Mild Amusement

A while back, I was hunting for something on a website. I don't even really remember what it was, but I was trying to find some information and I thought that the organization's website might be a good way to find that info. I'm sure you've participated in a similar exercise at least once in your life. Maybe you needed to find a return policy for a company, you had to find a person to call for some reason or another, or you just wanted to find the organization's hours. Either way, this should be a familiar set up for many of you. The part that came next, however, is likely new, and hopefully amusing, to you. You see, this particular website had headshots for many of its leaders. I tend to like this when it's a publicly-facing site, as it puts a face to a name. Sure, I might know the name John Doe, but it feels a little personal if I see John Doe's face. It obviously has its downsides (this is the Internet we're talking about, after all), but I can see ...

As with most people these days, I have more free time on my hands. The Mild Wife and I don't really go anywhere other than to go on our weekly drive , so we're basically home all the time. In effect, the only times I open the front door are to check the mail or take out the trash. It's just how it goes; social distancing is a thing, and we're trying our best to do our part. So, what is one to do with the extra time? I have tried to not fill in that time with extra work, lest I blur the home-work line too much. I mean, I generally enjoy what I do, and there's never a shortage of work. But I'd really prefer not to turn into a workaholic during the pandemic, so I'm trying to find other ways to spend my hours. Fortunately for me, I have a few other hobbies that I can indulge during this time. Notably, I still have crochet hooks and a big old collection of yarn. Yes, I still crochet stuff every now and then . And since I've managed to make quite a few be...

Given the whole pandemic thing, we've been doing the whole social distancing thing. Specifically, both the Mild Wife and I have been working remotely for several weeks now. I'm lucky that my work lends itself to that relatively easily, but that doesn't mean it's been a smooth ride. Originally, I just used my laptop microphone and speakers in order to take calls. I figured I was mostly working from a room that was meant to act as an office, and I could close the door if I had to take a video call. It wasn't the most elegant solution, but I figured it mostly worked. There was a little bit of ambient noise from the rest of the house, but it wasn't annoying enough to cause problems. All in all, it mostly worked. However, there came a day when I accidentally left my microphone on when I was speaking to the Mild Wife. She was telling me all about some shenanigans when she was young, and there was quite a bit of laughter from both of us. Since I was using the lapto...

One of the toughest things about the pandemic has been that social distancing means precisely that; we're staying away from the people we care about. It's not like we were spending every hour of every day out and about before, but we definitely had dinner with friends or stopped in to see family. That's basically a bad idea these days, so we've stayed indoors instead. Still, it means that we see less of our loved ones. The flip side of that, however, is that we have tried to compensate by making use of technology. We frequently use the webcams so that people can see our faces while we speak with them. Whether it be to dial in to a work conference call, to attend a class, or even to say hello to folks, we've been using the cameras at our disposal on a much more frequent basis. It's not an exact one-for-one replacement, but it definitely helps. One of the areas where this has led to some chuckles has been when talking to my sister and her kids. We've been ...