Traveling & Working During a Pandemic

Traveling for work during this nonsense is...something. The last week of September I was out in central Wyoming and back in New York City the next. Do understand that I'm stoked to be back on the road, but there's new adjustments in doing the thing.

It's weird to admit feeling spoiled by New York City Lyft drivers compared to using the app in another part of the country. In leaving for my flight to Wyoming, the Lyft driver wasn't wearing a mask until I asked about it from behind my own. She fumbled around a bit before putting on her mask and then started blasting old school country music I'm assuming to remind me of where I'm from.

The process at the airport was pretty much normal short of most people wearing masks and just about all the food options and most stores being closed. The OKC airport traffic was way down, but my layovers in both Denver and Houston felt like business as usual. The only time I whipped out my eye protection while flying for my Wyoming trip was in the Denver airport. It's not like I was having to avoid people trying to lick my eyeballs, but the place was nearly shoulder-to-shoulder packed in some areas. Just wearing another layer of protection at that point seemed more responsible than dealing with an unnecessary panic attack.

With most of the food options at airports closed, I figured my salvation would be behind the walls of the United Club. Nope... After piecing together a dinner of chips, a cheese stick, and a vodka tonic I re-joined the masses at the airport Chick-fil-As and Shake Shacks. Nothing says "luxuries of travel" like sitting on the floor, facing the wall, and eating fast food out of a paper bag. Oh, and don't forget to brush your teeth any chance you get; those KN95 masks aren't forgiving.

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An unexpected benefit at the moment is United Airlines lowering the requirements with their MileagePlus policies. Currently I'm Silver and somehow most of my flights had me upgraded from economy to First Class. Being at the front of the plane during Covid isn't the same as what it was like in the Before Time (masks, additional fear of death, etc.), but I'm absolutely not complaining about the perks especially considering how full my flights have been. Still, I'm absolutley using that airline provided alcohol wipe to disinfect my seat and tray table.

Now granted, the flight attendants and pilots were only wearing the basic blue medical style masks and no eye protection. I felt ridiculous wearing goggles, especially with them fogging up the entire time, but more than anything I was wearing them to help me calm down when I needed to. Nearly everyone had a mask on at the different airports and most were wearing them properly. It was odd seeing people in those full on splash guard style face shields like they were about to deliver a baby, but I'd rather be doing the thing next to those people vs. the True American Heroes not wearing a mask at all.

In terms of actually being on set, things weren't dramatically different. I've seen a multiple things about the Covid safety preference of using a shotgun mic to record audio, but both my shoots used lav mics. By all means I'd stress the importance of having multiple monitors on set so everyone else isn't up in your business trying to see the image. We didn't have one for the Wyoming job and we should've. For my NYC shoot, we were able to have one for the client and an additional one off set.

Out in Wyoming we shot almost entirely outdoors. There was plenty of space to spread out so social distancing wasn't a problem. At one point I stepped in to help the talent fix the placement on her mic. I'd kept my mask on and she said, "Oh don't worry, I'm not infected. I'm a nursing student and get tested all the time." I kindly replied, "But you don't know that I'm not. I'm not from here and I've been around a lot of people I don't know." Her eyes widened a bit and you could tell she understand my caution.

New York felt completely different. Each of the Lyfts I took while in the city had drivers in masks and a plastic divider between us to stop the spittle. I'd not ridden the subway since mid-March, so it felt like home stepping down into the sights and smells of that underground world even though I – along with everyone else – was wearing a mask. For my shoot, we had to fill out a Covid questionnaire beforehand, wore masks, had plenty of hand sanitizer, and weren't allowed to have food or drinks (other than water) on set.

Several friends of mine living in NYC have talked about how the city somewhat feels back to normal – short of wearing masks and using hand sanitizer all the time. One mentioned how it seemed like most people there were on the same page about masks and fighting back against Covid. It sucks that the rest of the country isn't.

Actively Looking for the Silver Lining

Look, there's no question these last 150+ days of living in our version of the upside down have unquestionably sucked. The bottom of my family's world fell out around March 13, 2020 and no question it's easy to complain about the garbage happing right now. This whole thing still feels like a bad dream and I'm hoping to wake up soon back in our Brooklyn apartment with my fever finally broken.

That being said and knowing I'm actually awake, my small act of rebellion today (and most days) is pulling out the telescope in search of some kind of silver lining. I'll keep it short this week and just to be difficult, I'll break the rule of threes:

  1. I've got a younger buddy here in Oklahoma City who's taking some big swings in trying to up the production value of local commercials. I knew he'd been nibbling away with a group called Studio Flight in the years before I'd left for NYC, but I'm crazy proud and excited for what he's doing now. By all means keep an eye on him if that's your thing.
  1. No question I'm upset, mad, and angry about not getting more time behind a camera right now. We've got a lot going on at the moment and I just can't get out to shoot, but it seems like that pent-up energy has sprung a leak into (possibly) better and more writing and (possibly) better food coming out of the different kitchens I've been hiding in. You'd need to talk to those who've read and eaten what I've made to confirm those bloated assumptions.
  1. With what's going in the world Saint Anne the Wife and I have been crushed by the weight of our family responsibilities, especially considering we've been semi-homeless since leaving our NYC apartment. Over the weekend we moved from my parents' place south of OKC to her mom's on the far northwest side to be closer to her new job. No question how this nonsense has impacted our two boys has been weighing heavy on us. Sunday night's silver lining had us seening a bit of Dr. Jekyll in our younger Mr. Hyde when he helped to comfort his older brother who'd smashed his knee into the doorframe and burst into tears.
  1. The NY Times came out with a semi-hopeful article today about "What if ‘Herd Immunity’ Is Closer Than Scientists Thought?"

No Shortage of Stress

There's seriously no shortage of stress these days. Yes, I'm preaching to the choir over here, but good Lord.

Saint Anne the Wife and my mom are back to school for the fall. The students aren't back just yet, but will be next week. Our little one is back at the preschool we'd left before moving to New York and I've been schoolmarm'in with our older boy. Seriously it's a hot mess seeing the two teachers in my immediate family crashing into their additional responsibilities as web programers as they try and build websites for their remote teaching classrooms. My simple Squarespace site is the Tesla to whatever salvaged title Ford Pinto their schools are having them use. To say it feels like schools are seemingly on their own and stumbling around in the dark in working out how to handle all this is absolutely an understatement. There's also the recent report about how "At Least 97,000 Children Tested Positive For Coronavirus In Last 2 Weeks Of July."

"If there is good news in such a report, it's that, in spite of the uptick in child infection rates, the data also show that most children do not get critically ill with the disease and that, among the states that reported hospitalization data, the current hospitalization rate for children remains low, at 2%. What's less clear is how effectively children would spread the virus in a classroom setting, not only to friends and classmates but to teachers and school staff." - npr.org

We're also in the process of buying a house here in Oklahoma City. No question buying another house here was no where in the plan five years ago – or even April 2020 – but things change. Still, that doesn't make the process any less stressful. If there's any kind of silver lining, interest rates are ridiculously low. I'd bought my first home in 2008 and thought I was king of the world with a home loan at 6.5%. That bone swinging monkey wouldn't know what to do with himself seeing the 2.5% (and a bit lower) space stations of today. Still, we're staying a bit grounded after being pre-approved knowing that we'll need to put off buying a second car till we close on our loan.

Another close to home train wreck from this past week was thanks to a collision in Portland of my current and past lives. I'd connected with a photographer at a coffee shop in Portland while on a job last year. She'd posted a link about a Christian leader holding an event in her town dubbed "Riots to Revival." Turns out to be Sean Feucht, the same dude I'd known and toured with way back in the day. Even in trying to write this I'm nearly boiling over at how selfish, self-centered, and self-destructive this whole thing is. What is happening?

I'm incredibly embarrassed knowing how deep I was in this wretched Christian world at one time. The last few years has had me furiously wrestling with my faith knowing how the loudest voices with the biggest soapboxes in Christianity by default represent the rest of us. Stoked to know other believers weren't having it with this nonsense in their city.

Surreal Enough for Clown Core

Absolutely blaming the surrealness of our current world for me totally missing my weekly post. Ideally I'd like to share some good news or at least something light hearted, but those dopamine hits feel few and far between these days. At this point I'm way past trying to use this blog for anything related to my professional life.

Right now, many of the patterns we know and love have been obliterated... “My wife actually said this to me just a couple of days ago: ‘It's like there's no future,’” says [child psychiatrist Fredrick] Matzner. What she meant was we can’t plan for the future, because in the age of the coronavirus, we don’t know what we’ll be doing in six months, or even tomorrow. We’re stuck in a new kind of everlasting present. “And so everything seems completely otherworldly,” Matzner says. - "Why Life During a Pandemic Feels So Surreal", Wired

Honestly, what's been helpful these days are a handful of gems I've found on YouTube. Here's a few of my favs:

Back (-ish) on Set

This past week made for my first legit dip back into our coronavirus infected production world. I'll leave the project and client details to your imagination because the important thing was that I was actually working on a set again with people who aren't my immediate family.

It was a typical talking head interview shoot, but this one was run by three remote producers on the other side of the country via an iPhone Zoom call. We filmed the two camera interview at the talent's house and there were three of us on set (talent, camera, audio). The talent's spouse stayed in another room the duration of our time there. Audio had their own equipment and the camera gear was shipped in via the production company.

With the basics out of the way, here are the main takeaways:

  • Good Lord it was exhilarating to be working again.
  • Give yourself even more time to setup than you think you'll need.

Obviously safety for everyone was a priority. Production sent out a Covid questionnaire, required a temperature check before arriving on set, and provided surgical masks and rubber gloves.

It's been a minute since hulking around heavy equipment cases and though I'm absolutely "Team Mask," that surgical mask wasn't as generous in helping me catch my breath after a couple flights of stairs as I'd hoped. Turns out too that gaffe tape isn't super friendly to thin rubber gloves. I shredded two pair of the client provided hand condoms in the first ten minutes of setup before tapping my own supply. I'm still working through a box of medium duty gloves my parents shipped us a few months ago.

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I mention the whole "give-yourself-even-more-time-than-you-think-you-need" bit because the camera setups had to be approved by the remote producers. After deciding on the better of two rooms in the house via iPhone pics, we did the whole video chat thing in setting up the camera positions along with sending stills of the camera monitor. No question a slower process than I'd expected and we went through a multiple rounds of revisions before settling in for the interview.

Though there were only three of us, I absolutely know how unusual/unnatural it's going to be to not crowd around a camera monitor like we've always done. I was the one getting notes, reference images, and updates on my iPhone from the producers during setup and had to politely remind the other two in the room about not standing over my shoulder to try and read off my phone. No question those responsible for running a set will need to modify how they communicate and coordinate with the people they're working with (and yes I ended that sentence and this post with a preposition).

Did I mention it was freakin' fantastic to get back on a working set?

Digitizing Old Journals

There's small heavy duty cardboard box near the desk I'm using at my parent's house filled with the notebooks and journals I've been keeping since the mid-nineties. The early ones are spiral notebooks from high school plus some fancy leather bound ones. Thankfully I've settled into the Moleskine family of notebooks, specifically the black soft cover pocket-size with squared/grid pages and a solid pen.

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I'd love to say I'm writing the next great American novel, but mostly it's me hashing out the moody hot-mess of my self-centeredness knowing no one else will likely ever read it. Surely there's some gold in them there hills, but there'll be mountains of incredibly selfish, petty, and self-destructive nonsense to sift through not to mention terrible, terrible writing.

Seeing as how I'm not "working" like I was during the before time and how incredibly easy it is to go through a full day of our new normal without actually accomplishing anything, the mindless task of scanning, flipping to the next page, and organizing the new digital versions of my journals has kept me from the slow spiral into darkness – at least this past week.

It feels incredibly defeating having so little control of our current lives. Anything I can do to fight back is welcomed.

In so many aspects the idea of setting goals has been taken away during this pandemic. Some of the major goals we'd set, invested in, and attained in recent years have been taken out at the knees. The goals I'd set for 2020 have mostly been sloughed away as we've had to reassess our situation. Thank goodness for little victories each day simply keeping us buoyed.

Are the two house fires alive, fed, and clean before bed? Yes.
Are Saint Anne the Wife and I still married and friends? Yes.
Am I still journaling most days and maintaining a weekly blog post? Yes.

So back to this digital archiving of my notebooks. I've been meaning to do high-resolution scans of my journals for years but never got around to it. What I'm doing with my nonsense – at least this round – is based on some Google searches, specifically advice from the Missouri University of Science and Technology and the National Archives:

  • Master Files - color scans at 600 dpi and saving the files in an uncompressed TIFF format.
  • Access Images - smaller versions of those Master Files I'll put together a PDF by journal.
  • Organization - Not sure it's the best means of organizing, but I'm setting up file folder by year_month/quarter (2020_01), the individual scans by year_month/quarter_page (2020_01_001).
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I'd Googled something like "digitizing best practices" and "standards for digitizing paper journals" to somewhat prepare for future use. There's a ton of other options that I'm sure I'll attempt in time, but for now I'm trudging through 25+ years of journal entries and trying to not read each page and gag as I scan it in.

Less Wrecked

Yeesh... I went all out last week and puked my soul onto this digital sidewalk. I'm still coming up with all kinds of things I'll miss once we leave the city: Park Slope Halloweens; subway rides to the beach; all the coffee shops. I'll not get into the hot mess of me crying no less than three times today during my last weekly trip to the Park Slope Whole Foods.

This week has me less wrecked as – again – I aired most of that nonsense out last week. We're still packing up our lives and saying awkward "goodbyes" in a time of no hugs and social distancing. In a few days we'll be uprooting again to head back to Oklahoma.

I'm still glad the high school me decided to get into the habit of keeping a journal. Before last week's emotional dump I was able to look back on my first New York experiences and found a couple notebooks that were over 20 years old. I'm glad too that some of that near daily pen and paper habit has spilled into the digital these last couple years in blog form. It started out partly in a vain attempt to "position myself as an expert" but that nonsense fizzled out fast ('cause we all know the truth). Thankfully it's turned more into a public facing digital journal of where I was at that time each post went live.

These last couple days had me going back through some of those posts from our time as New Yorkers and gorging on the associated serotonin and dopamine floods. Here's a few of the faves (in no particular order):

One Year Later
"Happy Xmas" - Vevo & Contrast Films
Other People > You
Midwinter Break - Cape May, NJ
Fixing my train wreck in post
Vevo Lift Live Sessions: YUNGBLUD & Kiana Ledé
Intentional Time Off

Slowly but surely I'm climbing up from the muck and seeking out the silver lining in this nonsense. I've already got flickers of optimism not far from this transition and I'm hopeful for this next season. Obviously leaving New York for the reasons we are was never the plan, but it's doing me no good just sitting in the dark and having decisions made for me.

I Absolutely Hate This

I don't want to write this. I'm assuming just avoiding it will make it go away. I've never had a bad report from a doctor about a terminal illness, but I'm assuming this is an insanely tiny glimpse of what that could possibly be like. We're leaving New York City and moving back to Oklahoma the end of this month.

We're still healthy and well, but leaving this place and all the time and resources we put into getting here plus the connections and close friendships we've made feels like a part of us is dying. Good Lord that sounds incredibly dramatic and selfish considering that to date nearly 92,000 have died with more 1.5 million cases of coronavirus here in the United States.

Our apartment is already looking weird as we're starting to pack up. There's brand new heavy-duty cardboard boxes collapsed and leaning against the walls just waiting to be useful. Anyone who's been inside a typical NYC apartment knows how tiny they are to begin with, so now it feels even more claustrophobic as we're starting to wrap up our lives here in Brooklyn. Our bookshelf has been emptied and my desk is starting to thin out. We're working our way through our pantry and basing menus on what we've got left vs. buying additional staples we'd have to throw out. We'd purged a good deal of what didn't need in moving from Oklahoma back in November 2018, so we don't have too much to toss before the move back.

I hate this. I absolutely hate this.

We'd planned and prepared for years to move to New York. Now we're here and it's crushing to leave so soon for such a terrible reason.

My first time to New York was during the summer of my Sophomore year of college while on tour with a school music group. I'd specifically written about NYC being impressive and that I'd "...never seen anything like it. I'm not sure if I could live there though. Everything moved a little too fast for me." Keep in mind too that this was 2002 and I was excited enough about eating at the Times Square Olive Garden to put it in my journal. Bonus points too for it being nearly 18 years to the day that I wrote that. Nerd.

That next summer another music tour had me back in New York. I specifically remember being in the city and the moment I committed to living there one day. Just about every major life decision I've made from that point on centered around making the jump to New York happen. When I bought my house in 2008 I was intentional about it being small because I wanted to get used to living in a smaller place. I know Anne and I talked about living in NYC before we even got married. We got her wedding ring not too far from Central Park. Over the years plenty of other major decisions – including selling our home and living off the profits while I worked to get established here – were intentionally made all just to get us to where we are now. Surely that's part of why it's so devastating to leave after only being here 18 months and under these circumstances.

The hardest thing for me is thinking that I failed. In my right state of mind I absolutely know that I didn't, but I fear that a very small but real part of me will spend the rest of my life thinking I did.

The reality is that we're now living in the global epicenter of a pandemic. We're literally living in the middle of something the world hasn't seen in 100 years. This nonsense is out of our hands and absolutely not something we could've planned for. The New York City we moved to isn't here right now and won't be for a good while.

"The factors that made the city the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic — its density, tourism and dependence on mass transit — complicate a return to any semblance of normalcy. The city is still far from meeting the public health metrics necessary to reopen, from available critical-care beds to new hospital admissions for the virus."

“I don’t think the New York that we left will be back for some years,” said Gregg Bishop, the commissioner of the city’s small businesses agency. “I don’t know if we’ll ever get it back.”

"If only I'd set aside more money" says the guy who set aside more than enough to make it through plenty of thin back-to-back months. But a global shut down that started 10+ weeks ago and doesn't look to let up anytime soon was just too much. We can't keep blowing through our savings and the little money we do have coming in just holding our breath while this historic moment tries to drown us.

I'd seen an interview with the CEO of Southwest Airlines this last week and he talked about "radical restructuring." As of last week airline traffic was down 94% and "to stem the bleeding, airlines have made deep cuts to every imaginable expense..."

"Our goal is to thrive... The imperative here is to survive." - Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly

Looking at my business records I know that a large percentage of my revenue comes from shooting live events. I don't expect those to come back anytime soon. I also know I made a decent amount of money in the last couple years on travel jobs. Again, those numbers are certainly going to drop. Who knows what live production work is going to look like moving forward before a vaccine is available. Thank goodness my Filmsupply revenue is still strong and helping make financial ends meet.

Regarding family life here during the pandemic in New York City, it is unquestionably difficult at the moment. Both physically and emotionally we've never been closer and I know eventually we'll see how this period of time has made us unquestionably stronger and better people. Still, even in the best of times it's hard AF raising a young family here let alone what we're going through now.

There's a tiny sliver of comfort knowing we're not the only ones having to make decisions like this. A shocking number of our friends in similar situations here in the city are also packing up and scattering across the country. Another pin of light in this dark time has been Saint Anne the Wife being able to re-connect with friends back in Oklahoma City and land a couple job interviews at some solid elementary schools.

No doubt there'll be a silver lining to all this nonsense and I'd love to wrap this up with optimism, but right now I'm grieving. Obviously I'm worried about acting too soon seeing how it's only been a week since we even started seriously considering moving back to Oklahoma City, but at some point decisions need to be made with the information we have. In a text exchange with a buddy of mine who's also in production and planning to leave the city he talked about how "it's not the real world out there" right now. We've "gotta act with what we know."

I'm no where near being able to fully process leaving at this point. Gutting a dream shouldn't have to happen for such shitty reasons.

Shut it Down: Week Nine

"Coffee, water, coffee, wine, water, repeat." - my brain

It's Monday, Day 56 of Quarantine. Here's this week's roundup:

Nothing. Nothing new. I go to Whole Foods and Target on Mondays, and then the rest of the week happens. I attempted to read a book I'd had on the shelf to avoid looking at my phone so much, but then I had to look something up that I'd read and then two days happened. This Sunday was Mother's Day and the older kid suggested "we make breakfast in bed for mom," which means "I make breakfast in bed for mom."

I did have a bit of a meltdown (or two or three) this week. Surely that's okay considering it's WEEK NINE of this nonsense. There's the apparent mass exodus of young professionals leaving NYC for the suburbs, so that's as encouraging as the current unemployment rate. We're planning a trip back to Oklahoma City this summer, so that's something to look forward to.

Not sure why, but I've had a weird rash of wanting to spend money all this week. Obviously, production work dropped off a cliff months ago with my last normal job back in early March so it's not like I'm seeing any kind of disposable income at the moment or foreseeable future. Surely it's time to finally buy a car so we can escape the city now and then or get groceries without having to take a two-hour nap afterward. Then there was that loose Astera Titan I saw super cheap on eBay that'd go so well with the one I already have. Dana Dolly rental kits for sale at an additional $100 off? I'll say we did jump on the Disney+ bandwagon this week for $7 (or two lattes)/month.

Still, we're here. Safe, healthy, and dangerously stir-crazy. I've been taking photos of discarded rubber gloves and face masks through most of this hot mess with grand plans to make something out of it.

Shut it Down: Week Eight

At some point this hot mess will be behind us and I'm intentionally trying to be better about thinking ahead. I do expect to have entirely different financials for 2020 compared to years past. March and April are typically busy months where I make a decent amount for the year. Who knows if that work and revenue will be made up anytime soon. Thankfully my stock footage numbers are up these last few months considering how live production work has fallen off a cliff.

Money-wise, we're still going thanks mostly to our savings and some invoices still out. Our 2019 tax refund still hasn't hit our accounts, but we did get our stimulus check. Also, this past week I applied for and got my PPP SBA loan. As a business I'm setup here in New York as a S-corp and I'm my only employee. I'm fairly certain I'll not fire myself anytime soon so that PPP money – by no means a windfall – will be used to keep my payroll going a few more weeks and will magically turn from a loan into a grant.

Looking back at the last few years, most of my work has been shooting interviews and small commercials with crews of less than five to eight people and a good deal of solo run-n-gun work. I also do a solid amount of live event work with big crowds of people, but I'm not expecting those to return any time soon.

Film Florida came out with their Recommendations for Clean & Healthy Production Sets. Filmmaker Jim Cummings wrote a piece called Hollywood vs. The Virus that was making the rounds last week. That dumpster fire of a possible reality kept me up at night, but after another read or two the flames died down and I remembered the kind of work I do and the types of sets I'm on – nothing even close to major studio projects.

I'm seeing more and more come out about what production life could possibly be like once the world gets up and spinning again. Director Ryan Booth had this McDonald's spot come out a couple weeks ago with Pulse Films. According to their Instagram post they worked remotely with 16 DPs across the country shooting the arches in their local areas.

There was also a spot to come out this past week that was shot by Simon Reinert with his family as cast. I'd reached out after he'd posted about it and he mentioned that the gear was dropped off at his door by the production company and he did all the gear prep and shooting himself. His wife is a nurse and the hero of the piece so it's not like they were going against social distancing guidelines.

Closer to home I finally saw the edit from the Empire State Building shoot a few weeks back. I didn't know at the time, but it ended up being for CVS Health and the entire spot seemed like a potluck of stock footage and internal CVS footage. I'd sent over nearly a dozen different Manhattan skyline and hero shots of the Empire State Building while it was lit up red for the health workers. The shot of mine they ended up using is in the piece around :56.

By all means I'd love to comment and pretend to expert my way though all this nonsense. There's absolutely no shortage of people making their predictions about what you should be doing and how to land on your feet after all this. No queston there are smart people in and around my industry making serious efforts to get all this back up and running. I make most of my revenue on commercial projects followed closely by live event work and stock footage sales. I absolutely miss working and can't wait to get back to live production projects. In the meantime I'm still shooting what I can here around the apartment and neighborhood.

Honestly though most of our quarantined time has been absorbed by making sure our two house fires don't burn the place down and take us with them. It's not like I have big projects to prep for or even anything close to a 9-5 job. Good Lord I can't imagine what it'd be like for both Anne and I to try and attempt all this while both working full-time.

Our days normally – even before all this mess – start around 6am with blood curdling screams coming from somewhere in the apartment. Saint Anne the Wife is the frontline worker in chaos of our home, but we both finally get out of bed just before that tipping point where one of our nearly-domesticated tornadoes stabs the other to death. Long ago we gave up on the boys ever sleeping in; God-awful children's programs on Netflix aren't going to watch themselves apparently.

There's the seemingly apparent calm after breakfast and coffee where Anne has The Kid v1 locked into one laptop with his remote learning for the day while The Kid v2 is mainlining a $10/month subscription of ABCmouse.com via iPad. There's also the morning trips to the park which are nothing more than a desperate attempt at dissipating some of their perpetual motion.

The rest of the day is mostly cooking, dirty dishes, and laundry interrupted by that sweet, sweet relief of House Fire no. 2's afternoon nap and our day drinking. Sometimes I'm able to write and be somewhat "productive" during that blessed couple hours, but then it's back to cooking and dirty dishes before the day's main showdown: "getting ready for bed." After that both Anne and I – normally bloodied and bruised – collapse onto the couch praying for mercy and that the boys sleep at least most of the night.

On a serious note, turns out you can get a discount when you buy wine by the case. Oh, and we just started re-watching Band of Brothers on Amazon Prime. Anne wouldn't even attempt to watch The Midnight Gospel with me. I know she loves me, but that weird show falls into Rick & Morty territory for her.