Right. Yeah. Oh yeah. And that's likely what I do and unless something came up of a particular note that like really sparked my interest and and really got me to want to engage with this new group I think for the first you know, it's not too completely related to like a or anything but like there's people that go to those meetings and they sit for a while before they open up and that's kind of what this would feel like I think where like you just joined this group and unless you're already a naturally very outgoing person, you're likely to just sit there and kind of take it all in before you open up and be like and give your input your story.


Oh yeah. Oh I suppose. Uh huh. Yeah. Uh huh. Right. We do have that. Even when we met in person, we always had people who are quiet at the coffee shop and who would be there for weeks and not so much, but they were happy.


Oh yeah, yeah, it's like a fly on the wall kind of thing where you where you sit there and just kind of experience it before you participate in it, you know?


Yeah, I think um I think I shall go with those guys. My cats lunch.


Okay.


I'm gonna push it it. But can I ask something?


Sure.


I'm embarrassed we jumped right into because my cat was there. Um I failed to ask your name adam.


No, that's all right. Oh, I didn't make it that far with you either. My name's Adam Roger.


I'm roger. Okay.


Oh yes. Future.


You do.


After what about an hour?


Yeah. This is a little longer, but I I like I don't you're you're fun to talk to, so.


Yeah, I've had like short conversations have had some long ones, but like these kinds are the ones that I really enjoyed the most because they feel natural, you know?


Yeah. Yeah.


And like I'm not like I said, I'm not opposed to the shorter conversation still getting to know people, but they feel less real.


Yeah. Yeah. You don't want to just do an interview and Yeah.


Yeah, that's almost what kind of what like some of the shorter ones felt like where there's kind of like not necessarily in a bad way, but forced.


Yeah.


And then, and then you get these kinds of conversations where it's, it does, it just flows and you feel like at least from my side like you actually know the person like like really could just meet up in a coffee shop, you know because you're buying the same drink or whatever and you sit down and you're like, oh and then get to talking, you know like those, it's those like chance, natural interactions sam.


Mhm. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. Let me just say uh wish you a good rest of the year and a good life if we don't ever bump into each other again.


Was Oh, uh huh.


I hope, I hope, I mean for for both our six and population as a whole that things things turn around, you know, can only get better. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's cross figure and hope bye.


All right. Bye.


Hello.


Hi, how are you?


I'm doing good, I'm having some guy goes how are you?


Cool nice good. We're having a bit of a tornado here NATO, just like a bit of, yeah, no I'm in the philadelphia area but yes.


A bit of hawaii sorry? Oh tornado are even looking in the midwest belkin. Really wow. You know I am. I used to live in um in Tennessee with the texas now and and we had actually tornadoes quite a lot.


Oh we usually don't, yeah this is very unusual for us.


I didn't know you had a in philadelphia but yeah please.


Um Yeah I think it's like the storm that came up from florida because we're landlocked, it would be a tornado rather than like a hurricane.


Yeah john Oh yeah. Well how is how is covid in philadelphia?


Yeah um uh it is not great like um pennsylvania I think overall is doing okay but just some parts of failure better than others and um yeah mask wearing is pretty good for the most part.


Okay great. Okay.


Yeah.


No we are yeah I mean um boston we um we kind of chilled out for a couple months and then what happened was that basically what I think happened as they open stuff up All these people got super bored and they went out, it opens them bars, those bars got filled, bunch of spreading went on and like there was this tiny county park that I used to take my girlfriend I used to go to and and it was always like completely deserted.


Okay. Okay there. Okay. Yeah yeah all yeah.


There's like one or two cars there maybe last time I wouldn't like I went by like the ones who was packed with people. No like like like completely packed and so and so yeah. Um But but yeah, I think I think we're a little more responsible now here in Austin, it's not as bad as at least $1 million dollars in Houston and stuff, they're having a really fun.


Oh no. Oh no. Yeah. Yeah that's gonna be really scary because I think that it's more concentrated towards the south right now right?


Yeah. Yeah, I mean yeah it's like um I think it's uh it's Arizona Arizona texas um Louisiana has it very quite bad as well.


I think it's like uh huh Yeah yep.


Um And um yeah I know like all those basically the places that florida florida's basic, all the places that reopened really soon and tend to have a lower proportion of mask wearing. Um How about them so well? Um But uh but yeah, I'm like I'm going to um I'm going to moving out to call for college in like two weeks.


Yeah. Oh okay.


Um Once I remember like um like, because I'm moving I'm living in this like housing co op near you Washington.


Cool. Okay. Nice.


Um And I have no idea what code is going to be like around there. I heard it's not great around the area.


Most of my classes are online, it's like a complete mess out here about it.


Yeah that must be a wild time to like be in college right now because yeah.


Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's been a wild time to be a senior. Like we um No problem. Our graduation.


Oh yeah.


I mean, I was not worried about problems, like it's fun. Um But like, like our graduation, we um you know, no, they have like a nice ceremony basically. What they did is they had a football field and you can come in like a specific time, and people like cycled out on there so they could keep below the limit the amount of people they could have.


Yeah. Oh no. Oh wow.


Just like, it's like I was like, you know, I don't see the point, so I didn't go.


Yeah, that's not mm Oh no.


But and then, I mean, I mean we uh selling my our last day of before spring break. Um I uh basically they were like, it was like a right when Covid was picking up, it was a friday and they said, you know what, we're not counting absences for this day. And so we were doing anything across. So I just, like me and my friends, we just like went out and we're like experiencing our last day of non quarantine. And then when it's pretty great, I just never that was the end of my high school.


Oh man, uh huh, wow, that's not, yeah Oh no, that's so, that's got to be wild.


That was like, that was it. We just never went to high school. Crazy. Mhm. Uh huh. Yeah. No, I've basically just been like quarantining like Loki since like March, like late March, I was been chilling or so.


Yeah, yeah, no saying so weird.


Yeah. Um Like I've even Ive even picked up like hobbies from like my freshman year.


Oh dang, can you do one of those?


Like fucking. Yeah I am I'm I'm don go I'm trying I'm like 18 seconds on average.


Oh rad, what?


Um Yeah so I'm just I'm scrambling but basically this is what I do in my spare time now.


Yeah, yeah, yep nice.


I but for college and trying her little money online and like cube I guess. So I guess. Yeah but like I guess but like the first month like I kind of adopted but like the first month or so.


Yeah, yep.


I basically just did nothing and like played video games and stuff. Um.


Yeah, I know, I've used my piece for a lot more than I used to because like something to do.


Um Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. No and but like I was um Yeah yeah this is like many many many hundreds of hours practice basically.


Whoa, oh my gosh, that's a whoa!


Um But yeah I know I was so I was thinking like man, I really wish I was like 11, with all this was going on because like, I remember my brother and I, we just like play Minecraft like the entire summer, like anyway, go out very much so.


Yeah have yeah, yeah uh huh Yeah, yep Yeah, no it's super weird.


I would have just gone him like just chilling out. Like I actually want to want an adult, I want to do stuff now like. Yeah. So yeah.


Oh man, yeah, I don't know how long it's going to be like this because I have friends and like europe and overseas and like some of them are getting back to their lives and then I have to be like yeah, in America we kind of dropped the ball real bad.


Mm Yeah. Uh, huh. Yeah. Well, no, I, no, I mean the UK has done actually worse than us in a lot of ways.


Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay, whoa, mhm Oh yeah, yeah, that's, I mean I think that this is definitely a time that America's individualistic approach to things, it's shown to not be super effective like Yeah, yeah, no, for real, yeah, it is and it's wild that people are so mad about wearing masks and it's like it's not even that hard, like Yeah, nope.


It's the only country. Um, but now the like, I know, I mean, I know in like new Zealand no cases, they're pretty much normal. It's, I talked to a guy from Australia. He gets taught amazing there, but they don't have a lot of deaths. And then actually surprisingly Vietnam has done really well. They've had no death covid um because they, they have a pretty strong like centralized government. Um And then they also are really used to dealing with infectious diseases. So they like basically they shut off immediately, they like put everyone in when they contained it did a bunch of contact tracing. We just kind of kept it out. So. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, listen. No, I'm like, yeah, it's it's kind of like a great yeah, no, I mean, yeah, I apologize. Get out there these days. But but yeah, like uh like yeah, this is not the time for like individualism really. We need to like we kind of need to kind of need to like build some masks together and make sure we're getting done. Mhm. Yeah. Well, yeah, okay, this is like actually something that really worries me. I'm like why are people like so freaking resistant to masks? Um Because like wait, because like it doesn't it doesn't make any sense. Like it's just helpful and I I really do think that people kind of just want like something mundane to be mad about or something like because they're bored.


Yeah, yep, I agree. Yeah, no, I think so, yeah, yeah, yep.


Yeah. And then like, I don't know like this is the thing is like people like people be like talking like code stuff. I'm like, you know what? I want to listen to the scientists and health experts. I would just do whatever they say. Like they're the people who know itself.


Yeah, no, absolutely.


Yeah.


Um I work in a science field and it's like super, super annoying.


Much. Oh really?


Yeah, I do like a neuro biological stuff, but um yeah, it's really interesting, I like it but before that I did um cell culture which had an infectious part to it, so like it makes me so low key pissed when people are like, it's it's not a big deal, it's like no, it's like a big deal though, like uh Uh huh Oh my God.


What do you do? Oh. Oh that's good. Mhm. Yeah. No, I I saw this thing. Oh my god. Um And it was saying like um it was like uh how do how can how can the cloth and that's proven the virus it's way too small to get through. And I'm like hold up, that's not how it works. Like I'm, I haven't had any biology since my freshman year of high school, but like, I know like, you know, they're pretty sure they're on like the droplets, not like, you know, just like float free floating in the air, right?


Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if it's like if science education is not spread out because like yeah you don't have to take that much biology to know at least basically how it works.


Yeah. Yeah. And I do think another issue is like, it kind of, it's really easy once you get like sucked into one conspiracy theory to get sucked into a bunch of other conspiracy theories. And like there's a bunch of boomers on like facebook and stuff like people, oh gosh, People who've gotten like, um I'm having acid reflux people who've gotten like, like I have like a little bit when I actually like, especially when I eat when I'm hungry and quickly.


Yeah. Oh, oh no. Yeah, not fair enough.


Um, but no, like basically like you see like one thing on facebook and you get like algorithm ized into like this weird web of like, like you a mask like Anthony Fauci is a lizard like kind of stuff like that, that kind of thing.


Yeah. Yeah.


And like once we get down that rabbit hole that you're bringing is like broken and you're not getting out of it like.


Yeah. Three. Yeah. I know for real because I don't think since they didn't really grow up with like technology in the same way, like I think sometimes it all seems like magic and they're like oh well it must be true if it's recommended to me, it's like no it's it's not true algorithm.


Yeah but the. Mhm. No. Yeah it's like um it's like because I think anyone below like 30 like grew up to some extent around the internet and they kind of developed that native like okay I can I can identify like I cannot, I can see okay that's click bait.


Mhm Yeah.


I should ignore it or that's something obviously stupid.


Yeah, yep.


But if you're like 40 50 60 um you just like, you just like don't know.


Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah, yep.


And then and then like and also it's really like I can tell when something is like being like an algorithm has tracked my data and like through some algorithm and decided to like it.


Yeah.


And sometimes I will like like you know what you do well this time but all other times you recommend me something I don't want to listen to. But others they just like there's no self awareness about it.


So. Yeah.


Yeah, no, it's so I hate that. Like I was looking for a couch and then my instagram was nothing but like Wayfair and couch ads and I was like god damn it, No.


Oh yeah. Yeah. No.


Mm.


Yeah. That's the thing like it's a little bit disturbing to me. I like like like how how much our data is just like out there like like they they tell you like a lot like you try and keep your online profile chill and at this point like I just when I'm online no matter where I am like even if I'm on some like anonymous messaging for like I just don't I say things, I don't say things I wouldn't want people to hear.


Yeah, it is. Yeah.


Like at least things that I could like explain in real life.


Mhm. Yeah, that's really smart.


Because well, because like and I don't I've said some dumb shit online, like I've said a lot of themselves, but it's stuff that I feel is at least defensible.


Yeah, sure enough.


Um And so um and so uh like because I'm pretty sure like if someone didn't have thinking like I usually pretty much the same username across the internet, like if someone didn't, we could connect all of my various accounts where like talk me really hard and figure out what.


Yeah. Oh boy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.


So yeah, I'm hoping there's not some algorithm like doing that for me.


Yeah. No, I hope not. I don't, I don't think, I think hopefully back in the day with old user names, the technology wasn't advanced enough and so it's like I'll just stay okay.


Uh huh. Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean I wasn't like, I think I like I think I started really using the Internet in like 20, So I kind of I kind of missed the era where it was a lot more of like anonymous messaging boards.


Yeah. Mhm.


And for me like I like started on Reddit and stuff, um eventually discord and a little bit of fortune, that's like that.


Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a dark place.


It's like it's well, yeah, okay, everything is no fortune.


It's truly a dark place. Um Ok, so this is so I'm translating this this war called T T T T or LGBT, and it's basically just really self hating trans people like on the board, and they're all like shit posting and stuff, and it's a really toxic place.


Uh huh. Yeah. Okay. No. Mhm.


And I go there, I spent with a decent amount of time when they're just like trying to talk to people and like, and like, because there will be like these really desperate people that post there and they just get the worst replies in the world.


Yeah.


And so I feel like it's a little bit of donation is like spending some time on this board, like trying to actually like do people a little bit of decent advice.


No, that's that's yeah.


So yeah like yeah we're but like yeah it's like the internet has gotten weird like it's like it kind of half anonymous.


Yeah, I am right.


Half not these days so. Yeah.


Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Like I when I first used the internet that was like pre screenshot days so you could like deny anything.


Yeah I.


Even like texting people, you couldn't like take a picture of your screen and nowadays it's like you better watch what you say.


Yeah. Yeah I know.


Yes, it's all good.


Yeah. No because like um you can hold on a second. Yeah. What's up, yep. I'm okay thank you. I'm on the amount of the usual. I'm doing a thing up. Huh, refrigerator? He's showing okay. I know. I took her out when I was done. I'm okay so sorry about that. Um Listen this is this is our puppy shit she's looking at yeah she would she's our quarantine puppy.


No worries. Oh. Oh my gosh. Oh, lovely.


We got her um in March.


Oh wow!


And yeah I got it right when we came back home each.


Right around then like foreign sometime.


I've never raised here. Um Oh and she's like she started off she was tiny, tiny.


Oh my gosh, that's so cute.


Um I'm £15 now, she's like 40, she's like three times the size and like a few months.


That's fast man.


Yeah, she she breaks my heart, I'm gonna I'm gonna be like, we've luckily kind of gotten to the point where she kind of like as half and half of me and my parents, so like um so it won't like have a mental breakdown when I'm not here all the time home, but but yeah, I love that puppy.


Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Like that dogs are the best love dogs.


Yeah, no, yeah, like we have um we have this like 10 year old like big £90 chocolate lab as well as her and like and so she tries to play with him, but he's like kind of too old and he doesn't like playing very much, he just wants to sleep, go on walks, and that's about it, and so and so yeah, she just tries to play with him, but he doesn't even do it and she's also very she likes to nibble, she's very bitey.


Oh. Oh yeah, that's it. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh, puppy teeth. Yeah, they can be brutal. Like especially in the beginning there so sharp.


Mhm.


Why?


She's she's kind of rowdy like hold on, she does come a bug out okay.


Yeah, no.


But anyway. Yeah. Anyways she's not like we haven't trained her very well, she's not the best behaved dog in the world but please they're like feeds there and stuff so hey shit.


Yeah. Oh my gosh, she's so cute. Oh my gosh. What a cutie!


Oh fine.


Oh my gosh, So cute, walked on.


Uh huh. Yeah she did that. No. Yeah she like she's barking at me. She wants my I think she wants that one second.


Yeah.


Don't go clear it off.


Yeah. Oh wait, I can't. I think your audio. Yes. All good.


Yeah I know this happened last time basically for some reason if my mic my mic like to stand on it broke a while ago so I just just sits around now and whenever it gets unplugged for some reason I can't you have to come in and out to get it to like fix itself for whatever reason.


But But yeah, the I don't know anyways how has your quarantine lifestyle been?


Oh no.


It's Yes.


Weird. I mean I was kinda, I'm kind of a loner anyway, so I have to admit for the first two months I was like, this is awesome.


Yeah. Mhm.


Like nobody can bother me.


Uh huh.


But then after that I was like, oh no, like I'm still a person and I still need to see humans because I live alone.


Mhm. Yeah.


So like there's nobody around.


Okay. Yeah.


Uh so it's like it's been a lot of alone time.


Yeah. No, the book.


Pretty spooky like uh I look forward to getting groceries just to like see other.


Yeah. I kind of relate to know what actually like um that's when you're like sitting around.


Yeah, it has, yep.


Like I'm going to the post like the ups store and I'm like, all right, I'm gonna do my makeup since since I don't like getting up to like like trying to like, I mean I could because like um because like, I'm so I'm so like um like I I kind of miss like actually going out and like wanting to put effort into my like, appearance and like talking to people and like it's just, I'm like, it's like a it's like a permanent version of like Summers in like middle school for me, right?


Yeah. No. Sam. Yeah.


And so I'm really, I'm really excited to not not be at school and actually doing stuff again.


Mhm. Yeah, no I do make up like above the mask line, I don't do like the bottom part.


Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.


Yeah.


Yeah. No, really, I put on the mash like, boom, that's it.


Mhm, yep. Out forward.


I'm like, it's so easy.


Yeah, because it's it's an event.


I'm like, yeah, I know, I'm like, you know, it takes it takes like a lot, it's a lot less effort now.


Mhm.


And and I'm also, I'm like thinking I'm gonna be really weird because I have like a couple of impersonal, I'm just going to know these people with like now it's over their face and then it's like kind of an issue for me because I have like pretty prominent brow bones and so like, um I just have that, like, I don't look that great.


Yeah. Yeah, yep. Okay.


And so I had to like, really go ham on the, on the, I have to really go ahead on the like the foundation to like high colorado.


Yeah. Yeah. The contour um Mhm.


Yeah, you contoured to reduce the shadow from the brow bone and like, I don't know, I'll be, I'll be very happy when it ends and I can actually like, like, like because like I think I like past better when I like I can see my whole face like Yeah.


I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, no that makes sense. Yeah. And it's just it's weird like I don't like how masks fit me, like I look very different with like the mass because they go like too big, so it's like just my little eyes, I think I look kind of scary, a little shady.


Yeah. Okay. Oh yeah wow. Yeah, I would, I would love like as soon as we are clear or like see through masks were like, you mean like wear a mask?


Like I would have no problem with them like if people could see your face and you can get pretty stylish with that as well like I think that would be home.


Yeah, no, I agree that needs to be a thing.


Yeah. Yeah and like, like my, my university there like they have been doing masks obviously like everywhere.


Yeah.


Um and so I'm thinking like it's going to become like kind of a fashion statement now. Like you know, I have like I have like one cross past my mom ordered and then like, I mean I have to get some more mask just like I can sleep more.


Yeah. No, for sure. Yeah. Okay.


I want to be the person who wears the same Oscar every day.


Yeah, no etc. Has some really cool ones.


Um there's like a ton of them on there and like it's nice because some folks are making them because like they lost sources of income so I feel good.


Mm Well well yeah, no, it's, it's super cool and my, I'm thinking about like when things kind of chill out and like max like a couple years um like um are we just gonna forget about maths isn't going to have an effect on our culture long term.


So I have like a collection of masks that I get from there. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah, I am too.


Like what that looks like. I'm curious.


Like, I wonder if people are ever going to shake hands again because I feel like that's probably a thing that people are not going to be super interested.


Okay sure. Mhm mhm.


What the went well I am, I feel like I walk into a room now and just like, you know, you used to like, and now it's just like, just look at you like high and and you're just like hi and then like you both kind of stare at each other and honestly I don't know if it's that bad of a thing cause shaking hands is pretty like unhygienic overall.


Yeah. Yeah. Yes, I'm I save.


Uh like I think, you know, I think we should, we should just start bowing like in like asian countries, you know, I think I think that would be a good thing.


Mm hmm, yep.


That's a better greeting and our standard hole should.


I'm like, yeah, I've started doing that by accident like just because I need a way to like express acknowledgement. So I'll do like a quick bow and I'm like, I don't know where that came from, but people seem to understand the gesture so strange.


Okay. Uh huh.


Yeah.


Yeah. Yeah. And and anyways like I'll just, I'll be really happy when um one late like it's really hard like looking back imagining life when I could just go out and like I don't remember what it's like at this point it's like a distant memory.


Yeah. It's very weird and like I've definitely gotten less close to some people because they've had some like fringy views and it's like, oh man, I didn't know you were like that, but then other people have got, Yeah, yep.


Um Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no, it has been like a pretty decent filter. And then I actually like basically all of my friends have become online friends. So weird because like my best friend, he um he like both of his parents are, they have asthma and our former smokers.


Yeah, definitely.


And so like they're really high risk and so they don't like what you didn't like go out at all like so I can't really see him like um my girlfriend broke like in the middle of quarantine.


Yeah. Yeah. Oh no.


Um It was like damn completely. We still talk or show but like it wasn't too bad.


Okay. Yeah, yep.


But and so I, all of my friendships moved online and I'm like okay, go.


And then so I'm hoping I can get some more in person interaction what in college because I really need it.


Yeah, absolutely.


Um I have no idea who my roommate is going to be either and at this place I have, I have no clue.


Oh, wow.


I'm just being very randomly with someone. I think. So.


Oh, so they're putting two people in a room where you are?


What's that like? Sure. Well, I saved $1,000 by doing it. Yeah.


Okay, That's a big difference, Yeah, that's wild.


Mm hmm. Like, um, I am, I have a I have a scholarship. And so I'm like, okay, I have I X amount of money include the doors and have like and use the most of my money for our can stay in the cheapest coop right here.


Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.


Let's look at him and walk away and have like a bunch of money left over to like say, let's do this moment.


Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.


So, yeah.


Yeah.


Okay. Well, I think, I think we're 25 minutes so I stop.


Yeah. Thank you. Was so rad talking to you, good luck in college and everything, I.


All right, fine. Thank you. Bye.


improperly. Here I am. Hopefully the, my partner or will arrive in a couple minutes. Come on. Okay, wow. Oh, the way we going, okay, I'm still charging because the last thing I wanted to go, kaput, Okay, it's 4:00, fingers crossed. I get a partner soon.


Hello?


Hello, how are you?


Good.


I'm fine, thank you.


How are you?


My name is a J.


Cool.


Nice to meet you.


Let's meet you enlist.


Hello, where are you calling from?


Hey, I'm in phoenix Arizona. What about you?


Uh I'm in sacramento California.


Okay, cool, Cool, Cool. I see. You're a movie fan.


Yes, films.


We like Zootopia here at my house. My four year old likes it a lot. So cool.


My favorite movie. So good taste. So how's your day been?


Um Okay. Hi, we all have cold here at my house, so 10 bucks.


I'm sorry, lots of vitamin C I think.


Yeah. Yeah, yep, vitamin C. Have been taken emergency and sleeping and you know everything of course now like you get a cold and you're like, oh my God, do I have covid but mr cold?


Uh huh. Glad it's only a cold. So I feel better soon.


Yeah, Thank you.


Have you ever done one of these before? These prolific chats?


Yeah. Yeah, this is my 4th one actually.


Oh, wow.


Yeah. Yeah. So have you?


Yes, I think this is like my 7th, uh this time around, they are allowed to do six.


Oh wow. How many are you allowed to do?


So, um there was actually a set of these beforehand where you can do, I think four, so I did four last time and this may be my six.


Okay, let's see. Oh, okay, cool. Nice. Yeah, I'm hoping to do them all. I like doing them. It's fine.


Mhm.


I've got some interesting people and decent money.


Yeah. 10 out of 10. The biggest issues when people don't actually show up.


Yeah. That hasn't happened to me yet though.


Not old man, that's happened to me almost as many times as I've gotten people to talk to.


Really Cool.


It was really fun when I get scheduled for times at like 7:00 AM until I set my alarm to get up. Because they and they late sleeper and so I get up, get ready and then they don't show up.


Uh huh.


It was kind of the waste, fingers crossed.


Oh, but yeah, that really sucks. Huh? No, luckily it hasn't happened to me.


It states that way.


Yeah, Mm hmm.


Israel. So what sort of things do you do for fun when you don't have a cold?


Um, not much actually. Well I just got a cricket. Have you ever heard of that?


Ah Yeah. The cutter.


Like the thing that, yeah, so I'm like all excited about that. I just started it, started it up today and made some little hair bows for my daughter. So that's, that's my new hobby now I guess is trying to figure that out because I used to buy hair bows there like six or seven bucks each from people, which is fine because it's like stay at home moms who, you know, work and I'm happy to support that.


Oh cool. Mhm.


But I was like, I could make these for myself.


Mhm.


So that's my hobby right now.


It's really cool. I have a 3D printer. So I try to make printed crafts.


Oh, cool. Yeah, what can you make with that?


No, you can make all sorts of things. Let's see. Right within handhold. I have this little plastic kitty where wiggles.


Oh wow, that's cool.


Yeah. Uh But you can make things like lithophanes which are these like three D. Printed pictures where you take a picture and you run it through the software and then you get a three D. Printed version of the picture. So it has like the bumps and ridges where the actual shading would be.


Oh wow, that is really cool.


And when you hold it up to the light it looks just like the actual picture. It's super cool. True.


And it's just all from plastic, right?


And I thought yes and I used and I used to sell on Etsy little medallions that I made but then my software went to put uh huh.


Mm. Oh, huh. That's really cool.


The only drawback is it takes forever because it doesn't one what .12.2 mm at a time. So something like this.


Like layer.


Yes.


Uh huh wow.


A printer will print you know, one line at a time. But when you're making something really thick it takes this took like two or three hours to make.


Right, wow, let's start.


But it's pretty cool. Mhm.


Yeah. So what are your favorite movies?


Yeah. I would say Zootopia is probably number one and I bought these when Disney movie rewards.


Yeah, wow.


You know with the points where I had to say also have like seven of these. I can literally do the cartoon character thing where you wear the same clothes every single day but they're actually different.


Oh yeah. Uh huh.


Well I think Jurassic Park is another really good one.


After I haven't actually ever seen dress at park.


It's really good. Kind of scary for you know kids because big dinosaurs but some love it because big dinosaurs but that was fun.


Right, Right, right.


It's really well shot and the special effects are absolutely yes.


The first one?


Don't watch this.


Yeah. Yeah. Well I never watched so I don't like blood. So like when this one came out I was young ish I guess.


Mhm.


And I was just like, I can't watch this because it's bloody and then I just never watched it.


It's actually pretty bloodless and retrospect. There's like one scene where the leg of a goat falls onto the car and you see some blood. But it's not like or maybe Tarantino Oh now but pretty much everyone gets eaten like off screen or the t rex will just go pum and swallow them.


No, that's not better. Right. Yeah, I can't do that. Yeah. Right, okay.


So there not really any.


Right. Maybe I'll have to give it a try.


It's pretty good. The sequel is not so much.


Yeah. Yeah.


So the book is also good.


Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah. My four year old loves dinosaurs. So maybe that's something we could watch.


You may want to watch it first depending and swords do get kind of scary at times.


Yeah.


So there may be four year olds who love it but there may be one to you know suddenly they don't love dinosaurs anymore.


Yeah. Yeah. Right, Right.


I don't earning a childhood.


That's funny. Yeah, she's pretty good with scary things.


We um, I'm a big Lord of the Rings fan so we watch a lot.


Overall.


I show her Lord of the Rings. So we started off with like very simple clips you know that didn't have any craziness at all.


And you start with the non school right of war.


Then as she got older I've been showing her a little bit more. No we didn't start. They're her favorite when she was like 2.5. Her favorite scene was Gandalf fighting the Bell Rog. You know I'm afraid she would like act it out and like we gave her a PVC pipe that she would like use this Gandalf's staff and go you shall not pass. So cute.


Oh that's so cute.


I know.


Well that is something can also do a 3D printers as you can. Lots of people just make models of movie props and then post them for free. And so you can make fake movie prop models.


Uh huh. That's cool.


And so I've been like I have the uh a remake of the idol from indiana jones, you know in the first movie with Yeah so if you're a Lord of the Rings fan books movies or both you're better than I am.


Right. Right. Right. That's cool. Both all yes yes.


I started reading The Hobbit and was like oh I'm not going to get through this.


Yeah that they're a little bit like I don't know, densely written I guess.


Yeah, they're not badly written in any sense, they're incredibly well written. It's just all that for me is kind of Mhm.


Right. There's a lot of like exposition and lots of like flowery language and describing forests.


It's really cool but it's also for me it wasn't my thing and I even like once made a Reddit post where it's like guys what am I missing? I tried reading the books and get really bored in terms of we were like how can you not love it? I tried when, what's his name?


Uh huh.


Shoot Sean Bean.


Bar owner.


Okay thank you borrow me like you've got to borrow me or I barely made it out of a higher.


Uh huh. Yeah. I read The Lord of the Rings, whole all three of the books every year. Like the year I read my son's middle name is faded in.


Oh that's cool. Oh okay.


Yeah.


They didn't they didn't shoot I should know this. I watched the movies once. Uh Which one stayed in again?


King of Rohan. He dies, the witch king killed him and then a one comes out.


Okay. He's the one who got killed by the giant long necked bird. Singing.


Yes. Yes.


Okay.


Yes.


Have you ever played the Shadow of mordor games?


But no and well since I haven't gotten into like gaming much, I played wow once upon a Time before kids, but that's right.


Those are Sorry go ahead. Mhm. If you like Lord of the Rings, the games are really fun, they make them for the Playstation Xbox and pc. But you need a really powerful pc to run it.


Mm.


For example. I ran the first one on the laptop I'm using now and burned my leg because it overheated.


Oh my God.


I read it at the lowest possible graphic setting.


Oh.


It's reheated but they're they're really bloody unfortunately but it's all blood.


Uh huh. Yeah. Word.


So it depends whether or not you're In two or 3 but it's a great concept and I think they the verge is from the movie can in a little bit, but you play a ranger of the Black Gate, that's a thing, right?


Well, yeah. Mm Maybe who does, who guards? Because the Black Gate is more door.


Yeah, so it's pray Lord of the Rings, it's a prequel to The Lord of the Rings and you're a ranger from the Black Gate who guards it and then when the orcs invade, I am fuzzy on the history, your that the character is killed as his, his whole family and they're sacrificed because the, not the Witch King, but like one of the Witch King's frat rose basically uh wants to summon a ghost or a spirit and so he uses the main character and his family is sacrifices and it summons the spirit, but instead of the spirit going into the witch king dude or pseudo, which king?


Okay. Okay. Yeah. Uh huh. No. Right. Oh mm.


It's like, oh, it's like the hand of sorrow and I think he's called instead, it goes into the ranger keeping him alive, so he's now banished from death and he can't die.


Our. Uh huh. Oh that's kind of thing.


And so it basically is like a 20 hour revenge plot of trying to kill the hand of Ceron while you're half human and half elf now because it's an elf ghost and it is really fun.


Yeah. Oh, interesting.


I put way too many hours into that thing and it has a lot lower things where when I, because I played the games before I watched the movies and then when I watch them and be like oh that's why that was important, fax gollum.


That's what's really cool. Well mm no. Oh right.


I know who that is now.


That's cool though. Yeah. I have to look into that.


Yeah, that there was, yeah, it goes on sale a lot.


My husband has a, he's a big gamer so he has a gaming computer that can handle it I'm sure.


It's really fun because you get to like take over the minds of orcs using the spirit things and so basically get to create your own orc army to fight guys or or army.


Well. mm hmm. Cool. No, Cool.


I keep getting the names wrong.


That sounds really fun Someday when I have time I have a four year old and an 11 month old, so it's like I can't do anything on my own at the moment.


Uh huh Right, but now you can teach them the stories of Lord of the Rings and the Allegra loving is I I was harry potter, so I have all the harry potter stuff.


Yeah, I do, yeah. Yes, I do. I'm harry potter fan to, we're actually just in, so we're reading a philosopher stone with my four year old and we're starting the movies, we showed up the movies to her a little while ago and she couldn't follow them.


11 Mhm Okay, cool, I grew up listening to the audio books, The guy does so many voices, it is insane.


She couldn't understand the accents very well either. She like didn't know that they were speaking english and she had no idea what was going on. So we stopped and now she's almost 4.5 and we watched the first one and she got it. So we're in the middle of the second one, so yeah, through Yeah, that's cool. That's a good idea that I should get those for her.


I I personally like the Americanized ones narrated by Jim dale, they're slightly different than the philosopher's stone and I just like the voice better, He's in my opinion, the there's a better, you know, set of voices because they had a different narrator for the philosopher's stone and he's really good but maybe I'm biased because that's what I listen to, but to me, jim dale is the best one.


Mhm. Okay. Right, okay.


Yeah, yeah, but I'm intrigued.


I'll look I'll look that one up. Yeah, because my daughter has like this little machine called a junkie. I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but it's like a Mhm. It's really cool. So you can set playlists for them and it uses Bluetooth, so there's little figurines and you just set it on top of this, it's like a speaker and it knows what playlists are there through the figurines so they can music and things.


Oh cool.


So she has a whole audiobook thing and Hamilton. She's big on Hamilton right now, so she listens to that all rest time. But I could put the Lord of the Rings or the harry potter books on that here to listen to.


Uh let's see audible usually, I don't know if you've ever used audible.


I haven't but I know of it.


Um yeah, that they offer like a free book for the first one in the harry potter can be one of them, or you can find the cds for, you know, pretty cheap, like local thrift stores. I find them occasionally.


Okay. That's good to know. Yeah, we don't even have a cd player though. Like my laptop doesn't even have a cd drive in it.


I feel old because I listened to the first harry potter's on cassette, Because now I listen to audio books to have a button, like skip back.


Yeah, I'm sure. I mean, I'm 36. So I remember having walkmans and discussions and everything, but right.


It's like, Oh, I missed this, let me go back 47 seconds. And before um Uh my parents are like that, they like some of the retro stuff, so we actually have a jukebox that plays 45.


Yeah, stopping and listening being like, not too far. Yeah, Well, New World. I remember, so I'm a teacher. And one time I said to my class, I was like, oh, you know, I listened to this on a Walkman once. I mentioned Walkman and they were all like, what's a walkman? It's like you guys don't even Yeah, we're cool.


So, so I make references that my friends don't get my dad things.


Yeah.


See you on the flip side, which I know is a reference to the flip thing, but I make fun of him endlessly for that because no one says that.


Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that.


That was like to flip like to flip a record or something.


Yeah. I think according to him, the Entomology of it is where the radio, you know, DJs would say see you on the flip side because they put on the disk and when it has to get turned over, that's when they come back in to give them a little bit of commentary.


Well, that's what, Right. That makes a lot of sense. That's really cool.


Right?


Actually see you when the battery dies and I have to charge again.


It's interesting. No one says it anymore because now it's like you know, see you on the shuffle button. I don't know.


Yeah, that's funny.


So who is your favorite Lord of the Rings character?


Uh Aragorn eric Gordon Darwin?


Aragorn. Uh Important one. Aragorn and a win. Or Aragorn and Arwen. Wait Now I feel badly.


Mm The L the dark haired liv.


Which ones are one is our win? The one.


Tyler Uh huh Yeah.


Okay. Nothing. But my friend and I have gotten many an argument because I support a Gorgonio in. They just had more, at least in the movies.


All right.


I I can't speak for the books because I didn't make it out of the shire in the movies.


Well right, good.


They had more interactions, so I feel struck.


But that was played up a little bit well. And in the books actually are win is like pretty much non existent. She only she's not in the books hardly at all until the very end.


No.


There's a little so he wrote all these appendices, which is like all the background stories and linear.


Mhm. Like Selma Selma rela over there.


Similarly, there's a whole separate book that's going to be so have you heard that the amazon is doing a new Lord of the Rings series?


Oh boy. Mhm.


So they're going to be doing it like so merrily in time, which is like thousands of years before Lord of the Rings happens.


Oh, I'm not going to remember a single name.


So No, the similarly and I couldn't even get through that was that it's like in the Tolkien world if you've read the summer early and you're like gold star level because it's so hard to get through.


Yeah. Uh I had a question now, I can't remember what it was.


Yeah.


Uh What are your thoughts on The Hobbit movies?


Uh huh They were there.


Mhm. A porn movies? I think that was the first Lord of the Rings. Anything I ever saw was my friend took me to see The Hobbit Desolation of Smog and I said I haven't seen the first cop it or The Lord of the Rings, there's like no, it'll be fine, you don't you'll catch up and so the whole time I'm just staring on I am so confused in fact.


Uh huh I'm sorry. Mhm Oh yeah and it's just so bad. They were just so bad.


Yeah, I did not see the third one or the first one, so I've only seen the second one.


Yeah. Yeah, I bought only the first one and then I just recently bought the second one on, on like amazon streaming to show my daughter because she wanted to see because you don't see the dragon and the first one.


Mhm.


And so I was like well let's by the second one, we can see him but we haven't even I haven't bought I saw the third one once in the theaters.


Yeah, I know there's a like a love triangle subplot in that movie that wasn't in the book.


Haven't bothered to even buy it or watch it or anything. Oh yeah, I mean the character, the girl elf is not even in the book, I get why he added it because there's literally like no females in talking stuff, you know, there's like a win, that's it, so it makes sense to want to add that, but like the thought that uh dwarf would fall in love with an elf is so wrong.


Problem yeah yeah mhm Right and uh the funny part is that the female elf is my favorite character, so I was like oh awesome for like she was the book Oh well shame on the book because this is cool.


It's so like inter species things did not happen, that would never happen. You don't know. Yeah. Yeah, he definitely could have added more like kick ass female figures, but I don't think that was like in his mind as an author when he's reading.


Mhm Yeah, it was funny, I went from going oh this is cool, I like her too, then her, you know making google eyes or whatever his name was and I was like, oh no this is going to be a love triangle, isn't it?


Yeah, yep.


And then injured. She's like oh say we're like oh boy, here we go.


Yeah, but it was just, it got so corny, so fast, I couldn't even in the theater, I was just like, oh God, and I went to the midnight premiers of all of them, so it's like one am and I'm just like, what is this shit?


Mhm Or into like the 1232 PM premiere at a random uh huh there's an interesting movie, I don't think I'll watch the sequel.


Like, why am I here? Uh huh uh mm uh huh Oh cool.


There's I don't know if you watch any Youtube but there's a Youtuber named Lindsay Ellis who she's a film critic or and she is a massive fan of The Lord of the Rings movies and she did like a 30 minute breakdown of why she loves Lord of the Rings and why The Hobbit was so disappointing from a narrative and filmmaking perspective. And it was really funny because like I didn't know this but the big thing was it was apparently supposed to be two movies directed by Guillermo del Toro and then he randomly dropped out for some reason and it's like, oh yeah, I don't know why, I just had to drop out if you know one of the biggest blockbuster franchises and Lindsay Ellis did a two part Youtube video like each of them 30 minutes, One of them discussing, you know the first part, the tumultuous history and the other one giving a detailed breakdown and at the very end of the episode she had a person walking and hand her a piece of paper and she opened it up.


Yes. Right, right, mhm, that one?


It was like we regret to inform you that this series has been extended into three episodes. Sorry, higher up. So then she did the third episode talking about the impact it had on new Zealand tourism culture and it's really interesting.


Right, Yeah, mm okay, I'll have to look that up to.


So if you're a fan of The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings or not a fan of The Hobbit but a fan of Lord of the Rings and just everything behind it, Lindsay, Ellis Hobbit trilogy is so good.


Yeah that's a good idea. Yeah my friend was just um in New Zealand she actually got stuck there like cause of Covid, they went for a while and then they got stuck and stayed for until their Visa like expired for almost a year.


Yeah. What?


They were there but when well they were there they went to like Hobbiton and all this stuff and she's like I've never seen the movies but you know they told me this is a good place to go when I was like oh you shouldn't be there, I should be there mm So we are mm Yeah I don't want cool.


No. All right. I have actually been to Hobbiton before New Zealand. My film class had a uh like you would get school credit to go on the trip and the trip that year was to new Zealand. And so we got to go to ha bitten in a bunch of places where they shot some of the scenes like the scene in Lord of the Rings, where you see the Ali fonts and the mountains that represented Mount Doom or not Mount Doom specifically, but the mountains that represented the mountains near Mount Doom, we act like a day and hiked up there and Mount Doom is the right word for it.


Okay wow.


It was horrible. They were like, oh, you'll have a day hike, it'll be kind of fun. And then when we got there, I even packed hiking boots and it was a killer on the, you know, wait thing because I got charged extra because my hiking boots put me like a pound over the top.


All right. Mhm.


And when we got there they were like, oh yeah, you didn't have to bring your own boots. And so at this point it was already really better than like it's going to be, you know, a light 78 mile trip and All the students or no, it was actually 14.


No that's not right.


My apologies. A 14 mile hike. And all of the film students who spend our entire day just sitting behind a computer writing, it's like we're gonna die.


Um Oh yeah. Right. Oh my God.


And then they go, oh and you want to hear, we'll give you some gloves in the hood because it's the wind show up, there's about negative 20 and it may be raining.


Oh what?


You said they hike, you're gonna need these and they hand us all ice axes.


Oh my God these oh my God that's crazy.


This we ended up having to turn back at the 3.5 mile mark because of how dangerous the wind was getting, But we still went seven miles and they didn't tell us not to bring our backpacks. And my backpack was like a pikachu backpack made of cotton.


Yeah.


It was a school backpack that I literally go to high school because we thought it was gonna be like a couple of miles, but a cotton backpack in the rain suddenly gets really heavy and it's not made for being worn.


What? Uh huh. Right. Oh my God that sounds just like miserable.


And so it was agonizing by the end of the thing, it was absolutely miserable.


Uh huh.


So Mount Doom earned its name that day, Bahamas.


Oh that's a good sport Okay.


I think I was the only one because I've actually, I was in boy scouts, so I've done 20 mile hikes before so I technically had an advantage over the rest of my team.


Mhm.


So I was the one like, come on guys were program shut up, we're gonna throw you off the mountain like it sounds like someone's getting corrupted by the ring.


What? No. Uh huh. Yeah I would have been doing all sorts of quotes and wow Mhm Uh huh Mhm And that's uh like the priest something?


Yeah, I, I did more of the quotes like in some of the other places like there is one place where not on the day hike. We actually got a day of touring where we visited in a tour bus a bunch of different places. So we found so we got to stand next to the river where Sam runs and goes I'm coming with you mr Bruno. And one of these big expansive areas that had where Gandalf is writing on shadow facts. And we actually got to go to the place where all of them hide from the program thing to do is angry hooded the non school and that yeah that the tree stump the root itself was actually all props so instead of just like a hole in the ground but we still got to take pictures there.


Oh cool. Uh huh.


So I was doing tons of quotes like in the big expanse.


I had one of my friends take my camera. I still need to like cut everything together. It's been over a year and a half awkward shadow facts and just ran away humming what I thought was The Lord of the Rings theme song.


What? What? Oh close enough, Yeah that's funny, that makes it even funnier, that's cool.


I was informed afterwards that I was in fact coming back to the Future theme song. Hey my kids, they sound similar. Do do do do do do do and the other ones like doo doo doo doo doo doo. It was they're close. Yes, somewhere on my phone. But so I finally watched the movies because that was a requirement to go to new Zealand was to watch all three movies and my friend and I watch or I watched the first one with my friend because she liked them and I was making sarcastic comments throughout the entire thing.


All right. Mhm wow.


She wanted to kill me. And then I watched the other two extended editions by myself and I the part where it ended and then said, please insert disc too.


Yeah you were like wow well not three plus hours of movies on one disk, I've marathon all three extended editions in a day before.


Just I mean except this too. You couldn't get everything on a single disk. Uh huh. Oh I I did too or like 1.5. And afterwards I just walk away like slowly, shell shocked. Mom was like how are you doing? It's like florida.


Oh from mm Uh huh That's funny, you see our timer, Aaron cool larry.


Thanks, doesn't it? I am prepared for new Zealand but I am not prepared for what I just saw. I think we're technically over the 25 minute mark. So this was really fun.


Yeah it was fun, it was nice talking movies with you can always have more things yeah Okay okay yeah have a good day, bye bye.


Yes, I am. I hope you have a great rest of your day. Thank you for doing this. Thank you. You're at war by


Yeah. Mhm. Oh, mm. Uh huh. Oh, correct. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm hmm. Mhm. Honey. Oh, okay. Yeah. Country. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah, mm hmm. I can't, yeah, that is more quickly. Yeah. Yeah. Mm hmm. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Okay. Mhm. Oh yeah. Mhm. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Mm hmm. Uh huh. What? What? Oh yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Hello?


I can.


I can, I can hear you really well.


Okay.


Can you hear me? All right?


Yes, I can.


Yeah. Good. Do you want to take a moment to get your yeah, camera makes it up or anything or do you think you're?


I'm pretty good. How about you?


Mhm. Yeah, I think so. I was here a couple minutes earlier and it took a minute to get everything dialed in. So Hi.


So high, No problem.


Hey. Um So I have a pet bird then she's in the room with me. So if you hear something that sounds like somebody laughing maniacally in the background. That's my bird.


I have a dog and two cats that will probably jump behind me and some Oh, my name is marisa.


Sure. Mhm. Uh huh. So what's your name?


What's your name?


Nice to meet you. My name is dan.


Nice to meet you dan.


Mhm Oh man.


And how long have you been doing prolific?


Um I think I started maybe two years ago, three years ago or something like that. I've been doing it on and off, I haven't been doing it consistently that whole time. Um but I've got so much time on my hands now and there's not a lot of money, but it helps the people in a little bit of some change down and makes me feel a little less bored, a little less useless. I don't have work from home right now so.


Oh yeah, I just started doing it because I am working from home and uh, so it's just a perfect way to make a little side and come when I have some time and I used to commute like an hour to work every day so I can just spend that doing prolific and make some extra money now.


Yeah. Mhm. Oh yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah, absolutely. Actually I got started with prolific when I was doing a tutoring job at our local community college and the way that the tutoring center work was, students can drop in any time. You can actually help with writing or math or science or whatever. And you know as you can imagine late in the semester when people had big projects or whatever, we were pretty much always busy but for the first several weeks in the semester people didn't have assignments yet. And a lot of times the tutors would just be sitting there waiting for somebody and we were paid to be ready and on call but nobody would actually come. So I was actually able to use my laptop during those quiet times and do prolific and double dip and everybody was fine with it and I was like okay okay.


That's great. I wish I had known about it sooner because I would I would have been doing this.


Yeah great.


All right.


Hey, it's hard to find legitimate online gig work that doesn't, you know, come with scummy, Uber or similar, you know where you're going to run your car into the ground or whatever or where you're not like secretly paying some horrific price for it, you know?


Yeah. Yeah.


Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah.


So are we supposed to be falling a prompt or we're just talking off the cuff.


You know it, from what I read, it made it sound like we might get prompt at some point, like maybe they'll come up on the screen or something, but I guess another place we're supposed to win.


Yeah, that's what I thought I read too, but I think, I think it was ok to just have a conversation anyway, but I just want to make sure we're doing it correctly.


Yeah, No, I think we're good. Like sometimes from the studies that I've done in the past, um they could be doing any number of things, they could be doing a study about body language and the actual words were saying don't matter much to the research, it's really more about the type of body language that we're using one another. It could be about whether or not we eventually talk about the coronavirus, it could be about a number of different things and it's kind of like not worth it to play mind games to try him. Second. That's been my experience. Anyway, I am, I'm in Connecticut.


So are you in the United States? Nice. I'm in California, which I'm in northern California and not too far from san Francisco.


Oh wow, we're in California, I have family there. Okay, gotcha. My family is a little further south closer to san Diego.


Oh gotcha. Yeah, it's a really nice area out that way. We're the colder weather over here.


Mhm. Yeah. Uh huh. Oh yeah, your space looks pretty snazzy.


Well thank you.


Do you do you own your place is an apartment.


Um I rent it but I actually will probably inherit this house one day. I run it from family so I'm kind of lucky.


Oh, I mean yeah. Cool. Did they give you a good deal business?


Yes they do. That's the only way I can afford to live close to san Francisco, yep, How about you, do you write or?


Sure. Yeah. Yeah, like san Francisco is why we have craig's list. It's a nightmare getting I rent my rent, I've been living in this space for probably about 12 years now, I managed to find just really nice landlords, this is the only property they own, it used to be where they lived um they charge way below market value and they don't feel like greasy, slimy landlords, they're just like an old italian family, they share their baking with me sometimes, so yeah, it feels good to live in a place where I like the house itself and where I also get along well with people that are renting from and I can afford it just like a lot of things come together to make it a hot for me, so no intention to leave, I don't ask you, mm and yeah, yeah, I'm just mute my phone, sorry, I've got a couple of new education is going off that I don't want to bother me.


Um Well that's awesome. Oh, oh, oh, oh, not yet, that's good, that's always a situation that you want to get in. Especially like here in California, it's hard to sign a good landlord because there's just such demand to live here, even if you have a nice one in the beginning, you know the desire to make more money always creeps up at some point than okay, okay, yep.


Yeah, you know I have a friend who lived up in Portland Oregon for a while and he was saying very much the same thing that even if you find a good place after one year when it comes time to sign your release again, the landlord wants to check the rent so much that you essentially get forced out and it doesn't matter where you go like that's what's happening everywhere because the the price of housing is just going up in all the neighborhoods of the city.


And I know there was a big migration of people from California to Oregon and so I think like the price of Portland probably skyrocketed to close to California prices in the last like 10 years.


The Yeah.


Mhm.


Mhm. Yeah, that's, wow, okay.


Yeah, trendy to live out here.


Yeah. Yeah. Well do you at least get to have fun with it?


I do, I do that. I mean that's why I commute so far to work because I just love being here.


Mhm. Mhm.


I don't because I don't I'm not really like a a city person, I went to college in san Francisco but I quickly learn like I didn't actually ever want to live there because it's so overwhelming.


Sure, Sure.


But the nice thing about northern California versus southern California is we don't have all the traffic, like we have some traffic like don't get me wrong, but you drive an hour out here and you're in a totally like different area and like so much open space.


Right. Yeah.


And if you like hiking, this is a great place to be um clean air, you're by the water.


Mhm. Yeah.


So there's a lot of perks uh being here and I'm close enough to san Francisco where I can go visit whenever I want.


Yeah. Yeah, Sure.


You know that happened to live there.


Yeah. Yeah.


I'm really big on going to concerts, although I don't know when that's going to happen.


That's so funny. Oh, I know, yeah.


All right. Yeah, our governor is like really strict or I mean I all the other states are going to open in California is gonna be dragging way.


Right, mm hmm.


So I don't know when those will come back, but that was like my favorite activity. So I'm like in a really, I feel thought to go to like all the concerts in northern California. Sure off.


Sure. My God, who are some of your favorite musicians?


Uh I'm like an undercover metal head. So yeah, I like a like slayer system of a down.


Yeah.


Um I liked some new battle nu metal bands to like slipknot or disturbed stuff like that.


Yeah. Oh, Uh huh, mm, mm hmm.


Um Now I'm like blanking. Um Let me, who was I let me think who I was gonna see this year. I was gonna see death tones and Gojira over the summer, but that was cancelled. So really, really don't you?


Yeah, I wonder if they somehow matched us together based on metal that's totally music. Yeah, that's unbelievable.


I don't know.


Yeah, man, some of the deftones show us they've been putting on a day to day lives deftones and stuff like that, like they've really been getting some interesting bills together recently. Yeah.


Yeah, so deftones are actually from Sacramento which is like just a few hours from san Francisco.


So I think they boycotted this area for a really long time.


Yeah, and go out.


I want to say someone like spit in the lead singer space or something like that. Maybe that band, but something happened where like the deftones salt really insulted even though this is like their home town.


Uh huh. Yeah.


I think it's only in like the last like five years or so that they've been like torn here.


Yeah. Mhm. Uh huh, mm.


And when we have uh a pretty big festival in Sacramento every year called Aftershock. They're saying it's still going to happen this year.


Mhm. Yeah.


I don't know Metallica supposed to headline two nights and I've never seen Metallica, so I so stoked um I really hope that it happens.


One. Uh huh. Yeah, wow. Yeah.


Um but deftones will play that festival a lot. They'll usually headline because that is literally their hometown sacramento.


Right, right, mm.


So we love them here, like we're please coming back.


Oh that's fantastic. Oh before I forget, have you heard of a band called Low from England?


Well, no, I have not already thought down though.


Low of serious death tone vibes from them?


Yeah.


There there are five piece I think from England and in february they dropped an album um album's kind of long name, it's um I let it in and it took everything is the name of the album and there are there are spots on it that are like so close to death tones that it feels it came a little close on my rip off radar.


Really?


Yeah. But um but it just barely didn't cross the line because I could see that they were doing their own thing with it and I think they're self conscious of the fact, I think they're trying to sort of pay homage to deftones without, because the whole album is very diverse.


Yeah. What? Well, Yeah, that mm stop.


I think if you, if you check it out, you'll see what I mean. There are parts where you're gonna go like, oh yeah, this is totally like um if you think of some of the very heavy but spacey, atmospheric, slow parts of deftones songs. Trying to think of a good example, like maybe like Minerva to off of the self titled album, the one with the Skull and the Roses on it, um just like super chill but heavy and spacey and like airy, floaty. Um There are some passages like that on the lowest album that reminded me of them, but like, they they rip it up, they're really cool. I think you would, you bet you're going to try them. Yeah.


Oh, that's so cool. I'm glad we're having this conversation because there's nothing else to really do right now, Listen to.


Yes. Yeah, I know, you know. Mhm.


So do you go to a lot of concerts where you are? Do they have them out there?


Well, so Connecticut's weird Connecticut is right in between new york and boston. And so in a lot of ways we kind of get passed over because bigger acts will put on a show in each of those big cities, but they don't want to over saturate the market up here, so not a lot of major acts make pit stops in Connecticut.


Gotcha?


Um and right, there's also like I there's another thing going on where I wonder sometimes if either people in the promotion industry or shady businessman or something like that have actively fought to keep big acts from coming to Connecticut so that they wouldn't water down the market or water down the attendance at the boston in new york shows, just get nervous.


Oh, how is he?


There are, there are a couple of venues over the decades that I've heard kind of started to bubble up and start getting some of those bigger act and something mysterious always seems to happen. There seems to be a fire or there seems to be a sudden change in management or something like that where all of a sudden that then you kind of loses the momentum. It seemed to be gaming. And it's like this, like this mysterious pattern. Um, part of the reason I saw that was, I don't do it anymore, but for seven years I wrote the local music column for the alternative weekly newspaper here.


Awesome.


So it was, it was pretty neat. It was an interesting gig. So I used to go to two concerts every week.


Oh my gosh, that's like my dream job.


Yeah. Mm It, I'll tell you it's, it's a double edged sword because I started doing it because I was going to concerts all the time and I was like, somebody will pay me to write what I probably was going to email my friends about or like write in my journal, like hell yeah, I'll do that.


Mhm.


Um, but when you take something that you love and you turn it into your job, it sucks a little of a magic out of it, you know?


Oh, it's hard.


Um And he.


A lot of concerts like a week because I feel like in the last couple years because there were so many farewell shows, I really was just going to like everyone that was coming through a lot. We get everyone here.


Yeah, wow.


There's some weeks. I was going to two or three like major concerts, like traveling over an hour to get there and I was just like for so I could see, I could see like literally having to go and then like doing work, you know, I get tiring because yeah.


Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You get burned out being like by yourself in the car, coming home at like two a.m. You get burned out like waiting for the 45 minute or hour between sets, you know? Like, and especially if you're trying to review bands that are new to you. Then over and over, you end up in a venue or a basement or a scene where you don't know anybody. And um I'm I'm friendly but I don't have the easiest time like making small talk or breaking into a conversation or just like making a random new friend and like eventually it just gets really boring to sit there like you're sipping your beer as slowly as you can, going, okay, come on, next band, come on. Um and this was when I was doing it to, it was before smartphones, so I didn't really have anything substantial to occupy my time in that downtime.


Oh my God.


Um and you kind of can't bring a book with you and into the bars or into the basement of the punk house. So yeah, so things really, Yeah.


Oh, us one time I was seeing slower um and I was taking my final, it was the week I take my final exam for my Master's degree and everyone else like thought because I haven't traveled to the school because I did an online program, but I had to go in person to take the final.


Uh Yeah.


So it was like an hour and a half, like backtrack like maybe it was only an hour back to san Francisco to like see slayer, but it was like my finals week. So everyone else is like freaking the fuck out. Like how can you go to a concert? Like your master's degree? Like rides on this exam. I was like, I got it, it's slayer. Like I'm not making them actually brought my notes with me and I was studying in between set mhm can be done and I've done it and I like telling the story because I was one of the only people that not only passed, like all those people that stayed behind the study failed and didn't get their degrees, I passed with honest.


Oh yeah. That somebody seen. Oh my God.


It was so funny because the gardener at the school, it comes up to me and my shirt the next day and he's like, he likes layers, like yeah, he's like, I'm like one of jerry Holtz good friends, like I I threw his wedding and stuff and like yeah, so mhm Mhm Uh huh uh huh But I couldn't imagine not having a smartphone though like because I'm I'm not really, I can't come off as outgoing, but I have to be like introduced to people or afternoon someone, so I couldn't imagine going to like a punk house.


Yeah. Oh, why? That's dedication? Yeah.


We've got lots of them out here like in Oakland um and like having to like sit around, I would be so uncomfortable.


Yeah.


Yeah. It could be challenging. It can be challenging at times. Um Another weird thing was, you know, I was going to all these concerts and I was writing these columns and then I would, you know, so I go out during the week and on the weekend, and then on monday is when I would file my column, so the paper would come out on Wednesday. And so, like, Wednesday leading up to the weekend, all these people were reading about the concert that had already happened. And so, like, I could maybe write about, like, the IT band or a band that had just released an album and try and drive people to like, their next gig, or say, at the end of the column, you know, this coming weekend, they're playing at this place or whatever, but, like, it kind of felt like I was not helping connect interested people to interesting bands, you know? So, like, in the final couple years of my column, I finally convinced my editor instead of reviewing the live shows, to, like, let me interview the bands, like, let's do let's front loaded, and I'll talk to the band about their new album in advance of the show, so that when the paper drops on Wednesday, people can go and see the show on friday night feeling like, you know, a little more about the band and feeling like they picked out like, okay, this band plays a kind of music that I like and I went online, I listened to a couple extremely couple songs I'm into it. It's worth the 10 bucks, you know, let's go for it.


No.


Uh huh. So that that felt good that I finally sort of I had to push him a lot to change the column that way. Uh huh But that was a that was a cool change and it meant that I didn't have to go out as much anymore. Go ahead. But it was writing for a newspaper and all the newspapers started to fold. This was I finished writing for them, I want to see maybe in like 2012, something like that. And just all the little newspapers were starting to plummet because there isn't really any advertising money to cover local based coverage anymore, you know?


Uh huh Oh well I'm sure it was interesting for a while.


So yeah, I kind of saw the writing on the wall when they started going like, okay, we want you to write a bigger column for the same day and we want you to start writing like three blog posts a week and getting photos for the blog for the same pay. And I was like, oh boy, I'm getting a bad feeling about where your finances are going based on these questions. So ended up splitting off. But yeah, it was a, it was a weird and wild gig. It was pretty interesting. Yeah, wow.


At least you like had that experience while there's still more newspapers because yeah, everything's a blog now.


Yeah, yeah, and writing doesn't, doesn't pay anymore. Like the, I mean, not that it was, it was never enough for me to really fully stay afloat. It was enough for me to barely pay my expenses and I had to have my partner at the time helped chip in the last little bit for groceries or for this bill or for that pill every month and we made it work between the two of us, but I was never financially Solomon, they paid me as a contractor, they didn't withhold any taxes or any benefits or anything, so like every april when tax day came around I had to pay all the taxes on, on whatever they cut me.


Oh my, Oh my Masters is in public health.


Um yeah, it wasn't like a regular wage job where they would hold part of your earnings and they chip in part of your taxes, like you have a pit bull, like basically one third of everything you are, so tax day always for um so yeah, um anyway, I'm curious what, so you were saying you went to school before but I didn't catch what your masters was, you know, interesting news for you now.


Yeah, so, um I yeah, I really want to be like a health educator that hasn't happened.


Mhm, mm.


I actually have, I have a pretty interesting start how I got into all this because I, I wanted to be a radio DJ when I was younger, that was job I wanted to be, because we surprisingly have pretty shitty radio stations in northern California.


Right. Uh huh.


Like, it's really hard, like, uh like in in sacramento, like where the capital is, like, there's some decent, like rock stations that play metal and stuff, but like in san Francisco, like, it really is not that great.


Mhm Oh, mm, sure.


It's all like indie or like electronic music and stuff like that. So if you're like a rocker metal head, like there's not much for you. So I wanted to do that, but then I realized there was no money in that. Like, I was not going to stay afloat in this area, like, you mean it?


Yeah. Yeah. Oh sure.


And job when I was in college was working at a cannabis club surprisingly, and uh I didn't use a product myself, but I kind of just got thrown into this whole world of alternative medicine where I was like, um and who knows who's paying for this research study. And I realized, you know, big pharma is doing some pretty like baby stuff.


Focus honey.


And I wanted to like connect people back with like medicine and um what's labeled alternative, which I think is just ancient wisdom knowledge, you've, you know, made to be sound like it's crazy if you uh use it because we're relying on Medicaid, not that there isn't like a place or medication, but I think there are other options available to.


What? All right. Yeah, sure. Right. Oh, right. Yeah. Right.


So I really wanted to like bring that education um, to other people because when I was working in that industry, I kind of became an expert on CVD before it blew up, I, I left the industry like right before it blew up so I could have made a lot of money if I, if I had stuck with it.


Mhm. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Mhm, mm.


But my boss was a little shady, he went off deep end and I couldn't be involved anymore.


Sure.


And so I got my masters degree so I could be a health educator, but it's really hard to get in that field. And then like for me, it's hard to find something that I am feel good about because I couldn't, I couldn't just go like work at a hospital and teach the correct they have because I might not fully agree.


Right, Right, right.


So I actually work for the Department of Public Health right now. And so it is pretty interesting with the coronavirus.


Yeah.


Um, I'm kind of just on standby waiting to see what my job is going to be because there's just so much stuff going on that I could just be sent anywhere.


Mhm. Yeah. Mm. All right.


I don't know what my role is going to be right now, so well they can't send me international.


Sure. Do you sort of have any idea of what it might transform into the like and when you say sent anywhere like could they really like send you far a field international or?


So I've been in government for a while now. And so when there is a emergency of any kind and I don't, I don't know if you heard about the northern California fires that we've had in the last few years.


Uh huh. Yes.


So those have um, those are in my area. And so like back in 2017 I had to respond to a fire. So I was just like an office worker and I get thrown into, I have to commute two hours away, all the sentence work night shift with the National Guard because we had to make a makeshift hospital at Fairgrounds.


Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.


And so I somehow became the check in person technically doing security with the National Guard.


Um So they can make your g they can have you do anything like you really don't want.


Mhm, wow.


Um I think because of the the nature of what's going on right now, my role will probably be worked at home, which is really great because I wanting a work at home job and I just quit my job to get it.


Yeah. Mm hmm. Thanks then on.


So I feel a little like guilty sometimes because I'm like, oh I actually really wanted a scenario like this, like not because of these circumstances, but I was hoping for something this I think what I'll probably end up doing is like uh monitoring people that have contracted the virus or something like yeah probably be my role for a people of time.


Okay. Yeah.


But I'm on standby waiting to get a new assignment.


Mm.


So I used to just um so here in California, like if you, let's say you go to the hospital and you have a complaint, you would call my department and our nurses would go investigate your complaint and see if they're following the laws and things like that.


Yeah, wow, that's while Okay.


So I just process the paperwork for that kind of stuff.


Sure.


So so yeah, so obviously all that's going to be put on cause that's the least of anyone's concerns right now.


Yeah. Yeah. Mhm.


No.


Yeah. Well, I'm really happy that I mean this is kind of changed the world in so many ways, but I think one of the good things that might come out of this is that like now so many people have like tasted the forbidden fruit of working from home and like all the managers who are like, I don't know, I'm skeptical like they have to overcome that and like that argument is done like the infrastructure is in place.


Yeah. Yeah. And what's interesting is there realizing how cost effective it is too, because the state of California was actually about to buy a building which you can imagine how expensive that would be in California.


No, yep, you know?


We're going to buy a building so they can accommodate all the employees. And now they're like, we could save that money and put it into the coronavirus and everyone can work from home if they want to and wait and like way happier like staff now.


Yeah, yeah, so now, like so many people, you know, whenever we do eventually go back to normal, whatever normal looks like at that point like so many people are going to be like, well let's make it work from home, like I want to, I want to keep doing this and they're gonna be like, no, you can come back five days a week, they're gonna be like, I think it's worth it to me to put my foot down and say like I'm going to work from home three days a week if you want to keep me, you know, and like a lot of bosses are going to have to make those tough decisions, but I feel like there's no there's no going back now. Like we've seen we can do it, we've seen that people actually show up for it and do a decent job, They're much happier, like it doesn't take a huge amount of it investment and so much of the network infrastructure and the software and stuff is gonna be there set up already that to not use it would almost be wasteful, you know, like you can save on the real estate in the office space like yeah, do it.


Many cars off the road. I mean lot of, yeah, I mean I still have to go into the office like um, like two days a week right now, but it's not so bad anymore because it's like my hour commute is like a 45 minute commute now.


Yeah, so many good things. Mm sir.


It's really not that bad. And I, I actually like look more forward to going into the office now because I am working from home so much at the time and we can't really do anything on our days off right now. I mean you can go for a walk or whatever, but you can't do that much.


Right, right.


So it's like, it's nice to go in the office and like see whoever is in that day and yeah, way better quality of life.


Yeah, that's rad. Fight for it. Fight for it when when normal comes back it sounds like it's working really well for you, so I'm so I'm not working right now.


What about you? What do you do?


Um I was going to start work around the end of March with the census.


I'm Oh whoa wow.


Um I have been part of the previous phase of the census where we were gathering up sort of everybody's addresses, so we know where to mail the forms to and New England in general was really on top of their address canvassing and pretty much finished the work in New England about a month ahead of schedule. And so I had been counting on the census to provide me work for the whole period that they contracted me and it ran out this month early and I was like, oh shit! And I kind of poked and prodded my bosses, I was like, there's no work anywhere. And he was like, well actually there might be something, I'm hearing some rumblings from upstairs, like, let me check into it and it took a little bit of doing. But we learned that other places in The US, especially in the far south were very far behind on their canvassing especially because you have to travel so far between each house that it just makes the whole process slowdown to a crawl. So they ended up taking workers like me from up here in New England and flying us down to places like Louisiana texas and they sent me to Oklahoma and put me up in a hotel. Um I would never have any reason to go to Oklahoma. It's a part of America that like I've never seen before and like didn't really have any personal connection to but I was like hell yeah I want to see a different part of the U. S. And they put me up and they fed me. It took them a long long time because government but they eventually reimbursed me for my food and from a rental power and stuff like that. And yeah I stayed down there for almost a month going around seeing all this beautiful farmland and prairie land and actually some not so beautiful tiny like rural cities that were just like kind of frozen in time somewhere back in the seventies or eighties you know and just had you can just sense that like the people there have no life.


Where our? Oh my All right. Uh huh.


But yeah so I got to see this very different part of America from New England. And so I was like okay cool this is like the senses need and there was decent money to let me rack up tons of overtime like pretty much as much as I wanted to work they would pay me for. So so I signed up to come back for the next days and that was supposed to start at the end of March. And my training was natural for the very same week where all of the state governments started going, oh, I think we need to lock things down, you know?


Oh. Oh.


Um So all of that is postpones until who knows when at this point. So I'm still hired technically, I'll still have the job whenever things are safe again. But uh huh. Until then I've just sort of been at home doing prolific and collecting unemployment and trying to make it as long as I can between runs to the grocery store, you know, like go out as little as possible.


Mhm.


So yeah, it is two.


Oh that's crazy.


Yeah, appear in Connecticut. It's it's kind of rough because our proximity to new york state made us like we were very early in reacting to like close down schools and try and get ahead of things. Like we were among the first states who started taking like stay at home protections and stuff like that. Um, but despite that we're so close to the epicenter in new york city and once people in new york city found out how bad it was and started to get a picture of how bad it was going to get. A lot of people fled the city and they came to Rhode island Connecticut massachusetts northern new york anywhere that they have family or you know, somebody that they can stay with, He got out of new york city itself. And so we had a lot of confirmed cases coming up in sort of the southern part of Connecticut that we're probably connected to the outbreak in new york city.


Oh my gosh.


So, so yeah, life and we do, it's not so much where I'm in central Connecticut, so um, it's Connecticut's very odd culturally because you know, we're like we're that rectangle with a little hanging down, he bit down in the corner that points towards New york city that hang down a bit is like culturally basically part of new york city.


Good. Really? A lot of people that like commute into new york for work, right?


Um if you work in new york city and you're wealthy, chances are you actually live in Connecticut and you drive in or take the train in to new york city for work, but you want your kids to go to the wealthy Connecticut school system and like have your flashy house down there or whatever. So like that part of Connecticut is like so culturally different from the rest of Connecticut. It's like not, it's like essentially a different state in a lot of ways um where I am is pretty disconnected from New york city. Most people who live around here work in like uh the insurance industry is a really big industry based out of Hartford you know? Um And it's really easy if you're like a young kid who just graduated and got a bachelor's or a master's in business or something like that, you can definitely get hired as an entry level analyst with one of the major insurance companies here. So there's a lot of that. Um and there's you know there's like some major shipping, there's a lot of headaches, a lot of ups oh my God I just got up, I'll show her to you if you come down in the night, she's up on the ceiling fan just out of camera.


Oh yeah, yeah, they thought that san Francisco was going to be like new york, but we actually, I think we're also an early adopter out here, A lot of the county's adopted their own ordinances before the governor made any declarations and people have done a really good job of following the rules.


Yeah so it's not it's not super connected to New york city right where I am but there is a giant trunk in Connecticut that is very intertwined with life in new york. So. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.


I can't southern California because I've been pretty wrapped up in what's going on here, but I don't think California as a whole has had, you know, anything close to what happened in new york.


Mm Sure mom.


But they totally thought that they did like we were I'm like I said I work for the public health department, we were prepared for the worst. Like we were all standby. So I'm so grateful that people have followed up cautions.


Yeah. Get up.


Oh.


Yeah it works, it works if you do actually remember that weren't there, weren't there a group of like a handful of people who were some of the first Oh yeah this is jennifer.


Oh jennifer.


Oh see how I do.


Oh, thank you.


She's a ring next of mhm.


Mhm.


Yeah. So she has the same kind of bird as like you know the white piece stuff, Same type of bird, different color.


Yeah. Gotcha.


Yeah, she's very sweet anyway um weren't you weren't there some confirmed cases that were among the first to actually enter the United States that like disembarked in California or something?


Uh huh. See me. I that we I think it wasn't sacramento. We had people come from a cruise and that's what happened.


Yeah.


So like we thought we were gonna get slammed pretty hard and I actually have a co worker who got it and she's she recovered and she's been working from home and she's in a yeah in her sixties I think and she's doing fine.


Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. First one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.


So um Uh huh Yeah.


Sorry, go ahead.


Yeah. Uh huh. So I think because people followed it so well that even if you did get sick it was so easy to isolate and like all the, you know, like we had like, you know, all the stores put in like protocols, uh insta cart grubhub made everything made like delivery affordable.


Mm mm.


Like they made it very just transition into isolation.


Yeah. Yeah.


Yeah. So yeah, no, now pretty much everyone that I've talked to kind of hopes that uh we continue this for a while um because I know someone in Georgia who opened, I want to say like two weeks ago or like a week and a half ago and he, he was like, I wish it was like California here because no one ever follow the precautions and like I feel like gonna get it and there's nothing I can do about it because I can't make anyone else all the rules.


Yeah. Me. I'm glad that that worked out well. Yeah. Are you having any of the wackos who are like protesting then wanting to open up the state? Like, have you heard of that? No. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. It's really scary, like I'm seeing a lot of news about places where people who feel that their freedom is being infringed upon are starting to like protests capitals and stuff like that and actually push their legislature to open the state again and we're just not ready. I guess there was a hearing, I want to say earlier today in um in Congress where a couple epidemiologists testified about the current state of things and they said, okay, we're hearing talk of states who who want to reopen. Like these are the things like, here's the laundry list of things that you need to have accomplished in order to safely reopen. And they went through and they gave very sort of comprehensive looks at different parts of public life and whatever that you would need to have under control or whatever. And currently, no state in the Union is hitting all all of those criteria. You know, they were, they were like, we want to be very clear like no state is ready to reopen.


Oh my God, that's what we're talking about.


Yeah, so it's not that it's impossible. Like you can see like each of these things are doable, you know, they're talking about like, you have to have two weeks of a downward track of new cases and you have to have this level of public testing available and stuff like that, you know? And so it's like all goals, like good goals to be shooting for. Um, but they're big takeaway is they were saying there's kind of this false dichotomy right now between public health and the economy, is that we have to choose one or the other. And they were like, you can't have public health without a functioning economy and you can't have a functioning economy without living healthy people like they're one and the same and we need to be talking about them as such, like we need to be visualizing this as a working together to get both of these things really going well right now, you know? So like me.


A guy work like we're kind of in the middle past because it's like, well we could disregard public health and just open the economy, but then we're going to have, like, a scourge in case because and indeed the health care system and will be screwed.


Yeah. Oh right.


We also could just stay closed off indefinitely.


Yeah, Yeah, yeah.


But then people are going to be out of work because not everyone can work from home. Not everyone has a job that can be done online. So like, you're going to really screw some people over, or we could, but like, but if we did that, then the k then coronavirus will eventually just it will keep going down and it will go away. But that's not an option.


Yes.


So we have to take the middle path, so we have to just open it.


Right.


So well, they keep changing their approach. So last week they were going to open industry by industry.


But mhm, mm.


So like, we'll start with one industry, if that goes well then we can open another one. But today they were talking about we're gonna open county by county. And so like not every will open at the same time. So it won't be like, oh, all of northern California opens, it will be like, you know, some counties in northern California, some in central, some in Southern and then see how that goes and then open more.


Yeah. Uh huh, interesting, What are you thinking that?


But they we have another spike in october by doing this like to just know that we're gonna have another spike. And something that I talked to my boss about is that this virus mutates. So what's going around right now is going to be mild compared to like the second generation.


Yeah, yeah.


So that what makes me nervous about opening back up. And I wonder if we're just gonna be implementing this kind of protocol every flu season now.


Mhm.


I don't because that's when it's gonna because because a lot of people that I talk to you think that well when I open back up we're all safe and it can all go back to normal it cannot go back to normal actually.


Oh.


So like when it opens back up we need to be even more cautious because that's when the virus is from U. T.


Oh, right, right.


And it's going to be more generous. So.


Yeah, it's tricky. I really, I really do wish we could just stay on lockdown indefinitely and make sure that people who are out of work are supported financially and are able to support their family and their loved ones. Right. I wish there was a robust enough social safety net so that we could keep those people safe at home and keep the curve flat, you know? And I don't like that, that people are putting pressure on the government to try and reopen as a, as a matter like that, they're politicizing the issue as an infringement on their personal rights and liberties because public health, like we pay people like you to tell us what to do in these times of grave crisis, right? Because we don't all have that sort of textbook knowledge that you studied and we need the guidance of people who understand it from an epidemiological perspective, who understand it from a geographical perspective, you know, and who can take these different disciplines and put them together. And so like I guess I feel like I wish America could be so different in so many, like we would have to be, we would have to already have been a different country in so many ways for things to go differently and for things to go more sustainably. And I two are really scared about what's going to come down the pipe in the fall because I don't think people are going to be willing to sit around all summer on lockdown. I think they're just going to give it up and they're going to want their baseball back and they're going to want their concerts back and they're going to want to go back to work and eventually they're going to put so much pressure on the local level politicians that they're going to get some version of that. Um, and that's, that's frustrating to me because I've been working really hard to stay at home and like practice good, you know, All of, all of the new protocols, facemasks, handwashing stuff like that. Like I've been working like I haven't, I want to see my partner, I haven't been for like almost two months now because that's like what we have to do to each play our part, you know? But I feel is frustrating that other kind of like your friend said like other people can throw my hard work away.


Yeah I know it's hard like um I didn't see my partner for probably like a month and a half and it was a birthday and we had to like sell.


Uh huh. No.


So we did a socially distance where I went and I bought him dinner and we somewhere where we could safely sit outside and like eat together without even to felt like.


Yeah. Mm. Oh yeah.


Yeah I see like other people because we have a lot of like social justice work who's out here in California and they're like eating this up for whatever reason saying like look at me like falling all the rules and like judging you for like not social distancing and all on instagram.


Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.


I've actually lost a handful of friends and started because I've been calling people out just like I work like the health department, I don't know who you're judging because you should be judging your own actions because like you're not falling social distancing at all.


Okay. Yeah. Oh, okay. Really? Mhm Oh, what?


You're traveling all over California saying that you need to visit family for emotional support that you're like cross contaminating like five households.


Uh Ooh.


I am like wanting to see my partner like birthday and like just being in the presence of other people outside of like the socially distance office that I go into like once, but like I can't because people like you think that you know better and think that you are following the rules and you're nowhere near following the rules.


Go wonder. Thanks. Uh huh. Yeah. Right.


I think you're like the exception to the rule because you have all these like morals and stuff, but you're not like you're not doing anything to help this Cause right now I hope this one girl, I was like, don't even mention social distancing and this photo because you're not, you're not, it's yeah, I'm like, you're not take the caption off.


Uh huh. That's frustrating. Uh huh.


They're not socially distance about this photo.


Right. Shit.


Sure. Oh yeah.


Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, frustrating.


I finally like did see my partner in this past weekend because we both had, we, we felt like we had followed like long enough of the protocol that it was like safe to see each other and we were just going to see each other.


Yeah. Sure.


Oh, but that's what, it's really hard.


Yeah. Let me see.


Like I can't imagine the people that are like completely alone because I live alone, but at least I have like family or like a boyfriend and I can like see and interact with, but I know there's lots of people that don't have that at all.


Mhm. Mm.


Imagine how hard that is right now.