April 2020 Recap

It was much harder to blog every day this month.  The weather got nicer, and the kids started staying up later, and my personal free time shrank down to almost nothing.  So this won't be as comprehensive as the March blog post.

New music that I heard
The best song I heard was "Chelsea Bridge", with pianist John DiMartino, and Eric Alexander on saxophone, heard on a jazz program on public radio.  Feel free to listen as you read this post!



 
Movie recap

Accidentally left off the blog post for March 2020 was "The Lorax" (2012)  I ranked this 8 out of 10 stars.  I thought there was a lot of good humor, action, and animation, and a moral message as well.   I did not think it was overly preachy or environmentalist, because it was all hyperbole and entertaining.

We watched "The Graduate" (1967), to finish off our viewing of the original AFI Top 100 list, where it came in as ranked #7. I ranked this 6 out of 10 stars.   I was disappointed that it was not better, given the high AFI ranking.  There were several things I did not understand. There may be some spoiler alerts here.    If the title character is a track star and award winner, then why is he such a loser, unable to make decisions or come up with a life plan, or say no to others?   If he has engaged in guilt-ridden behavior, why would he consider dating Elaine?  Why doesn't he know her or pursue her in the first place, since he would have known her quite well, since their parents were business partners?     Why does Elaine immediately forgive him after he mistreats her on a date, mistreated enough to scar someone for life.  Why is she interested in someone who had an affair with her mom, again which might scar someone for life?  Maybe that's the whole point of the movie, but it is just not something that makes any sense!  The cinematography is amazing though.

TV/Streaming Show/YouTube recap

I started watching some plane crash/emergency landing videos, which sounds really bizarre, but I find it very interesting.  My pastor's sister died in a plane crash, and my wife said there was a video describing what happened.  So I went to look it up, and here is the video:




I have watched several more of the videos and the most unnerving one is when a plane ran out of fuel.  It is unnerving because it is something so simple that could have easily been avoided.




Book recap

Finished "How the Bible Actually Works" by Peter Enns I ranked this 5 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.   I think this author is really smart and courageous, and I plan to check out his podcast "The Bible for Normal People" https://peteenns.com/podcast/

I mentioned this book on my previous blog post.  To expand on those thoughts, I love how this author gives us permission to interpret the Bible creatively.  That has been a big problem for me, how the Bible actually can be interpreted in so many ways, and why wasn't God more clear in his Word?  The author states, that's the way it's supposed to be, and reinventing is actually something that people like the apostle Paul and Jesus, and some Old Testament writers did.  They constantly re-interpreted Scripture, and adapted it, and used wisdom in their lives.  The author states that the Pentateuch was probably written in the post-exilic period, and put together based on various oral traditions. New Testament writers then sometimes took those writings out of context, and interpreted it for their own purposes, mainly to bring up writings that related to the life and death and resurrection of Jesus.

I continued to listen to "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" by J.K. Rowling, and have listened to 60% of it.  However, I only listen it in the car, and I went on stretches of 9 and 7 days in April without being in that car, and then I'm usually just listening for a short time.

I skimmed and read parts of "Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works" by Tribole and Resch.  I did not give it a ranking on Goodreads, since I do not typically rank books that I skimmed.   The biggest reason I read this book was that the library is closed, and that book was already in my house, but I was in fact interested in this book anyway.

Overall, I find eating and losing weight to be a challenge.  I am hovering around 170 lbs, and earlier this year I was around 160 lbs, which is my goal.

I think this book is incorrect for the way I should think about eating.  It is very focused on allowing people to eat whatever they want, that there are no forbidden foods.  I tried this out, and basically wouldn't stop eating chocolate and chips.  So my weight continued to trend in the upward direction.

It just doesn't work for me.  I feel that discipline is still important, and eating healthy food intentionally is important.

The first eBook I read due to shelter in place was "Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin", by Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, the parents of Trayvon Martin.  I ranked this 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.   It was helpful for me to hear the details of the case from the parents' perspective, in a chronological order.  Reading accounts from the media was not comprehensive at the time when the events were happening, and I didn't know even basic facts, like how Trayvon Martin didn't live near where we was killed.  He lived in the Miami area, and was visiting the Orlando area.  His parents were every day people who were seeking answers and justice for their son's death.   Trayvon Martin was troubled in some ways.  He was out of town because he was suspended from school at that time. 

My only criticism of them book is that it does not leave much room for some of the other facts.  I was reading from other sources that George Zimmerman did in fact have wounds on his face and back of his head, which is consistent with his story.  Also, his voice is higher pitched, and is consistent with the voice yelling "Help" repeatedly in the 911 calls.  Since he didn't flee the scene, that adds additional credence to his claims of self-defense.    So it would follow that Trayvon Martin was attacking him at some point.   The book doesn't really allow for this type of thinking.  And the prosecution in the trial should have allowed for this thinking as well, because a manslaughter conviction still seems possible.  The book also repeatedly criticized the lack of emotion of George Zimmerman.  Being someone myself who does not display a lot of emotion, I can say that a lack of emotion is not always a reflection of what someone thinks or an admission of guilt.

If I was in the situation of Trayvon Martin, and being followed and confronted by a stranger, I would definitely be fearful.  If the follower seemed aggressive, maybe I would punch the person.  If someone owns a gun, and uses it, they should be prepared to pay the consequences of killing an unarmed person.  My other question is why Zimmerman was so weak, and was crying for help, instead of using his physical strength to fight back.   His injuries did not appear to be life threatening.  I think there was a strong case for manslaughter, but from what I've gathered, that is not what the prosecution wanted.

This book was helpful for understanding the background, the fight to get Zimmerman arrested, the rallies and protests, and the trial.   (4/15)

I read a few kids book, since they were already in my house, and I was interested in them anyway.

"Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator," by Roald Dahl  I ranked this 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.  This was the first fiction book I've read in a couple of months, so I think it hit me the right way.  There are some strange parts, especially the Knids, that are not that funny.  But overall, I found it to be very creative.

"James and the Giant Peach," by Roald Dahl  I ranked this 2 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.  This was not as good as I thought it would be.  There are a lot of strange talking insects, and half the book, they are flying on a peach, which was not that interesting to me.

"Diary of an Awesome Kid," by Jeff Kinney.  I ranked this 1 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.  I haven't read Diary of a Wimpy Kid, so I was probably missing the joke.  It's a collection of stories of how a boy lets himself get severely manipulated and bullied by his "friend."

"Dog Man: Brawl of the Wild," by Dav Pilkey  I ranked this 5 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.  The Dog Man series has some of the funniest kids books of all time, and the illustrations are great as well.

"Diary of a Wimpy Kid," by Jeff Kinney  I ranked this 2 out of 5 stars on Goodreads. It was funny in some parts, but overall I don't understand why we want our kids reading about a lazy, unloving, selfish kid, who disrespects his parents and anyone in authority.

Due to the number of children's books I read, this might be a record for number of books I read in a month.

My Music Playing
Piano playing is part of my identity, hence the name of this blog Piano Dan.  But I realize I am actually not that great of a piano player.  My growth in that area has been affected by having children.  If you have young children, you know how much time they require.  Even so, piano playing is difficult, and I really admire those players who sound good.

Nevertheless, Courtney bought me a MacBook app called MainStage for my birthday.  And I've been playing around with that application.  It's possible to use this in church, however it will take a little more investment to buy some necessary pieces and to learn how to use it.

Good moments
Some people bought us groceries when we were ill (from a non-COVID illness).  We didn't want to visit stores to spread our illness, or pick up a new one.   I can't remember if that has happened before, but it was really nice of those people.  One of them even gave us a lot of rolls of toilet paper later when it was still hard to find. (4/7)

Negative moments
1. Being sick was really bad, and when our youngest daughter got a fever, it was scary.  Then she bounced back the next day.  So it went back to non-scary, and just annoying that my wife and I had a sinus/throat infection that would not go away. I had lingering symptoms the entire month!

2. Last year, we asked a tree company to clean up our spruce tree up front, because there were a lot of dead and ugly branches.   And when they trimmed the dead branches, they cut them all the way to the trunk, so the kids couldn't get into the tree anymore.  That makes me really sad, because we don't have any other climbing trees.  I bought a rope ladder for $30, and was excited to get the kids back into the tree, but it didn't work. I tried various branches to hang it from (on 4/1), but it was hard to climb, and then even if they got up the ladder, they had trouble getting onto the branches.  So I guess we can look at the positive- they definitely won't be falling out of it, and won't be getting sap all over their clothes anymore.

Picture from 4 years ago of child in the tree:

Weird moments
My birthday was not only in social isolation due to coronavirus, but my wife and I also had some sort of intense sinus or throat infection, so we delayed the birthday celebration at my parents by 10 days.  I took the day off, and basically got things done around the house all day.

I cut my own hair on my birthday.  I usually get a haircut every 3 weeks.  And I was at the 3 week mark, with 3 weeks left to go in the shelter in place order, so this was actually the perfect time to try the buzz cut.  Since I work from home now, it was again a perfect opportunity to try it.  I can't say that it looked awesome, but I don't think my hair will ever look awesome.  My conclusion is that I'd still like to pay for hair cuts.  However, shelter in place has lasted for a long time now, and will go for at least until May 11, so another self hair cut is probably going to happen.

Good parenting moments
Courtney has been doing a great job of making a schedule for the kids every day, or a list of everything they need to accomplish for school.   She also coordinates all the virtual meetings with the teachers.    It's a lot of work, but the kids really love the structure.  It helps that their teachers have provided a little bit of structure as well, which started the first week of April.

The teachers are doing a really good job with remote learning, and the kids love getting onto online meetings and seeing their classmates.

The kids have been watching Mo Willems videos, and they made some fun board games that were inspired by the videos.

Our two daughters have been getting along really well lately.  They like playing in the climbing dome in the back with the parachute on top of it.


Best work moment
I was able to work on a a few projects, including collecting all of the active directory groups on our databases, and then collecting the members of those groups, and creating reports for them.

I also was able to reverse engineer some PowerShell that does our database patching, and I was able to program it to uninstall the patch.  I would hope to never have to uninstall the patch, but this was necessary for a backout plan.


Cornavirus thoughts
The worst thing remains getting sick while this is going on.  Thankfully, we didn't have coronavirus, but it's scary when your child gets a fever, and you have had a bad throat infection for over a week, and all everyone is thinking about is the coronavirus.  We had to delay my birthday celebration at my parents, because we just were not feeling better, and it wasn't safe to go over there and spread things around.   I admit that is better than actually getting COVID-19.

The most interesting thing to me about the pandemic, is that some people consider themselves as guardians of the societal strategy of flattening the curve.  So they are raging against people that they see in groups, and businesses that remain open that they do not consider essential.  I feel it's not really appropriate to be policing these things, because or lives have changed so much already.  Let teenagers huddle in a group or play a sport if they really want to.  Let Hobby Lobby stay open, so that people can do crafts at home, and buy their home schooling supplies.    My main criticism of shelter in place orders is that a place like Super Target can sell clothing, because they sell groceries, but stores that sell only clothing cannot stay open.    To truly be fair, only essential items should be sold from any store, rather than all items being sold at stores that have many essential items.

Other things that interest me are the unintended positive and negative consequences of shelter in place policies.  The obvious positive consequence is that there are fewer traffic accidents and fatalities.   One negative consequence is the increase of unreported child abuse and domestic violence.  With people in their homes, they may not see teachers or neighbors who could report the abuse.  Another negative that probably cannot be measured is how many lives are being harmed due to their businesses being closed.  Which is worse, to harm millions of people by closing their businesses and ending/pausing their jobs, or harming health care workers and vulnerable by letting the virus spread to more people?

Also, it's scary how quickly individual freedoms can be taken away by a government.  I'm not saying it was the wrong call, it's just something that I find interesting about this.

One very interesting phenomenon to me is that there is a very high demand for local news, which should naturally increase the profits of news companies.  The ironic thing is that news companies are struggling, because companies have not been placing ads, since the companies are struggling.

Last month, I compiled a list of things the kids missed out on.  There are more to add to the list now:

Older daughter:
-Postponed trip to California with cousin and grandparents, which was supposed to be in June

Younger daughter:
-First summer day camp cancelled
-Large auditorium for May dance recital cancelled the event.