soulcruzer

Is there a company in the UK doing what Kinsa is doing in the U.S.? I read this on Dave Winer’s blog. What a great idea, a network of thermometers. Can they spot outbreaks of Coronavirus? You can read about it in the NYT.

We’ve been here before. Read about how NYC survived the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. We will get through this. It’s a question time and people doing their part to help stop the spread of the Coronavirus. And here’s a history of pandemics.

Get some vitamin D in you, either from the sun or supplements.

Apps like Zoom are really coming into their own during this pandemic. I spent most of my day working through the medium of Zoom. It’s good for meetings, webinars, and training. I’ve been an advocate of online learning via the virtual classroom environment for years. Glad to be able to do more of it now (although the catalyst for the increased interest isn’t the best).

Not much to report today, apart from the UK going further into lockdown. I did have I am Legend moment today. I was the only one home for most of the day and with the streets being empty in my town, I felt like I was the last human.

I mostly had my head down trying to meet a deadline for a client. I owed them a Guide On Managing a Remote Team. I finished the PDF version. Next, I have to convert that into an online microlearning course.

I had fun adding some more images to my Hippie Lifestyle and Beat Generation Pinterest boards.

I like the aesthetic of the Beat Generation. Oh, and I love me some hippie chicks.

I hope you all are washing your hands, practicing social distancing, and keeping yourselves safe!

Clay

The world is in a tangle indeed. When I walked into town this afternoon, it felt like I was in a post-apocalyptic movie. So few people. Empty shelves. People avoiding people. This is one of those events that feels surrealistic while you’re in it. History will shine a different light on it.

I’m officially working from home now. Too many cavalier people out there not caring how their bad habits in these times might affect their fellow human. Some of the practices I witnessed today, made me want to retreat to a bunker and not resurface until the coronavirus pandemic has passed.

While you might not care about your own health and safety, think about the harm you might potentially do to others. In short, don’t be a dick!

C

Things continue to intensify here in the UK as Boris Johnson outlined the government’s recommended course for its citizens. Social distancing is highly encouraged to include working from home where possible, no non-essential travel, no pubs, and clubs, or restaurants.

I found myself musing about living through a crisis of this magnitude and how surrealistic it all seems as you realise how vulnerable the human being is. This virus is more deadly than most people give it credit.

I found this episode of The Daily to be particularly interesting. If you want to get some good tips on living with the coronavirus, this is the one to listen to.

My biggest worry in all of this is not the virus, but the economic fallout from the drastic measures we’re all having to take to get through this.

This meme has been floating around recently. Basically it’s a welcome to 2020 meme. Look at all the junk that’s happened in the 1st 3 months of this year:

I think I’ll spend one more day out before I retreat into my cave for a while, try and ride some of this Covid-19 nastiness out.

C

I don’t even remember why I went on to YouTube this morning, but I ended up cycling through clips from Seinfeld, which arguably for me, is the greatest sitcom ever. I’ve watched every episode at least a dozen times, easily more, and I never get tired of them, and I never fail to laugh out loud at the most iconic bits like ‘Yada, yada, yada.’

Later during the day, I played Russian Roulette with my Kindle. I wasn’t quite sure what I was in the mood to read so I thought I’d let fate decide. She chose a book of essays by Ursula Le Guin called Words Are My Matter. I read the first few essays. The Operating Instructions was my favorite. I should say, it’s less of an essay and more of a polished version of a talk she gave to the Oregon Literary Arts about the importance of the imagination.

I think the imagination is the single most useful tool mankind possesses. It beats the opposable thumb. I can imagine living without my thumbs, but not without my imagination

Ursula Le Guin

Such is the primacy of imagination.

Al of us have to learn how to invent our lives, make them up, imagine them. We need to be taught these skills; we need guides to show us how. Without them, our lives get made up for us by other people.

Lots of gems in this essay like:

Listening is an act of community; reading is a means of listening.

The imagination is a big deal. It’s super powerful and something that needs plenty of exercise whether that’s active imagination as Jung suggests we use it or mythic imagination as Stephen Larsen suggests.

Time to shift gears and start thinking about the upcoming week.

Inspired by this video (how to be a writing god) this morning, I decided to take Beth Dunn’s advice and get better at writing by writing every day. And as she explains in the video, to use a different metric for measuring my progress, which in this case is to hit the ‘publish’ button every day, regardless of how many words I’ve written, be it one word or a thousand words.

I felt this domain would be the best place to resurrect my online journaling since it’s one of my oldest online spaces.

With all of this coronavirus business going on, I decided to hang loose at home this weekend. I spent most of today alternating between reading and watching TV.

I managed to finish off The Hyperdoc Handbook: Digital Lesson Design Using Google Apps, by the trio, Lisa Highfill, Kelly Hilton, and Sarah Landis. I’m pretty excited by the prospect of moving toward delivering most of my work online, both my corporate work and my private client work.

I also finished off The One Punch Man a tremendously awesome piece of anime.

I putting soulcruzer.com on ice for now, while I concentrate on building the blog up over at claylowe.com which is now my main blogging platform.

imagine the slow-released madness placed under the tongue

my friend and I have a bet that his face is too tight under his skin, a pale ghost milked by his masters to prolong life in the dark place

where it’s too hard to see tomorrow,

by now she could see the decades of self-sacrifice, a mind-at-large in hyperspace. She was long gone by now though.

Me – just another caged animal let out for mom’s amusement.