Grilled Cheese Sandwich

I will be posting a few photo shoots of making tasty budget food while in quarantine.

First up, the Basic Grilled Cheese Sandwich.

Choose yer bread n other stuff.

The Cave was cold this morning, so the butter would not spread.  Alternate method, melt the butter in the pan and toss the bread in on top.

I was too hungry, and did not take a picture of  the final cheese oozing sandwich.  Use your imagination, because the sandwich has been consumed with glee and the pickles teamed with it were grand.

End of March, end of an era

Nobody knows what the full effects of the COVID virus will be, and considering the variance in the human condition, no one can.  But.

We can already see in a number of places the politicians and money interests are taking advantage of the distraction to alter the rules in their own favour.

And the numbers from China are a lie.

How big of a lie, no one outside the Chinese government will ever know.

A journalist took a dive at an indirect way of confirming the death tally in Wuhan, and looked into the number of funerary urns ordered by one of the four large cremation facilities in Wuhan.  That number was 50,000.  For a place that has officially reported 3,000 deaths.

In looking at the shipping details to the other cremation facilities the reporter hit a tumbling block, in that the directors of the facilities were not allowed to tell him either the number of funerary urns on hand or on order by government decree.  I have not tried to delve into the data to verify the reporters findings, but if true the report on the pandemic deaths in Wuhan could be out by a factor of 100.

That they did not experience 3,000 deaths as reported, but closer to 300,000.

The numbers coming out of Spain and Italy give credence to the story that China has lied about their own deaths.

The original numbers are bad enough in terms of survivor rates, but going by the deaths in Spain and Italy again, the original numbers out of China look to be a lie by a factor of 10.  Europe is not experiencing somewhere between 1 -2% mortality, but closer to 10-15%.

Applied to Canada those numbers mean a heartbreaking number of deaths, even with our government leaning hard on social distancing, non-essential business closures and disaster preparing.

In the USA, it looks far worse.

The lack of decisive leadership, the lack of central planning and the dodging of response planning means their death toll will dwarf Italy and Spain combined, by a factor of at least 10.

I hate to put these numbers down as a prediction because they are beyond bad, beyond catastrophic, but the states are on their way to losing over a million to this pandemic by the middle of May, with the toll being well over 10 million before things level out a bit by the end of August.

If they make the mistake of re-opening the whole country for business as Trump has suggested for mid April, that number could be multiplied by 4.  Which would lead to an utter collapse of their government as we know it.  What would replace it is anyone's guess.

As a world wide society we are facing the collapse of the modern world, what will emerge on the far side is yet to be seen, but failed states will be common, and we are in for the roughest time the world has seen since WWII, and the death toll will be higher.

This is all based on what I think to be the real numbers for the mortality rate for COVID-19.

I cannot express the strength with which I hope I am wrong, nor the fear that I am right.

Stay at home.  Wash your hands.  Cling tight to the hope that we find both mitigating drugs and a vaccine, but both appear to months away, and the vaccine is over 18 months away at best.

COVID 19 and the long haul

I think a lot of people and governments out there are missing a major point.  We need to be in this for the long haul.

The best case scenario is that we find a batch of drugs that will either treat or slow down the rate of transmittal of the disease.  A preventative vaccine is at best 14 months away.

Avoiding large gatherings, being hygienic will do a lot to slow down the spread of the disease, but nothing we can do outside of total isolation from all human contact will stop it.

Countries around the world have closed their borders, all of which is too late to stop the spread, though it will slow it down.  What will slow it down even further is stopping all social travel.

Our efforts to self quarantine will help, the closing of schools bars and restaurants will help.

But nothing will stop it until a vaccine is made, tested, distributed and that will take at least another 16 months.

If we are lucky.

Because if the vaccine currently under testing passes all the safety protocols, it will still take a minimum of time for it to be mass produced and distributed.

And that is also assuming that the disease does not develop multiple strains, ones that are different enough to be immune to the test vaccine.

So, my advice at this time is settle in for the long haul.

Write down a list of friends you like to visit and strongly encourage them to use a video chat method of keeping in touch.

If you have lost employment or income due to a 'temporary' closing of business, start looking for alternate work as soon as you can, because that closing could last well over a year, and two years is not out of the picture.

One of the technology advances I see coming soon, is a debit/credit card machine with a viral resistant key pad, and if that works, a vast increase in the number of transactions people do cashless.

As much as I like cash and hard currency, it is also a vector for the transmission of disease, and in Canada where a lot of debit transactions take place, it could help to slow down the spread by a bit.

Could be an interesting study to undertake to see if that does make a difference, or if I am just going on wishful thinking

All for now.

Car show in Cochabamba

At the invitation of a friend, I attended a car show, which had a mix of new and old autos.  My friend is one of the people dressed in 1940's costume hanging out behind the ropes around the cars.  I only took pictures of the old cars, I hope you like them.

Team Archie

I am currently a long ways from BC, but I have long had an attitude toward papparazzi, one that is not difficult to express.

I hate them.  It is not a term I am happy expressing, for it is a very strong word to put in writing, but they are a loathsome facet of modern life, and the tabloid yellow press that they feed are a steep step below them.  They are not connected to reality, and force the celebs they prey on into extremes to attain a bit of honest privacy.

The tabloids in Britain appear to be the worst on the planet, and they have driven a number of people away from their own country, and have insisted on making the life of various Royals sheer hell.

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I am someone who travels with a camera, and usually have one in easy reach.  The people I do photograph are either friends, at SCA events, or ones who pose for the camera.  I do strive to never post an embarrassing picture of someone, but do try for candid pictures, where the unposed picture captures better than anything staged could.  I do not post pictures of any one who is uncomfortable with a picture I have taken and either delete it or never post it, as they request.

That being said, I will never post a photo of a famous without their tacit consent.  As in, if they are at a public event, they are fair game during the event.  If they have stepped out for a private moment, no.  If they are at a beach on a photo shoot, sure.  If they are at a beach with family, no.

From what I have seen on the press, Prince Harry, Megan Markle and their son have chosen to step away from the limnlight to better raise their son and have some privacy doing so.  I applaud their choice, and will not seek out and way to invade into their lives.  To me, being on Team Archie means leaving them alone to give them the space to raise their child out of the spotlight of celebrity, and hopefully to become a person as admirable as his parents are.

Cochabamba Bolivia

I had a great lunch at a place with a lovely garden setting.  Just uphill was a great viewpoint overlooking Cochabamba.

The restaurant is called El Molino de Pihusi.

And the view from uphill

Bolivia, November 2019

By looking at the news, I would believe that at this time, November 17, 2019 in Bolivia, there would be a lot of protests happening.  There are many articles about the current political upheaval happening, yet here in Santa Cruz, life seems to go on with no real difference.

It is very true that my Spanish fluency is somewhere between bad and horrible, but still, walking around the central part of Santa Cruz, there are no parades, no rallies, and people seem to be going about their business without any concern.  Walking down the streets, it seems to me that there are more vacant business places than last time I was here, two years ago, but not by an incredible amount.

The central park, 24th September Plaza, had quite a few people in it on Saturday, and most were enjoying the day, with the usual gang playing chess at the boards set up around the edges.

And, here are a few of the pictures I took.