The Month That Was - December 2021

2021 was a rough one.  I have a couple of nagging injuries that, in a frightening preview of the future, have not been healing.  I nearly lost my job.  I got Covid (more below).  Still, every time I feel myself yielding to sorrow I acknowledge that I have it better than most, perhaps even WAY better than most.  I don't need to count my blessings, they are always evident.

I find New Year's resolutions silly, but I do like to renew the two rules I try to live by:

1. Enhance and enrich the lives of the people I care about.

2. Fight sloth (the Deadly Sin, not the adorable forest creature).

If I can do those two things well, everything else is gravy.

[Covid19] Covid For Everyone

[TV] Binge Monkey

[Travel] Travel Friends

[Covid19] Covid for Everyone

So, yeah, I got Covid.  Delta variant I believe.  It truly kicked my ass.  It was as sick as I ever remember being in my life.  That said, I never felt like I was in mortal danger or considered going to the hospital.  But, at its peak, it did keep me in bed for three days straight and kept me near bed for a couple days on either side of that.  As I write this, perhaps three weeks from my first symptoms, I still have a bit of a cough and my endurance hasn't yet recovered.  Here is the full timeline; more than you want to know probably:

11/28 - It feels like I might be getting a cold.

11/29 - Yep, definitely feels like I'm developing a chest cold.

11/30 - Um, this is getting bad; I should get a Covid test just in case.  I stop at several pharmacies and none have a rapid test available.  I snag a quick drive-thru lab test appointment at CVS, wait in the drive thru line for 45 minutes, get to the window and they no longer have my appointment and won't give me a test.  I am done with CVS forever.  I make an appointment at Rite-Aid for the next day.

12/1 - OK this is bad, I'm coughing incessantly and I have the sorest throat in recorded history.  I made a few short, futile attempts at doing work (from home) and got to Rite-Aid for my test.  Otherwise bed-bound.

12/2 - This is awful. It's Covid, I just know it.  A couple more futile attempts at work, but I'm pretty sure this is not a bad cold and, since I had my flu shot, it's probably not the common flu.  Even without my results, I'm pretty sure it's Covid.

12/3 - Is there any way I can be unconscious until this is over?  I don't even make an attempt at work.  I sleep as much as possible.  Going through cough drops at an alarming rate.  Acetaminophen and Naproxen are my best friends.  Finally, at 6pm on Friday, I get the email verifying that I have Covid.  Duh.  I consider contacting my primary to see if I can get the monoclonal antibody treatment, but my primary won't be around until Monday.  I consider calling urgent care, but I am not in a high risk group and they will tell me to keep taking OTC stuff and let them know if it gets worse.  

12/4 - Worse?  How could it be worse?  Well, the fact is that, yes, it could be.  It's awful, but in truth I am nowhere near death's door and I'm breathing pretty freely.  I write off seeking treatment.  Suck it up buttercup.  It's Saturday.  And my third day bedridden.  If there's no improvement by Monday I will call my primary.

12/5 - I'm hungry.  I'm actually hungry.  This is great!  I eat some soup, which I realize may be the first thing I have eaten in over 48 hours.  The soup tastes like a pound of salt has been dumped in it.  Some people lose their sense of smell or taste and others (like me) experience everything tasting like salt. Cough and sore throat are still with me, but I have the strength to actually get out of bed and watch an hour or two of TV.

12/6 - I think I'm going to survive. I still can't work a full day.  I'm weak and fatigued. But, from this point on each day is an incremental improvement.

As I write this I guess I am in what might be called the long tail.  Coming up on three weeks since my first symptoms.  I am back to working full days and light workouts at the gym.  I have a minor cough that doesn't affect me other than to possibly scare people (when in fact I may be one of the safest people in the world to be near at the moment). My quarantine is over, and I am flush with antibodies.  The process has made me terribly jealous of those who have mild or no symptoms and deeply sympathetic for those who are in mortal peril.  

If you're curious about my status, I was vaxxed.  Regular readers know that I was vaxxed as part of the Astra-Zeneca clinical trial when they were trying to get approval by the FDA, a thing they appear to have given up on.  My second shot was 10 months before my infection.  To my knowledge Astra-Zeneca has never issued guidance on boosters. A week or so before I contracted Covid, the folks who are running my part of the clinical study (Michigan Medicine) finally just threw up their hands and said to go get the Pfizer booster, I just hadn't gotten around to it yet.  So for those of you obsessed with the vax, I can think of three possibilities.

1. The vax did me no good.  I got full on Covid anyway.

2. The vax worked for a while, but eventually wore off and I was too slow in getting a booster.

3. The vax worked because were I not vaxxed I would really have been at death's door.

I have no idea which of these is correct, although I suspect (2).  In any event, I'm going to live with my natural immunity for two or three months, then I'll probably go for a booster.

In terms of Covid response gripes, I have 2:

1. We really need more rapid tests.  I understand in the UK they give them directly to households for free.  Here I couldn't even buy one.  This would have saved me a couple of days of wondering and may even have permitted me to get some treatment.

2. Treatment should not require extra steps.  If you get a positive Covid test, the prescription for treatment should come along with it.  No trying to track down your doctor and explain yourself and beg and have to prove how bad off you are.  "Here's your positive test and here's your treatment," should be the goal. (I understand production of treatments may not be ramped up enough to do this yet.)

Sorry, but I can't resist further rumination.  The latest expectation on Omicron is that it is much more contagious, more resistant to our current vaccines, but significantly less deadly than previous strains.  Also interestingly, I read somewhere that it follows a pattern of how the 1914-18 Spanish flu subsided. Newer, less deadly strains began to dominate eventually leading us down the road to where we are now -- most everyone can handle the flu, or respond well to treatment, and an annual vax for high risk or anyone else who wants it is available.

It's beginning to look to me like that's where we are going to land in a couple of years with Covid.  I stand by my original prediction from more that a year ago, which is eventually, we will all get Covid.  It will just be in a form we can handle for the most part.  That suggests we should stop over-emphasizing masks and travel limits and start focusing on ramping up treatments and having a regular vaccine available, perhaps even a combined flu/covid vaccine. 

Anyway, I really don't want to deep dive back into the state of Covid like I did when I was doing a monthly update.  I'm just weary of it and am confident that, over time, it will sort itself out and not be a concern anymore. 

Related: A variant-proof vaccine is getting closer.  This could be another huge step forward. 

[TV] Binge Monkey

Between the holidays and my Covid downtime I went on massive TV binges. Get ready for a lightning round of reviews. 

True Detective Season 1 -- I binged this while I had Covid and was in need of something familiar.  This was the first time I had seen it since its initial run.  My opinion hasn't really changed.  The plot and action was marginal TV police procedural level stuff.  Where it excelled was in the expression of the dark souls of the lead characters, both nihilistic -- one knowingly by choice, the other uncomprehending -- and the portrayals of those characters by Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConnaughey.  It was familiar but offered no comfort so I switched to…

Justified -- I think I watched seasons 1,3 and 5.  Just wonderful as I remember.  The dialogue sizzles, the plots are Elmore Leonard-clever, drama and comedy are perfectly balanced.  There are subtleties like the protagonist and antagonist both having fathers that tried to kill them.  The deft handling of the trope of the hero who does great harm in the course of administering justice.  My favorite dramatic moment: the hard-won closure Raylan gets when he finally sees his deceased and hated father's secret cabin, a place of fearsome legend, only to find there is nothing to it.  I get the feeling this series will eternally be my comfort food.

Trailer Park Boys -- I can't for the life of me remember why I started watching this. It's a very low budget, almost amateur level, schoolyard humor comedy about some lowlife white trash criminals in a trailer park in Nova Scotia.  It certainly is not for refined tastes.  Yet, in every episode I found at least one thing to laugh about, whether it was a sublime bit of character acting or a piece of outright slapstick.  I'll also suggest that it is more accurate than most people would like to admit in its portrayal of lowlifes.  Even when presented with straightforward and obvious ways to sort out their lives, they still choose to repeat the behavior that keeps them beat down. The show became a bit of a cult sensation garnering guest appearances from actual celebrities later in it's run. If you watch one episode, you will know if it's for you.  

Squid Game -- This was the hottest show around a few weeks ago, remember?  It's Korean with subtitles.  A shadowy organization gathers up people who are desperately in debt and offers them riches in return for playing a series of what seem like kids games, but failure means death.  It is a truly compelling watch. Alliances are built, and betrayed. Truly nail-biting stuff.  The ending is a failure as we discover it's the most prosaic trope imaginable, all in the service of a sequel.  Still, absolutely worth watching.  It deserved all the attention it got.

Tiger King Season 2 - Could have been subtitled "The Insanity Continues".  Those who came out of the first season OK and now in trouble.  Stories flip-flop.  Attention-whores of all stripes latch on to share the ride.  And, dare I say it, it looks like Joe Exotic might actually find his way out of jail early.  If you're the type who likes to settle in with a bowl of popcorn and gawk at the crazies, this is for you.  

Hawkeye -- probably the best MCU series yet.  It suffers from the inveterate pacing problems all the series have.  It spends too much time on talking and not enough on resolving plots in a coherent way.  But, in the absence of razor sharp writing or direction, these series live or die on the likability of the main characters and how well the actors portray them.  In that category Hawkeye did well.  Jeremy Renner did his fine reluctant hero stuff.  Hailee Stienfield didn't really spread her wings but played the slightly daffy precocious upstart well.  Some of the supporting cast, notably Tony Dalton (who you may remember as Lalo Salamanca) got to chew a bit of scenery.  And of course, the mighty Vincent D'onofrio made his MCU Kingpin debut. All in all entertaining and nicely Christmas themed.

Aside: One final note about Hawkeye, there was the introduction of a character called Echo, who is deaf, and in the comics starts out as a Kingpin sidekick then eventually becomes entangled with DareDevil.  There seems to be plans to build an entire series around her.  This is horribly misguided.  From what I saw she has only very rudimentary acting skills (she can make an angry face, and that's about it).  Both D'onofrio and Charlie Cox (as DareDevil) will make her disappear in every scene they share.  She is simply out of her league.  Big mistake to make her the centerpiece of a series like that.  I hope Marvel rethinks it.

Another Aside: Yes, I watch too much TV.

[Travel] Travel Friends

For many people, travelling is an exercise in trying to save every penny.  They use every tool and trick on the internet to save $20 here or there. I understand this for folks on a shoestring.  In fact, one thing I have noticed in people such as myself who were raised in lower-middle class frugality, getting the best deal, even if it is just by a few pennies, is a reward in itself.

What's interesting to me is that once you have the means to loosen the purse strings a bit, there are many different ways you can use your newfound freedom.  People often think that the way to spend extra travel money is on luxuries and extravagance.  I disagree with that entirely.  I believe the way to spend extra money is on convenience.  And convenience in this case can often mean having travel friends.

My main travel friend is Delta Airlines.  Delta is certainly the best domestic U.S. airline.  That makes me lucky that the airport nearest me is a hub.  It means I can fly direct to most places in the country.  But that's not why I always fly Delta.  Delta was formerly Northwest and when they were Northwest they were the rudest, most antagonistic organization in service industry in history.  They outright hated their customers and were not shy about it.  It got to the point where, despite living near a hub, I would fly two, sometimes three legs just to avoid flying Northwest.  The turn around in corporate culture from Northwest to Delta has been astonishing.  It's a story I hope someone tells it one day.  I am not usually a corporate fanboy. I generally feel no loyalty to corporations or products because I know they mostly have none for me.  But I do admire Delta and that keeps me from hitting Kayak.com or any other price comparison site when I need to book a flight.  I feel confident Delta will take good care of me.  This eases my mind of the possibility of having to go ten rounds with a gate agent over some idiotic snafu.

The other aspects of surrounding flying are also rife with opportunities to simplify your travels.  Going through security, I am registered for TSA-Pre and signed up for Clear.  With Clear I don't even have to show my ID.  They scan my eyes to verify my identity, I flash my boarding pass on my phone, and I move on.  The downside to Clear is that they are not in all airports yet and you can still get a random check, in which case I have to show my driver's license (how awful, eh?).

I have found no way of speeding through the actual screening, although I think TSA-pre helps some with that in that I don't have to take off my shoes.  Still, and this is going to sound prissy, I have a certain pocket in my carry-on and I always take everything out of my pockets and my watch and glasses and so forth and put it there. That way, once I'm through, I can quickly reverse the process and I'm back to normal.  Like I said, that's prissy, but it also stops me from forgetting anything which I have proven very, very capable of doing.

The last thing I do flight-wise is what I would consider my one true luxury splurge.  I pay a healthy amount of money for a high-end American Express card that gets me access to the airline lounges.  Again, this seems like a huge luxury, but really it's a convenience.  There is nothing you can do in the lounge that you can't do in the terminal, it's just a little better and easier in the lounge.  The wi-fi is a bit quicker.  The food and drinks are better and included in the cost.  The bathrooms are cleaner.  The chairs are more comfortable.  Recharge outlets are more available.  If you have to work, there are desks. I have taken to stopping in before or after flights for a quick meal and refresh.  And, believe me, if you have an extended weather or mechanical delay, it will feel like the best money you ever spent.  I once spent nearly an eight hour weather delay in the lounge in Houston slowly sipping cocktails and working on my laptop in comfort as opposed to the madness in the terminal just outside.

So I guess I better list American Express as a Travel Friend.

Another key source of stress in travel is rental cars, and oh boy am I about to go on a rant.  Car Rental agencies are awful.  The best of them nickel and dime you.  The worst of them outright scam you.  The cheap ones are outright crooks.  They play the games and make veiled threats to get you to buy insurance.  They upsell you at a certain cost, hoping you don't realize that it's not one amount but per day.  They hurry you on your way without noting any damage to the car then try to charge you for it upon return. Honestly, if there is one area of travel I would suggest you focus on to reduce stress it's car rental.  Here's how I do it.

I belong to the National Car Rentals Emerald Club.  It's free to join.  When you sign up you give all the relevant information about yourself -- DL#, credit card, etc. -- which they keep on file.  When you need to rent a car, you go to their site, sign in with your Emerald ID number, and make the reservation.  Upon arrival, you don't have to wait in line for anything, you just go to the National lot and there will be a row or two of cars that are reserved for Emerald club members.  You just pick the car you want, the keys will be in it.  At the exit booth you show your ID, they look up your reservation, record that you picked up the car, and you're off.  Trust me, once you get used to this process, if you have to go back to waiting in line to pick up keys at a rental desk, you will want to cry and curse the universe.

The second car rental luxury I treat myself to is prepaying for gas if I am unfamiliar with the area around the airport or fear I will be in a hurry.  For those who don't realize, a rental car comes with a full tank of gas.  You are expected to return it full.  If you don't, they will charge you an exorbitant rate to fill it, like half again higher than the going rate. What that means is that you can find yourself scrambling to find a gas station in an unfamiliar locale when you are already in a mad rush to get to your plane.  Rental companies let you out of this by effectively buying a full tank of gas at the time of rental, this time at a low market rate.  If you do that you can bring the car back with any amount of gas, even empty.  So it's a game.  Any gas you return is effectively out of pocket cost to you.  So, is the cost of whatever gas you return worth less to you than the hassle of finding a gas station at the last minute?  If I know the area I'm flying into (most places in Florida, for example)  I don't prepay and fill the tank before I return.  If I am in an unfamiliar place and likely to have used the bulk of the gas in the tank, then I allow myself the luxury of pre-paying just to avoid the last minute refill hassle.  IF I return with a quarter tank, I'm out a few dollars, but…oh well.

So those are my travel friends as of now.  Delta, Amex, National.  If I had a hotel friend it would be Hilton, but my experiences have been a bit spotty the last few times.  And AirBnB has made inroads with me.

As I look back on this post, why on earth did I go through this exercise? I generally dwell on this topic when I am confronted with stories of travel hassles accepted in the interest of saving a few dollars.  I genuinely understand that for people who are really on a shoestring budget and need to scrimp on travel expenses so they can, perhaps, spend more at the destination.  But I also know others who put themselves through difficulties and hassles on principle as if saving $100 by putting up with a stressful or uncomfortable situation is some sort of moral victory.  Not worth it.  Not when you're on vacation.

As I read this, it makes it seem like I am some sort of snotty rich guy throwing money around.  I'm not.  I spent many years shoe-stringing travel where I could.  I can't count the number of times I drove from Michigan to Florida in the summer heat (off season), in a car without a/c and only an AM/FM radio.  So I get it. But why do that if you don't have to. A little bit of money can go a long way to making travel more convenient.  NOw that I've stopped sweating every dollar, I have virtually no travel anxiety and it has improved my state of mind while venturing about tremendously.