​Let’s see how many of you have sobered up long enough to read this.  New Year’s Eve had suspiciously good timing for such a crappy year.  I managed to work half a day Thursday, so this has been a three-and-a-half-day weekend for me.  I’ll take it.  The government’s response to the coronavirus screwed me pretty hard, so three-day weekends are the only vacation I’ve had this year.

​I was the only one in my office Thursday. I took the opportunity to look over all the uneaten candy we had left.  Anything I might be interested in went straight into the garbage.  That left plenty of stuff made of milk chocolate.  I’m not interested in that garbage, so not a problem for me.

This was the first week in months that I managed to get all my workouts in.  Three days at the gym included New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.  I also got in my two conditioning days.  I’m a little sore and a little stiff.  And I’m delighted by it.

I got my tired, lazy ass out of bed early every day but New Year’s Day.  I grumbled like the middle–aged coot I am.  I was beyond angry at my governor on leg day.  It was 36 degrees outside while I was squatting.  I’m sorry but even after a decent warmup that is just too damn cold for me.  I can’t quite explain it, but I could just feel something not quite right in my muscles and joints related to the cold.  Fuck you Newsom.

​Deadlifts were a real problem.  To only a government bureaucrat’s surprise, metal bars get really cold when they sit outside in the cold overnight.  I’m at the gym well before sunrise.  I finished one set of deadlifts and was losing feeling in my hands from gripping the bar.  I was worried I would lose my grip during my second set, so that was it for deadlifts.  Fuck you Newsom.

The good news is after eating like a pig between Thanksgiving and this week, my eating is more or less back on track.  I got out of bed to exercise to start my day.  And I have to say the activity gives me a sense of purpose and accomplishment.  So I got that going for me… which is nice.

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​Plenty of us thought when Uncle Joe got elected the ‘rona would disappear very quickly.  I no longer think it is going to be that simple, but I am heartened by the splintering of the anti-Trump coalition that wants masks and lockdowns forever.

​The easy out was going to be the vaccine.  But there is a large percent of frontline health care workers that refuse to be vaccinated.  I wonder how many of them know there is a one in five chance of a severe adverse event after the second shot.  Even workers in nursing homes are refusing in large numbers to get the vaccination.  Money quote:

Zenobia Carden is a 35-year-old certified nursing assistant who worked in a nursing home earlier this year and is about to start a new job at a residence for people with developmental disabilities. She said she has seen firsthand the impact of the coronavirus, which killed several residents of the facility where she used to work. She debated what to do, but ultimately decided that getting the vaccine still felt too risky to her.

Ms. Carden, who lives in Bartlesville, Okla., worries about potential long-term side effects, as well as shorter-term ones like headaches, because she already suffers from migraines.

“I’m scared,” she said. “It takes years to come out with a vaccine, and for them to come out with it this quickly—I don’t trust it.”

​JFC.  These are the people who are most likely to see the effects of Covid-19 in the people they serve and they, in large numbers, are foregoing the vaccine.  In three weeks when they take office, if Uncle Joe and Auntie Kamala can’t get front line health workers to sing the praises of these vaccines then good luck getting enough of the public to take it.

​Uncle Joe told us his plan to get kids back to school in the next hundred days.  But it looks like teachers’ unions aren’t going for that. I’m particularly enjoying watching the teachers expend enormous amounts of political capital digging this hole.

My new prediction is Biden declares victory in late spring regardless of the vaccine rollout.  This is a seasonal bug.  Numbers are going to drop due to seasonality.  They may even drop due to herd immunity.  Whatever the reason, the lockdowns engender discontent and resistance to whatever else Uncle Joe wants to do.  Good reason, bad reason, or no reason, he will find a way to move on to something else.

This week’s music link.