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LaCoronaVida #7 – (Almost) Wordless Wednesday

Still WFH (“Working From Home”) for now, since the middle of March!!

I am retiring, my last day “at work” is this Friday, then I am “on vacation” till the end of the month.

I got a surprise delivery today. A nice box full of snacks and a nice photo book.

I really appreciate it. And the box could double as an urn when the situation occurs. Well it could!!!! Might have to put the ashes in a sack so they don’t sift through the cracks in the box. – Hey I’m just being practical. Really, it did come as a total surprise. I have really been blessed in my career. Forty three years in the energy industry and never got laid off. That is unheard of these days. And especially during this downturn most energy people are getting cardboard boxes instead of nice gift boxes.

You sure do miss out on the company gossip while WFH. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Been spending a lot of time watching the wildlife in the back yard.

And I’ve been charting the Oklahoma Covid-19 Stats. I have a new graph from Apple showing their mobility index for Oklahoma with early January being equal to 100. It shows us Okies slowing way down after the lockdown and now we are faunching at the bit and are just as busy as we were before. I am dreading what that might mean.

What have you been up to?

LaCorona Vida #3

Another day or two in the brave new world we are in. What a mess! I read that White Supremacists are using this to recruit new members. Great…

Meanwhile life goes on. I am still working from home and also trying to coordinate the last details on finances and health care for when I retire at the end of the month.

We met with one of Logan’s doctors. We didn’t want to zoom it so we went live. I hate the precautions but hey they are necessary, so we do them. Lots of people are abandoning them.

We started to go on a hike at nearby Lake Bixhoma. We saw these donkeys but abandoned the hike when we saw lots of poison ivy. PI is the gift that keeps on giving!! So we only got 1.3 miles in, better than nothing.

Heather and I are mad about these Keens shoes. They are comfortable and cool. We are spending a lot of time outside in them and we each have three pairs.

At least Oklahoma still has great skies.

LaCorona Vida #2

So today’s LaCoronaVida is about Ginger our rescue wiener dog mix. She’s 14 years old and you know things get a little touchy at that age with dogs. She’s been having trouble for a while with her rear legs and this morning she could hardly move them. As she got woke up things got better but still. So Heather called the Vet and we got an appointment at 4:30 this afternoon.

So we had all day to think about it. I mowed the yard and Heather did some gardening and we ran a couple errands but our hearts were not in it.

At about 11, the State of Oklahoma released the last 24 hours data on our Covid-19 situation. New cases and deaths have been plateaued for weeks and hospitalizations are trending down. Okay, lets open her up and let her rip. Golf Courses, and stores opened up here today. We are still isolating cuz that is how we roll.

So finally the day passed and we scooped up Ginger and went to the Vet. Vet thinks she needs acupuncture and gave us a referral. I felt like a big weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I mean Ginger is a pain in the ass but we love her. And we know that its just a matter of time with her. In the meantime, she bright and alert and loves to eat. So we’ll check out acupuncture for the old lady.

Now that I got you cheered up how about a drone video from my new toy. I put the drone over Heather’s head and sent it up as high as it would go. It is limited because we are in the flight path of one of the runways. It’s still pretty high.

So it was another day of LaCorona Vida. Running errands with our masks on and curb delivery. Less and less people are wearing face masks. So I guess we are getting used to this.

Skywatch Friday – Spring Storm Coming Through

This past Tuesday we knew we were having a storm blow through. Usually no big deal to Okies but this was supposed to be bad. The running and bicycling groups on facebook were cancelling their runs and rides and when that happens you know its bad. I went walking around Lafortune Park at noon and the clouds were already building.

As an aside, they were getting ready to open up the golf course again on May 1. I don’t golf any longer and I didn’t understand why they closed. They are opening up, only one person per cart unless you are in the same household. No pulling the flag on putts and they have removed the rakes for the sand traps.

Sorry, back on focus. Later that afternoon the winds got wild and woolly. We put the dog crates in our “safe space.” We lost our satellite tv reception but I have a digital antenna for the tv I use as a computer monitor in my office so we were able to monitor the weather. No tornadoes locally but there were tornado alerts.

And afterwards we saw one of the biggest displays of mammatus clouds I have ever seen. Usually they are subtle, nothing subtle about these. Everybody in town was posting the clouds on facebook and instagram.

I was able to fly my drone a little bit as the winds died down. Early on, it almost got away from me but I was able to bring it back. I have a mavic mini and it weighs only 249 grams so you have to be careful, especially when you are a rookie pilot.

Later we had a partial rainbow. Here is the northern segment, looking northeast from our house.

And the southern segment looking to the southeast. Storms can be kind of scary and we came out of this one okay and the air was cool and fresh. We’ll be having these all spring and summer I suspect.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday, come join in!

Skywatch Friday – an Epidemic of Walking

The family is together all the time during this pandemic. I am one of the lucky ones who is working from home. Logan, our son, is home from school and continuing his classes online. (Poor kid, one of his history teachers loves to talk, and not constrained by class time he has talked on his subject for over two hours!!!, Nobody is there to tell him that it is time to go.) Heather is an exercise instructor, and the gyms she works at are closed. So we do lots of walking and our dog is loving it.

One of our favorite places to go is Lafortune Park. It has a nice, paved three mile track that wraps around two golf courses, baseball diamonds, playgrounds, and a library. Their is a sculpture garden behind the library that I think has to be one of the best kept secrets in town. Their is Peter Rabbit above.

And Mother Goose, with a gosling on her back. There is Logan checking out Peter Rabbit.

I turn 90 degrees and this is the view. Lafortune Park is nicely landscaped.

And continuing around the park, here is a tree on the golf course. The golf course is shut down but they are still mowing it and maintaining it. Personally I think that they could open it with modified rules. Maybe, only one person per cart unless you have pull cart or something like that. Sorry, I’m diverging, I tend to do that. I don’t play golf any longer but I am worried about keeping the course workers employed, if it can be done safely.

Another golf course scene. As I was taking this a guy said “Dang you take lots of photos.” Huh? It was a friend of mine, who retired in 2018. It was nice to see him. We kept our distance and didn’t shake hands or anything. It was nice to see him. I see all sorts of people now while out walking.

Close to the end of the walk. A combined Redbud and Whitebud tree. They seem to be fused at the trunk.

And to end up, we had a Pink SuperMoon this week. It’s a little hazy because the ranchers north of Tulsa are doing prescribed burns on their pastures so it looks a little hazy. I didn’t care, I just love moons.

So that is it for this week. Everybody stay safe!! Come join the party at Skywatch Friday

Our World – A New World

I’ve been working from home for several weeks now, along with an army of other people. We in that army are the lucky ones who are employed. Others were sent home wondering what is next, others are working in the hospitals, clinics, grocery stores, as police officers and fire fighters and other people working at high risk providing services to us.

Here in Oklahoma we can still do outdoor stuff like running, walking, hiking and other things.

No tennis

No golf (I don’t quite understand that to tell you the truth)

Playgrounds are all taped up, stay away.

The swings have had had their swings removed.

The baseball fields are quiet.

Nature keeps doing here own thing. I am hoping that things ease around here sometime this summer.

How are you doing?

I am linking with Our World Tuesday.

Our World – The Flowers of Woodward Park

Here in Tulsa we are under a an order to Shelter in Place except for essential trips and outside activities away from people are one of the essential trips allowed in addition to the real ones like going to the doctor, grocery store, pharmacy, liquor store, and marijuana dispensary (not kidding!) So one day I ventured off to Tulsa’s Woodward Park. The playgrounds are closed but the flower beds are open.

There were not very many people there. The ones that were kept their distance.

There are always flower pickers (they say the flowers are there for everybody!) but not this trip, thank goodness. One lady was making me nervous as she waded into the beds but as far as I could tell she didn’t trample any.

I don’t know anything about flowers in general or tulips in particular except that I love them. I have no desire to grow them, nope I will enjoy the fruit of other peoples’ labors.

It took a while but I had my fill.

They have great trees as well.

I love this stone bridge. You come to t he park on a nice sunny day and often there is a bride and a whole posse of bridesmaids all arranged on it. You can tell if the photographer is a pro by how nervous they look. The pro’s have to pay a fee to shoot here, they just charge it to the bride’s family as part of the cost. Hacks like me, well I can shoot to heart’s content (but not weddding parties.)

That’s it for today. Everybody stay safe, wash your hands, and hold your loved ones close. (Those that live in your household, others, just kind of wave for now) and come over to Our World Tuesday and join the fun.

Sources of Covid 19 Data for the World, Nations, States, Cities

Image from page 343 of "Anatomy and physiology : designed for academies and families" (1847) — Courtesy of Flickr Commons

I started tracking data for Oklahoma by using the State Health Department web site. That’s okay but it is just a fixed point in time every day. It would be like trying to figure out what is happening in drag race by measuring the speed a hundred yards out of the start. The sites below track the spread of the virus in real time.

If you have your own credible sources of data let me know and I’ll consider adding it.

Johns Hopkins University might be the gold standard. Reportedly some government agencies use it.

Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU)

1point3 acres has a great site focused on the US and Canada

Covid 19 in US and Canada

Here’s a site bopping around on Facebook that seems legit. It says “Use at your own risk” so I am passing that info along as well.

GIS Surfer 2.0

Worldometer has a great site with lots of data and curves. Lots of ads as well but not too bad.

Worldometer

GitHub, somehow related to the New York Times is a great source of data if you want t o create your own visualizations. It’s kind of a nerdy site but worth checking out.

GitHub

Our World – Family Hike at Keystone State Park

Tulsa went into social isolation mode last week. All the bars, restaurants, theaters, bowling alleys and other places were ordered shut to help slow the spread of the Corona virus. My employer had already ordered those that could, to start working at home. Our son’s college has gone online and the various gyms where Heather teaches classes have closed so we were home except for trips the grocery store and to check on my brother at the hospital and Heather’s mother.

The weather was kind of crappy as well so our exercise was limited to walking our one healthy dog in the neighborhood. Saturday we were ready to check out the great outdoors so we ventured to Keystone State Park about 30 minutes away and you can see post to know more about it. We went out there and there were only three cars in the parking lot so we figured that we were ethically fine to go hiking without endangering ourselves or others.

Here are Logan and Heather right after we started.

The trail was a little wet in places but in great shape. The state takes really good care of it with the help of volunteers. I helped out a week or so ago, lopping branches and picking up litter. What also helps is that the trails are designed as opposed to Turkey Mountain where the trails just kind of happened. It makes a difference you know making sure that water flows across a trail rather than down it.

Keystone features rocks and trees with a healthy amount of water. This tree looks to be growing right out of the rock.

The water level was up a little. We did about three fords. We didn’t get our feet too wet.

Here are Heather and Logan doing a little social distancing during a rest break.

Another tree growing out of a rock.

And my favorite, dancing trees. When we got back to the trail head our car was the only one there. We hopped in and drove straight home. I hope everybody is being safe as we go through this Corona Virus thing together in the entire world.

Check out the World Health Organization for the straight facts. Don’t be disseminating bad information. Too much of that going on already.

I’m linking with Our World Tuesday, come join in the fun!!

Skywatch Friday – Springtime is Near

This weekend I went down south of Tulsa to the banks of the Arkansas River. Away from Tulsa and the low water dam it starts to reclaim its identity as a wild, braided, prairie River. Lots of sandbars and funky currents and other things to get kayakers and canoeists in trouble if they are not careful.

I find me some dancing trees on the bank. I love spring but I love seeing the structure of trees.

I went hunting for a geocache in some woods away from the river. There was no trail and lots of bushwhacking. I didn’t find the cache, but that is okay. I loved the view.

I did find these worn out baseballs placed together. It amazes me what one finds in the middle of the woods in hard to reach areas. I have no idea what the story is with these balls. I left them there if you want to go looking for them.

Hmm, I caught a glimpse of something else out there.

I went for a closer look. I don’t know why but I think it is a portal to another dimension. A dimension away from adulting. Adulting is hard. You already know that. I decided not to go through the portal. I didn’t know if the wi-fi was any good or not.

We had a super moon the other night. Great!! But we also had lots of fast moving clouds that was kind of messing things up. So I did the best I could. I tinted it pink because I could and I liked the way the light ended up.

I got better results the next night.

How about you? Have you ever been tempted to enter a portal to another dimension? I am linking to Skywatch Friday

YogisDen.us

Welcome to my world