Grigory Lukin.com

Friday evening – wooooo, vacation at last! Can’t really believe it’s finally here. I’ll finally get to catch up on sleep and explore a new little part of the world… The plan is to hop into a rental car at noon (I’m not putting all that extra mileage on mine; besides, the rental is a 4WD), load it up with supplies, then drive north and north and west… Thunder Bay is 15 hours away from here, so I’ll spend the night at a rest stop.

I won’t lie – I gave some thought to packing up my entire desktop rather than saying goodbye to ESO for two whole weeks, but fortunately I’ve decided against that. It’ll be strange to abandon that little virtual world in favour of the bigger and more real one. How much will our world change by the time I return? How much will I have changed?

As I’m doing my one-man celebration, my old country is going to hell in a handbasket even faster than before. The nameless camouflaged thugs I wrote about last night have shocked the rest of the country too. There’s noise. There’s table-pounding. There are congresscritters from Oregon demanding to know who the hell those thugs were. (The best bad guess right now is that they were with customs enforcement.) This is a direct continuation of the nameless thugs with guns in Washington. That got away with it that time. If there’s insufficient action and outrage this time, they’ll escalate again in a few weeks. This is scary totalitarian stuff, not the sort of thing you’d see in an alleged democracy. (I am so very, very glad I moved.)

That mess has overshadowed covid, at least for today. The South is still overburdened. Miami is still the epicenter, with its mayor waffling and not taking any action. The White House press secretary said something truly remarkable: “Science should not stand in the way” of reopening schools. If someone, somewhere, someday makes a documentary about the history of this pandemic, I hope that soundbite gets used: it embodies so much of the current weaponized stupidity.

At work, we have been tentatively allowed to remain home if we feel like it. Theoretically, this means we’ll be able to work from home through early January. In reality… We’ll see. I’m really curious what the world will look like by then. Hell, I’m curious what I will look like by then: my last haircut was about two months ago. (It’s not like I actually go out and meet people these days.) I haven’t shaved in 54 days. When talking on Skype yesterday, xgf said I look like a werewolf – I’m curious to see if I can get all the way to yeti six months from now.

I hope y’all have a nice safe weekend free of any jackbooted thug interference. Stay safe out there, folks.

Thursday evening, and my vacation is sooooooo close. It’s not exactly going to be like my last real getaway (my second visit to Costa Rica in early 2017) but it’ll still be fun and fine. A change of scenery, some shiny shiny minerals, a loooong road trip… Can’t wait. I really need this.

Had a long fun Skype call with xgf: we looked at the pics each of us had taken during the 72-day-long AirBnB odyssey. Some of them turned out quite great. A couple of adorable short videos. Such lovely memories, forever digitized. (Note to self: self, make more backups.)

Xgf is feeling better, though it might be the virus taking two days off. I won’t fully relax till she goes 4-5 days in a row without any weird symptoms.

In the covid news, some Canadians are vocally and righteously angry: a new government report said there were ~21,000 complaints about American tourists hanging out in Canada, not quarantining, and definitely not driving straight to Alaska like they promised they would. The favourite idea I’ve read so far was to attach an ankle bracelet to each American crossing the border, then monitor their movements. Heh. It’s grotesquely and darkly ironic that the worst stereotypes and accusations Americans (well, some Americans) threw at Latino immigrants are now being hurled right back at them: keep that diseased vermin from crossing our border! Build a wall! (Hey, I’m just repeating what other Canadians said on social media.) Yesterday, on the way to drop off medical gadgets at xgf’s place, I saw a cart with a Floridian vanity licence plate…

In Florida, Disney World has fully reopened for business for the first time in four months. Florida’s official numbers (which are of iffy quality and verisimilitude) keep growing, with their governor’s official position best summarized as ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Georgia governor Brian Kemp issued an executive order banning all the local municipalities from enforcing mandatory mask laws. That’s a whole new kind of crazy, especially given that the CDC is headquartered in Atlanta. What a juxtaposition of brainiacs and cavemen. Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt tested positive for covid. Earlier, someone saw him shopping at Walmart without a mask. What is it about the South?

Oh, and in positive news, the White House has decided they won’t take away the CDC’s covid data after all. Either the public backlash proved particularly strong or they had no way to enforce this in any case. In less stellar news, there are videos of random masked men in quasi-official uniforms detaining people in Portland and dumping them into unmarked vans. They have no badges or identification. Some sort of federal employees, perhaps, but this is still disturbing as all hell. This is precisely what happened earlier in Washington DC: there wasn’t a loud enough outcry, so I guess someone local decided to try that now. The big difference here is that someone in Oregon must have authorized this. I have this rotten feeling that this is only a preview of things to come…

I try to be an optimist, I really do, but… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Tuesday night. Xgf might have covid. Five days ago, she went to a “celebration of life” ceremony: a friend of hers had died of cancer. There were multiple people present. She said they were mostly socially distancing, but she didn’t mention whether she wore a mask, and there were long Buddhist chants involved… It might end up being like the choir cluster months ago, where almost everyone got infected…

Xgf says she developed most of the typical symptoms today, though maybe it’s just food poisoning caused by bad beef after her refrigerator issues two days ago. Regardless, I’ll swing by after work tomorrow to drop off my personal thermometer and oximeter. (Already ordering replacements for myself.) She may need them, and the oximeter in particular is a damn good way to determine when it’s time to hurry to the nearest hospital.

Here is hoping she doesn’t have it. If she does…

In covid news, which is basically just the US news these days: they caught two elderly Floridians who drove to northern Ontario (allegedly to check up on their property) and failed to self-quarantine for two weeks. That was folloed by fines of $1,000, close monitoring, and major scorn of everyone on social media. (Which, as we know, is the worst punishment there is.) One of my favourite authors, Joseph Fink, wrote that the covid-testing process in New York is insanely long, confusing, and costs $40 rather than being free. He suggested that may be deliberate in order to keep reporting fewer new cases… Maybe he’s onto something, or maybe it’s just plain old bureaucratic stupidity.

And in a potentially sinister twist, the White House has changed the rules, and now US hospitals will have to report their covid numbers to the HHS (Health and Human Services) rather than the CDC. The consensus is that this change will not result in increased transparency, openness, or accurate covid reporting. It really is amazing that at this point in the game, with refrigerated trucks on their way to overfilled morgues and at least 138,000 deaths, the government still thinks they can sweep this under the rug. When the Chernobyl mini-series came out a year ago, a lot of folks laughed and said that dictatorships always fail when it comes to disasters. And yet… Heh.

Off to get something resembling eight hours of sleep. May tomorrow be marginally better.

Monday night. It’s curious how most of the covid news now comes exclusively from the US. Earlier on during the pandemic, there was no shortage of scary headlines from around the world. Now it’s just Americans doing crazy American things. Yes, there was the case in France where angry bus passengers attacked the driver, who ended up brain-dead, and then had his life support turned off. For that single case, though, there are at least 10 in the US with angry savages brandishing weapons, threatening, or outright attacking service industry employees: servers, cashiers, etc…

There’s a SpongeBob meme going around of the US watching sadly as other countries have fun. Parts of the country are starting to backtrack again: a huge chunk of California, including Los Angeles, just shut down again. No more public spaces. If the US had just shut down for a couple of months in March, all of this could’ve been avoided. It would’ve been cheaper, easier, and would’ve saved countless lives. Instead, there’s a terrifying mess that makes the rest of the world look on in horror.

Maybe it’s the rapidly unfolding epidemiological disaster, maybe it’s too many people sitting at home daytrading, maybe it’s something else – but the stock market has gotten more irrational than it had been in quite a while. Both Amazon and Tesla set all-time-high records with their stock prices, in lieu of absolutely nothing. Both of them have Q2 earning releases scheduled for late July, but there’s no reason to expect them to be phenomenal. Knowing nothing else about this situation, this looks like a pump&dump. Then again, both of those stocks have really bizarre valuations. They could double just as easily as crash by 60%. Time will tell.

As with so many things – the pandemic, the stock market, my permanent residence application – just gotta be patient, and sit still, and not do anything rash. It’s funny how deliberately doing nothing can feel harder than most things I’ve done before. Heh.

Sunday night. I wonder if this blog series will go for 365 days?.. I can just see it now: “day 365; celebrated the anniversary by eating not one but two cans of beans from the hoard we liberated in last week’s warehouse raid. Still no infection.” Heh…

Aside from the ever-present storm cloud of doom and once-in-a-century disaster, today was a good day. Slept in late, played some videogames, started re-reading the most recent book in Jim Butcher’s “Dresden Files” series… The new installment will come out in a few days; it’s been six years since the last book, so some memory refresher is badly needed. Today’s culinary adventure: a stir-fry with every vegetable I’d bought that hasn’t gone bad or tried to grow despite being stored in the refrigerator. (I’m looking at you, you traitorous carrots.)

Xgf’s day wasn’t quite as good: two repairmen showed up to fix the ceiling crack in the bathroom, disregarded her request to wear masks, and left without explaining if they’ll return. Shortly afterwards, the fridge gave up the ghost, and most of the food delivered by a local non-profit’s volunteer (and paid for by xgf) will likely go bad. She just can’t catch a break…

In covid news, the White House is trying to discredit Dr.Fauci because of his candor regarding the incompetence of – you guessed it – the White House. If and when they replace him, it’ll probably be some bobblehead yes-man that will give Baghdad Bob a run for his money. (I wonder how many folks who aren’t international affairs/political science geeks remember Baghdad Bob. Fun character, that guy.) For the first time in over four months, there were no new covid deaths in New York. Huzzay! Interesting article from New Zealand: after trying just about every explanation, contact tracers concluded that a cluster of 71 cases happened because a woman who returned from the US (and promptly self-quarantined) was a super-spreader. She seems to have infected all of her neighbours simply by using the elevator – solo but leaving behind a large viral load. What a strange, strange virus…

And now, time for some more fantasy world escapism (I love ESO so very, very much) before starting yet another workweek, followed by a hopefully amazing vacation five days later. Keep the hope alive, y’all.

Saturday night. This is the four-month anniversary of our decision to escape Toronto, the start of the 72-day odyssey, and the strangest part of my life thus far.

Made up with xgf (though we’re still exes) and dropped by Walmart to buy some of her beloved cheese. I was shocked to see that everyone – absolutely everyone – wore masks, but then I remembered about the bylaw that made masks mandatory indoors and went into effect four days ago, on July 11th. The bylaw claims violators will get fines, and that folks with health conditions can get around the rule without having to explain what their condition is – that seems like a giant loophole, but it looks like everyone was conscientious and didn’t choose to break the rules just for the hell of it.

A week from now, I’ll be far away, sleeping in my rental car, halfway to Thunder Bay and all its amethyst troves…

Earlier today, one of my sisters admitted that she’s a Trump supporter (for the silliest reason, too) and that the 137,000 Americans would have died of covid anyway, regardless of who was in charge. …I think I’ll stop sending her books on epidemiology for Christmas – I’m not sure they worked. So it goes…

In covid news, Trump finally deigned to put on a mask during his visit to a military hospital in Maryland. His supporters are split between “yay masks!” and “that means masks are only required in hospitals.” We’ll see how that develops. The fact that he’s getting kudos for doing the absolute bare minimum… Well, that’s the state of the United States these days.

There’s an interesting trend online: thanks to the pervasive social media, it’s easy to pull status updates of covid deniers who ended up dying of covid. The way Twitter formats screenshots, that forms a four-act play consisting of denial, a public event, a final status update, and an obituary screenshot. That’s morbid as hell and would’ve served as a fine old-timey-styled warning to the masses, but at this point everyone is so entrenched that the compilation would only reinforce existing biases. (“Fake news!” or “he wasn’t a real person!” or “but I’m special and lucky and Jesus loves me!”)

Now that I’m in Canada, I hope they keep the border closed forever…

It’s Thursday evening, and I need to catch up on sleep. My favourite podcast, “Welcome to Night Vale,” had a live streaming show tonight. (Well, technically, that’s the only podcast I listen to.) They had some connection issues halfway through, so I turned down the volume, went on Twitter on my phone, and woke up when the livestream ended. Oh well. The script is out there, so I can always catch up later.

Between the work (still very busy) and the gaming (still very addictive and helpful), there’s just not a lot of hours left in the day, but I suppose I could make a concerted effort and force myself to get seven hours of sleep per night, eh.

Either there’s something seriously wrong with Toronto or I didn’t take out trash often enough, but there’s a lot of fruitflies circling all around my room and getting in the way. I’ve closed the window, removed all organic waste, and swatted a bunch of them out of the way, so maaaaybe that will help?

…I haven’t been exercising enough. My nutrition is fine, but I’m definitely not burning enough calories. I saw someone mention the Wii Fit Trainer the other day, but when I went looking, I discovered that a) Nintendo Wii got discontinued years ago, b) its replacement, Nintendo Wii U, also got discontinued years ago, and c) the replacement’s replacement, Nintendo Switch with the Fit Ring Adventure, is pretty neat but completely sold out. Poor Nintendo: just when they figure out their manufacturing bottlenecks (2006 was brutal), there’s a once-in-a-century pandemic. Heh. Here’s hoping all the hiking I’ll do on my vacation will make up for months of no gym.

In covid news, more and more hospitals in the south are running out of space. Fifty-six in Florida, quite a few in Mississippi. Trump keeps insisting (in the least literate way imaginable) that if the US stopped testing for covid, all the cases would go away. …I wonder if he thinks that over 100,000 Americans are just playing dead to spite him. Then again, he probably doesn’t think of them at all.

Forgot to mention this a few days ago, but the US is officially leaving the World Health Organization. WHO has its flaws (so many, many, many flaws) but it’s still a net positive in the world. Maybe. Sometimes. It’s maybe sometimes a net positive somewhere in the world. With the US stepping away, that almost certainly won’t make either the US or the world safer. On the domestic front, the CDC and the White House are in a strange tug-of-war. The CDC’s new guidance claims schools must take safety measures. The White House (namely Trump) criticized said measures, followed by mixed messaging (which ended in defiance) from the CDC. Everyone is as confused as you are, dear reader. We’ll see.

Typing this up, looking at the giant Canadian flag hanging on my wall, I’m once again so very happy that I’d taken the leap and moved to Canada. It’s not perfect, but it’s without a doubt better than the US during a global pandemic. Stay safe out there, my US compadres.

Wednesday evening. It really is amazing how fast time flies sometimes: the understaffing at work has gotten serious enough that they’re importing random backfills from the US. Can’t say I’ve seen that happen before. Some part of me wonders what exactly I’ll see when I return from my two-week vacation. (Only seven business days away now!)

Not much in personal news. It occurred to me that it’s been about two months since my last haircut, and 45 days since my last shave. The Apocalypse Beard still leaves much (so very, very much) to be desired, but I’m kind of curious to see what will happen. (No one aside from my landlords will see my unmasked face at any point soon, anyhow.) The hair is definitely getting longer: when I was 18, I thought I’d cheat the system by saving time and money on monthly haircuts. That was a bad idea. I ended up ruining my own freshman year of college: by the time I cut it off, 18 months later, I looked like a Russian Carrot Top. Here’s hoping I’ll be able to rock the hairdo much better now that I’m 15 years older and (allegedly) wiser. Heh.

Covid news. In a very surprising move, Houston’s mayor Sylvester Turner has cancelled the Republican National Convention that was scheduled for next week. The convention was supposed to flaunt all the mask rules, though Texan VIPs had already said they’d give their speeches remotely. Heh. As far as I can tell, this might be the first time in modern political history where a major party won’t get to hold an annual convention. It’s partly funny, but partly beneficial, since there’ll be less covid spread.

[Edit on 7/10: I misread the article: that was for the Texas Republican convention, not the national convention that will take place in Jacksonville, FL.]

Arizona’s ICU beds are about 85% full now. Dr.Anthony Fauci keeps sounding the alarm about uncontrolled exponential growth, but he keeps being ignored by everyone with the actual power to change things. Fauci isn’t a saint: early on, he was part of the chorus saying that masks are useless. (All part of the ridiculous strategy to sideline them for medical personnel.) Still, he’s as good as it gets in this toxic mess. I’m reasonably certain that if he’d tried going against the party line in, say, Russia, he would’ve been defenestrated ages ago, just like the few Russian doctors who dared to contradict Putin.

The real tragedy of the US approach (if you can call it that) is that it would’ve been so much faster and cheaper (though still expensive) to just lock down the whole country, give everyone a few thousand dollars a month, and just wait it out for three months while shutting down absolutely everything. Instead, here they are, with the economy that’s neither shut down nor running, with masks becoming a symbol of political division, with more cases that were entirely avoidable. Other countries are already opening back up. Canada is almost free of covid. And yet… the moment the US border is reopened, all our efforts here in the great white north will be nullified by irresponsible American tourists. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, eh?