And there it went. The first full week of the “new normal” is in the books.

Covid-19 is rampaging across the world and killing thousands. Everyone is getting a little crazy about the whole thing – with some justification. Something like this has not occurred in our memory. There was the Spanish Flu back in the 1920s, but there are no people alive who can relate to us how society was at that time. We can read about it, but that’s all we’ve got.

We’ve also got a dramatically different method of communication at our disposal. We know more about what’s going on in the world around us at a faster speed than ever before. Hopefully this will allow us to get ahead of this virus and stop things from reaching Spanish Flu levels. Right now thousands are dying and that’s bad. The other one? Yeah, that killed somewhere between 20 and 50 MILLION people.

Million.

I would never attempt to diminish the loss of a person, or collection of persons, but as a question of scale we’re doing… as well as can be expected. Honestly, probably better than can be expected. Yes, the virus has forced us to change the way we conduct ourselves. No, we don’t know how long this is going to last. Yes, after two solid weeks of news, media and home grown “experts” yelling at us about coronavirus it seems like it’s been here forever, but it hasn’t been that long. How long will it be? No idea. Nobody knows. Lots of people are making predictions, but until we get there we won’t have any idea.

I am fortunate to still be able to work, at least right now. I have shifted to working from home and connecting to everyone via my internet connection. My lovely wife has been given the same opportunity and has a similar computer station set up next to this one. We’ve been in the same house along with the kiddo for a full week + and haven’t gone completely insane. In fact, we all seem to quite like it. We’re much more relaxed. Work has a lot of the same kind of stupid, but it’s muted by the overwhelming noise of change. I’ve heard there are people out there not handling the social isolation very well. I hope those folks take advantage of the technology we have access to and stay as connected as they can without actual physical presence.

So – big changes. Things we were told would never be a thing have come to pass (particularly the sudden ‘realization’ that certain jobs CAN in fact be done remotely). Life will be forever changed by this event. My daughter will have this as a marked point in her life that she will remember long into her adulthood much the same way I remember events like the shuttle disaster that happened when I was in high school. No where close to the same level of impact – but a bright and clear memory of that time for me.

Forging ahead. I’ve gotten a bunch of things done around the house. That’s the thing – when you can’t leave, you have to make it a point to actually create and stick to a schedule that works for your household. What am I trying to say? Well, just this: I’ve been working essentially the same schedule as before. Sure the commute is a hell of a lot better and the dress code is pretty lax, but I’m still on schedule. It means that I’m spending all that work time here on my home computer. So when I “get home from work” I have even less desire to jump on here and keep working than before.

I’m hoping to pick up some creativity soon – but given the circumstances of the world, I’m not sure I’ll get there. Maybe I’ll start cranking out the words. Dunno. Hopefully you’ll keep coming back here to see.