Day: November 19, 2020

Pandemic Diary: November 19th, 2020

Today is officially Day 249 since I began working from home for the University of Manitoba Libraries due to the coronavirus pandemic. I am still on holidays this week; I “go back to work” on Monday (while remaining in self-isolation in my apartment).

Today, the Manitoba government added further restrictions to those already put in place on November 10th, when a province-wide, code-red pandemic lockdown was announced. The new rules ban any gatherings at private residences and restrict retail sales to essential items only.

What is considered essential? Well, according to the “enhanced restrictions” document released by the Manitoba government today, essential items are:

 food, beverages and food preparation products;
 personal care products such as soap and dental care products;
 health-related products such as prescription drugs and vitamins;
 mobility or assistive devices;
 baby and child-care accessories such as diapers and formula;
 household cleaning products, safety devices, batteries and lightbulbs;
 outdoor winter apparel such as jackets and boots;
 personal protective equipment for the workplace;
 pet food and supplies;
 postage stamps;
 cellphones and cellphone accessories;
 parts and supplies for all types of motor vehicles and watercraft;
 major household appliances;
 hunting, fishing and trapping supplies;
 tools and hardware;
 materials for home maintenance, repair or construction; and
 property maintenance products such as shovels.

Non-essential items refers to any good and products not set out in the orders. This includes jewelry, flowers, perfume, consumer electronics, sporting equipment, books and toys.

Also, the document takes great care to note that “liquor and cannabis stores may continue to open and sell products” (you don’t want to have to deal with people going through withdrawal on top of everything else that’s going on, I guess!). And it looks very much like there will be no Black Friday sales in Manitoba next weekend.

CTV News reports:

New restrictions in Manitoba will limit the number of people allowed to gather in private homes to further halt the spread of COVID-19.

The enhanced orders, announced on Thursday by Premier Brian Pallister and chief public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin, will take effect on Friday, Nov. 20th.

The orders come one week after strict public health measures were put in place to get Manitobans to reduce their contacts. Roussin has made repeated pleas for Manitobans to stay at home and has warned of stretched hospital capacity in the province.

“Despite that, we saw people gathering at rallies, we saw crowded parking lots at big box stores, we saw people continue to go out for non-essential items — so we are left with no choice but to announce further measures to protect Manitobans to limit the spread of this virus,” said Roussin.

Under the new orders, gatherings at private residences, including homes, cottages, and other vacation properties, are restricted, and nobody is permitted aside from the people who live there. There are some exceptions to allow for child-care, health-care and home-care services, tutoring services, construction, repairs, and emergency response services.

…

The new orders also prohibit people from gathering in groups of more than five people at any indoor or outdoor public space. This includes the common areas of a multi-unit residence with the exception of a health-care facility or critical business that adheres to public health measures.

The new rules also allow for people who live alone (such as me) to have one person from outside their household visit their home. If I were pressed to choose, that person would probably be my best friend John, but we communicate regularly using Face Time on our iPhones, and I am satisfied with that.

Yesterday, I went and did my grocery shopping on the Walmart website, and first thing this morning, I donned an N95 facemask, got in my car, and drove to the grocery pick-up parking spaces at the rear of the my neighbourhood Walmart store, where someone wearing a mask wheeled out a cart with bins, and loaded up the back of my car, and I drove away. Thankfully, the Shopping Cart Gods smiled upon me, and there was a wayward shopping cart in the vicinity of my apartment, which made for only two trips ferrying my groceries between my car and my home. I am now stocked up on enough food to last me at least two months. I have also just had all my prescription medications renewed for another three months and delivered from my local pharmacy to my doorstep.

I have zero plans to set foot outside my apartment, unless it is to throw out the garbage or to go for masked, socially-distanced walks in my neighbourhood. As I barely leave my apartment as it was, the latest restrictions will not affect me very much. It does mean that I not be able to visit my mother and stepfather in their seniors life-lease condo, but I did pay a visit to see them the day before the Nov. 10th restrictions came into effect, and it was good to see them (again, socially distanced).

My mother wants me to commit to coming over for supper on Christmas Day, which she considers an iron-clad tradition, but I only told her that we would have to wait and see what happens between now and then. The way things have been going lately, I will not be surprised in the slightest if I spend Christmas alone in my apartment. At our face-to-face last week, we discussed Christmas presents. Mom usually gives me gift cards, but she worries that she will land up buying me gift cards for stores that will go belly-up because of the pandemic. We agreed that cash would be an appropriate gift instead, which relieves my mother of at least that one worry.

At the moment, as I write this, I am sitting in a Zoom meeting, my microphone and video muted, listening to my faculty union executive report on the results of the most recent round of bargaining with my employer, the University of Manitoba. This virtual meeting will be followed by a ratification vote over the next 24 hours by the 1,200 union members: professors, instructors, and librarians (again, this will be conducted securely, remotely, and online). So the results of the ratification vote will not be known until late Friday evening. There exists the possibility that I will be out on strike come Monday.

I am learning—trying to learn— to become more comfortable with all the uncertainty swirling around me, and I am working, every day, all day, to make sure that I do not allow my circumstances to drag me back down into the bottomless black pit of clinical depression. Some days I feel as if I am drowning.

So I take naps, and go for walks, and sit cross-legged in obliging patches of warm sunshine on my bedroom carpet. I go hide out in Second Life, or Sinespace, or Sansar, and find places to visit, and people to talk to. I take my antidepressant and anti-anxiety prescriptions, and I talk with my psychiatrist on the phone, and chat with other safe, supportive people, both in real life and in my many virtual worlds. I binge watch shows on Netflix. I read books. I cook. I clean. When I cannot sleep, I brew a pot of black coffee, get up and sit in front of my computer, and I blog.

I do whatever it takes to get me through the day, one day at a time. That’s really all I can do, all that anybody can reasonably ask me to do.

Tomorrow will be Day 250 since I started working from home, and it will be a day much like today, with its uncertainties, fears, and worries. I will get through it.

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: ALANTORI

ALANTORI is a Second Life store which sells men’s mesh bodies, men’s and women’s hair and skin, and some men’s clothing.

If you join the ALANTORI group for L$50, you can click on the Midnight Madness boards to pick up two different kinds of Bento, Bakes on Mesh-compatible male bodies: the beefy, muscular Rick body, and the slimmer, more toned David body.

How the boards work is as follows: once each board is hit 50 times, a copy of that particular mesh body is automatically sent to everyone who touched the board (it does not wait until midnight; neither does the count reset at midnight, like regular Midnight Madness boards).

There’s also a Bento, Bakes on Mesh male head called Marco, one of free three group gifts for men at ALANTORI, located just to the right of the Midnight Madness boards:

I had written about the ALANTORI Rick body before, but this new version now supports Bakes on Mesh skins, cosmetics, tattoos, hair bases, etc. Here’s what the Rick body looks like with the free Viktor head I had blogged earlier this week, wearing one of the dollarbie set of Bakes on Mesh skins from Sweet’s that I picked up on the SL Marketplace:

As you can see, this is quite a muscular body, particularly in the arms, shoulders, and chest! Now, unlike the David body (which we’ll talk about in a minute), the Rick body lacks fingernail and toenail attachments, which means that the Sweet’s skin I used here gives it a bit of an unfinished look. However, the body does come with a set of five full-body skin tattoos, which do add fingernail and toenail details:

(Same body as the previous picture, but wearing the included mid tone body skin tattoo)

However, you’re going to have to find head skin that matches the included body tattoos. because there will be a noticeable neck seam (which you can’t really see here, as my avatar is looking down). So your mileage may vary on this body.

Here’s what the David body looks like with the same Sweet’s skin and Victor head. Unlike the Rick body, David comes in five separate pieces: upper body, lower body, right hand fingernails, left hand fingernails, and toenails:

Both bodies come with an basic alpha sections HUD (and, of course, you can also wear the alphas that come with the clothing your purchase):

I have written about ALANTORI’s group gift of the Marco head before. Here is a closeup of the Marco head paired with the David body (again, wearing the Sweet’s skin). The Bakes on Mesh-compatible mesh eyes are included with the head. Looking good! (I did have to fiddle with the sliders for the eyes and eyebrows to get this look.)

For women, the L$50 membership in the ALANTORI group lets you pick up 18 different fatpacks of women’s hair, each with a HUD with 146 colour options! That works out to less than L$3 per hairstyle—which is quite a bargain!

Here is just one example, the long, luxurious Bella hairstyle, showing you the brown and black tomes in the colours HUD (you just click on the buttons at the bottom to see the other colour palettes):

So, whether you are male or female, your L$50 group membership certainly goes a long way at ALANTORI! I will be adding the Rick and David mesh bodies to my ever-expanding list of free and inexpensive mesh heads and bodies for male avatars.

Here’s your taxi to ALANTORI. Happy shopping!

Editorial: I Need to Become More Business Minded About This Blog

Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay

I really do owe an apology to the truly wonderful folks over at Sine Wave Entertainment, the company behind the virtual world/social VR platform Sinespace, and its corporate cousin, Breakroom.

You see, it was almost exactly one year ago today that I entered into an agreement with them, where I would become an “embedded reporter” for Sinespace, and write sponsored blogposts about the people, news and events on that platform.

And while I got off to a rather strong start, I have really fallen down on the job over the past four months. My last real sponsored blogpost for Sinespace (a report on the Geek Weekly event at the Localhost Connection Café) was back in July, and since then I have only done one blogpost—and I screwed that one up! (Sorry, Sinespace.)

There are a couple of reasons for that lapse (the coronavirus pandemic, and the demands of my full-time paying job with the University of Manitoba Libraries), but part of the problem is that I have not been paying sufficient attention to the company or its products, so this is an apology, and a promise to do a better job!

I just find it ironic that I am writing much more about Second Life (when they aren’t paying me) and next to nothing about Sinespace and Breakroom (when they are!). It’s time to pull up my socks, pull my head out of SL, and focus. What started out as a tiny little hobby blog devoted to Sansar has grown and evolved over the past three years, and is turning into a business.

And if I really do intend to to follow through on my dream to become a full-time blogger and vlogger covering “News and Views on Social VR, Virtual Worlds, and the Metaverse” after I retire from the University of Manitoba Libraries, then I need to become a little more business-minded about what I do here.

As I say on my Patreon page:

My plan is to earn a side-income from my blog containing “news and views on social VR, virtual worlds, and the metaverse” (which is the tagline of my blog) when I finally do decide (hopefully, at some age before 65) to take my retirement. I already have a small but devoted following, and I want to grow that audience.

And yes, another thing I need to do is completely rethink the benefits that I do offer my Patreon supporters (another group of people to whom I owe an apology). And I want to once again, express my gratitude and appreciation for my existing patrons.

Part of my business on the RyanSchultz.com blog is writing sponsored blogposts and selling advertising space, which (in addition to the financial support of my wonderful Patreon patrons) allows me to cover the cost of hosting this blog on WordPress, among other things. I also run WordAds on my blog, after I had finally given up on Google Ads in frustration (you can read through my misadventures in dealing with Google’s automated system in this series of blogposts).

Between all of these ventures, I make a small amount of money (but you aren’t going to see me on the cover of Forbes anytime soon!). And I may tinker a bit with other ways to monetize what I do here, more often. For example, did you know that you can express your support by something as simple as buying me a coffee?

You can show your support by something as simple as buying me a coffee!
(Photo by Mike Kenneally on Unsplash)