Author: Kyle Dickerson

Kyle’s Birthday 2021

June 13, 2021 10:52 am

My birthday this year was also the penultimate day of school for the girls and a remote-learning day. I worked from my closet for the morning while the girls got their schoolwork done and took the afternoon off. After lunch we went for a short walk at Sycamore Grove mainly as an excuse to get out of the house. The weather was probably the coolest I’ve had for a birthday in over a decade with a high of about 65F.

Our Sycamore Grove “hikes” rarely make it further than the hollowed out tree about a half-mile along the trail. But it makes a good stopping point and fun pictures:

After our walk in the park it was time for the girls’ art class. Jess dropped them off and I sat on the couch and read a book while the house was quiet.

Once the girls were home from art class I opened presents!

Japanese, wooden, animal knick-knacks
All 3 “Castle Panic” expansions! Ahhhhhh!

With presents opened it was time to figure out dinner. I drove out to the Cheesecake Factory to pick up food–the spicy chicken chipotle pasta is yummy.

And, of course, after dinner was cake!

Bonus picture of Heather with her eyes crossed:


After work on Friday we went to Boomers! and played miniature golf to celebrate my birthday and the end of school.

Yesterday, Saturday, we went over to some friends’ house and played a board game. With vaccinations going into effect and infection rates dropping life is starting to go back to normal.

Corinne and I got 2 pandemic birthdays, but it looks like Heather and Jess will only have one. Alameda County moved to the yellow tier this week and California is still planning to lift most remaining state-imposed restrictions this week on the 15th (there will still be some restrictions on mass gatherings). Messaging has been unclear and I’m not sure if Alameda County will retain any restrictions beyond the state’s or not.

COVID-19: Part 58

June 1, 2021 8:17 pm
  • Quarantine Day 442
  • Livermore cases: 4,323
  • Alameda County cases: 85,335; deaths: 1,648
  • U.S. cases: 33,093,000+; deaths: 591,000+

Jess got her 2nd-dose of the Pfizer vaccine just over two weeks ago. So she is now considered to be fully vaccinated. Alameda County still has not moved to the yellow tier yet, but that’s apparently not going to matter anymore. Despite most of the state still being in the orange tier, California is dropping almost all restrictions on June 15. So I guess that will be the end of our stay-at-home orders which have been in effect for 442 days so far.

According to the CDC’s data, California is doing the best in the nation for 7-day case-rate per 100,000 right now–substantially better; so that’s really nice to see. California has a rate of 10.2 cases per 100,000 over the past 7 days. The worst states in the country are Colorado (92.3) and Washington (90.2).

We had friends over this past weekend, inside the house to hang out, for the first time since this started.

The Lab is starting to put together a plan to bring people back on site. They’re planning to phase people in throughout the summer rather than just saying, “okay, back to work now.”

We booked a beach trip in August with the expectation that things will stay under control. The only weekend the hotel we like to visit in Fort Bragg had any availability was the 2nd-to-last weekend before school starts again. Everyone wants to get out and do stuff again, so everything is booked everywhere. That’s going to make trying to do anything difficult for awhile.

COVID-19: Part 57

April 24, 2021 9:21 am
  • Quarantine Day 404
  • Livermore cases: 4,184
  • Alameda County cases: 82,157; deaths: 1,442
  • U.S. cases: 31,730,000+; deaths: 567,000+

Alameda County has been in the orange tier for about 4 weeks now and the trend continues to look good. So hopefully in another week or two we’ll be upgraded to the yellow tier. The state of California has set a target for all restrictions being lifted by June 15 and it seems like we’re on track for the public health situation to support that move.

Jess is getting her first shot of the Pfizer vaccine today with the second shot scheduled for May 15. There’s a public clinic being held just down the street from us which she can walk to/from in about 5 minutes.

So things are looking pretty positive in our local area, maybe even an end in sight. However, there are some concerning trends elsewhere in the country and the world. India’s case rate has skyrocketed in the last week or two and Japan has announced a new wave of lockdowns. Brazil has been a mess for a long time and that doesn’t look to be changing. More locally, Michigan in particular, but also Minnesota, are not doing very well right now either (relative to the rest of the country).

Voidwarden

April 5, 2021 5:36 pm

I’ve been working on painting this figure from the “Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion” game a little at a time for several weeks now. The figure is 1.5 inches tall, so the detail work is pretty tough. This took about 13 hours worth of time. It looks somewhat less impressive in blown-up, high-detail photographs; so just zoom out and imagine it being quite small so the errors in detail are less noticeable.

Overall I’m happy with how it came out.

There are 4 characters in the game, so three more to go. This may be the most detailed one, but I painted it first because it’s the character I’m playing.

Easter 2021

April 4, 2021 2:36 pm

I spent just about all day Saturday trying to get the exterior of the house spruced up and looking decent. Mowed the lawn, washed off the dirt and cobwebs, cleaned the back yard, edged the grass, pulled weeds, etc. It looked pretty nice for the five minutes before the wind blew more leaves off the neighbors tree all over the backyard. This tree loses leaves all year long, so it never stays cleaned up.

The wisteria’s blooming landed just about perfectly on this weekend. It blooms before it leaves, which makes it look a bit weird, but you get to see more of the blossoms since they’re not blocked by any other growth.

The Easter Bunny visited the house mid-morning while the girls were watching TV. Corinne had been planning for at least a week that we would all sit together and read Humbug Rabbit on Easter morning. So we did that and then the girls realized there were eggs outside and the game was afoot.

And a mere 15 minutes later the eggs had been collected.

Now I’m making a triple-batch of rolls to have with dinner. Jess was working on deviled eggs, but became annoyed that the guaranteed-to-work Instant Pot recipe for hard-boiled eggs failed to live up to its guarantee. And everyone has had too much candy already.