Version 2.002

Working from home is a little bit more stressful than going to the office. For starters, one always second guesses if we have put in the time. If the dog makes noise while on a conference call, one feels mortified. At home, grabbing a cup of coffee feels akin to slacking off. My overactive conscience is a pain.

I got two phone calls today. The first was from my boss checking on me to see if I needed anything and whether I was feeling well physically and mentally. He tries to call about once a week and always makes sure to ask about my family and my dog. The second phone call was from a teacher who is running for the Shelby County School Board and she was calling to request my vote on August 6 -- speaking of voting, I should update my voter registration address. The candidate asked me if I had been affected by the lockdown and was genuinely surprised to hear that I still had a job, thus I had not been affected financially.

She seemed to be on the ball in terms of her campaign organization, but I'm not sure her platform makes sense. She's justifiably concerned about the children who do not have Internet access and cannot participate in school activities during the pandemic. Her proposed solution to the problem is to create hot spots in the schools, so that the nearby houses can connect to the Internet. She assumed that I did not know what a hot spot was and tried to explain it by using the example of Starbucks; of course, she fails to grasp that Starbucks' hot spots go as far as their parking lot.

I suggested that she needed to organize volunteers to work with the children, but that's probably not a wise solution either. God knows all the weirdos who are out there waiting for such an opportunity. Plus, I am emabarassed to say that I basically repeated a variation of Governor Bill Lee's idea of asking volunteers to babysit the kids while schools were closed and their parents were working. As I said, I am embarassed that I uttered such a stupid idea.

My second idea was much better, though: ask the Internet service providers to donate dongles to the kids, but, alas, I didn't tell her about it. I considered it, but realized that it would take me a long time to explain, as I assumed she did not know what a dongle was.

In other news, which are basically the same these days, William H. Grey, the demographer with the Brookings Institution, has been tracking the spread of coronavirus by county in the U.S., using NYT and U.S. Census Bureau data. The map that he published on April 29 does not bode well for our health. The virus is spreading in rural U.S., in places such as the Texas Panhandle where temperatures have been breaking records, close to 40° Celcius, thus forget about the prospect of a summer respite.