Stressed Out

It has been a stressful morning. I checked my tacrolimus refill on the app from my mail-order pharmacy, and there was a big warning sign

The order was “place” on Tuesday and seems to be stuck. I called the mail-order pharmacy and they said they were waiting for a callback from my nephrologist’s office. I then call my nephrologist and they said my doctor was out of the office. I reminded them that I run out of this anti-rejection medication next Tuesday, and that is with taking the lower dosage from the previous refill. Well, at least they are responsive. The office staff is getting another nephrologist in the office to sign the prescription, calling the mail-order pharmacy, and then calling me to give me status. Still, a bit stressed out that I may run out of my primary anti-rejection medication.

*https://www.goodrx.com/prograf/what-is*

I also have not heard back from work or USC Pharmacy on my pre-registration for an “illegal” second vaccination tomorrow. This is stressing me out as well. I fully expect to be rejected, but was hoping to hear back before driving 40 miles to work in LA traffic. Wishful thinking, I know…

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Ugh, 2:45 pm and no updates. I just called the mail-order pharmacy and they still have not heard from my nephrologist’s office. Not sure what is going on. I guess I have to harass them again.

I do have plan C though. Plan A was getting it from my local pharmacy and that failed. Plan B is what I am dealing with right now with the mail-order pharmacy. Plan C is refilling my existing prescription (though for slightly less dosage) with UCLA Pharmacy.

Man, I did not expect to do live blogging. Just called my doctor’s office and they faxed(!) in the prescription within 15 minutes of my call this morning. I am guessing that it is sitting in some queue that gets cleared periodically? Hopefully this resolves itself by tomorrow morning. If not, then I can call UCLA for the refill and either go personally to get it, or have them mail it to me.

CDC Response

I contacted the CDC and all I got was this lousy form letter.

Thank you for contacting CDC-INFO.
We hope you find the following information about the current guidelines for receiving an additional dose of the COVID-19 vaccine helpful.
People are not recommended to receive more than one complete COVID-19 vaccination series. The need for COVID-19 booster doses has not been established. No booster doses are recommended at this time for anyone, including immunocompromised people or any other group of people with underlying medical conditions. Revaccination is not recommended for people who received COVID-19 vaccines during chemotherapy or treatment with other immunosuppressive drugs.
Antibody testing is not recommended to check for immunity following COVID-19 vaccination. If you got an antibody test after you were fully vaccinated, you are not recommended to receive additional doses of the same or different COVID-19 vaccine, regardless of the antibody test results. If you got an antibody test after the first dose of an mRNA vaccine, you should still get your second dose on schedule regardless of the antibody test results.

This was followed by a bunch of links to pages on the CDC site. I am sure they get a lot of calls and emails, but the above reply basically says nothing. I can summarize in one sentence: Don’t get second vaccination and don’t test for antibodies. What is missing is why, and what the fuck am I supposed to do now? I will bet that my message was not even read by a human but processed by a computer. It was probably programmed to wait a day so it seems that someone looked at it instead of replying with the form letter right away.

There was a survey link at the end of their email reply. I basically gave them the lowest score possible. They also asked why and my reply was that there is no trust for the CDC. From the mixed mask message early on, to conflicting mask mandates, and treating the public like idiots by not explaining any of their recommendations.

In this case, there are several countries that are giving out third or booster vaccine shots. This article has a list: United Arab Emirates, Israel, Britain, Germany, Cambodia, Thailand, France, Russia, Switzerland, Singapore, and Indonesia. Are their country’s CDC wrong or taking irresponsible risks? No idea.

I am getting more and more pissed off every time I hear a “get vaccinated” PSA.

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Our work used to offer weekly vaccinations, but stopped awhile ago since the rate of vaccinations dropped. I remember seeing the email announcing the last vaccination opportunity at work. Today, another email came out offering vaccinations on-site again. I guess the case count is bad enough that we brought USC Pharmacy back to give employee vaccine shots this Friday. I signed up online to see if they will give me the vaccine or reject me. The form did ask for a lot of information, including whether I have had a vaccine shot, what type, and the last vaccination date. I am hoping that they will just give me the shot since it is just for our employees. If I do get rejected, hopefully they will tell me before Friday so I will not get rejected in-person after driving an hour to work.

Medication Mystery Solved

As I mentioned previously, my local pharmacy wanted $140 for filling my updated tacrolimus prescription. I called and left a message with my work insurance provider to figure out what changed since I was only charged $10 last time. Before they had a chance to reply however, the online pharmacy called. They get a notification whenever an out-of-network prescription order is placed at my local pharmacy. I believe I am supposed to fill those at the mail-order pharmacy to save my company some money.

Anyway, the nice lady explained that tacrolimus was not covered at local pharmacies. They do allow one or two courtesy fills so that is why my previous prescription only cost $10. They also said they tried filing the claim with my work insurance and it was accepted. I was worried since the online pharmacy did not accept Medicare Part B for prescriptions. Long story short, the online pharmacy will contact my nephrologist to resend the prescription to them for a three month fill, and I will only pay $10 total.

Glad that got resolved. Only took calls to my doctor, my insurance, and three different pharmacies.

Contact CDC

I am really frustrated at the FDA and CDC for not letting immunocompromised people get an additional COVID shot, when study after study has shown that it improved protection against the virus. Meanwhile, I am seeing a lot of commercials (public service announcement) asking people to get vaccinated. If the risk of getting seriously sick from COVID is greater than the risk of a third vaccine shot, why is the government not giving me the option to choose?

There was a contact form on the CDC website, so I sent this message:

So with the delta variant, the CDC is asking all unvaccinated people to get the shot. I am a recent kidney transplant recipient and received my Moderna shots right after the transplant while taking anti-rejection medication. Likely I have little or no protection from COVID. Many studies say that a third shot will improve my situation, and some countries allow this third shot. However, I checked with my pharmacy today and they said it is not allowed by the FDA emergency use authorization. Why can’t immunocompromised people get an additional shot? Are the risks higher than actually getting a COVID infection? It seems inconsistent that you are asking unvaccinated people to get the vaccine, yet denying millions of people that are in more danger from infection and serious symptoms from protecting themselves. Please help me understand.

Of course, I an not naive enough to expect a response. I doubt it will even be read by a live human. Right now on the news, they are reporting many government organizations requiring vaccination for all employees since it is common sense. Yet I have to wait months for the FDA and CDC to get around to the safety of 10+ million immunocompromised people.

Medical System Issues

I am not sure what the right title should be for this post, but I ran into several issues today, and they are likely related to the overly complex medical delivery and insurance system we have here in the United States.

Since my nephrologist increased my dosage of tacrolimus, I needed a new prescription so I do not run out. I had them send it to my regular pharmacy which does not accept Medicare Part B, but have filled a previous prescription for tacrolimus for $10. This time however, the pharmacy said my work insurance would only pay a portion, and my co-pay would be ~$140. She looked into they system and could not figure out why it was only $10 last time, but a lot more today. I told them to hold on to the meds until I called my insurance.

While I was at the pharmacy, I asked them about a second vaccination. They said they were not allowed to offer another shot to anyone that is already vaccinated due to FDA rules. Now that all our vaccination data is in a database, it is easy to check everyone’s vaccination status. The pharmacist basically said the only way is to lie about your vaccination status but I do not know what happens whey they try to enter my data (again) into the vaccination database. I was told to wait for the FDA to make a determination but that will takes months since there does not seem to be any urgency for the 2.7% or ~10 million Americans that are immunocompromised.

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I just called my work insurance and no one was available to answer the call, so I left a voicemail. I also called UCLA pharmacy about accepting prescriptions from outside the UCLA Health system, and they said it was no problem. I guess I have to cancel my order at my local pharmacy and have my nephrologist resend the prescription script to UCLA pharmacy.

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Sigh. Just as I clicked Publish for this post, a “get vaccinated” commercial came up on the TV set.

Nephrologist Appointment 7/30/2021

Second appointment with my local nephrologist, as opposed to UCLA transplant nephrologists. There was not too much in the test results. Creatinine and potassium was a bit high, but likely due to not enough fluid intake, so she was not worried. Tacrolimus readings were a bit low, so she added another 1 mg pill to my evening dose. So now I am taking 3 mg in the morning and 4 mg in the evening.

We spent a lot of time talking about COVID and what kidney transplant recipients should do. She mentioned some of the studies that I read about as well. She agrees that getting a third shot seems to improve immune response to the virus, but there is no approval in the US for multiple vaccinations yet. She did say that she could not officially “recommend” me to get a third shot, but it will definitely give me more protection. So, in addition to dealing with a plethora of medications and trying to stay safe, I have to find a clinic that will not ask too many questions when I show up this late for a COVID shot.

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Weird. I guess I never published this post. I will just continue instead of starting another post.

It does appear that COVID cases are getting worse, not better. I saw a news story on NBC (TV is stuck on channel 4 for Olympics) that tsaid there we are at over 70,000 cases per day now. I also heard that he Delta variant case spike in the UK lasted from May to July. If the US follows the same trajectory, then we are looking at mid-September for infection rates to start dropping. My doctor friend at Harbor-UCLA hospital basically said they are preparing for this latest surge to last into September.

Here is a chart of hospitalization for Los Angeles county:

*http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/coronavirus/data/index.htm*

This is an interesting chart for Orange County:

I think you can see that as more people were vaccinated, the weekly new cases for unvaccinated people were dropping as well. However, as the Delta variant becomes prevalent, new cases for both groups show an increase, especially the unvaccinated. Since I am basically in the unvaccinated group even though I got two shots of the Moderna vaccine, I am super worried. I mentioned my boss’s annual track day party that I was planning on attending next weekend earlier. Well, I emailed them to say I feel it is too risky for me to be indoors with a large group of people, so I am stuck at home.

Data for all of United States. There were 123k cases on July 30th. That is early November 2020 numbers and that surge overwhelmed many hospitals and nearly delayed my transplant for several more months. If you are confused by politicians and the CDC, just look at the case data. I cannot understand why people still will not get vaccinated.

I’ve Fallen…

My uncle fell down over the weekend. I made a post about his story awhile back. He suffered from a pretty major stroke several years ago. It did look like he was making slow progress on recovery, but has deteriorated quite a bit in the past few years. Initially, my aunt took him to the ER after his fall, and they did not find anything. For some reason, they took a second look and found he fractured a vertebrae, and sent him to a physical therapy clinic (since I am overhearing this from a conversation between my parents, it is a bit unclear). While he was there, he fell again, and we do not know if there was further injury. My dad went to see him today at the clinic and sent some photos. My uncle was sitting on a wheelchair by himself in front of a table. He was wearing a face shield because he is still unvaccinated. He looked confused and sad. My dad said my uncle probably did not recognize him, and all he could say was “hurt” (probably 痛 in Chinese).

I understand life must be tough for my aunt, having to take care of him for the past several years. They did get an in-home care person, but she quit after a few days. His two sons (my cousins) are in Asia, though I heard one of them is coming back, not sure how long. His daughter was married a few years ago and currently pregnant so likely not much help. My mom said the son-in-law is a nurse, and is helping when he can. I guess my frustration is him not being vaccinated, With his poor health and the prevalence of the delta variant of COVID, I firmly believe if he gets infected, he will die. Since my uncle cannot make decisions, it is totally up to my aunt. Whenever my parents ask about COVID vaccination, she comes up with an excuse why they are not vaccinated. I do not know if she is hardcore anti-vaxx or just confused by all the disinformation out there, but the whole situation sucks.

K-Pop Attempted Suicide

Another post about K=Pop, but not a happy one. I do not know if the situation is similar in the US music scene, but there is a lot of bad shit that goes on in the K-Pop industry. There is plenty of abusive behavior by management companies and very high suicide rates for idols. I posted about Sulli and Hara before, and just this morning there was news that Kwon Mina from AOA tried to take her own life. She claim she was bullied for 10 years by another member of her girl group, and was suffering from depression. There used to be seven (or eight if you count the drummer) members, but there is only three now.

AOA has a subunit called AOA Black where each member played an instrument. Mina was the bass player. I have only found a couple of videos on YouTube of them performing live with instruments so I do not know if it was just a gimmick. Since I kinda play bass, Mina was always my favorite member of AOA.

I used to follow her on Instagram, but after the bulling became public, it became difficult to see all the hate she was getting, and how her mental health was deteriorating. Every country has its share of assholes, but Korea seems to have a real serious problem of online harassment of celebrities. Mina also seems unable to get away from social media, despite the damage to her mental health. I believe she even slit her wrist before but seemed better recently. I also heard she does not really have a support group since her father passed away and her mother and sister are dealing with their own health issues. What do you do when Asian culture is so anti-therapy?

Here is more news about the latest suicide attempt: Geo News. 😟

BIBI Concert

I just found out that my current favorite Korean artist will be in concert in Los Angeles on November 6-7, 2021. Unfortunately, it is not a solo concert, but a music festival type event with lots of artists. I only know a few names on the list but it appears to be indie pan-Asian artists.

CL was part of 2NE1, which was a super popular four member K-Pop girl group from YG Entertainment several years ago. I think she is trying to break into the US music scene. Feel Ghood Music is an artist management company founded by Tiger JK. Him, his wife Yoon Mi Rae, and Bizzy is also the K-Hip-Hop group MFBTY. Feel Ghood Music signed BIBI as an artist recently, mainly due to her Soundcloud uploads, and she has been releasing songs since then.

Since I would only go to the concert for BIBI, it is not work the $249/$399 ticket price. Even though it is over two nights, with that many artists, she would likely only perform 2-3 songs. If it was just her performing (or along with MFBTY), I would pay $150 for the VIP tickets if I can get my CD signed. Oh well… maybe I can go hang out in Korea for a few months once the pandemic is over so I can catch a few of my favorite Korean artists performing in small venues.

Tickets go on-sale tomorrow at noon so I still have 12 hours to think about it. I should probably bring my friend that does not listen to K-Pop, but I end up dragging him to lots of concerts. $800 though…

Additional Vaccine Doses

I saw a link on Reddit to a CDC presentation regarding additional vaccine doses for immunocompromised people (IP) (PDF). It outlines steps needed to have the CDC recommend additional doses, but we are still very far away from that. It appears that we are still in the reviewing data process, and still required FDA approval under the Emergency Use Authorization for the vaccines.

There were four slides under the section “What do we know now?”

I am #2 on the list, but do not know what portion of the ~2.7% are organ transplant recipients.

Even though IP are ~2.7% of the population, they/we account for 40-44% of hospitalized breakthrough cases. Again, they do not disclose what % of breakthrough cases are from IP. It is likely lower than the 40-44% since infected IP are “more likely to get seriously ill from COVID-19.”

This one is a bit confusing because I think they are combining data from several categories. It does appear that vaccine effectiveness (VE) is lower in IP than in the general population: 75% vs. 90% for infections, 71% vs. 94% for symptomatic cases, and 59% vs. 91% for hospitalization. Some of the non-mRNA vaccines (Sinovac, Sinopharm) are around this level of VE anyway so maybe it’s not that bad?

This is a small sample size (n=63), but it seems that organ transplant recipients have the worse antibody response out of all the IP categories. I was on hemodialysis for several years, and was categorized as a high-risk for infection at the beginning of the pandemic. However, it is probably due to cardiovascular and respiratory issues rather than the immune system. So the response to the vaccine should be fairly normal, but once infected, symptoms will likely be more serious.

Again, since the data is not segregated by type of immunocompromised people, it is hard to estimate the increase in infection risk, even subjectively. My reading is that if there is a response to the vaccine, it is about 2/3 the effectiveness vs. non-IP. However, this may be lower for organ transplant recipients since the anti-rejection medications are specifically designed to mute any immune response.

In my case, I am slightly hopeful since my first vaccine shot was about 18 hours before surgery. I do not know if that is sufficient time for the immune system to develop any protection. Post-surgery, I was on a higher dosage of anti-rejection medications compared to today, but I do not know objectively whether it was a larger then normal dose. The transplant center did start to lower my dosage after about two weeks so there may be a slight chance that the second vaccine shot was somewhat effective, even though I did not experience any response side effects.

I am thinking about this daily because I am invited to my boss’s party next weekend. It is indoors but with a lot of open doors plus patios and balconies. In the past, the room was somewhat crowded. If I go, I am going to wear a KN95 mask, but it will be difficult to maintain a six foot separation from everyone else. It is difficult to manage risk where there is essentially no data. I am bringing my sister as my +1 guest. She is excited to go but she understands if I decide to skip the event.

Ahmed Hafnaoui

I watched this live (or whatever counts as live with the 16 hour time difference) on NBC. Several years ago, I spent two weeks in Tunisia, traveling around the entire country. Whenever I see Tunisia represented in international sports competition, I cheer for them. The trip itself is just okay, but it was several years after the Tunisian Revolution where the people overthrew president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and made Tunisia a freer and more democratic place. Most of the local people I met were very nice and gracious, but it was just too hot for me.

Anyway, watching the Olympics, you realize that a lot of the winners are either state sponsored, like with China and Russia, or come from rich countries where middle-class people have time and money to pursue sports, like the United States and most western countries. Rarely do you see smaller poorer countries win medals, especially gold, and it’s pretty awesome when they do. If you watch the NBC broadcast, it was all about the rivalry between Australia and the United States. They didn’t even mentioned Hafnaoui’s name until the half-way point of the race.

This is the true spirit of the Olympics and sports competition, not the over-commercialized and corporate-sponsored spectacle we have now.

Here are some photos I took in Tunisia:

Conflicting Mask Guidelines

Due to the large increase in numbers of COVID infections, Los Angeles County has resumed a mask mandate for indoor interactions. Accordingly, my work sent out an email Saturday reminding all employees that masks are required again starting Sunday. So far so good.

Last night, another email comes out after hours and basically says the county mandate is inconsistent with the science and recommendation of the CDC, so anyone that is vaccinated does not need to wear a mask indoors. Huh? There is no “company policy” exemption in the county’s order. What the heck is going on?

Obviously, the second email came from our CEO. Even though the email came from HR, there is no way some random employee sends out an email that advocates violating a county health order. Our CEO often says controversial things on Twitter, but this is no joke. More people are getting infected again, likely due to the Delta variant. You can’t have people sending mixed messages. Someone in my department just tested positive for COVID last week and they were fully vaccinated. What if that was me? Would I feel anything? Lose my transplanted kidney? Have to go to the ICU? Or even die from a number of complications?

This just means there’s no way I am heading into the office anytime soon.

A/C Compressor

I am glad we have central air conditioning at our house. It was here when we moved in 12 years ago and each summer, it gets fair amount of use. The compressor unit outside looks pretty old, likely it was the same unit that was installed when the house was built in 1987. It did go out a few years ago, but only needed a fuse and a capacitor replacement.

Lately however, the electrical panel breakers keeps tripping for the compressor. It is two 50 amp circuits, and by the size of the breaker switch, probably also a 240 volt circuit. That mean a maximum power draw of ~10 kW. Since we use about 16-20 kWh each day without the A/C, turning it on for a few house will double our power usage. In the summer, I can get about 21 kWh generated from my solar panels but that is for an entire day. Definitely not enough if I want to use the A/C and charge my Tesla at the same time.

When I turned on the A/C at around noon, it was ~80°F in my home office. Since the windows face west, it gets hotter and hotter during the afternoon. With the compressor not running, I am just recirculating the air around the house. Just now, the office was at 86°F, which prompted me to run outside to check the compressor. The circuit breakers were tripped again, though it was and easy fix to reset them. However, I do not know why it keeps tripping, and worry that it could become a larger problem later on when it is even hotter.

Virgin Galactic Launch

I love space. Growing up, I read every astronomy book I could find, plus a lot of science fiction novels. My dream was always growing up in a world where we can travel to extraterrestrial destinations and maybe even live on other planets or stat systems.

I am watching the Virgin Galactic livestream right now. Their ship, Unity, is currently at 40,000 feet and climbing to launch height. If you step back and look at the big picture, it is pretty cool since it is something new: space tourism. However, as you listen to the livecast, it is very disappointing. Basically they keep talking about astronauts and access to space and the beginning of a new era. This is PR at its worst. Sure it is new and cool, but this is not space. I believe they had to redefine “space” as 80 km, whereas traditionally space was defined as 100 km up. This is nothing more than a glorified amusement ride. You go up in a parabolic flight path, glide at 80 km for a few minutes, and come back to land. Again, pretty cool, but nowhere meeting the expectations set by the extravagant advertising copy.

I include Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin in this too. Instead of working more on real access to space (New Glenn, BE-4 engine), they are also doing this space tourism bullshit. Again, nothing against space tourism. It is really cool but it is a thrill ride for rich people. If you cannot get to orbit or escape velocity, you are not doing anything to help space travel or exploration. Seriously, you cannot call it space “travel” if you are not going anywhere. It is like me taking a commercial flight from SNA to LAX (~50 miles). That is not travel.

Ugh. 90% hype, 10% engineering. So disappointing.

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Now they are talking about re-entry and heat shields. VG’s ship top speed is about Mach 3. A SR-71’s top speed is Mach 3.2 at a much lower altitude so denser air (more friction).

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Double ugh.

“Remember where you are today!”

“something something leaving the Earth”

I have moved from disappointed to disgusted.

Prescription Refill Confusion

Like medical insurance, having a dedicated pharmacy is good; having more than one is confusing. Right now, I am getting my medications from three different pharmacies. There is a reason for this madness. My “regular” pharmacy is a Sav-On inside the local Albertsons. I used to get most of my medications there since it was close by and very responsive. They also have an iOS app that is very minimal, but good for viewing prescriptions and ordering refills. Since COVID hit, I can order my refills and have them mail my medications to me directly from the app. When a prescription is set for long term (no dosage changes), I can switch to the mail order pharmacy preferred by my work insurance. There I can get a three-month supply for the price of one co-pay, saving some money and hassle of monthly reorders. Finally, I still have some prescriptions at UCLA Pharmacy. After transplant, they re-prescribed all my medications, including existing ones so most of the active prescriptions are still from UCLA doctors. Additionally, even though I am getting most refills at the mail order pharmacy, only UCLA takes Medicare Part B for anti-rejection medications, forcing me to get my tacrolimus refills there. The prednisone is common and cheap enough that I am not worried about insurance mix-ups, but the tacrolimus is somewhat expensive, and do not want to order it with my work insurance just to have them reject it later because I still have Medicare. Confusing, right?

This almost became a huge problem last weekend. Since I take so many tacrolimus pills daily (six), it is hard to tell how many days of supply I have left just by looking at the pill bottle. Anyway, I started filling my weekly pill dispenser and ran out of tacrolimus. I was told to never miss a dose of the anti-rejection medication so of course I was worried. I tried to refill online, but it did not allow me to select the mail option at UCLA. I ended up leaving a voice message and then called them in person Tuesday to ask them to mail out. Luckily, I received the package Friday afternoon, having only three pills left.

Earlier this afternoon, I just put in some more refills. One was for the Lokelma, which was previously filled at my local pharmacy. The mail order savings is not that great, only $30 over three months, and since there were no refills, the pharmacy needs to contact UCLA for authorization. Likewise, I was running low on prednisone. Since I wanted a three month refill and there was none left on the prescription, I had to log in to UCLA’s online system and request a refill from the transplant doctors, and to send to the mail order pharmacy. It is like each prescription has its own special handing rules to get filled and paid by insurance. I probably need to create a file in Excel or something to keep track.

COVID-19: Delta Variant

It appears that the number of positive cases of COVID-19 is on the rise again in Los Angeles and Orange counties. Of course, this is all due to the idiots that will not get vaccinated, excluding those that have a valid medical reason. The last article I saw, Los Angeles county is again seeing a huge increase (relatively) of new COVID cases.

*https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/los-angeles-california-covid-cases.html*

California opened up in mid-June because the it appeared we were headed for herd immunity, and the number of new cases was steadily decreasing. However, the vaccination rate stalled as most everyone that wanted the vaccine got their shots. Now the much more infectious delta variant is taking hold in the unvaccinated population. For most vaccinated people, the impact may be minor if any. For me and other immunocompromised people, this could be deadly, again. Also, with more people infected, it increases the chances of further mutation with unknown results.

Here is Orange County showing a similar trend:

*https://ochca.maps.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/cc4859c8c522496b9f21c451de2fedae*

The absolute numbers in OC are lower than LA since the population is lower, but it shows a similar trend. Everything looked good near the end of May, but since the state removed restrictions and the mask mandate, cases are increasing again. Seems like common sense but I guess common sense is uncommon. Also, because of these selfish and irresponsible anti-vaccination idiots, I still cannot go to work or out to restaurants. I wish California or Orange County would implement a vaccine passport so there are consequences for refusing to help end the pandemic.

Tropical Storm Elsa, Post-Florida Edition

This is historical wind speed for Elsa. Right now the storm is moving into North Carolina. After passing below Hispaniola, Elsa never regained hurricane wind speeds again.

For my sister, she actually left Florida Tuesday evening after the soccer tournament was completed early. They were on the second to last flight out of Sarasota airport before it shut down for 12 hours overnight. Since it was a connecting flight, they had a layover in Dallas (DFW) for about three hours.

One think you need to know about John Wayne Airport (SNA) is that there is a curfew from 11:00 pm to 7:00 am. This is primarily due to the rich white people in Newport Beach. The airport was originally built in 1923, but then people started building houses nearby. Those houses became super expensive, rich people moved in, and they wanted to shut down the airport. So an agreement was signed that limited the operations of the airport, primarily for noise abatement. This means if your flight is delayed for any reason and your arrival time is after 11:00 pm, you are going to Los Angeles International (LAX). This happened to me once before, also from DFW, and it added about 3.5 hours to my trip.

For my sister’s flight from DFW to SNA, of course there was a delay. They boarded the plane on time, but due to some maintenance issue, their plane sat at the gate while maintenance crew worked on the plane. Finally, the were able to take off late, but still in time to make SNA curfew. Good thing since I did not want to drive to LAX late at night to pick them up. There would have been a bus to transfer them from LAX to SNA, but airport buses are no fun.

Dental X-Ray

Just a funny little story from my visit to the dentist yesterday. It was supposed to be an easy appointment to put in a new permanent crown. There was a cavity under an old crown so my dentist removed it, drilled away the cavity (and more tooth), then put a temporary crown on about two weeks ago. However, I was in the dental office for about an hour instead of the 15 minutes I was expecting.

So most of the time was spent trying to get a x-ray of the tooth with the new crown before applying the cement. I was let to the dental chair by an assistant that I have never met, and I most definitely have met them all. She felt like a new employee. No matter, I just getting a crown put in, and the dentist ended up doing it anyway.

*I have no idea what type of x-ray machine my dentist has*

The first, second, and third x-ray she took did not seem to work. She thought that the sensor was not attached to the computer, but it was wired and connected. She got one of the front desk people to help, and they pointed out that she did not put the lead shielding vest on me. I am not planning to have kids at the moment, but still. The front desk person was also unable to get the x-ray to work, so to save time, we moved to another chair with a much older x-ray machine. We tried again, but still nothing, which was super weird. Finally, the new assistant got the dentist to take a look. My dentist went to the same school and program as me, and spent a lot of time as an electrical engineer. He fiddled with the equipment a bit, and then pointed out to the new assistant that the sensor/detector was put in the bracket backwards. It is like looking at the back of a LCD monitor and wondering why there is no image. By now, 30 minutes have passed.

Anyway, we go back to the original dental chair, and she took several perfect x-rays of my tooth. Afterwards, the dentist came by and cemented the tooth, and all was fine. It was confirmed that she was a new employee since he was basically training her how to pass the crown to him while maintaining spatial orientation, and how to mix and apply the dental cement. She was a lot less talkative after the x-ray fiasco, and looked a bit sad, though it was hard to tell behind her mask.

I thanked her when I left the office, but wondered if I should have said something more encouraging? I remember my first day at various jobs and it was nerve-wracking for sure. It is not even that bad for me since being in finance, there is just a computer, not live patients. My dentist is super nice and chill, so this will probably end up being a good learning experience for her.

Tropical Storm Elsa

Hurricane Elsa has been downgraded to Tropical Storm Elsa.

The difference seems to be purely based on sustained maximum wind speed. Anything over 74 mph is considered a hurricane, while a tropical storm is from 39 to 74 mph. From the map above, Elsa became a hurricane somewhere over Barbados, and back to a tropical storm near Haiti/Dominican Republic. The question is will Elsa pick up more energy over the water between Cuba and Florida, and the forecast says she will remain a tropical storm. Good.

Just to be safe, my sister said the soccer tournament organizers decided to compress the schedule to save two days. Instead of returning Thursday, my sister is leaving Tuesday instead. Currently, the storm path has Elsa reaching her location (near Clearwater, Florida) at 8:00 am Wednesday. If she leaves Tuesday, they will miss the brunt of the storm (or hurricane). That also means my house/dog-sitting days will be shortened by two days. Our houses are only 5 minutes apart so it is not a big deal, but it definitely is more convenient staying at your own house.

American Cornhole League

WTF? Competitive cornhole league? I thought it was a game for drunk college students or drunk rednecks. I have played this game exactly twice, both times at a work team-building event at the beach. Basically you take turns tossing bean bags at an inclined board with a hole in it, with the goal of getting the beanbag to fall through the hole. That’s it.

I am posting about this because since I am bored out of my mind sitting at my sister’s house watching the dogs sleep, I was flipping through their 1000 channel cable subscription. Suddenly, this shows up:

Aiya, so many things wrong with this. First, it is cornhole, and competitive cornhole at that. Not to minimize their skills, since they seem to be able to drop the beanbag through the hold 99% of the time, but it just does not have the same feel as tennis, swimming, or even golf. I guess it is similar to darts. Two, the main sponsor for the “athletes” is Bush’s baked beans. I am more used to sport sponsors being companies like Nike, Adidas, or Gatorade, not Bush’s or Farmer John. Finally, look at these guys. One guy has Airpods in his ears during the entire competition, and the guy throwing in the screen grab has a death grip on his thermos. I assume it is coffee, but likely something stronger, like whisky. This competition was sponsored by American Cornhole League. I am sure there are many other leagues with hundreds of participants.

Really, I have nothing against cornhole, or the hundreds of other “party” games being competitively. If you can make a living from it, even better. It is like when e-Sports first became popular. “I can make money playing Starcraft?” Well, I cannot since I suck at it. To me, there is a difference between competing with the forces of nature versus a virtual man-made software world. Hey, it is a free country…