Coronavirus Chronicles – May

Another month of working from home and social distancing. The stay at home order from the governor was extended twice, first to May 28, then to June 12, but more businesses have been allowed to open under varying restrictions. Manufacturing could start back up in the middle of the month, plus at some point garden stores and bike repair shops were also reopened. By the end of the month, parts of northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula were permitted to open with limited customers, distancing, and face coverings. For the rest of the state, gatherings of less than ten people are allowable, retail can open for shopping-by-appointment, and nonemergency dental and doctor services will soon resume.

By Friday, May 1, I had my manuscript back from my advisor to edit. #HereWeGoAgain. On Saturday, May 2, I took a second try at a basic sugar cookie recipe. Something went wrong the first time I made it, because I remember the cookies not coming out great, and this time they looked and tasted just fine. The only difference I know of for sure is that I halved the recipe except for the one egg. It’s possible the extra half egg fixed everything, but I’m pretty sure I did something wrong last time. Either that or Mercury was in retrograde.

North Campus

Sunday, May 3, I got up early and went on an adventure to visit ten different parks/nature areas near¹ me. I worked out a route that would connect the parks as part of my latest efforts to see how many parks in Ann Arbor I can visit, because what else am I doing with my time. Over the next week (Monday, May 4²-Friday, May 8), I continued editing my manuscript, saw Ken Jennings’ first appearance on Jeopardy!, and rewatched the first four games of Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time featuring Jennings, Brad Rutter, and James Holzhauer. Mostly I’ve been watching a lot of TV, but on Sunday, May 10, and Monday, May 11, I streamed The PhD Movie and The PhD Movie 2: Still in Grad School, which are/were available on the PhD comics website, and sum up everything terrible and wonderful about grad school. [The PhD comics author, Jorge Cham, came to Michigan a couple years ago and I happened to actually read the right email with the information about his visit, so I went to see him.]

¹Subject to your definition of near.
²Star Wars day. May the 4th be with you.

It rained a lot on and off throughout the rest of the week, but I got outside a few times to wander through the woods and check on the creeks and rivers. Saturday, May 16 was a lovely day so I took the opportunity to loop through another set of parks after groceries in the morning. On Sunday, May 17, I listened to Facebook sermon #10 and baked another batch of cookies. These were chocolate and meant to go with the jar of marshmallow spread I had in my cabinet that I picked up off the clearance shelf at some point for a dollar.

A walk in the woods . . . after some rain

Monday, May 18, began another workweek with my manuscript, virtual advisor meeting, and virtual group meeting. I also worked my way through my puzzle collection (only a couple left), read, did a couple laps around North Campus, continued my nightly viewing of Jeopardy!, watched Star Trek, ate, slept, etc. And on Thursday, May 19 I explored more parks, because I’m really not kidding when I say I have nothing better to do. I also get to see the different neighborhoods in Ann Arbor and figure out which nature areas have potential for repeat hiking.

It was forecast to rain basically all of Memorial Day weekend and the week after, but it turned out to be sunny and hot instead. I finally had to switch our thermostat over from heating to cooling and stop opening the blinds because the apartment is a giant solar oven, and we still hit 80 F for the first time this year on Sunday, May 24. On Memorial Day (Monday, May 25³) itself, I stayed inside to avoid potential crowds and ended up getting some research done. By Tuesday, May 26, I finished my last puzzle, so I can add that to my coronavirus accomplishments along with aimless wandering and eating ice cream straight from the carton. I went out in the evening/night for the first time in months on Thursday, May 28 just to get out of my apartment. Saturday, May 30 was grocery day (no spam, yeast, or flour) and I went for a walk in the afternoon through some of the nature areas by me that connect to each other. Today, Sunday, May 31, after the daily crossword puzzles, this week’s sermon, and an egg and cheese sandwich for lunch, I took my bike out for the first time since March and went to a couple parks along the Huron River. The river itself and the main parks were pretty busy (I would say crowded, but not packed), but the wooded areas were decently quiet, minus the ever-present traffic noises.

³Also Towel Day. Don’t panic, hoopy froods.

That’s another month for the record books. The university tested reopening half a dozen buildings this past week, with check in procedures, mandatory face coverings, distancing in labs, and 30% capacity. It seemed to go pretty well, so they’re moving forward with opening more buildings, but because I do computational research, I’ll be in one of the last groups to be allowed to go back in. I don’t mind, because I’m still getting things done, and I’m waiting to see how reopening in general goes.

Top Ten _____ [Movies]

One of my coronavirus/staying at home activities has been listening to podcasts and working on my collection of jigsaw puzzles. So, business as usual. Recently I listened to a podcast where the hosts talked about their ten favorite movies, which got me thinking about what my personal top ten movies would be. I’m not a film student or a movie connoisseur, which is my way of warning you that you may think I have terrible taste. In reverse order:

10) A River Runs Through It – This could be replaced with a few movies I’ll list at the end, but I’m going with this one because of the score and fly fishing.

9) Harry Potter – I actually didn’t read the books or watch the movies until at least high school, but because they came out as I was growing up, I feel like this is one that has to be on the list. It’s been awhile since I saw the movies, so I’ll probably just go with Sorcerer’s Stone or Prisoner of Azkaban. I’m also a fan of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, but I will say it doesn’t stand up to Harry Potter. Great soundtracks in both though.

8) Mean Girls – This might be another generational thing. Like Harry Potter, it’s not objectively amazing (see – lamp Ginny, “HARRY DID YAH PUT YAH NAME IN DA GOBLET OF FIYAH?” Dumbledore asked calmly, Voldemort’s disintegration), but there are so many great iconic moments. My roommates one year made me watch it and there’s something about it that captures the strange and wonderful world of public school in that time – math class, the cafeteria, talent shows, the mall.

7) The Princess Bride – After some thought, I decided to go with The Princess Bride in the comedy genre. It’s funny and smart without trying to be too clever. I thought about a true parody/mockumentary and will list some below, but I couldn’t justify one over The Princess Bride.

6) The Sound of Music – There had to be a musical. The Sound of Music gets the spot because of the number of times I’ve seen it, the songs, and its classic appeal.

5) Guardians of the Galaxy – After eleven years and twenty-two movies, I figured I should put a Marvel movie on the list. The Avengers is the best representative of Marvel (and is my second choice Marvel movie), but I’m going with Guardians because 1) talking raccoon, 2) talking tree, and 3) easily the best soundtrack album. The characters are great, it’s funny, and it’s not a standard superhero origin movie.

4) Finding Nemo – My choice for an animated movie. I saw it in the theater and the animation was stunning on the big screen. Also the soundtrack is excellent.

3) Miracle – I don’t know how many times I’ve seen this movie. It’s the standard gym class before break/between units movie and is one of two DVDs I own (the other is season 4 of The Office – it was $2 at the library book shop). If you don’t know, it’s about the 1980 US Olympic men’s hockey team and how they beat the Soviet Union on their way to the gold medal. Besides being a great story, team captain Mike Eruzione was from Massachusetts and attended Boston University; former Cornell goalkeeper Ken Dryden was in the booth with Al Michaels for his “Do you believe in miracles?” call; the game was played in Lake Placid, NY, just a few hours from Cornell; and thanks to the Cornell pep band I’ve watched dozens of hockey games. I have a lot of connections to this movie, except actually being alive when the game was played.

2) Star Wars – I’m not counting this as one entry. Ewan McGregor notwithstanding, I don’t think you can say that any one of the prequel movies is the best Star Wars movie. Similarly, the sequel trilogy just doesn’t stand out as the best. Besides the gratuitous fanservice, I found basically every single side character more interesting than Rey (nothing against Daisy Ridley). Solo was a great backstory prequel (how Han got his name, met Chewie, and earned won obtained the Millennium Falcon? Yes, please.). Rouge One is arguably the most well-crafted movie in terms of characters, plot, and anticipation. I have a special spot for A New Hope because it’s the movie that started everything off and I still remember the first time I saw it. However, The Empire Strikes Back probably has the strongest case for best Star Wars movie. It’s got the original characters, a solid plot, and one of the greatest plot twists ever in Vader’s “I am your father” line.

1) Lord of the Rings – Tolkien considered LotR one book, so this I am counting as one entity. I haven’t watched the LotR movies in years, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better adaptation of a book. Even the parts that were left out or altered generally make sense (hello, hundred pages of Tom Bombadil).

Other contenders for my serious movie were Dead Poets Society, Wind River, and Manchester by the Sea. Besides The Princess Bride, I also considered Spaceballs and Best in Show, and briefly thought about Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure or The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. In the movie-based-on-a-real-life-event category – The King’s Speech, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, Spotlight, and Apollo 13, but none of them beat out Miracle for me. Ocean’s Eleven is my favorite heist movie and the only movie I considered for cinematic merit was 2001: A Space Odyssey, but there are too many other movies I enjoy more. I’ll discuss musicals and animated movies separately. So there’s my list. We’ve got an actually serious movie, magic/fantasy, a high school comedy, a not serious movie, a musical, action/superheroes, an animated movie, a sports drama, a sci-fi space opera, and an epic fantasy adventure. Leave your favorite movies in the comments, where you can also let me know how scandalized you were that I didn’t consider [insert movie here].

Tulip Time

Some previous resident of my apartment at some point planted tulips. According to Wikipedia, tulips are “spring-blooming perennial herbaceous bulbiferous geophytes.” What this turns out to mean is that they flower in spring (spring-blooming), live more than 2 years (perennial), don’t have permanent woody stems (herbaceous), and have bulbs as storage organs (bulbiferous geophytes). I’ve never fertilized the tulips, or replanted baby bulbs, but they’ve been coming up every year I’ve been in my apartment. The last couple years, only two or three tulips have survived what I think has to be deer, but this year I got a record eight tulips. Two red, five yellow, and one red with yellow edges. 

Close Encounters of the Plant Kind

Or: Things You Never Knew You Wanted to Know About Every Cell Phone and Camera I’ve Ever Owned 

Currently, my only outdoor activity is semi-aimless wandering around outside while trying to avoid other people as much as possible. Which really isn’t too far from my normal outdoor activities, but lately in doing so, I’ve discovered a number of parks and nature areas accessible to me. The nature areas are basically just woods with unpaved paths that people have ended up making through them. Many of them have no signage or parking lots and are accessed through neighborhoods. They tend to be pretty quiet and unfrequented, especially if you visit during weird times and questionable weather conditions, and the trails can get unmaintained and muddy, all of which suits me just fine.

Moss friends. Non-vascular plants that produce spores, not seeds.
So you could say they reproduce spore-adically.
55 mm, f/5.6, 1/160 s, ISO-100

I usually take my camera along with me, because what I really need is to add to my collection of pictures of trees, and also you never know when you might stumble on something worth photographing. Since I really do have a lot of photos of trees, I’ve recently been trying to take pictures of other plants when I go out. This also takes advantage of a DSLR’s ability to play with depth of field and exposure. Point and shoots tend to have a large depth of field because of their short focal lengths and smaller sensors, so a lot of the picture will be in focus. I would say this is true of phones as well, but of course some of the newer iPhones are starting to be able to control depth of field, though I think it’s done on the iPhone via post-processing, not as the photo’s being taken.

Probably some sort of bluebell.  Possibly Virginia bluebells.
55 mm, f/5.6, 1/160 s, ISO-200

On my trusty Fujifilm FinePix XP55¹, which I’m not sure is retailed anymore, even if anyone actually wanted to buy one, the most control over the settings you have is picking the ISO and white balance, which amounts to choosing how blurry and discolored you’d like your photo to be. There’s also a macro option, but at best it kind of works. My current phone has a camera that’s merely not great as opposed to absolutely abysmal, but I’m apparently old and grumpy enough that holding my phone still, keeping my finger off the lens, and getting the touchscreen to register that I am, in fact, pressing the shutter button all at the same time is more trouble than carrying an entirely separate device.

Taraxacum officinale.  Otherwise known as the common dandelion.
55 mm, f/5.6, 1/400 s, ISO-100

I got my first cell phone when I went to college. It was a flip phone that I had for about a year and a half. I’m pretty sure it had a camera, but I don’t remember ever actually using it. That phone was replaced by a touchscreen phone. I didn’t ask for it; it was paid for and mailed directly to my dorm room by my parents. This was the phone that I dropped sometime during winter of my junior year trying to get into Olin on a weekend. I put tape over the parts most likely to splinter into my finger and kept using it. I did end up getting a new phone after that school year, which I used for almost four years, well into grad school. That phone was notable because in the age of selfies and facetiming, it had no front camera. The camera it did have was functional, but you wouldn’t choose to use it unless your other option was something like, say, carving stone tablets. I also just discovered that I did at some point crack the screen all along one side. I eventually replaced that phone because apps stopped updating for that version of Android. Now my phone has both a front and back camera, and I do occasionally take pictures with it if I need a quick snapshot of something or don’t have my DSLR. I still do all my primary photography with a dedicated camera (the Canon Rebel T6) though, and still only have the kit lens. Anyway, enjoy the plants.

Bonus: Not a plant.  Polypores, or bracket or shelf fungi.
55 mm, f/5.6, 1/60 s, ISO-100

¹This thing is waterproof, shockproof, dustproof, and freezeproof². It survived being dragged almost everywhere I went at Cornell. Four years of hockey rinks, pep band trips, hiking gorges, mealtimes; it’s been exposed to zero-degree weather and taken to the top of the climbing wall. I still keep it charged but only use it in situations where I can’t bring my DSLR.

²Why yes, I have damaged at least 2 phones and 1 camera (some model of a Canon PowerShot, if I remember correctly) by dropping them.

A House for Hermit Person

It’s been over a month since the official stay at home order from the governor. Since then, the only two indoor locations I’ve been to are my apartment and the grocery store. I’ve more or less been working on manuscript_v2.0 in the hopes that reviewer 2 likes it better than he/she did last time. Our research group has gotten more used to having virtual meetings, with only occasional internet interruptions, and we also have weekly individual meetings with our advisor. Other than that, I mostly hang around the apartment watching a lot of Netflix, complaining about my internet connection, complaining about the screaming children not social distancing outside my window, and wandering around my region of Ann Arbor when it’s either too nice to not go outside or too awful for anyone else to want to be outside.

At the end of March, Tau Beta Pi had to adjust and hold required meetings online on Zoom, which went okay. April Fools’ Day was mostly canceled, but I scraped together enough energy and inclination to bake a half batch of peanut butter cookies. On Thursday, April 2, we had group meeting, then I went to explore a natural area I hadn’t been to before, and finished my reread of The Lord of the Rings. The next day, Friday, April 3, I filed my taxes for 2019. Since I now spend the vast majority of my time in my apartment, as opposed to a lot of my time, I spent the afternoon of Saturday, April 4 tending to a yeasted dough so I could make cinnamon rolls.

Peanut butter cookie tower 

I listened to Facebook sermon #4 on Sunday, April 5, and watched the first ever MLS game on Monday, April 6 (MLS is re-airing classic matches since the season is suspended). On April 6, 1996, D.C. United travelled to visit the San Jose Clash and ended up losing 1-0 to a goal from Eric Wynalda. If no goals had been scored in regular time, they would have gone to a running start penalty shootout. Also, the clock counted down. Seriously. Thursday, April 9 of the same week, I decided what I really needed was to watch the Revolution lose their third (of five) MLS cup finals. In 2006, the Revolution headed to Texas to take on the Houston Dynamo. The game featured a ridiculous number of the best Revolution players in the team’s 25-year history, including Matt Reis, Jay Heaps, Shalrie Joseph, Steve Ralston, and Taylor Twellman. After the teams traded goals within two minutes of each other in extra time (Twellman and Houston’s Brian Ching), the game went to penalty kicks. Reis made a penalty and saved one, but Pat Noonan hit the crossbar, and on New England’s fifth penalty kick, with Houston up 4-3, Jay Heaps had his shot saved. And that’s how the Revolution lost MLS cup, not for the first time, and not for the last.

Sunday, April 12 was Easter. I did two loads of laundry (regular and sheets) and listened to the Easter sermon. Over the next week, research continued, and I worked my way through episodes of Community (now on Netflix) and Star Trek: The Next Generation [the one with Captain Picard, William Riker, Data, Worf, and the Reading Rainbow guy (LeVar Burton, who played Geordi La Forge)]. I also watched the Revolution lose the 2004 Eastern Conference final to D.C. United. At least Taylor Twellman, providing commentary on the game and team, was entertaining. On Friday, April 17, I discovered another nature area while wandering around avoiding people, and on Saturday, April 18 I picked Game of Thrones back up. If I do finish this 700-page brick, I still have The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (all 5 books of the trilogy), Dune, 3 Foundation books, 5 of 7 Harry Potter books, and a couple dozen other miscellaneous books on my bookshelf.

Finger Lakes puzzle

Week 5 of Facebook sermons was Sunday, April 19. That week, I put together my puzzle of the Finger Lakes region, made a friendship bracelet, and read Bill Bryson’s The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid about his childhood in Des Moines, Iowa in the 1950s, as well as (finally) finishing a preliminary draft of my manuscript. On Saturday, April 25, I met (virtually) with friends from Cornell and was introduced to Quiplash and Drawful. The former needs to be played with people who have similar senses of humor and I can’t tell what anything is in the latter. We also defused some bombs.¹ All in a night’s work. I made French toast for lunch on Sunday, April 26 and did some more wandering when the afternoon was warm and sunny with no rain, snow, graupel, sleet, or hail. Now we’re in the last week of April with the stay at home order extended for another couple weeks. That’ll take us to the middle of May, and it’ll have been two months since I really went anywhere. I don’t think we’ll be at a place where we can (or should) go ahead and open everything right back up, but we’re starting to talk about letting experimental researchers back into labs. The computational/theoretical people will keep on keeping on.

¹Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes