WhiteGhost: Left 4 Dead

[Sloth the Enduring]

 
It would help me if we fixed a date so I can do a countdown to when I have to parade around in just men's swim pants. 

I’ll be at the beach during the 2nd week of July.

[juliebarkley]

On 2/25/2020 at 8:46 PM, WhiteGhost said:

I have a feeling I am not going to ever get caught up this challenge.  If I haven't been to your challenge for a while, I am working through them.  I will probably get to it sometime this week.

^^^Me every challenge. Dude, you have been so supportive to us all so often, and are going through so much right now, you don't even need a free pass.

 

Would love photos of your Lego adventures. And your cat.

[Mad Hatter]

Wait wait wait - speedo challenge? What did I miss?  

[WhiteGhost]

23 hours ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

 

I’ll be at the beach during the 2nd week of July.

 

Ah, I see. It suddenly feels real...  In anticipation of this I cut down on snacks and and feel much more motivated to limit my crap lifestyle recently  

 

20 hours ago, juliebarkley said:

^^^Me every challenge. Dude, you have been so supportive to us all so often, and are going through so much right now, you don't even need a free pass.

 

Would love photos of your Lego adventures. And your cat.

Aw, thanks  I can probably do something about the pictures...

 

9 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Wait wait wait - speedo challenge? What did I miss?  

Haha, it's something Sloth was joking (maybe only half joking?) about in his thread, but we are trying to hold him to it  

 

Tuesday

 

Yesterday was Ghostess's first day back in the office so it was just Ghostlet and I at home.  He spent most of the day doing schoolwork while I was gaming, pausing regularly to give him feedback and direction.  In the afternoon we did PE which consisted of sooooo many pushups.  We are both really feeling it today.  

 

When Ghostess got back, she was telling us what it is like out in the city.  The roads were empty (like normal 3am traffic) but security has been ramped up to insane levels.  To get into any office building in Beijing right now you have to scan a QR code and register which company you are visiting.  If you are not on that company's list of authorized employees you are denied entry.  Each company is allowed to have up to 50% of the workforce in the building at any given time, so everybody else has to work from home or figure out some other workaround.  Every single person in the building was wearing masks, although that is only enforced for entry.  After that is just self enforced.  Coming back home, they have extended the boundry for incoming vehicles to be inspected.  It used to be that they would check the vehicles after they entered to complex but before entering the underground parking.  Now they have moved the perimeter to about 2 meters outside of the outside gate, and checks have become much more stringent.  The controls for coming to the city are still in place (you need to have a clean bill of health from the place you left and a chopped invitation from your company certifying that you are needed here). 

 

Given the virus seems to be winding down here, we were a little confused at first why the security was getting ramped up.  After a bit of discussion, our guess is that in March the central government is going to have their annual Plenary Session (similar to congress being in session) and all of the regional leadership will be coming here.  In order for that to happen, the city needs to be seen as safe, so they are pulling out all the stops to have this thing locked down by then.  Until then, this place is going to locked down tighter than a maximum security facility after a riot. 

[Manarelle]

13 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Ah, I see. It suddenly feels real...  In anticipation of this I cut down on snacks and and feel much more motivated to limit my crap lifestyle recently  

 

Haha, motivation is a real thing. 

 

13 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Given the virus seems to be winding down here, we were a little confused at first why the security was getting ramped up.  After a bit of discussion, our guess is that in March the central government is going to have their annual Plenary Session (similar to congress being in session) and all of the regional leadership will be coming here.  In order for that to happen, the city needs to be seen as safe, so they are pulling out all the stops to have this thing locked down by then.  Until then, this place is going to locked down tighter than a maximum security facility after a riot. 

 

Makes sense. Also, I'd surmise that with a 14-day incubation period, "winding down" and "no longer an issue" are worlds apart. 

 

Glad you guys are doing ok still. Keep that up. 

[SkyGirl]

A gentle reminder to you, just in the off chance it might be helpful, to be gentle with yourself while you guys are going through this. It's natural you might gain weight, lose some motivation and energy, struggle with low moods, and so on. You'll bounce back when this is over and things start to get back to normal.   

 

Not an excuse to slack off and not keep trying - way to go doing pushups with Ghostlet!! - but it's okay to be nice to yourself while things are so unsettled and upsetting. You guys are hanging in there and we're all rooting for you.

[WhiteGhost]

10 hours ago, Manarelle said:

 

Haha, motivation is a real thing. 

 

 

Makes sense. Also, I'd surmise that with a 14-day incubation period, "winding down" and "no longer an issue" are worlds apart. 

 

Glad you guys are doing ok still. Keep that up. 

Yes, certainly not completely gone, but based on official media*, the number of new cases is down to about 200, which is a far shade better than the 4,000+ we were getting at the peak.

 

* China is notoriously masterful at massaging information so I am waiting for data from other places like Italy and Korea to see what the situation there looks like.

 

29 minutes ago, SkyGirl said:

A gentle reminder to you, just in the off chance it might be helpful, to be gentle with yourself while you guys are going through this. It's natural you might gain weight, lose some motivation and energy, struggle with low moods, and so on. You'll bounce back when this is over and things start to get back to normal.   

 

Not an excuse to slack off and not keep trying - way to go doing pushups with Ghostlet!! - but it's okay to be nice to yourself while things are so unsettled and upsetting. You guys are hanging in there and we're all rooting for you.

Thank you for the reminder.  I feel like I may have been just a little too gentle with myself recently.  I could probably stand to be just a little harsher with myself   

 

Hopefully you guys over there dodge this one and it doesn't become a real issue there.

 

Wednesday

 

Again a whole lot of nothing.  The only difference from every other day was that I cooked dinner (lasagna!) and then after dinner when Ghostlet was finished with his homework, he wanted to play Skyrim so he did that until Ghostess got home while I "coached" him  

[Wild Wolf]

9 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

he wanted to play Skyrim so he did that until Ghostess got home while I "coached" him

 

HAHA! This brought a fun image to my head of you sitting behind him, guiding him on how to slay the enemies up ahead and what weapon works best. "Long swords for decapitation and war hammer for a good ole fashion beat down."

 

Wolf

[KB Girl]

We’ve got a lot of cases popping up from people who were on vacation in northern Italy.. and tomorrow 900 students who were skiing there are coming back. 
Hopefully spring will help a lot with everything. 

[WhiteGhost]

14 hours ago, Wild Wolf said:

 

HAHA! This brought a fun image to my head of you sitting behind him, guiding him on how to slay the enemies up ahead and what weapon works best. "Long swords for decapitation and war hammer for a good ole fashion beat down."

 

Wolf

Other the sitting next to him rather than behind him, your imagery is pretty spot on.    Half of the time is spent describing the Lore and why people are reacting certain ways and why some of them are enemies while others are friendly.

 

2 hours ago, KB Girl said:

We’ve got a lot of cases popping up from people who were on vacation in northern Italy.. and tomorrow 900 students who were skiing there are coming back. 
Hopefully spring will help a lot with everything. 

Yes, this thing is really getting around.  I suspect that we are going to see a lot of new cases come up as it spreads to places that are not willing or able to accept the strict draconian measures the Chinese have adopted.  I hope that it burns itself out quickly, though and doesn't last into the summer.  I really hope that you and your family/community do not get hit hard by it.

 

Thursday

 

I can't really remember anything specific to talk about for yesterday.  All of the days seem to blend together and I find myself spending most of my free time on the couch playing Skyrim.  I guess I should be grateful that I have a game that can hold my interest for so long...  

 

For the last few days, Beijing has had 0 new confirmed cases and people are starting to feel a bit more optimistic about where things are headed.  There is still no visibility on when things can start getting back to normal (i.e. starting school back up) but people seem to be adjusting to this new normal fairly well.  Fortunately, the government is being very flexible with issues that have come up.  For example, my friend's visa will expire this month, but he was told that all visas expiring in the next 2 months will be automatically extended for 2 months.  My registration with the local police station has expired, but they called and told me not to worry about it and to come in and renew "whenever I get around to it"  

[Lara]

6 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

to places that are not willing or able to accept the strict draconian measures the Chinese have adopted.

That's us. Authorities here are saying that this is nothing but another type of flu, and that we should keep going with our lives. Some sport events are taking place without public, and some companies have taken the decision to send workers home, but the government seems more interested in protecting the tourism sector and it's not delivering any prevention plan. Apparently there is no way that they will think of cancelling the Fallas or the Feria de Abril because that's a lot of money lost. Maybe they haven't thought that if we become a hot spot, nobody will want to come to the country and the tourism sector will fall anyway.

Also, people have started to report to the media that even when they've been in contact with someone already sick and belong to a risk group, they've been denied the test. Something like "if we don't see the cases, they aren't there".

I don't really know how serious the sickness is, given the amount of contradictory information about it here, but there is one thing that is apparently sure: it is very contagious. If we don't cancel events that gather huge amounts of people, our health system won't be able to manage the serious cases, and health care saturation is bad not only for those with this virus, but for any other people needing intensive care.

 

6 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Fortunately, the government is being very flexible with issues that have come up.  For example, my friend's visa will expire this month, but he was told that all visas expiring in the next 2 months will be automatically extended for 2 months.  My registration with the local police station has expired, but they called and told me not to worry about it and to come in and renew "whenever I get around to it"  

Well, that's nice. Glad that they're loosening things a bit.

[WhiteGhost]

15 hours ago, zenLara said:

That's us. Authorities here are saying that this is nothing but another type of flu, and that we should keep going with our lives. Some sport events are taking place without public, and some companies have taken the decision to send workers home, but the government seems more interested in protecting the tourism sector and it's not delivering any prevention plan. Apparently there is no way that they will think of cancelling the Fallas or the Feria de Abril because that's a lot of money lost. Maybe they haven't thought that if we become a hot spot, nobody will want to come to the country and the tourism sector will fall anyway.

Also, people have started to report to the media that even when they've been in contact with someone already sick and belong to a risk group, they've been denied the test. Something like "if we don't see the cases, they aren't there".

I don't really know how serious the sickness is, given the amount of contradictory information about it here, but there is one thing that is apparently sure: it is very contagious. If we don't cancel events that gather huge amounts of people, our health system won't be able to manage the serious cases, and health care saturation is bad not only for those with this virus, but for any other people needing intensive care.

 

Well, that's nice. Glad that they're loosening things a bit.

That is kind of worrisome that they are taking such a laissez faire attitude about it.  I hope you guys remain safe and relatively unaffected.

 

Friday

 

Yesterday was kind of a bust.  When I went to be Thursday night, I didn't create a new save for my Skyrim guy and then I spent most of the day yesterday grinding him.  Then, I found out that I broke the game game, by trying to do both the main quest and the Stormcloak quest concurrently.  Apparently if you time it just right (wrong?) then you end up with conflicting missions of attacking Whiterun while simultaneously negotiating a truce to prevent an attack on Whiterun.  I tried going back a few saves, but even back then it was already doomed and I just didn't realize it.  I was really surprised at how much it didn't even bother me much.  Mostly because I had been using a few tricks I had learned on the internet to speed level my character, and he just felt too fake.  I will probably just start over and make a similar type of character that levels up normally.

 

As for real life stuff, it went OK.  I spent a bunch of time helping Ghostlet with his homework and then in the evening cooked some dinner (pan fried fish & broccoli over rice) which was quite tasty.

 

I have been following the news and it seems like this Corona Virus thing is really making the rounds.  While on one hand, my heart goes out to anyone who is looking at the looming tidal wave and worried about the impact when it hits.  On the other hand, I feel kind of like a CoronaVirus Hipster.  I was totally into it before it was cool.  Now that it has sold out and gone mainstream, I am so over it    

[deftona]

4 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

CoronaVirus Hipster.

 

Well if this isn't something Tank needs to put as your Forum Name I don't know what is. 

[SkyGirl]

On 3/6/2020 at 5:40 AM, zenLara said:

I don't really know how serious the sickness is, given the amount of contradictory information about it here, but there is one thing that is apparently sure: it is very contagious. If we don't cancel events that gather huge amounts of people, our health system won't be able to manage the serious cases, and health care saturation is bad not only for those with this virus, but for any other people needing intensive care.

 

This is really what I've been thinking about too, here in the US. I think we need to be concerned more about spread than severity, if that makes sense. Yeah, canceling events, having people telework, and so on may seem excessive for a sickness that most of us will probably recover from, but a) that's a very selfish attitude when considering people with cancer or other conditions and elderly people who need protection, and b) it's so much better to have a sickness in a few places than diffused all over the country. 

 

11 hours ago, deftona said:

 

Well if this isn't something Tank needs to put as your Forum Name I don't know what is. 

 

 

[Mad Hatter]

16 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

I have been following the news and it seems like this Corona Virus thing is really making the rounds.  While on one hand, my heart goes out to anyone who is looking at the looming tidal wave and worried about the impact when it hits.  On the other hand, I feel kind of like a CoronaVirus Hipster.  I was totally into it before it was cool.  Now that it has sold out and gone mainstream, I am so over it    

Hah I was thinking the same thing.  I also can't help being intrigued by how this whole thing is going to pan out in "free" countries vs China.

[sarakingdom]

1 hour ago, SkyGirl said:

This is really what I've been thinking about too, here in the US. I think we need to be concerned more about spread than severity, if that makes sense.

 

58 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

Hah I was thinking the same thing.  I also can't help being intrigued by how this whole thing is going to pan out in "free" countries vs China.

 

I think, in the US, it's going to be hard to stop the spread. The reporting I'm seeing is that it's endemic in at least one state, and looks like it probably is in others. One of Canada's few cases was someone who'd just flown in from Las Vegas, which is not exactly a quarantine zone. We're weeks late out of the starting gate.

 

The reason we don't know it is that there are no testing kits, so they can't test for it, which makes the official numbers "low". (The WHO offered us a million of

their test kits, but we refused them. I think we now have 150 kits for the whole country, and they're only now being released to states.) There are apparently six states that don't even have labs qualified to test if they did have kits.

 

There are some interesting reasons why this is, but I think they're off topic here. Let's just say that it looks like a perfect storm of shenanigans. But not one that's particularly indicative of how things have traditionally worked in "free" countries, since some of those shenanigans look frankly illegal.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

13 hours ago, deftona said:

 

Well if this isn't something Tank needs to put as your Forum Name I don't know what is. 

 

2 hours ago, SkyGirl said:

 

 

Normally I let GLs dictate their own titles as under the old software GLs could change anyone's titles. However, as the Bible Says you can go off of the valid testimony of two witnesses and two GLs is enough to make me change the title.

Drunken Changing of other GL's titles was totally a thing back in the day. @Gainsdalf the Whey can verify this.

[SkyGirl]

45 minutes ago, sarakingdom said:

 

 

I think, in the US, it's going to be hard to stop the spread. The reporting I'm seeing is that it's endemic in at least one state, and looks like it probably is in others. One of Canada's few cases was someone who'd just flown in from Las Vegas, which is not exactly a quarantine zone. We're weeks late out of the starting gate.

 

The reason we don't know it is that there are no testing kits, so they can't test for it, which makes the official numbers "low". (The WHO offered us a million of

their test kits, but we refused them. I think we now have 150 kits for the whole country, and they're only now being released to states.) There are apparently six states that don't even have labs qualified to test if they did have kits.

 

There are some interesting reasons why this is, but I think they're off topic here. Let's just say that it looks like a perfect storm of shenanigans. But not one that's particularly indicative of how things have traditionally worked in "free" countries, since some of those shenanigans look frankly illegal.

 

Honestly we should be thankful that it DOES seem to be reasonably mild in the majority of cases, because if the Zombie Apocalypse or the Great Plague that Netflix has been warning us about ever does come, we will be so screwed. 

[WhiteGhost]

20 hours ago, deftona said:

 

Well if this isn't something Tank needs to put as your Forum Name I don't know what is. 

 

9 hours ago, SkyGirl said:

 

 

7 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

 

Normally I let GLs dictate their own titles as under the old software GLs could change anyone's titles. However, as the Bible Says you can go off of the valid testimony of two witnesses and two GLs is enough to make me change the title.

Drunken Changing of other GL's titles was totally a thing back in the day. @Gainsdalf the Whey can verify this.

 

I must say, I really love this new title.  Thanks Deffy for the recommendation  

 

9 hours ago, SkyGirl said:

This is really what I've been thinking about too, here in the US. I think we need to be concerned more about spread than severity, if that makes sense. Yeah, canceling events, having people telework, and so on may seem excessive for a sickness that most of us will probably recover from, but a) that's a very selfish attitude when considering people with cancer or other conditions and elderly people who need protection, and b) it's so much better to have a sickness in a few places than diffused all over the country.

From what I have seen, the biggest benefit to limiting the spread of the virus is that it spreads out the people who need medical service, keeping the hospitals from getting overwhelmed.  Containment seems to have failed at this point.  Interestingly, Beijing had our first confirmed new cases yesterday, all four of which were people who returned to Beijing from Italy.  Foreigners will have much more difficulty coming to China for the next while, and even those of us here are being tracked more closely.  I even got a call from the local police department asking if I have left the country in the last 6 months.

 

9 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Hah I was thinking the same thing.  I also can't help being intrigued by how this whole thing is going to pan out in "free" countries vs China.

Yes, from 2 perspectives.  One is to see the kind of information other countries have about the disease itself (more likely to accurate, unfiltered information) as well as how the countries deal with it.  Countries that place individual liberty over security will have a much harder time trying to track and control this.

 

8 hours ago, sarakingdom said:

 

 

I think, in the US, it's going to be hard to stop the spread. The reporting I'm seeing is that it's endemic in at least one state, and looks like it probably is in others. One of Canada's few cases was someone who'd just flown in from Las Vegas, which is not exactly a quarantine zone. We're weeks late out of the starting gate.

 

The reason we don't know it is that there are no testing kits, so they can't test for it, which makes the official numbers "low". (The WHO offered us a million of

their test kits, but we refused them. I think we now have 150 kits for the whole country, and they're only now being released to states.) There are apparently six states that don't even have labs qualified to test if they did have kits.

 

There are some interesting reasons why this is, but I think they're off topic here. Let's just say that it looks like a perfect storm of shenanigans. But not one that's particularly indicative of how things have traditionally worked in "free" countries, since some of those shenanigans look frankly illegal.

I saw news that people in the US were not being tested and this is just mind boggling to me.  It really makes me worry that it is much worse than people know, which is going to make the spread that much more difficult to control.  

 

7 hours ago, SkyGirl said:

 

Honestly we should be thankful that it DOES seem to be reasonably mild in the majority of cases, because if the Zombie Apocalypse or the Great Plague that Netflix has been warning us about ever does come, we will be so screwed. 

Yes, the silver lining in all of this is that in about 70% of the cases it seems to be extremely mild, and in another ~20% the cases seem to be similar to a very bad flu.  Only in less than about 5% of the cases does it seem to be causing organ failure and autoimmune reactions.  Let's hope those numbers are actually an overstatement

 

Saturday

 

No school or work on Saturday so we were all at home with tons of free time.  Ghostlet and I spent a bunch of time playing Legos and another fair bit of time with me guiding him through Skyrim's dungeons.

 

I took some pictures of the Legos and Wraith to spice up this update, but I can't upload them yet.  I will add them once I can get them uploaded.

[WhiteGhost]

As promised, here are some pics of the Lego process, as well as some of the ones I have "recovered"

 

 

And a picture of Wraith, who woke up with both of her ears folded backwards  

 

 

 

[SkyGirl]

18 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

I saw news that people in the US were not being tested and this is just mind boggling to me.  It really makes me worry that it is much worse than people know, which is going to make the spread that much more difficult to control.

 

We simply don't HAVE tests. We didn't get any from the WHO and we're not distributing enough to keep up with demand. We have no idea how many cases we have because we can't test people to track its spread. Incidentally, we're not manufacturing enough masks or protective clothing to keep our medical staff safe, which will likely contribute to thinning their ranks due to illness.

 

My mom keeps sending me memes to the effect that one symptom of coronavirus is apparently the overwhelming desire to travel to crowded places and interact with large numbers of humans.    

 

18 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

One is to see the kind of information other countries have about the disease itself (more likely to accurate, unfiltered information) as well as how the countries deal with it. 

 

Misinformation is almost as endemic as the virus, at the moment.

 

11 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

And a picture of Wraith, who woke up with both of her ears folded backwards  

 

There are no words to describe how much I love your cat.  ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

I can see people trying to do to your cat's ears what happened naturally simply for the pictures.

[WhiteGhost]

2 hours ago, SkyGirl said:

We simply don't HAVE tests. We didn't get any from the WHO and we're not distributing enough to keep up with demand. We have no idea how many cases we have because we can't test people to track its spread. Incidentally, we're not manufacturing enough masks or protective clothing to keep our medical staff safe, which will likely contribute to thinning their ranks due to illness.

For masks, a big part of it is that China bought up pretty much the whole world's supply of masks back in January, and pre-paid for quite a bit of the unfinished backlog as well (I heard the Chinese government put in an order with 3M for $100 million).  Given that pretty much all existing inventory is in China, the rest of the world is now seeing a severe shortage.  

 

2 hours ago, SkyGirl said:

Misinformation is almost as endemic as the virus, at the moment.

 

Yes, that seems to be the truth, sadly  

 

2 hours ago, SkyGirl said:

There are no words to describe how much I love your cat.  ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ 

No words are needed, because we love her just as much  ❤️❤️❤️ 

 

1 hour ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

I can see people trying to do to your cat's ears what happened naturally simply for the pictures.

Yeah, I can see that too  

 

Sunday

 

Yesterday went pretty well.  We started out with tele-church services.  It almost feels like we are getting back to our regular schedule, except without the fellowship aspect. 

 

After church Ghostlet and I spent some time paying Legos .  In the afternoon, he had scheduled some time with his friends to play Minecraft, so while he was doing that I got onto the xbox and played some Skyrim. 

 

I have to say, I am really impressed with the replayability of this game.  Even after my what, 5th? playthough of the game, I am still not bored with it.  I do this because I can make up a different backstory and motivation for each character so it almost seems like a different game for each one.  My current Character is a Redguard sellsword who came to Skyrim to earn some gold, and maybe a reputation.  He hasn't even started any of the quest lines but has explored most of southwestern Skyrim (the part just across the mountains from his home of Hammerfell). 

 

At one point I had to go out and pick up a delivery, so I got a picture of me in my kit

 

Every time we get a delivery, I put on my outdoor clothes, a mask and some latex gloves.  The delivery people are not allowed to enter the complex so I need to go to a collection point outside the gate and get our stuff.  To get back into the gate, I need to show my re-entry permit and get a temperature check.  Then once I get back home, I open the packages outside the door, hand the contents to Ghostess and then put the empty boxes in the recycle bin.  Once I am done with that, I come in and get sprayed down with an alcohol mist (regular rubbing alcohol in a spray bottle) after which I hang my outside clothes up by the door (shoes stay outside, they don't cross the threshold) and throw my mask and gloves in the trash.  This is probably overkill, but we are not interested in taking chances.  We are lucky to be all stocked up on gloves and masks.

 

It feels like spring out, with the highs in the mid teens, so I am really starting to miss my workout trips to the park.  Challengwise, this whole thing seems like a bust, but given the circumstances we are probably doing pretty well just staving off the craziness that comes with being cooped up all the time.  I was talking to Ghostlet and he mentioned that it has now been almost 4 weeks since he stepped outside the door, and excluding the airplane trip back home, it would be a full 7 weeks.  That's a long time for a kid to be cooped up indoors, so I am pretty proud of how well he has been dealing with this.

[raptron]

11 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

I was talking to Ghostlet and he mentioned that it has now been almost 4 weeks since he stepped outside the door, and excluding the airplane trip back home, it would be a full 7 weeks.  That's a long time for a kid to be cooped up indoors, so I am pretty proud of how well he has been dealing with this.

Oh my godddd. I would have lost my mind. Kudos to you all.

 

My city (Boston) is racking up the case count. 🤷‍♀️We'll see what happens here but I will absolutely not be staying indoors that long, lol. 

[Elastigirl]

I think I would definitely get extreme cabin fever if I stayed indoors that long.Is that procedure what the government recommends? I am hearing that it is extremely unlikely to get it from indirect contact, but they are unsure