Blog Category
I Get It. You’re Scared.
Posted on August 19, 2021 1 Comment
I had a most interesting encounter with a dude on Facebook. Said dude decided that a few hundred deaths from COVID-19 each day are acceptable for several reasons, the most important of which — in his opinion — was that we could not lose our freedoms for the sake of saving the lives of people […]
The End of a Chapter
Posted on May 26, 2021
This week marks the end of my time as the chief of the outbreak team. The positivity rate in our health district is now at 1.25%. In Maryland, it is at 1.98%. In Washington, DC, it is at 1.5%. The number of cases from congregate settings has dropped precipitously as vaccination uptake reached well over 90% in most facilities among their residents, though it could be better among their staff. Overall in the communities, more than half of eligible adults have been vaccinated, with many parents taking their younger kids to get vaccinated and younger adults also participating (thanks in part to schools and universities requiring vaccination before returning to in-person teaching).
The Trauma of Your Ancestors
Posted on March 26, 2021 4 Comments
I listened today to a seminar on transgenerational trauma. The theory of such trauma boils down to a couple of basic things. Number one, someone in your lineage suffered trauma of some sort. Number two, they displayed that trauma and their children followed suit. Number three, you also display that trauma because that is how […]
The Stories You Need to Hear/See/Read and Understand
Posted on March 24, 2021
I was reading Runner’s World Magazine the other day when I noticed a theme in the stories they were telling in that issue. Most of the runner’s being showcased were LGBTQ+, a racial/ethnic minority, or a combination thereof. Their stories were very similar in that they grew up in the United States, isolated and lonely […]
Experimenting With Pirate Audio
Posted on December 18, 2020
The Problem: I have an old radio that I want to refurbish and make into a streaming internet radio. Sure, I could just throw it away, but I’m not that wasteful. My uncles fixed radios and televisions, and they lost more and more work when electronics started getting cheap and people just threw them away […]
The Technology You’ll Love
Posted on December 12, 2020 3 Comments
I’m writing this on an Ubuntu Linux machine. The machine is a Raspberry Pi 4. I had heard about the Raspberry Pi machines a while ago, but I didn’t really get interested until recently. I’ve been picking up more and more little projects to do during downtime since the weather has been getting colder and […]
Quarantine Shmarantine! Pandemic Edition
Posted on November 24, 2020 4 Comments
Six years ago, I told you all about how quarantines don’t really work in practice. They work in theory just fine, but human nature in all of us make us violate quarantine almost inevitably. We just don’t like being told what to do as a society. We also get scared of contagion if we are […]
In Medias Res, Part III
Posted on November 10, 2020
It’s almost three in the morning, and I’m driving toward Alice’s apartment. Part of me was tired over the adventure from a few hours ago, but the other side of me wanted to make sure that Alice got home safely. I assumed she was home because she was nowhere to be found when I went […]
In Medias Res, Part II
Posted on October 27, 2020
It’s 1992 and I’m a thirteen-year-old in high school. I don’t fit in with many of the groups in school because of my age and my background. I’m not smart enough to be part of the “nerds,” although I tend to earn good grades and get enrolled in advanced courses. I’m not athletic enough to […]
In Medias Res, Part I
Posted on October 16, 2020
It’s a cold night in 1997, and I’m running down the streets in Juarez, Mexico. There is a group of young men ahead of me, four in total, who are themselves chasing after one other young man. One of the four is carrying a metal pipe of some sort. I’m having a hard time keeping […]
EpidemioLogical 