Now on my 6th week of isolation (self after a trip to Scotland, then forced isolation), I have discovered a few things about myself.
- I was under the impression I was not a people person, but I miss people (hopefully a temporary side effect)
- Being continually with ones loved one has not been anywhere as bad as some have it; we purposely keep apart during the day and make a point of pretending to come from work around 6ish to keep some normality
- Doing laundry way more often than I probably need to
- Reduced monthly credit-card spend dramatically by getting rid of a lot of unnecessary subscriptions
- Netflix, Amazon Prime and YouTubeTV are great online services, but very easy to get fatigued by each, so need the variety to rotate around them all is required
- On that, Star Trek TNG is as old to me now, as the original series was when TNG came out; (play the spot the Picard memes game)
- Deleting and not listening to downloaded podcasts does not make you a bad person
- Not watching as many movies as I would have hoped; can’t seem to concentrate on them as well as I use to
- BBC is one of the few news sources that does not sensationalize the news
- Find myself doing a lot more DIY jobs around the house (cleaned the gutters the other day)
- Nibbling from the kitchen has to stop, but not found an effective way to curtail that activity (Cadbury’s chocolate supply is perilously close to zero)
- Finally using all those soaps/shampoos collected from hotels over the years (don’t need to worry about that running low anytime soon)
- Video calls is way quicker and easier than writing an email
- Speaking of that, double chins are a fact of life (thank you video calls)
- Enjoying listening to the good old fashioned radio again (bandwidth free), reminds me there still is a world outside
- Saving a small fortune by not eating out for lunch
- Reading books again; dusted off my old kindle and enjoying the ideas being sparked
- Now that I am home, find myself talking to the dog while she spends the morning with me. (she then goes and spends afternoon with my loved one, so maybe I am talking too much. Noted).
- Invest in a good headset; makes said video calls way easier
- Amazon Chime really does blow chunks; yet another half-a-release from Amazon, I am sure it will be good in 18 months like most of their AWS offerings
- Google Meet continually impresses; it just works, no software required
- Jackbox.tv has been a surprise amusement for remote family time
- While video calls are great it is way harder to multi-task like you use to on conference calls
- Everyone wants to be your connection on LinkedIn (clearly a lot of random ‘connect’ clicking going on as people are either bored or desperate for leads)
- Tiger King on Netflix (no more than that needs to be said – only in America eh?)
- “Hello, I am your man Steve Harvey” seem to be addicted to our lunchtime show; (YouTubeTV archives has a lot to answer for)
Let us see how this looks at the 12th week mark.
alan williamson 