Month: March 2020

Today at work I worked on getting the new search engine for Connecticut’s Archives Online ready for beta testing. You can see it at http://archives.library.wcsu.edu/arclight/caoSearch/ . It’s pretty, it’s mostly functional, and it has a nice logo. My boss showed it off to my grandboss. She seems thrilled. This tool is based on Arclight, which is a nifty new discovery tool for archival materials. It’s only on version 0.3.1, and a bit rough around the edges (especially when it comes to documentation). However, it’s much more likely to be maintained than our current homebrew system (the librarian who developed it retired) and already offers more features. Yay, faceted searches! It’s also based on Blacklight, which is a more mature tool which focuses on libraries instead of archives.

After working on the CAO, I did some meta data cleanup in Omeka. I had a hard time focusing. I mean, I guess it is to be expected that I might be a bit distracted in the middle of a global pandemic.

After work, I played Rimworld. I *heart* Rimworld. My colony is in the middle of a frozen bog. I sent 2 out of 3 people off on a quest. They ran out of food on their way back, so I sent my third and final person off to meet them with rations. The moment he left the colony there was a lightning storm. The base caught fire and everything I’d built burned to ash, as well as most of the nearby lumber. It was a sad welcome when the 3 colonists came home.

I also played with Elvis and his flirt pole. We began working on “If you bark at the thing, game ends. To start the game again you have to sit and watch me while I wave the toy around you.” He’s starting to figure it out. I can’t wave the toy too excitingly, but he’ll maintain eye contact if I gently waft it. He’s learning self control. Good boy.

Fairfield County is up to 1445 lab-confirmed cases. Danbury has 218 of those.

Today was a slow day. I woke up to Elvis growling at the thunder. I had macaroni & ravioli & cheese for breakfast. We’re now out of the vegan mozzarella. I played Rimworld then I took a nap. I woke up around 5 or so. It was getting dark out.

I ate a bit more, then got a package from the mail (outside clothes, glove, mask, hoodie). It was Elvis’s vetmedin. It’s in isolation for 3 days :).

Showered, back to Rimworld. Talked with my aunt Gayle and my friend Tess. Pretty quiet.

Symptom-wise, I still have wicked heartburn, and a muscle ache in the muscles on the left side of my chest. It’s annoying. Pepto does nothing for the heartburn, and this whole “ibuprofin will kill you if you have COVID-19” thing means I don’t know what to take for muscle pain anymore.

Danbury is up to 212 confirmed cases (189 identified by CT state labs, 23 by private labs). Fairfield County is up to 1245 cases, according to https://portal.ct.gov/coronavirus/ .

Happy Saturday!

I used up the last of the liquid egg–it became scrambled eggs, with onions, garlic, and vegan mozzarella mixed it. Then it went on toast made from the last of the bread. It was super tasty.

I ordered 15 lbs of rice, plus random Asian snacks, from an online Asian grocery store. Rice is wicked hard to find locally, and we seem to eat it a lot when we’re at home. It’s easy, stores well, and pair wells with other foods.

I made an art to display in my window. I was feeling very appreciative for the hard work everyone who is ‘essential’ is doing, keeping the country running. I especially appreciate the package delivery folk who enable me to stay home.

I reached out to two of my friends to see how they were doing. I worry that folks aren’t getting enough human interaction. Happily, my friends are doing fine!

I’m looking into dyeing my hair plum. I think it’s a way to take more control over my life.

Symptoms

Wicked bad heartburn. Took pepto to no effect.

Slept in a bit. Cleared off space from my web host in preparation for moving to a more-memory less-disk cloud server. Got a 4-pack of Tabletop Simulator to share with friends.

Picked up the Royalty expansion for Rimworld. Lamented the impending lack of cookie dough in the house.

I might try my hand at sewing a face mask this weekend, one that could take the myAir filters I have.

Almost forgot about this. It’s after midnight, but this still counts as my Thursday post.

Did some bug fixes on the CAO. Second online class went pretty smoothly.

Video chatted with friends.

Lots of podcasts, phone games, and a nap.

Looked into buying rice and Asian/Indian foods online. Lots of places are sold out of rice.

We have 607 confirmed cases in Fairfield County, 69 in Danbury itself. Some state or city official (I think it was the mayor of Danbury) said they were going to cut back on testing because it uses our limited PPE without affecting patient outcomes.

I will say that this whole “don’t touch your face” things has done wonders for my nail-biting habit.

i called in to work, set up the students with student omeka accounts. Mostly tried to keep my anxiety at bay.

SOLR/arclight is misbehaving and I’ve not yet tracked down why.

It snowed, so I took out the trash on the theory that most people would be indoors. Saw Bella’s human and told her that if they needed dog stuff feel free to ask because we might have extra.

Watched Kingsman II with Chris. It was a bit too on the nose about the current situation.

I’m still having chest tightness and mild headache. Blood oxygen is normal, temperature is normal.

Fairfield County is up to 270 lab-confirmed cases. 15 are in Danbury.