- Quarantine Day 95
- Livermore cases: 93
- Alameda County cases: 4,585; deaths: 117
- U.S. cases: 2,178,000+; deaths: 118,000+
Comparing with my post from last week, Livermore's case load almost doubled. That's not good. Restrictions are starting to relax a little, but too many people think that means they don't have to take any precautions anymore. I don't know what people are thinking. I know many are tired of dealing with it. Unfortunately, viruses don't really care whether you're done dealing with them or not.
California issued a state-wide mandatory mask regulation. As currently written, there's no exemption for children (except under 2 years old); whereas Alameda County's rule recommends them on children but doesn't require them for under 13 years old.
Alameda County issued updated guidelines this week that slightly loosen restrictions again. Outdoor dining will be allowed for restaurants (with strict requirements). Retail is allowed to reopen, but must limit customers to maintain 6-ft distancing. Religious meetings may resume with groups no larger than 100 (no more than 25% building capacity, whichever is fewer) and the county heavily recommends no more than 25 (food and beverage distribution is "discouraged").
We are still otherwise required to limit travel to essential purposes only. Which seems a bit at odds with allowing dining and shopping. So it's not 100% clear what it means since shopping for, say, antiques is now allowed, but clearly not essential in any form. So I guess technically we're still in "quarantine." I guess I'll stop counting it when the "travel limited to essential purposes only" rule is dropped.
Tomorrow, Trump is holding an indoors, large-scale campaign rally. Despite pushing a narrative minimizing the risks of COVID-19, attendees must sign agreement not to sue the campaign for contracting the disease at the event. So that will surely go well.
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Last weekend Ivy and Beryl arrived in Addleston after a long trek from Mt. Atheros. They settled in for a rest at the Slash & Burn Tavern and heard a bard sing a song about two mysterious heroes, named Ivy and Beryl, who have been seen around the kingdom helping people, but were struck down by the dragon at Gambler's Pass. I wrote lyrics and meter and performed it. I even wrote modifications so the song will work for my other group when they get there.
After their lunch and entertainment, based on information from the tavern keeper, they moseyed out to Hinderstap Manor to investigate the mysterious tragedy that befell the family living there some 20 years ago.
I had a lot of prep work to do (and still some left) for their adventure into the mansion so last week's adventure ended after they met "Fox" the thief in the gardens and opened the secret passage into the manor house. I'm hoping to finish my preparations tonight so we'll be ready to go tomorrow. It's probably my most ambitious quest yet. And I'll have to top it for the big finale showdown with the dragon in a few more weeks.
My other group was supposed to have another game session last night, but we had to postpone due to scheduling conflicts.
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I had to spend some time last night fixing by HomeBoard display. Someone at the National Weather Service pushed out a software change that they probably weren't supposed to because it broke stuff and provided invalid data for some things. I managed to work around the issues and get my display working again in a way that it will still work if they change the data back to the previous form.