COVID, Day With Ted, WWE, Blue and Gold

COVID

My third confrontation with COVID and I seemed to be doing fine. I noticed my glands feeling a little sore on Monday. By Tuesday I was completely wiped. I thought maybe I overdid it swimming in the morning for my exercise because that entire day I could not keep up. My nose was running and my body was sore. I assumed I was getting the flu but I never popped a fever after monitoring it the entire day. That evening I went to bed early and slept 10 hours until the next morning. At that time I woke up with a cough and stuffy head. Eventually my wife recommended she test me and yes, I came up positive for COVID. Despite all of this, like I said, I never popped a warm temperature even once. Compare this to my first go around with it where I fought it for 24 hours, unable to get out of bed, with a fever that lasted 8 hours straight and put me into feverish dreams. I am not sure why this was weaker. Different strain? More immunity? Better health at the offset? I am flummoxed yet obviously relieved.

Day With Ted

I spent the afternoon just with Ted. We first went to the Scout Shop so I could purchase achievements for the AOLs and return some cars. Next we went to Menard’s where we bought some plumbing pieces we needed for under the sink and lumber for the AOLs bridge. Then we went to Chipotle for lunch and finished the afternoon off at Micro Center. Yes, we were just running errands but we did it together and he was really helpful. He helped count out the achievements and pick out items at the hardware store. At MicroCenter he was wowed by everything there and I got to share a little about who I am. He asked if I was a “nerd” and I said, but I told him that’s not a bad thing. People are different, I am certainly different but everyone has a right to like whatever they like. We got to learn a little about each other which was nice. I did purchase a new Raspberry Pi 5, which is our second Raspberry Pi product, the first being a retro video gaming system I put together. I purchased this one to give to my brother in thanks for helping me build my garden shed, whenever that actually takes place.

Blue and Gold Ceremony

Our final AOL bridging ceremony over to the Troop. It was a wonderful event, almost too much for me to sit and rehash. I spent a lot of time trying to make sure this went well. All in all probably 100 people showed up. It went off without a hitch. Lots of fun. Everyone enjoyed it and gave us great praise over the results. My son is now officially in the Boy Scouts (Scouting America). As a den leader this is what I’ve been working to for six years. It is also my swan song from leadership at the Pack Level. I will no longer be in any leadership role with them. As far as Scouting America, I am looking to take a year off leadership there and help Ted acclimate to Scouting Life. I am already getting some warning there is a leadership issues and disagreements in the Troop but they really, really need to work together. I’ve spoken with a few of them to remind them that the youth come first, period. They all agree with it, but some people treat leadership positions like fiefdoms instead of working together, and some overstep boundaries.

I also received my Wood Badge beading. I am now officially done with that and I can move on from that too. I will have more on what I learned in leadership as a Scouting volunteer on an upcoming post.

WWE

Monday Night Raw came into town and I was able to land a ticket for one. Because they tend to let out around 11:00 PM I went alone since that was way past their bedtime. I had a great time, even though the fat guy next to me took up part of my chair. We became fast friends though, his name was Gene. I usually go to WWE whenever they are in town. I really hoped John Cena would show up as I’ve never seen him in person. Sounds like that won’t happen since I opted not to go to the Royal Rumble and I don’t foresee myself making it to Las Vegas for Wrestlemania. Some other notes – you cannot bring even sealed water bottles into Heritage Bank Arena, so I was out $2 right off the bat. Another note, the wrestlers talk way more trash when the cameras aren’t on. New Day said Cincinnati Chili tasted like dog food. Kaiser made lots of insults as well. Logan Paul was there and started off the show, CM Punk showed up. Of course Seth Rollins was there, he always shows for Cincinnati. The mid-cards were good too and people really liked the main event, which was a Women’s Tag Team title match. The best wrestlers make you forget that it’s not real and that is why I like WWE so much. It’s hard to explain how that works, you find yourself reacting to the match and suspending your disbelief. Those are the best stories and judging by everyone’s reactions the main event did just that for us.

Updates

I finished reading Kevin Mitnick’s “Ghost in the Wires.” A biography about one of the 90s most famous hackers. I do not remember Kevin Mitnick from that time. I only became familiar with him during security training exercises with my employer. He did the video instructions we were required to take. He died recently and became forefront in my mind. The book was available on Kindle Unlimited and I came across it while I was searching for technical reading. I liked a lot of the book itself and his depiction of life on the run. As a phone phreaker during the heyday of that pastime and his exploits and the ultimate backlash from it. Interestingly enough never sold any of the data he stole or used credit card information or committed fraud. He was just curious to see what he could get his hands on. I understand what it is to be compelled by something though and not able to turn away from something that really interests me. Part of that is why I pursue tech as a career.

I recently spent several hours this week after work creating a function that would swap non ASCII characters from some text I was importing. I lost a REPLACE function I created to help with that task but I think that script was blown away when I switched devices at work. This new function is much better and one of the first functions in SQL I’ve ever written. As far as other tech stuff, I am spending each day working through this 100 days of Python coding challenge. I’ll take a break every hour and watch a video for five minutes. I hope to have this completed by summertime.