Eight Seconds

I can't tell you why, but for some reason I got up this morning thinking about eight seconds.  
Eight seconds doesn't seem like any time at all if you are checking a text on your phone or the GPS on your dashboard. But, if you are only going 30 miles per hour, in those eight seconds you have traveled over 350 feet. 
To add a little perspective - assuming that you are an average reader, it has taken you about twenty seconds or so to read this far in my blog post.
In discussing curb appeal, realtors will tell you that it only takes eight seconds for a prospective buyer to decide if they are interested in a house.
Eight seconds seems to go by awfully fast - unless, of course, you are on the back of a bull at the rodeo.

Covid-19 Poem

The stay-at-home order distressed Mary Lou

She’s a regular church-goer, has missed very few

But she ate lots of beans on Saturday night

Got up Sunday morning, and to her delight

She was able to pray in her very own pew

Tasteless

We ordered take-out from a local restaurant yesterday with peach cobbler for dessert.  The cobbler was excellent, but in addition to cinnamon, it had some spice (nutmeg?) that we couldn't identify.  That got me thinking about taste.

I have a good friend who has been on a combination of some very strong antibiotics and some very strong pain meds because of complications from surgery.  As a result, he lost his sense of taste entirely.  It is starting to come back, but for a while, except for the consistency, he couldn't tell one food from another.

By defining the frequency, you could explain Blue to a blind man or D-flat to someone who is deaf.  You couldn't make them experience sound or color but given the necessary equipment, they could be taught to reproduce D-flat or Blue.  

It strikes me that odor or taste would be much more difficult.

I know that there are companies in the business of producing artificial flavors, but the chemistry involved in breaking down a product , extracting the esters produced and in what amounts has to be a daunting task.  I don't think they ever get the artificial flavors quite right, but I guess that's just a matter of taste.

Hummers

We put our Hummingbird feeders out on Tuesday, and it didn't take long ( about an hour and a half) before we had our first customer of the season. 

The feeders have been doing a brisk business ever since - not anything like the line of Coronavidiots lined up outside Walmart, but a steady stream.  You literally can't be outside for more than five minutes without seeing at least one Hummer.

They are providing free entertainment and a touch of normalcy in an otherwise dreary day.

the Great Gas Grill Mystery

A couple of weeks ago my gas grill quit working, or it might as well have.  The burners still lit, but with a flame so low it was basically useless as a cooking device.
I decided the problem had to be the regulator, and guess what, I still had one attached to our previous grill out in the barn.

I pulled it off and installed it on the new grill.  
Voila! 
Problem solved.  I was able to complete cooking our burgers.
It continued to work well until last night when it went into no-cook mode again.  The symptom was the same, but two regulators in two weeks just doesn't make sense, especially considering the regulator is a part that almost never fails. 
I decided to try some diagnostics this morning.  
The first thing I did was light the grill. All burners came on at full strength - I couldn't get it to do anything wrong!
I know something was wrong last night and it will probably happen again, but I have no idea what caused the problem.

Shopping Report - HEB Curbside

Here's a report on my first experience with ordering groceries on line:

Last Tuesday I went to the HEB website and ordered a bunch of groceries.  When I got My "shopping cart" full, I went to check out and discovered that the earliest I could pick them up at the Atascosita HEB was March 29!  I looked for alternatives and found that I could pick my order up at the new store on Northpark today at 2  p.m.

I got there early because I didn't really know what I was doing, but the Curbside Pickup area is well marked, easy to find, and it's covered - which could be a major plus on hot or rainy days.  I pulled in and texted the store with my parking place at about a quarter til two.  The guy came out with my groceries almost immediately and I was out of there by ten til.

They ask, in order to maintain social distancing, that you remain in your vehicle and let them load your stuff for you.  That was fine with me.

Positives are that it is all ridiculously easy, and the selections they made were just as good as those I would have made myself.

The one HUGE negative is that with everybody using the option, lag time from order to pick up is going to be several days.  If there is something you really need, you better go try to find it yourself.

Corona Corona

Missed Pi Day yesterday.  I always post some kind of stupid meme on March 14th, but I got too busy, or the Corona virus is to blame, or something.
An old friend from Alvin posted about Covid-19 and the run on the stores -
When thousands of people gather with hundreds of folks they don't know to buy things they don't need so they won't have to go out in crowds.
If I don't post anything for the next few days, just think of me as self-quarantined.

Corona Porn

Dropped Honey off at the dentist's office, and thought I'd do a little shopping while I waited.  I went to the Wal-Mart in Crosby.
The first thing I noticed was that the sanitary wipe dispenser at the front door was empty - nothing available to wipe the shopping cart handle.  I mentioned this to the greeter, and she pointed out the Purell dispenser and said just use that.
Oooo-kay...
The last time I bought Bounty paper towels, I accidentally got the rolls of full-sized sheets - Honey hates them - so the top of my list was Select-A- Size paper towels.  I also needed toilet paper.  
when I got to that aisle, it looked sometyhing like this...

Actually, I didn't bother to take a picture, just found this on line.  The shelves at Wally World were even emptier than this would indicate.
I had seen Memes on Facebook about toilet paper shortages, but I hadn't taken them seriously.  I mean, how could the potential threat of a virus that almost nobody has actually contracted cause a run on toilet paper and paper towels?  Has any of the fear mongers claimed that one of the Covid-19 symptoms is galloping diarrhea?
The entire city of Crosby wasn't out of wipes.  I was able to buy what we needed - right brands but smaller packages and larger prices - at Arlan's Grocery on the way back to the dentist.

Rodeo RIP

The latest victim of the Covid-19 pandemic is the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.  It was announced at noon today that the Rodeo will shut down as of 4:00 p.m. today and will not reopen this year.

I can understand the city and county bigwigs and their "abundance of caution" approach, but, as the father of a daughter who earned a four-year scholarship from HLSR, my heart is heavy for all those kids who had their hopes dashed this year. 

Pandemic

Streetcar poster from 1918-19 Spanish Flu epidemic.

Week In Review

Haven't been posting regularly lately - no particular reason - so here are a few things I haven't mentioned....

Looks like Spring is definitely here - we had the first hibiscus bloom (a red one) of the season on Monday.

Voted on Tuesday.  At our little country polling station - Cypress Point Baptist Church - there is never an appreciable wait.  Honey went right in and I had to wait for someone to finish checking in at the other check in desk. That must have taken all of 45 seconds.  

Wednesday, we heard on the news that the last voter left the polling place at Texas Southern University at 1:20 Wednesday morning. The rule says that as long as you are in line when the polls close, you get to vote, and newscasters were using that as evidence of the huge (Democrat) turnout in Harris County, and I guess it was.  

But ….now that the law says you can vote at any polling place in your county of residence (and there's even an app that showed locations and wait times) I think it says more about the intelligence of the voters in those ridiculously long lines.

Nothing much to report yesterday, and, so far, today looks pretty quiet, too.