WhiteGhost: Left 4 Dead

[deftona]

I'm really sorry you're all having to go through this. It makes for really interesting reading though. At least you'll have all your home comforts for the 14 days of quarantine. 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Did you laptop wag it's tail when it saw you came home?

[KB Girl]

Well! that must have been an adventure! 

Good to be home though and be able to pick up wraith. Go get groceries!

 

[starsapart]

WOW, what a day you've had! Glad you're back safe and sound. Good luck with the continued plague insanity. I'm rooting for you!

[shaar]

Wow, reading this, wowow.  That must have been INTENSE!!!  Glad you made the quick choice to get the frick out and are home now!!!

[Manarelle]

5 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Oh, sure, spoil the fun   And from what I understand you can also have consonant diphthongs (the letter combinations are called diagraphs but the sound they make are called diphthongs)  

 

Diphthongs I knew, but digraphs were new to me. Thank you for sparking another fun linguistic rabbit hole! 

 

5 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

If I knew it was  Rincewind book going into it I would have skipped it (Like I did with FaustEric)

 

If I were the sort to be bothered by different opinions, this would do it.  I like Rincewind, generally speaking. Not the #1 favorite character, but he's fun. 

 

Glad you were able to make it home. Continued best wishes for your safety. 

 

[Lara]

You had quite a day. But as said by others, I'm happy that you're finally home. Maybe you'll be quarantined again, but at least it's at your place.

I'm curious too, why are they expecting a new spike?

[WhiteGhost]

10 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

What is the reasoning behind the predicted spike? Good luck with the quarantine if it happens. At least you’ll have Wraith back!

Yes, definitely a story for the Grandkids.

 

 

10 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

What is the reasoning behind the predicted spike? Good luck with the quarantine if it happens. At least you’ll have Wraith back!

 

4 hours ago, zenLara said:

You had quite a day. But as said by others, I'm happy that you're finally home. Maybe you'll be quarantined again, but at least it's at your place.

I'm curious too, why are they expecting a new spike?

I'm not sure about the science behind it ( @annyshay probably understands it better than anyone here) but it has to do with the way viruses transmit and incubate.  From what I understand, it doesn't typically happen in a purely linear fashion and is more likely to happen in fits and bursts.  In this particular case, this is exacerbated by the travel schedules of people coming back from holiday.  Some companies started work last Monday so there was a travel spike over the weekend.  Some other companies are starting back to work on next Monday so there will be another spike this weekend, and then some more companies are starting again on the following Monday, so again another weekend spike.  This was designed to take the pressure off the normal schedule which would have had everyone coming back the same weekend.  However, it is still expected to create spikes, especially given the incubation period (up to 14 days) and the fact that some people may be able to transmit the virus without showing any symptoms.  Based on all of this, their prediction model suggested that there will be a large increase in cases from the 18th through through about the 25th.  I don't know how accurate that is, but seeing how it is literally their job to make these kinds of predictions, we decided to take it seriously.

 

10 hours ago, deftona said:

I'm really sorry you're all having to go through this. It makes for really interesting reading though. At least you'll have all your home comforts for the 14 days of quarantine. 

I am really glad you said that.  I am doing my best to keep things interesting because hopefully this is something none of you will ever have to experience

 

9 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Did you laptop wag it's tail when it saw you came home?

No, it just sat there and waited for me to come over and give it some attention.  It must be a cat

 

8 hours ago, KB Girl said:

Well! that must have been an adventure! 

Good to be home though and be able to pick up wraith. Go get groceries!

 

Yes, definitely an adventure.  I am getting the feeling that "adventure" means something that is a real pain to get through in the moment but makes for great stories afterwards  

 

8 hours ago, starsapart said:

WOW, what a day you've had! Glad you're back safe and sound. Good luck with the continued plague insanity. I'm rooting for you!

Well, we are back safe and sound for now, but given that Beijing is at a much higher risk of a major Wuhan style outbreak than Sanya was, we;ll have to see how things go.

 

7 hours ago, loire said:

Wow, reading this, wowow.  That must have been INTENSE!!!  Glad you made the quick choice to get the frick out and are home now!!!

I have to say, it was definitely the most interesting and yet most boring flight I have ever been on.  They even got rid of the magazines on the airplane because they wanted to reduce the number of things that get touched by multiple passengers.  The food was just a roll and a bottle of water, because they didn't want to have to collect dishes.  We didn't even bother taking one because there was no way we were going to take our masks off while on the airplane, even long enough to take a drink of water.

 

4 hours ago, Manarelle said:

Diphthongs I knew, but digraphs were new to me. Thank you for sparking another fun linguistic rabbit hole! 

I actually only learned about digraphs in December from sitting in on some online English phonics classes Ghostlet was taking

 

4 hours ago, Manarelle said:

If I were the sort to be bothered by different opinions, this would do it.  I like Rincewind, generally speaking. Not the #1 favorite character, but he's fun. 

Definitely a difference of opinion here.  I think the books about him are fine, just boring.

 

 

Well, it turns out that the timing for coming back to Beijing was fortuitous in at least one regard: my phone has been slowing dying, literally bursting apart at the seams.  When we left for Sanya, it was just a small crack on on side, but as of last week it had expanded so that one corner of the phone back is permanently pushed out to about double the thickness of the phone.  I suspect the battery is going bad and expanding, pushing everything apart but that is just a theory for now.  Well, yesterday it started impacting the actual operations of the phone because the case is straining against the power button.  Whit this means it that it is constantly turning the screen on and off which not only drains the battery but makes it really hard to use.  I would be really hard pressed to do any kind of update anymore if I did not have my laptop.

 

We have ordered a replacement, but it won't get here until the end of the month at the earliest.  

[fleaball]

This whole situation is totally bananas. I’m glad you’re home and getting your kitty back at least. 

[annyshay]

First off, Wraith is an amazing name for a cat.

 

Second, I'm so sorry you guys are going through this.

 

Third, it is FASCINATING to see how China is handling this.

 

Fourth, I think you are above my pay grade for predicting spikes and things like that. I'm not sure that that data is getting published yet. 

 

Fifth, I really hope that you all stay safe and will be praying for you. 

[KB Girl]

10 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Yes, definitely an adventure.  I am getting the feeling that "adventure" means something that is a real pain to get through in the moment but makes for great stories afterwards  

Absolutely, a lesson I learned from young adult fiction. 

[Mad Hatter]

You really should stop using that phone, in case it blows or catches fire. 😕

[WhiteGhost]

12 hours ago, fleaball said:

This whole situation is totally bananas. I’m glad you’re home and getting your kitty back at least. 

Thanks, it's nice to be home but we are going to miss the warm tropical breezes we had back in Sanya

 

2 hours ago, annyshay said:

First off, Wraith is an amazing name for a cat.

 

Second, I'm so sorry you guys are going through this.

 

Third, it is FASCINATING to see how China is handling this.

 

Fourth, I think you are above my pay grade for predicting spikes and things like that. I'm not sure that that data is getting published yet. 

 

Fifth, I really hope that you all stay safe and will be praying for you. 

I agree, but it took a bit of selling on my part to get that one through.  Ghostess was definitely not excited about the name when I suggested it.

 

This will be something for the textbooks I imagine

 

2 hours ago, KB Girl said:

Absolutely, a lesson I learned from young adult fiction. 

And yet the stories make it seem so desirable somehow...

 

1 hour ago, Mad Hatter said:

You really should stop using that phone, in case it blows or catches fire. 😕

I have been worrying about the same thing. My new one is one the way and I am using this one as little as I can get away with (at least now that I am back)

 

Thursday

 

Today was certainly a change of pace from the last few weeks.  We spent the whole morning deep cleaning the apartment, wiping down every surface with disinfectant, washing clothes, etc.  After lunch we went over and picked up Wraith and brought her home, but it seems she had forgotten us while we were gone, and so she is now hiding in her little cubby house and venturing out every once in a while to explore the house and smell everything.  Hopefully it will all come back to her soon.

 

We had originally planned to go to the supermarket for groceries, but after doing some background checking, it turns out that two of the local supermarkets had confirmed cases of Coronavirus and got shut down, and a bunch of the others were rumored to be high risk.  Instead of doing that, I made a couple of trips down to the vegetable stand in the yard and bought a week's supply of veggies.  For now they seemed to be fully stocked on fresh produce, but other stuff like soy sauce and vinegar were all sold out.  We ordered meat and dairy products online, which arrived fairly quickly so we are now pretty well sorted for food for the next 1-2 weeks. 

 

It is probably good that we did that, too, because just about 30 minutes ago the weather bureau announced that we should expect sever snowstorms starting from around midnight tonight lasting for 3-4 days.  Normally this would mean 2-3 inches, but it seems every couple of years some place gets completely dumped on and I guess we are about due for one. 

 

Stay tuned for next time to see what happens in the next episode of Left 4 Dead, China Edition  

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

33 minutes ago, WhiteGhost said:

Today was certainly a change of pace from the last few weeks.  We spent the whole morning deep cleaning the apartment, wiping down every surface with disinfectant, washing clothes, etc.  After lunch we went over and picked up Wraith and brought her home, but it seems she had forgotten us while we were gone, and so she is now hiding in her little cubby house and venturing out every once in a while to explore the house and smell everything.  Hopefully it will all come back to her soon.

 

Not only has she been away for a while, the deep cleaning with disinfectant changed all the smells.

[starsapart]

14 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Well, we are back safe and sound for now, but given that Beijing is at a much higher risk of a major Wuhan style outbreak than Sanya was, we'll have to see how things go.

 

Point. Hopefully you can stock up on non-perishable foods and hide out until it ends. ☹️

 

1 hour ago, WhiteGhost said:

We had originally planned to go to the supermarket for groceries, but after doing some background checking, it turns out that two of the local supermarkets had confirmed cases of Coronavirus and got shut down, and a bunch of the others were rumored to be high risk.  Instead of doing that, I made a couple of trips down to the vegetable stand in the yard and bought a week's supply of veggies.  For now they seemed to be fully stocked on fresh produce, but other stuff like soy sauce and vinegar were all sold out.  We ordered meat and dairy products online, which arrived fairly quickly so we are now pretty well sorted for food for the next 1-2 weeks. 

 

It is probably good that we did that, too, because just about 30 minutes ago the weather bureau announced that we should expect sever snowstorms starting from around midnight tonight lasting for 3-4 days.  Normally this would mean 2-3 inches, but it seems every couple of years some place gets completely dumped on and I guess we are about due for one.

 

Glad you managed to prepare ahead of time, but seriously, what a wild ride you're having over there.

[Elennare]

9 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

After lunch we went over and picked up Wraith and brought her home, but it seems she had forgotten us while we were gone, and so she is now hiding in her little cubby house and venturing out every once in a while to explore the house and smell everything.  Hopefully it will all come back to her soon.

Cats (in general) get their sense of comfort from the place they're in more so than the people they are with.  So, on top of being gone for a while, all the crazy cleaning you did almost certainly significantly changed the smell of your apartment.  I'm sure she's glad to have her people around, but after all the changes, it's not her territory any more.  Having moved with a cat several times (...7, if you count the couple hotel rooms while we waited for our stuff to arrive so we could move into the apartment a couple years ago), that is totally normal behavior for a cat in a new ("new") place.  She'll be back to her normal self soon, once she gets used to the smells/makes everything that's hers smell like her again.  If you have any of her blankets or things that smell like her that haven't been washed to death, you might be able to speed the process by rubbing them around the apartment.

 

Add me to list of people praying that your family survives L4D: The Real World unscathed!

[WhiteGhost]

21 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Not only has she been away for a while, the deep cleaning with disinfectant changed all the smells.

That's a good point, and would explain why she likes to stay in her cubby house so much.  We took that with her when we dropper her off at the cat sitter, and it came back with us so the smell there is a constant for her.

 

21 hours ago, starsapart said:

 

Point. Hopefully you can stock up on non-perishable foods and hide out until it ends. ☹️

 

Glad you managed to prepare ahead of time, but seriously, what a wild ride you're having over there.

We are currently pretty well stockpiled in everything, so we should be able to hide out for a while

 

12 hours ago, Elennare said:

Cats (in general) get their sense of comfort from the place they're in more so than the people they are with.  So, on top of being gone for a while, all the crazy cleaning you did almost certainly significantly changed the smell of your apartment.  I'm sure she's glad to have her people around, but after all the changes, it's not her territory any more.  Having moved with a cat several times (...7, if you count the couple hotel rooms while we waited for our stuff to arrive so we could move into the apartment a couple years ago), that is totally normal behavior for a cat in a new ("new") place.  She'll be back to her normal self soon, once she gets used to the smells/makes everything that's hers smell like her again.  If you have any of her blankets or things that smell like her that haven't been washed to death, you might be able to speed the process by rubbing them around the apartment.

 

Add me to list of people praying that your family survives L4D: The Real World unscathed!

This is plying out here as well.  She seemed completely lost at first but now that she has put her smell all over the place she seems to be a lot more at ease.  We have noticed that she isn't nearly as active as she used to be, but I put that up to her no longer being a tiny curious ball of pure kitten energy and maturing into her true demon spawn form.  When we bring out her old favorite toys that she loved before (such a mouse on a string, or the laser pointer) she used to go completely cray chasing them.  Now she looks at the toys, looks at the hands that are controlling them, looks back at the toy and then walks off to do her own thing.  I feel like she's acting like a kid at Christmas time who just found out that Santa isn't even real  

 

Friday

 

Well, it snowed really heavily for about 12 hours this morning and left so much snow on the ground that you could only see the top half of the grass poking through. 

At least on the grass, at any rate.  The sidewalks and roads didn't have anything stick except a little bit of slush.  So much for the whole snow storm they were predicting...

 

I spent some time this morning doing an English reading class for Ghostlet and the we did PE.  I was going to look into the Darebee Ironborn program but then I found the Age of Pandora one and decided that would be perfect.  Ghostlet and I did the first day of that.  After he was done, I kept going and worked on some handstands for the first time in forever.  Surprisingly my body completely forgot how to do them. 

Hold on, I misspoke there.  Not surprisingly... Predictably   I worked on those for about 5 minutes until I completely ran out of upper body strength.

 

After that, I hopped on the dreadmill and ran for a bit.  I don't like running, but I have some debts I need to pay off.  The priority debt is the 4 buckets of mini Snickers I ate while on "holiday".  Each bucket had 40 bars and each bar is about 100 calories so that comes out to be...

[pulls out calculator]... about 16,000 calories I have to pay off

 

I coronavirus news, you may have seen the news that the total number jumped by over 10,000 in one night.  The reason for that is because the former director of Coronavirus management in Wuhan got fired and his replacement came in revised the numbers.  I expect the number of deaths to jump as well, because according to reports the authorities there had been ordering doctors to report any deaths (even those that were sudden onset pneumonia) that were not officially diagnosed to be any other cause of death except corona virus related.  In fact, the central government sent in a team of "auditors" to look into shenanigans by the local government there including arresting people (including doctors and first responders) who were sharing information about the dangers of the virus outside of government controlled channels, diverting donated resources and medical supplies away from the hospital and to friends and family of the party officials, diverting food that had been donated and reselling it back into the market, and a bunch of other shady stuff.  Expect a massive change in leadership in Wuhan soon.  

[sylph]

1 hour ago, WhiteGhost said:

I coronavirus news, you may have seen the news that the total number jumped by over 10,000 in one night.  The reason for that is because the former director of Coronavirus management in Wuhan got fired and his replacement came in revised the numbers.  I expect the number of deaths to jump as well, because according to reports the authorities there had been ordering doctors to report any deaths (even those that were sudden onset pneumonia) that were not officially diagnosed to be any other cause of death except corona virus related.  In fact, the central government sent in a team of "auditors" to look into shenanigans by the local government there including arresting people (including doctors and first responders) who were sharing information about the dangers of the virus outside of government controlled channels, diverting donated resources and medical supplies away from the hospital and to friends and family of the party officials, diverting food that had been donated and reselling it back into the market, and a bunch of other shady stuff.  Expect a massive change in leadership in Wuhan soon. 

Wow.

 

This is probably a naive question. Is that level of shenanigans common?

[starsapart]

2 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Well, it snowed really heavily for about 12 hours this morning and left so much snow on the ground that you could only see the top half of the grass poking through. 

At least on the grass, at any rate.  The sidewalks and roads didn't have anything stick except a little bit of slush.  So much for the whole snow storm they were predicting...

 

 

 

2 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

I coronavirus news, you may have seen the news that the total number jumped by over 10,000 in one night.  The reason for that is because the former director of Coronavirus management in Wuhan got fired and his replacement came in revised the numbers.  I expect the number of deaths to jump as well, because according to reports the authorities there had been ordering doctors to report any deaths (even those that were sudden onset pneumonia) that were not officially diagnosed to be any other cause of death except corona virus related.  In fact, the central government sent in a team of "auditors" to look into shenanigans by the local government there including arresting people (including doctors and first responders) who were sharing information about the dangers of the virus outside of government controlled channels, diverting donated resources and medical supplies away from the hospital and to friends and family of the party officials, diverting food that had been donated and reselling it back into the market, and a bunch of other shady stuff.  Expect a massive change in leadership in Wuhan soon.

 

Holy moly, these updates are just scary. Feels a bit like reading an excerpt from some apocalyptic novel, except it's real life.

[KB Girl]

Oh shit, so those arrests etc were real and not just fear mongering.. very interesting. 

 

Good that you got back on the handstand wagon

 

[WhiteGhost]

12 hours ago, sylph said:

Wow.

 

This is probably a naive question. Is that level of shenanigans common?

historically it has been, which is why Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign has been such a gamechanger.  Love or hate his politics, he has made huge inroads into cleaning up the political system here.  Still a lot of work to be done, but you have to give him credit for pushing this.  In the past, these kind of things would have been shoved under the carpet or ignored completely by the central government. Now they are cracking down.

 

11 hours ago, starsapart said:

Holy moly, these updates are just scary. Feels a bit like reading an excerpt from some apocalyptic novel, except it's real life.

 I feel like this would make a good movie or miniseries 

 

9 hours ago, KB Girl said:

Oh shit, so those arrests etc were real and not just fear mongering.. very interesting. 

 

Good that you got back on the handstand wagon

 

Oh yeah, very real.  In fact, one of the first guys to get arrested was one of the doctors who discovered this whole thing and tried to warn everybody.  After his release, he went back to the hospital to try and help more people but ended up contracting the virus and died last week.  That's a real hero.

 

Maybe it's just me, but it seems handstands are so much harder when you have more weight to hold up... 

[@mu]

Man, that's tough. I appreciate you are keeping it lighthearted but I hope you and your family stay safe.

 

And then HANDSTANDS, in

[Lara]

16 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

In fact, one of the first guys to get arrested was one of the doctors who discovered this whole thing and tried to warn everybody.  After his release, he went back to the hospital to try and help more people but ended up contracting the virus and died last week.  That's a real hero.

It was on the news here. Sad story.

[WhiteGhost]

18 hours ago, @mu said:

Man, that's tough. I appreciate you are keeping it lighthearted but I hope you and your family stay safe.

 

And then HANDSTANDS, in

Thanks, I appreciate it.  

 

BUT, where is your challenge, young lady?  I feel like I haven't seen you around for ages

 

5 hours ago, zenLara said:

It was on the news here. Sad story.

Very.  But I hope it helps change things around here and that he didn't die in vain

 

 

I keep thinking I need to do a bit of an update write up for this challenge.  I was going to wait until the end of zero week but I guess now is as good a time as any

 

------------------------------------------------------

 

 The survivors had been in Sanya for just over a week laying low and avoiding zombies before they were caught by the local authorities and put into a quarantine camp.  It took them another week and a half to find a way out.  Bill had been watching the camp guards and discovered that a couple of them were more interested in playing on their phones than watching the gate.  After careful observation, he figured out the guard rotations and planned for when the guard would be on duty next.  He needed to find a time when both of those lazy guards would be on duty together.  It didn;t look promising.

 

It all happened so suddenly.  It was zoey's turn to watch the guards when suddenly the regular guard didn't show up so he was replaced by one of the lazy ones.  By pure coincidence, the other guard on duty was the other lazy one.  This was the chance, but they weren't ready.  Zoey raced back to their room and told the rest of the group.  

 

Caught unprepared, they quickly gathered up whatever they absolutely needed and left everything else.  Bill made a quick call to his contact outside the compound and arranged for transportation to a refugee transit station.  It was now or never, so they grabbed whatever they coud carry on hand and walked out the gates pretending to be just heading out for a local supply run.  Once away from the gates, they met up with Bill's contact and they headed out.

 

Once at the refugee station, they had to make a decision.  "Where do we go?" asked Louis.  Francis just shrugged his shoulders.  "Does it even matter at this point, everywhere is the same".  Zoey turned to stare him down "We can't just give up.  There has got to be one of these caravans leaving the country".  "We would never make it" replied Louis. "We don't have the right travel documents so even if we could get into a caravan we would get turned away at every border"  He sat down to think about it.  Suddenly bill stood up. "I've got it" he announced "I know of a CIA safe house in Beijing that we used to use for some of our Special Forces operations years ago, It has probably been abandoned, but I think I can get us in".

 

Without any better prospects, the survivors joined with a caravan and headed for Beijing.  It was a dangerous journey, because they had no idea if anyone else in the caravan was infected.  In order to try and keep themselves safe, they isolated themselves in the back as far away fro the others as they could get, and didn't share in any of the food and drink the rest of the travelers were sharing. 

 

Eventually they arrived in Beijing and Bill led them to the safe house.  As expected, it looked like it hadn't been used in a while, but Bill was able to find a way in through the back underground escape tunnel.  Once inside, the group of survivors started fortifying the place and sent out foraging parties to locate supplies to stockpile.

 

---------------------------------------

 

OK, phase one of this challenge is over, so the challenge items I had in place are no longer meaningful.  Time to switch things up and get ready for phase two.  This phase will last until one of the following 3 scenarios happen:

 

1.  14 day quarantine period is finished

2.  The epidemic no longer considered dangerous

3. Someone in the group get infected (heaven forbid!)

 

New challenge items:

 

Bill*, the ex-Green Beret - Fitness

 

I still can't go out to the park but I do have a pretty complete home gym now, so I can start getting in some real exercise.  I have started the Age of Pandora program from Darebee, so I will continue to follow through with that.  In addition, I will do handstands and run on the dreadmill after each session, targeting 5 workouts/week 

 

Zoey, the student- Classes

 

Ghostlet starts classes tomorrow but it will all be online for now.  I expect the classes will be limited, so I will work with him to supplement his learning with home school classes.  We will continue to do our English reading and phonics classes, PE, and maybe art & music as well.  I need to have classes for him every weekday.

 

Louis, the businessman - Self Development

 

I am back with my my uke so I can play around with that and also drawing.  I want to get in a uke practice session and a sketching session 5 times per week

 

Francis, the rebel biker - Playing

 

Let's be real for a minute. Now that I am reunited with my x-box, I am going to spend quite a bit of time playing The Elder Scrolls (Mostly Skyrim, but I also bought the first 4 so those will probably happen too).    This isn't so much a challenge item as it is a recognition of reality, so I might as well own it.  

 

Time to hunker down and try to weather this one out

 

[WhiteGhost]

Also, an update for yesterday

 

Saturday

 

We had a huge scare yesterday.  Around noon or so, Ghostess announced that she could feel a fever coming on.  She took her temperature and sure enough she was running a mild grade fever.  Ghostlet and I both took our temperatures and were both running low grade fevers as well (we aren't as sensitive to it as Ghostess).  We all took some medicine and Ghostlet and I both came back down to normal, but Ghostess was still feeling feverish.  She went in to take a nap and isolated herself in the bedroom.  By the evening she was still running a fever, but was feeling a little better.  When we woke up this morning, her fever had come back down and her temperature was normal again.  So far it seems that this was just some normal thing and not THE THING, but we were definitely very scared.