Wednesday, March 25, 2020

News Flash: Sleep is good!

I have to admit it - I funtion better on a full night of sleep.

I have to admit a second thing - I function better with coffee.

Putting those two things together, plus some planning, results in actually feel motivated to get things done.

A full night of sleep beats short sleep plus coffee.

Some days, though, are simply fueled by coffee.

Yes, Master of the Obvious! Welcome to this realization that everyone else knew!

I hear you, O wise crowd, the party that has been raging to which I am late (albeit fashionably.)

What am I doing with this magical formula?

  • Not getting sucked into the void that could be caused by sheltering-in-place.
  • Monitoring the kids' daily school schedules.
  • The kitchen has never been cleaner on a regular basis.
  • The laundry is always done.
  • My corners of disarray are shrinking.
  • I am getting better at NHL 20, though painfully slowly.
  • I am getting better at crossword puzzles.
  • I have learned backgammon.
  • Reading some books that have been collecting dust. Currently, working on Harvard Classics, specifically, Philip Sidney's, "Poesy," (pronounced: PO-eh-see.)
  • Some baking. Made chocolate chip cookies. Wife has been asking for scones for a week or so. Perhaps I will finally fulfill that request, even though she's the only one who really likes scones in the house.


That's about it. Perhaps I'll post some pics. Why not?!

Is your neck of the woods under shelter-in-place?
What are you doing to keep from going nuts?

Friday, March 20, 2020

Combating COVID-19 requires a plan

March 20, 2020

COVID-19, the current strain of coronavirus that has the world on high alert, has many of us thinking about our own futures.

Schools have been closed for as long as two weeks as of now. I live in Chicago and Chicago Public Schools have been closed since this Tuesday, 3/17/20. Chicago originally began with a two week closure, but have already extended the closure to April 20, 2020.

Bars and restaurants are closed to dine-in customers.

Public gatherings have been banned, which means no concerts, no conferences, no flying.

All of those jobs have, within a matter of a couple of weeks, vanished.

There will be winners in this game of economics. Medical supplies and virtual conferencing are the two that I can think of right now. But that is few and far between compared with the number of industries that are shut down.

The United States government has just proposed a package to support people and businesses. I see all of the people that they're trying to help - tax breaks for businesses with less than 500 employees and cash for middle-to-low income households are just two of the measures.

First, is there a plan for how this will be made up? Anyone can pull out their credit card, but fiscally responsible people have a plan for repayment, even when it's an emergency and they're spending beyond their immediate means.

There has to be a plan.

Colleges and Universities have closed their campuses. However, medical institutions are going to need more staff sooner than later, and forget doctors - we're talking nurses, nurse aids, lab techs, phlebotomists, and more.

There has to be a plan.

It is being reported the the Trump Administration did a run through on the government's preparedness for a pandemic last year which showed that the country was not prepared to deal with the situation we're facing. Here's a terrific article by the New York Times about the lack of response by the current administration to a pandemic test scenario that was failed.

There was no plan.

Here's what I think we need to do:

Despite school and other institutional closures, emergency training needs to be done for new medical staff in areas listed above: nurses, techs, aids, etc. In other words, the people who are hands-on in patient care and who can actually read tests. A single doctor with excellent delegation skills can do a lot with a well-trained support staff and system.

Distribution of supplies needs to be centralized by leading logistics companies. We're talking about air, rail, and ground. We're talking about warehousing, manufacturing, and sourcing. In other words, vertical and horizontal integration. Does anybody do that better than Wal-Mart and Amazon? Combine that with companies like XPO, UPS, and DHL.

Technological infrastucture to support workforce and supply chains? Who better than Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Ziprecruiter?

Manufacturing like Ford, GM, Tesla, and 3M.

In this age of social networking, data analytics, and technological advances, there is no reason that these massive "too big to fail" companies, in this time of extreme need, can't work together in an effort that resembles a war-time retooling.

In short, we're all in this together for the next 18 months. Hopefully we won't solely rely on tax breaks, but instead on planning and execution in a cooperative way (as opposed to centralized) in order to achieve the desired result: the slowing of the COVID-19 outbreak until our eventual ability to actually treat and prevent it.

Conveying and Understanding Instructions


Written on 3/10/2020. My, how times have changed (now that this is being written on 3/20/20, just a week into school closings due to COVID-19,) but I believe the idea is universal.

I have been a substitute teacher for about a month. It has been a terrific way to reenter the workforce for me, as it encompasses both my education and experience prior to being a homemaker as well as that of the last 13 years as a homemaker, parent, and youth sports coach.

Today, however, I did not get as much accomplished in the teacher’s plans as I had hoped. Perhaps the teacher, as I do in my practice plans, plan for more than we have time for and then scrap things that we simply can’t get to and put them in future plans.

Failure #1: I didn’t follow my morning routine once I had the lesson plan in hand. 

Traffic was particularly bad despite leaving as early as possible (have to get the kids up and going before I can leave the house.) Still - the moment I have the instructions in hand, I need to get out another piece of paper and start transcribing. I may as well call it translating. Instead, I simply read the instructions and hoped to remember. Ha! Fail.

Failure #2: I didn't rewrite the instructions in outline form. 

Rewriting instructions provides two main benefits to me. First, I can scan the items much easier if they are written in separate lines. When written in paragraph form, I have a hard time seeing the second or third sentence before moving on to the next paragraph. By creating an outline, I force myself to separate out each sentence and pull out the main ideas.

The second part – and perhaps more important – is that I remember what I write. For example, when I cook, I take recipes from a cookbook or online and then rewrite them on a piece of scrap paper. First, I don’t want to get my cookbook nor laptop/smartphone dirty with spatter. Second, I’ll notice details and nuances more closely, such as the doneness that should be achieved which can differ from the time given.

Rewriting the lesson plans enables me to see the objectives and nuances much more clearly and recall them in order with much greater accuracy.

Today, by failing to follow what makes me successful
  1. I read the wrong books at the wrong times
  2. didn’t do two lessons
  3. felt guilty about perhaps setting the teacher back a day 


Perhaps she gave me more than what could realistically be accomplished, but I don’t know because I didn’t follow the one thing that makes me follow instructions successfully.