it on mail order.
Musically, it was good: I hosted Zoom sessions weekly and tuned in to lots of others. I miss those now that a lot of people have gone back to live sessions in places too far for me to get to easily.
Health wise, we both had Covid once but not too badly, maybe thanks to having been vaccinated before that. Husband had aortic valve replaced in July 2021: hasn’t looked back since. I have lost more and more of my hearing over this period: maybe could have been reviewed a bit more often if it weren’t for Covid restrictions?

Subject: RE: BS: How did the pandemic down time benefit you?
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 May 24 - 10:21 PM

I did benefit, greatly, but almost all of it was internal. Strangely enough, some of my insights have given me more hope than I have had.

It brought home to me that we’re in a period of transition and we’ll come out on the other side wiser than we were, going in.

I think that the pandemic forcibly brought home to workers that life is meant to be LIVED and enjoyed, that we needn’t live to work but that we work to live. I foresee a great many people opting for work from home, given governmental encouragement and assistance in creating offices in our homes, perhaps childcare problems will be greatly ameliorated with parents signing up to care for each others’ children on specific days, while empty office buildings are converted into livable home units. I foresee that college will still be a goal for many but that vocational colleges will gain equal value.

This -and lots more – is what I think, but then, again, I’m a person who believes that war itself will eventually be recognized and regarded as gauche and outmoded and evil… Maybe someday differences will be resolved by the perpetrators and their ‘handlers' meeting at some crossroad! To me, the very idea that the people at the top send out the powerless to fight and kill other powerless underlings in their names absolutely stinks.