Posted inCurrent affairs Home life

Here’s how easy it is to vote by mail in Oregon

TO: People in states that don't already have 100% vote by mailFROM: An Oregonian (me!) who loves vote by mailSUBJECT: How easy it was for me to vote today First, I want to emphasize that you shouldn't believe anyone, such as Donald Trump, who claims that vote by mail is beset with problems. It isn't. For quite a few years Oregon has had vote by mail for every election. Screw-ups are very rare. Fraud is virtually nonexistent.  With that out of the way, here's a brief description of what I had to do to cast my ballot today in the…
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Posted inCoronavirus Home life

My top 10 bright spots during Oregon’s stay-at-home period

Like everybody else, I'm hugely looking forward to the relaxing of stay-at-home and physical distancing orders that are succeeding in slowing the spread of the coronavirus.  But amid the distress of so much human misery caused by COVID-19 infections, I've been experiencing some bright spots during the month Oregon's Stay Home, Save Lives policy has been in effect. Here's my Top Ten. (1) This afternoon I came home from a dog walk to find my wife taking part in a Zoom dance party celebrating her grand-niece's birthday. Naturally I had to grab my iPhone and upload a short video to…
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Posted inCoronavirus Home life

Nature soothes in COVID-19 pandemic

Working in our rural south Salem property yesterday, I realized that nature is a wonderfully soothing antidote to anxiety about the coronavirus crisis. So I took some photos of our spring-blooming yard and shared them in an Adobe Spark web page, along with some commentary. Click on the second large image below to open the web page. (The first smaller image is for Facebook sharing purposes.)  
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Posted inCoronavirus Salem

Oh, the thoughts I have while grocery shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic

In case someone out there is interested in what goes through my mind during my weekly grocery shopping expedition here in Salem, Oregon during the coronavirus crisis, and why wouldn't there be, here's a pretty accurate glimpse of my thoughts last Monday. [Note: my wife and I already had some N95 masks that we got during the Fukushima nuclear plant scare following the tsunami some years back when radiation was crossing the Pacific.] Getting into my car: OK, check my protective gear. N95 mask. Three pairs of lightweight garden gloves. Hand sanitizer. Disinfecting wipes. Plastic bag to put used gloves in. Yup, all…
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Posted inCoronavirus Home life

The poetry of field mowing in our coronavirus era

I'm no poet. Far from it. But I guess I have some poetic inclinations. Just look at the title of this blog post. It's got "poetry" right there in the damn title! Anyway, what poetry really means to me is feeling something subtly indistinct, yet decidedly real, in an everyday activity. Today that activity was doing some mowing of open areas on our ten acres in rural south Salem, Oregon.  l use a walk-behind DR Field Mower with the lawn mower attachment. I used to put on the field mower attachment once a year to cut grass after it had…
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Posted inCoronavirus

Oregon looking good on the COVID-19 front

Today there were some positive mentions of how Oregon is doing in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. This should encourage Oregonians to keep on with physical distancing (better term than social distancing), as hard as this is on both people and businesses. In the White House coronavirus briefing, Dr. Birx, the White House coronavirus coordinator, praised Oregon, Washington, and California for the good job they're doing.  I recall that she was referring to cases per 100,000 population, but that figure depends on the amount of testing each state is doing, which varies a lot. Deaths per 100,000 population as…
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Posted inCoronavirus

In this COVID-19 era, let’s worry less about online ads

My wife, Laurel, has become a quasi-expert in how to use Zoom for online meetings. She's paid for an account that allows for unlimited meeting time, rather than the 40 minute limitation on the basic free plan. I've taken part in one of the three meetings Laurel has hosted. Zoom works well, though since people are new to it, typically the first part of the meeting is filled with "can you hear me?," "unmute yourself," and other sorts of how does this work talk. And since we live in a rural'ish area with crappy DSL, our broadband connection is slow,…
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