The Sunday Thread for September 6

[OldStrummer]

As I saw earlier, a "bad news" meme: There are still four months left in 2020. I don't know about you, but I'm ready for this year to be over.

Here I am, sitting in the airport in Toronto, having arrived last night at 6:00pm, and have been up all night waiting for an 8:00am flight out. No thanks to the coronavirus, I wasn't allowed to leave the airport (unless I was willing to quarantine for 14 days, which would wreak havoc on a 7 day vacation!). And there were no benches, so there wasn't much space to stretch out (I'm not one for lying on the floor). Though I did manage to find a place where I could put my feet up and almost lie down. Fat lot of good it did because every ten minutes all through the night came a booming "safety" message about wearing mask and social distancing (on a side note, all through the night the in-house TVs were playing news loops, and one that I found remarkable was that Toronto had reported -- are you ready for this -- 46 new cases of the Wuhan. Forty-six. Toronto is the fourth largest city in North America by population. There are some counties in the US that have more cases!).

So, here I am, dog tired and griping. I am hoping that I'll be able to catch some ZZzzs on the six hour flight I have coming up. I don't sleep well on airplanes, so I anticipate my first day in Barbados will be a wash.

If I were to give anyone advice on traveling internationally by air right now, I'd say DON'T.

[Laker]

Old Strummer, I hope your vacation proves to be a great time for all the discomfort you’re going through to get there. Will it be a repeat on the return leg?

We have a wet, stormy Sunday ahead of us today. I was supposed to be playing outside on a club’s patio this afternoon, but with high winds, thunderstorms and hail on the way we cancelled.

On Friday I sold a very nice old Harley that I’ve owned for thirty-five years to a friend and was feeling a little “post partum” depression so on Saturday I purchased a ‘71 Sportster from an old bandmate. Back in ‘82 a friend and I started a motorcycle shop and this Sportster was the first bike we worked on so it’s kind of cool that it’s back in my garage 38 years later. It’s in pretty rough shape (been sitting covered up for 30+ years) but working on it it will give me something to do.

[gibsonjunkie]

I hope your trip works out OS! Nice weather predicted her for the next couple days. That's good - I have a lot of work to do on my deck. My stepson stopped by to help wire up my new outlet to the breaker panel. Turns out I'd wired the outlets wrong in the box - but no damage done - he fixed it in like two minutes. I have to finish flipping the 2x10's on the frame and figure out how to support a new part - at least it won't be too hot to do it. I get less done every day because I just don't have it in me to work all day like I used to - I guess 67 isn't just a number sometimes.

[DanTheBluesMan]

man, I think my main computer is dying. It keeps losing the wifi signal and there's nothing wrong with the wifi network, everything else is working. I'm going to try to find my backup drive and then see how far I can update the OS before I hit the limit on this machine.

I'm already having issues with websites and when I tell them what I'm using I can practically hear them clucking their tongues and tsk-ing "so old" and I'm getting tired of that crap.

Unfortunately I'm an apple fan boi so there's no real 'sales' out there even on this weekend.

No plans other than messing with the computer. No parties no gatherings. The window of weather allowing outdoor dining is closing and I'm not anticipating much indoors action if the people start to flock inside. I'm avoiding crowds like the ... well, like the plague. We've got 8 weeks of daylight savings left then I think other than going for walks and grocery shopping I'm going to be a hermit until a viable vaccine and/or treatment is uncontestedly available.

[ch willie]

Gorgeous day in West Tennessee. Humidity at less than 60% at this time of the summer? incredible. We've had some hot weather this summer but nothing like the summers where the temps never dip below 90 something and the humidity stays so high that you walk outside, and you run into humidity sooooo heavy. This has actually been a fantastic summer for us here.

I'm trying to decide on whether to buy a Ric bass or a Jazz bass for conversion to a fretless. I would never have thought of making a fretless Ric until I was awed by some videos. I'm leaning towards the Ric.

[OldStrummer]

Thanks for the well-wishes, everyone. Sadly, the trip appears to be circling the drain faster and faster. The PCR (COVID) test I took before leaving is deemed "too old" by the Barbadian authorities, so I'm now in the airport waiting area to get tested again. Then, I have to quarantine at an approved hotel for two days while waiting for the results. This screws my hotel and rental car reservations (likely non-refundable at this point), as well as having to pay for a new hotel booking. I checked to see if I could just turn around and go home, but sadly, the earliest flight out is the Thursday reservation I already have.

So, having had the airline screw me out of two days by canceling my original return flight, and now the first two days being stuck in a hotel room, that leaves me ONE DAY to enjoy my trip.

Not to mention how much this is costing me.

Thank me for "taking one for the team." If you want my advice about traveling abroad in the time of coronavirus, DON'T.

[DanTheBluesMan]

dang, dude, sorry to hear that. makes my computer problems trivial by comparison

after much trials and tribulations, I finally got the Time Machine to correctly start the back up of the whole hard drive, not just whatever the hell it originally thought was sufficient. No thanks to the internet. apparently i'm the only person in all of creation who wanted to clone my hard drive on Sierra. Google gave me everything else except what I was looking for. After about 5 hours of ridiculous frustration I finally bent the infernal machine to my will.

Now it's taking about 3 hours to do the backup. And the fruit of all my labor, I can upgrade from 10.12 to 10.13. OS is now currently on 11 something. I'm still going to be 3 or 4 generations behind. Currently typing on music room machine, which is a couple years newer. Once the older machine is updated, I'll begin on this one. That may or may not be tonight.

[S. Cane]

Watched the F1 race with the old Man (what a mess!).Then carne home to watch Spike Lee's "Da five Bloods" on Netflix.

[blackonblack]

man, I think my main computer is dying. It keeps losing the wifi signal and there's nothing wrong with the wifi network, everything else is working. I'm going to try to find my backup drive and then see how far I can update the OS before I hit the limit on this machine.

I'm already having issues with websites and when I tell them what I'm using I can practically hear them clucking their tongues and tsk-ing "so old" and I'm getting tired of that crap.

Unfortunately I'm an apple fan boi so there's no real 'sales' out there even on this weekend.

No plans other than messing with the computer. No parties no gatherings. The window of weather allowing outdoor dining is closing and I'm not anticipating much indoors action if the people start to flock inside. I'm avoiding crowds like the ... well, like the plague. We've got 8 weeks of daylight savings left then I think other than going for walks and grocery shopping I'm going to be a hermit until a viable vaccine and/or treatment is uncontestedly available.

Check your CMOS battery. If it starts to go, losing your Wi-Fi is an early sign the exact time stamps
start being off. I know, just had to address that issue. The battery lasted 8-9 years.

[OldStrummer]

dang, dude, sorry to hear that. makes my computer problems trivial by comparison

You know what the pisser is? I have resisted pulling the trigger on a Martin D28, and now I could have bought one instead of tossing my money down the drain on this "vacation."

[Laker]

Thanks for the well-wishes, everyone. Sadly, the trip appears to be circling the drain faster and faster. The PCR (COVID) test I took before leaving is deemed "too old" by the Barbadian authorities, so I'm now in the airport waiting area to get tested again.

So, having had the airline screw me out of two days by canceling my original return flight, and now the first two days being stuck in a hotel room, that leaves me ONE DAY to enjoy my trip.

Not to mention how much this is costing me.

Thank me for "taking one for the team." If you want my advice about traveling abroad in the time of coronavirus, DON'T.

I’ve never taken a vacation that involved flights and timing of reservations, etc. Is there any way that insurance for flight/hotel reservation can help you out or do you just take it “in the ass” on this?
At this point it appears that the vacation has put stress into your life rather than relieving it. I hope there is some form of silver lining to this whole thing for you.

[dirtdog]

As I saw earlier, a "bad news" meme: There are still four months left in 2020. I don't know about you, but I'm ready for this year to be over.

Here I am, sitting in the airport in Toronto, having arrived last night at 6:00pm, and have been up all night waiting for an 8:00am flight out. No thanks to the coronavirus, I wasn't allowed to leave the airport (unless I was willing to quarantine for 14 days, which would wreak havoc on a 7 day vacation!). And there were no benches, so there wasn't much space to stretch out (I'm not one for lying on the floor). Though I did manage to find a place where I could put my feet up and almost lie down. Fat lot of good it did because every ten minutes all through the night came a booming "safety" message about wearing mask and social distancing (on a side note, all through the night the in-house TVs were playing news loops, and one that I found remarkable was that Toronto had reported -- are you ready for this -- 46 new cases of the Wuhan. Forty-six. Toronto is the fourth largest city in North America by population. There are some counties in the US that have more cases!).

So, here I am, dog tired and griping. I am hoping that I'll be able to catch some ZZzzs on the six hour flight I have coming up. I don't sleep well on airplanes, so I anticipate my first day in Barbados will be a wash.

If I were to give anyone advice on traveling internationally by air right now, I'd say DON'T.

I recall warning you about this exact outcome a couple of weeks back. Sorry you ended up going through with it anyways.

Are you sure you want to be comparing any number of US counties of having more COVID cases than a city like Toronto? Why do you think the border is closed right now? For the record, Toronto has clocked more than 15,000 cases. Fortunately the case counts are dwindling these days. I guess we're doing it right?

I spent my Sunday riding my motorcycle around backwoods Ontario. Clocked around 400 miles. Unfortunately saw someone getting medevac'd by chopper from a motorcycle/ATV collision. Major wreckage. Horrible. Left me a bit shaken during the last half of the ride.

[dirtdog]

I’ve never taken a vacation that involved flights and timing of reservations, etc. Is there any way that insurance for flight/hotel reservation can help you out or do you just take it “in the ass” on this?
At this point it appears that the vacation has put stress into your life rather than relieving it. I hope there is some form of silver lining to this whole thing for you.

If you book the lowest cost budget flight, you pretty much have no recourse. If you pay more (even for that economy seat), you're usually paying for ability to make last minute changes/cancellations. Possible if there's additional trip insurance if you used a particular credit card with certain privileges.

When I travel, my card allows me to make ANY change to a flight for a flat rate. I've done that a bunch, especially for work travel.

[gibsonjunkie]

The idiots down the street decided to celebrate a COVID holiday - or maybe the guy is celebrating getting out of prison. He has been raided by the DEA more than once.

[OldStrummer]

If you book the lowest cost budget flight, you pretty much have no recourse. If you pay more (even for that economy seat), you're usually paying for ability to make last minute changes/cancellations. Possible if there's additional trip insurance if you used a particular credit card with certain privileges.

When I travel, my card allows me to make ANY change to a flight for a flat rate. I've done that a bunch, especially for work travel.

You are correct, except in this case it was a Hobson's choice: take the airfare or don't go. And it wasn't cheap, either.

I have no one to blame for this except myself. And COVID. My eagerness to explore the possibility of working remotely from a tropical paradise led me to what is now the worst vacation I have ever taken. Well, in this case, getting back to work will seem like a real joy by comparison.

[dirtdog]

You are correct, except in this case it was a Hobson's choice: take the airfare or don't go. And it wasn't cheap, either.

I have no one to blame for this except myself. And COVID. My eagerness to explore the possibility of working remotely from a tropical paradise led me to what is now the worst vacation I have ever taken. Well, in this case, getting back to work will seem like a real joy by comparison.

Well, I am sorry to hear that it turned out this way for you. I, too, would love to work remotely in an island paradise! But it’s a catch-22 right? Covid gives us the opportunity to even consider these ideas, yet Covid takes away the ability to easily do so!

[OldStrummer]

Well, it just keeps getting better. NOT.

The Barbadian authorities called me this morning in my prison cell to inform me that even though my COVID-19 test was negative, I would need to quarantine for seven days because I come from a high-risk country. When I replied that I wasn't here for seven days, I was just told to stay in my room until I headed back to the airport. Heck, at home at least I can get out and exercise. Here's the only view of Barbados I'll ever have.