[Intuition]

I was just curious what everyone here has been up to since this whole quarantine/lockdown began. 

In my world down in Santa Monica, Venice Beach, Marina Del Rey, Los Angeles I had finished a freelance gig on March 11th. I had planned to be off work for about 3-4 weeks when another gig would start at the same place.

We had, in Los Angeles, all been hearing on the radio since late January about the "Wuhan Virus" and for a while no one really took it seriously. 

After it started getting more serious in early March I remember checking the virus map with the red dots every three or four days. Watching New York and Seattle blow up. Meanwhile Los Angeles had 26 cases at one check. 

When my gig ended I remember driving back home and stopping at the Japanese market for my usual yellow tail filets, red snapper, rice, scallions, etc. So I could make some easy dinners the next few nights. 

I was already planning on going to Wyoming to spend spring break with my 12 year old son. 

I was finished on a Wednesday and that Friday I decided to get some tarp for my boat since the rain was going to start and be heavier than normal and I wanted to stave off molds or mildew I had to clean up simply by putting tarp up. 

When I passed Ralphs and Trader Joe's in the marina on my way to Home Depot I saw the first real signs of people freaking out.  The streets leading two blocks in to the markets as well as their entire parking lots were completely full. It was a waiting line. 

I remember seeing people shoving shoulder to shoulder to get in and out of the doors. There wasn't enough room to just walk in and out. It was a sight I had not seen in my entire 25 year run in Los Angeles since 1995. 

I though to myself "If one person has it in that store, the rest of them are getting sick within a week."

I packed my car and tarped the boat Saturday and took off on Sunday heading towards Wyoming. 

At this point there were still under a hundred cases in Los Angeles and like 12 in Utah. It was fairly new. 

When I arrived in Wyoming I decided I was going to get my son for spring break and stay at my mom's because of two things. She lives in a small town in Wyoming where there is likely not going to be a lot of spreading happening yet, if any. Also, my mom is one of the head nurses in Wyoming so she will know quarantine procedure and safety and will likely have the best info. 

My son and I have been here since March and he has been doing remote school. It has been much easier to do remote school than I thought because they use Khan Academy and a few other sites that make the computer learning part very easy. I actually prefer it. He watches videos prepared by teachers for the lessons and then has to do a quiz on Khan Academy, FlipGrid, MobyMax, or similar. 

I brought my primary workstation for VFX with me to do some remote work. Sadly the gig was cancelled as were many gigs in Los Angeles. There is some more work coming but at the moment I am not doing work. Financially I should be fine as long as I start getting work by August/Sept as I save for not having regular work in the first place. Since the gig was cancelled that I was expecting I went ahead and did the Unemployment Insurance that I have not invoked in a very long time and was surprised that it is far more automated now thought they still want very thorough records and weekly job search info... but they did say that due to covid-19 that they would reward benefit from March till end of May without complete job search because of the circumstances. 

Meanwhile I would like to make some more SGI/Irix Software tutorials but I did not bring any of my SGI machines with me. This time afforded would have allowed me to make quite a few of them. I wanted to even make one that was centered around the Irix OS, the UI features, networking, and command line usages. 

When this ends, I imagine, June/July range for Los Angeles to start spooling up again, I will get back to tuts. 

Meanwhile my son has been playing a ton of VR with his Vive. Primarily Half Life Alyx and it really impressed me. It is the first game I have seen that sold me on the VR concept that wasn't a flight or space simulator. 

My brother and his wife and four kids live up here now. He used to prototype for a company in CA and now does it here in Wyoming because.... drum rolll, the owner in CA sold it to China. 

Since they were also quarantined longer than the virus shelf life my mom ok'd visits and my son and his cousins play together and my brother and I play table top games like Wiz War (old school 5th edition version), Robo Rally, or Caracassonne. 

Recently discovered Table Top Simulator and realized we could have been playing those games on line with it. Very cool.

Beyond that I have been making my own IP animation that I will release sometime in 2020. I am pretty excited about it as it is going to be roughly 40 minutes to an hour in length. 

Because I have not been working much since I have arrived I get a shot or two finished each day and the edit is turning out better than I was imagining. 

I do a ton of homecooked food, sandwhiches, etc. 

I usually skateboard and walk the marina. This pandemic has made me lazier than normal and I take more naps. Is that a 42 years old thing or just me being lazy?

I have watched a few of my favorite films. Metropolis (Silent Film, full version on YouTUbe though I have Kino Release Blu Ray),  Secret Of Nimh, Ghost in the Shell, Gamera vs Gyaos, and will be eventually watching Disney's Black Hole 1979, Flash Gordon 1980, and Time Bandits. 

I played through an old C64 game called Zak McKraken and the Alien Mindbenders. Though I found the FM towns version on line and it was a great game that my memory didn't over hype and was still difficult. Also, found Wing Commander Privateer and have started that for an hour every few nights. I think they made the 3d Art in Power Animator. Lovely renders for its time. 

I am lucky in that there are no cases here in my hometown yet. Many symptoms that were tested in a few people that tested false for Covid-19. 

Kind of lucky to have avoided most of the drama in this pandemic. 

Please chime in and tell of your Pandemic experience. 

Game, movie, food, routine recommendations. Etc.