Tis been awhile since I’ve visited this online journal, that’s because I’ve had a full time job since the new year (which has been taking up waaaay more than full time hours ๐ oh games industry)! Once an NDA’s involved all the neat and interesting things I look at on a day-to-day basis run into some problems sharing, so I’ve been quiet. Thus a journal update will not revolve around game development for the second time.
My partner has been plagued with health issues that we’d like to avoid exacerbating with a Covid infection, and in 2019 I had a nasty bout of pneumonia (to the point of being prescribed an inhaler for the first time in my life – also a fancy test in a hosptial to see if I had asthma after my symptoms cleared, no asthma here! whew) so I’m in no rush to be sick again, that experience was absolutely miserable. We’ve followed credible information around Covid since the start of the pandemic, particularly around transmission and how to keep that down. Thus far we’ve avoided any illnesses in the household! Legit, not a single sickness for over two and a half years! Until now.
Over the years my partner and I have evolved from dating and “living together” to a concrete family unit, both of us have children from past relationships and in my partners case there’s a Parenting Plan that regiments all sorts of fancy rules enforceable through the courts, as part of that plan the kidlets have week-long periods of ‘parenting time’ for vacations regimented and scheduled for the years to come. This last week was one of those weeks.
Good and the bad, a bitter sweet last week. Together with some friends Angel and I booked a nice, Covid-safe vacation together while the kids were with their father. I have pictures! It was lovely, friends agreed to bubble-up together (none of us spent any air-space time with any other humans up to 2 weeks prior to our vacation) so we could have a stress-free relaxing time at a lovely cabin next to a lake.







It was really the most relaxing, enjoyable vacation I’ve ever had. With one, small hitch: one of those Parenting Plan agreements is to have scheduled evening video calls with the ‘other parent’ and the kids each evening. Each day while at the cabin one of the little ones started showing symptoms that progressively got worse each call. Turns out they had a big family gathering where both Grandparents, an aunt and that aunt’s child were all coughing and sick. They were definitely coming home sick.
Welp, we’re sticking by one of our strong goals/values, that if Covid enters this house it ain’t leaving – we will not be party to continued transmission. An additional goal is to avoid gettin’ the adults sick, we’re unsure if our efforts will bear fruit there but after a trip to the hardware store I’m feeling pretty strong about the strategy! Angel turned their crafting skills over to creating Corsi Boxes to help keep the air clean, on top of that improved ventilation (combo corsi boxes, another HEPA air purifier and windows open 24/7) we have the largest space designated a masking space while bedrooms are occupant-maskless zones. Operation stop-transmission-cold is underway!
Speaking of that new job, here’s my new Covid-as-safe-as-can-be (with a likely active infection in the house – the little one showing the worst symptoms [fever and deep chest cough atm, can hear the phlegm] either has very sensitive sinuses at the moment or is incredibly anxious, but either way won’t let the rapid test swab further than just 1cm up the nostril – they’re already quite miserable so we’re not pushing the issue and are moving forward assuming Covid) work environment! ๐



Both kids have snack stations and various extra-special amenities in their rooms to enjoy mask-free, they eat their primary meals in there. For Angel and myself, our bedroom doesn’t have much space outside of the bed itself… so we opt for the other air-space-safer mask-free zone, the patio!
It’s only day 2 of our ‘new normal’ at home, so far too early to tell if our transmission mitigation efforts will yield success. Our plan is to keep it up for at least a week, certainly until symptoms have abated. Afterwards we’ll keep the ventilation and new corsi boxes goin’ and ditch the masks, because it is really quite inconvenient to not be able to sip a drink while workin’ or playing board games. That said, aside from the poor little one with the gnarly symptoms+fever, maskin’ at home hasn’t hindered us having a good time.
