Work/Life Balance in Trichotomy

Streaming concert

When Hallie IV died, I started using La Professeure’s hand-me-down Dell desktop from 2006 as my personal computer. I still use it for some work, like editing sound files or video files for the amateur musician group’s website. I’ve been using it as the print server as well. But a few years ago I inherited her Microsoft surface from 2015, and have been doing the bulk of my personal computing there.

The surface died earlier this year (first its network card died, then its keyboard stopped working - not much I can do so salvage after that), so I’ve been using my work-issued laptop to do personal computing stuff.

I’d entertained the idea of getting myself a new computer for my birthday but never got around to it. Then last month, our amateur musician group decided that it would run a streaming concert, where people would perform in real-time and attendees would join in a Zoom meeting (rather than our virtual concert, where people send in recordings of their performances). My work laptop won’t let me install the Zoom application, so the new Social Committee Organiser ended up hosting the streaming concert. I participated using La Professeure’s laptop (I was volun-told to perform in it, which means I had to join on Zoom app). It went well; I think SCO runs the concert much better than I would have - she is a natural MC. There were some hiccups with camera switching, but for the most part it was a success.

This incident showed how I was in need of a modern computer. When I told Wise Young Friend the reason I wasn’t hosting was because my personal computer was a 2006 Dell, she was amused.

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Work/life balance

I bit the bullet and got a “computer” last week. Though technically, it is actually a tablet. It has the computing power to run linux applications on it, so I’m using it as a laptop. It’s made by New Hip Company so I have an employee discount. I have a spare keyboard laying around, so after adding a protective case and an adapter, I can hook it up like a docking station to my monitor, trackball, and keyboard.

I’m writing from it now. It still has the new computer smell to it, we’ll see how well it holds up.

But this is the first new computer I’d gotten since Hallie IV; which was before I graduated, around 2007.WYF is correct that I am a luddite.

The most important part, though, is that I can turn off my work computer while I’m not working, which makes it a lot easier to leave work during my off hours.

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Paper towel is the new Toilet Paper

With Covid cases spiking all over the country, New York area is closer to shutting things down again. And the first sign of returning to an environment like March: it’s hard to find paper towels now. I suppose people’s haul of toilet paper in March has lasted them this long, and therefore they are now hoarding paper towels instead?

It’s easy for us in New York to think the rest of the US is catching up to where we were in March and April, and bemoan their stupidity for not heeding our warnings about transmission, but I think back to February when Italians and Chinese were warning everyone how dangerous the virus is, we weren’t taking it seriously until we are running out of hospital beds. I suppose people have to be personally affected before heeding the warnings - it’s human nature.

We did buy a lot of pantry items the last couple of weeks (before the New York case load climbed up again), so we’ll be fine even if we enter another lockdown period, which I’m hoping won’t happen.

More food pictures:

Crispy Chicken thigh

Soy Sauce Glazed Chicken. (Or, 豉油雞. This is one of my new favourites; I discovered that, after you cook the chicken, you can use the left-over soy sauce and chicken fat mixture to make rice, which absorb the chicken and soy sauce flavour. The only downside is that the cooking time is close to an hour.)

Peach Crepe. These are normal crepes - the crepes recipe I’d used before uses pancake mix, which resulted in little bubbles in the crepes, which were weird.

Beans and sausage. I made many of these during the start of the pandemic. Reminded me of meals you’d get in a theme park.

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Last updated November 21, 2020