Pandemic Paranoia Positives - Update!

"RPM esq." (rpm3)
03/04/2020 at 12:52 • Filed to: pandemic, paranoia, coronavirus, mercedes-benz, seattle, traffic

This is what rush hour looked like this morning. At the same time and place a week ago, I would have been going about 15 miles per hour, not 70.

UPDATE: Mrs. RPM is always thinking of the important preparations (I sent her the USA Today “homemade hand sanitizer” headline for laughs ). Now people at work are circulating similar headlines and I’m thinking she’s right to be concerned.

DISCUSSION (45)

Spaceball-Two > RPM esq.
03/04/2020 at 13:08

I flew in this morning. Door to door in 30 minutes. That never happens

PartyPooper2012 > RPM esq.
03/04/2020 at 13:20

Soon

Kinja'd!!!

farscythe - makin da cawfee! > RPM esq.
03/04/2020 at 13:22

i walked about 18000 steps today at work instead of working

we’re a little short on parts from italy...sooo...ive halfbuilt a bunch of machines and done a whole bunch of laps... watercooler,lockerroom,watercooler,toilet,coffeemachine,smoking area,watercooler, toilet oh hey ill go build half a machine again i guess....watercooler :p

VincentMalamute-Kim > RPM esq.
03/04/2020 at 13:24

We should have a pandemic every day (! ) ( ?)

fintail > RPM esq.
03/04/2020 at 13:32

I was on 405 and 167 yesterday afternoon and it didn’t seem as bad as usual either. Lots of kids out of school though, so once you arrive at the destination, that can be fun.

I’m going to need to go to the supermarket for normal consumables sometime in the next few days, planning to do it very early in the day.

gettingoldercarguy > RPM esq.
03/04/2020 at 13:35

My wife is home sick, she sees a lot of patients at sniffs, so it’s probably for the best that she’s at home. One of my attorneys has been out all week too.

wafflesnfalafel > RPM esq.
03/04/2020 at 13:35

right - our building is still closed/locked down... everybody working offsite

ttyymmnn > PartyPooper2012
03/04/2020 at 13:36

Italy just closed all of its schools. I’m waiting for those test kits to be distributed in the US so we can finally find out the real numbers. There’s been precious little reporting on it lately.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > RPM esq.
03/04/2020 at 13:51

I thought it was neat that I went to costco yesterday and they had a sign up that said “limit 5 cases of Kirkland water per customer”. Why in the hell do people think the world is going to end because of the flu? Sure it might be prudent not to be flying much right now but otherwise you are gonna be alright.

I'm sure lax is gonna be nice and empty at least when I fly out to salt Lake on Thursday. I bet my plane both ways is gonna be EPMTY. Especially my flight back on Southwest since changes are always free.

RPM esq. > fintail
03/04/2020 at 13:56

I stopped for groceries after work on Monday...it was quite busy but not the madhouse I was half-expecting. Plus, some girl scouts were there selling cookies , so I was very glad I went .

RPM esq. > gettingoldercarguy
03/04/2020 at 13:57

My assistant has been out sick all week too . Hope your wife gets well soon.

RPM esq. > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
03/04/2020 at 14:01

I understand stocking up on, like, cold medicine and canned soup so you don’t have to go out if you get sick, picking up some hand sanitizer to keep in the car, etc., but I am extremely annoyed by the bottled water thing. As I previously commented elsewhere , there is no plausible scenario that results in the complete shutdown of utilities. It’s Flu 2.0, not nuclear war. Madness.

I’m flying this weekend and actually kind of looking forward to it for once.

fintail > RPM esq.
03/04/2020 at 14:06

I went to Costco to cash in my rewards certificate last Friday. 30 minutes after opening it was a madhouse, looked like the day before Christmas. I heard numerous locations were running out of water and toilet paper, faith in humanity slips again. Hopefully that will be confined to that specific retailer. I forgot about those cookies, there goes another $10 and 5000 calories.

gettingoldercarguy > RPM esq.
03/04/2020 at 14:19

Thanks, I hope your assistant gets to feeling better sooner rather than later.

Apparently the flu vaccine is effective against it. /s

WasGTIthenGTOthenNOVAnowbacktoGTI > RPM esq.
03/04/2020 at 14:24

What parts of the country is everyone in where there’s closures? In MN I genuinely haven’t noticed a difference in day to day life anywhere I’ve gone.

RPM esq. > fintail
03/04/2020 at 14:24

Yeah, I’ve heard some Costco horror stories of late . My neighborhood grocery store was pretty civilized, with plenty of bottled water still on the shelves. Didn’t check the TP situation .

functionoverfashion > RPM esq.
03/04/2020 at 14:25

People stock up on bottled water here in New Hampshire before a regular snowstorm.

My wife has come home from the store with an extra gallon of water before, after which I politely pointed out that we have an 80-gallon hot water heater in our basement that can be drained in the event of a power outage. We’ve never needed a single gallon from it - the residual pressure in our water system has gotten us through every power outage we’ve had for 11 years.

Just Jeepin' > farscythe - makin da cawfee!
03/04/2020 at 14:27

I’m starting to wonder if my Jeep’s transmission repair is being held up by parts. I no longer believe anything they’re telling me.

RPM esq. > WasGTIthenGTOthenNOVAnowbacktoGTI
03/04/2020 at 14:28

I live in Seattle, the area where it arrived first and where some people have died. Life goes on mostly normally —for example, a Korean joint I like to go to for lunch still had a line out the door on Monday, the day they have their most popular special— it’s just that a few big companies are allowing or encouraging people to work from home.

farscythe - makin da cawfee! > Just Jeepin'
03/04/2020 at 14:32

eeeeh....stranger things have happened i guess.... tho i’d be shocked if jeep parts cant be sourced in the us of a...im pretty sure most jeep parts live there..

RPM esq. > functionoverfashion
03/04/2020 at 14:32

That’s crazy, not least because snow itself is a pretty good source of fresh water in a real emergency. I live in a city that is entirely defined geographically by the bodies of water within and around it. In a real pinch I could walk down to Lake Washington with my camping water filter and a couple of buckets once a day and be fine indefinitely.

Just Jeepin' > farscythe - makin da cawfee!
03/04/2020 at 14:35

Yeah, I simply dunno. Tired of paying for a car rental though. That much I know.

PartyPooper2012 > ttyymmnn
03/04/2020 at 14:39

I’m thinking about getting a pregnancy test kit. having a pregnant lady pee on it. Show my boss i tested positive and take two weeks off....

BaconSandwich is tasty. > ttyymmnn
03/04/2020 at 14:39

I imagine those test kits are in very high demand.

farscythe - makin da cawfee! > Just Jeepin'
03/04/2020 at 14:40

fair enough

my bike shop once took a month took fix me brakes (mostly got told they were waiting for parts and then they were waiting for new parts coz issues with parts)....aaaand when i finally got it back the brakes still sucked....

sometimes i swear shops just park your shit out back and decide everything else has priority..

BigBlock440 > functionoverfashion
03/04/2020 at 14:44

Have you ever drained/flushed that tank though? Every time I do it, it’s not water that I’d want to be drinking, and it takes quite a few gallons before it starts coming out clear. If you’re counting on that as your water supply, you might want to make sure it’s flushed somewhat regularly so it’s good when you need it.

BigBlock440 > gettingoldercarguy
03/04/2020 at 14:48

https://vitals.lifehacker.com/if-youre-worried-about-coronavirus-get-your-flu-shot-1841201798

yep...

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
03/04/2020 at 14:50

May I offer you a thought in response to your rhetorical? I’ve done quite a lot to prepare for emergencies such as this one. I don’t do it because I’m afraid of dying, I do it because I want to be as comfortable as possible. I wanna have food to eat, and a means to cook it, prescription meds on hand, TOILET PAPER, so if everyone’s getting sick, I can hang out and do some woodworking and have whatever I need. Enjoying being prepared and comfortable does not equal panic.

gettingoldercarguy > BigBlock440
03/04/2020 at 14:51

I sincerely hope that of a vaccine is made available, those who are up to date with their vaccines are given first in line status.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > BigBlock440
03/04/2020 at 14:52

Hey, Stranger. Good point. As I’ve said elsewhere, I want to be fed and as comfortable as possible, and safe , and I don’t think that makes me a doomsday prepper.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > fintail
03/04/2020 at 14:53

Wash your hands before and after. Wear latex gloves if you have them. (That’s the advice that the top virologists are issuing)

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > farscythe - makin da cawfee!
03/04/2020 at 14:54

Cigarets help protect you from covid-19.

farscythe - makin da cawfee! > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
03/04/2020 at 14:58

weeheeell...im good then :p

(tbh...even if i get covid-19 i dont have much to worry about...im not its perferred victim type)

BigBlock440 > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
03/04/2020 at 15:34

It’s not unheard of for people to be out of power for a week or more, and it takes almost no effort to do so. Just like saving for retirement or having an emergency fund, it’s just something every responsible adult should do, it completely changes what the threshold for “emergency” is. Growing up, we’ve often lost power for a few days at a time, it’s no big hardship if you’re even the least bit prepared .

ZHP Sparky, the 5th > RPM esq.
03/04/2020 at 15:38

My coworker happened to go to Costco this past weekend just as they opened. Said within 15 minutes all the toilet paper was gone, and people had 2-3 packs of those huge Costco toilet paper stacks in their carts.

I’ll admit that we stocked up on some sanitary stuff and cold/fever meds for our toddler this past weekend after there was a local case of a school worker testing positive at the elementary school in Lake Oswego (which is just down the street from our neighborhood in SW Portland)

…but people do realize that getting the shits is NOT a known symptom of COVID-19, right?

RPM esq. > ZHP Sparky, the 5th
03/04/2020 at 15:41

I’ll admit that we stocked up on some sanitary stuff and cold/fever meds for our toddler this past weekend

Perfectly rational. This, however, is counterproductive hoarding behavior:

people had 2-3 packs of those huge Costco toilet paper stacks

AestheticsInMotion > RPM esq.
03/04/2020 at 16:03

I'll take this level of panic indefinitely, if possible. Maybe even turn it up one more notch.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > BigBlock440
03/04/2020 at 16:21

I mean, honestly, I think it’s cool to be prepared. When there’s no power and you can charge your phone and have light to read by... Or whatever. Or offer your neighbor something to eat...

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
03/04/2020 at 16:59

Well yeah but I need all of those things regardless. So I just prepare to have everything on hand whether it’s an emergency or not. I live 30 minutes from the nearest grocery store so I have to always have things on hand for at least a week anyways. Toilet paper I don’t ever like having less than 30+ rolls around anyways. Running out of that is just silly.

Water is the one thing that makes no sense unless it's a hurricane. Those are the one disaster that makes so much sense. Power getting knocked out for weeks, salt water flooding the local water supply even if you had power, and it being really hot means water is absolutely essential. But no matter how bad this Corona virus gets, I can continue drinking my well water like I do every day.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
03/04/2020 at 17:02

Well, well, well. I have enough water stored for bathing and drinking and cooking that my family and I can go minimum 60 days, though I think it unlikely that we should ever need any of it.

functionoverfashion > BigBlock440
03/04/2020 at 20:10

Good point, however, I do actually flush it quite a bit, because I use the bottom drain point as my winter hose hookup to rinse salt off cars in our driveway. It’s only 80 gallons because it’s a solar / electric hybrid setup, which, long story short, means the bottom isn’t usually all that hot anyway in the winter - but warmer than the well water, and ideal for rinsing cars.

It’s also stainless, but I honestly don’t know if that’s normal.

Still, you make a good point - that you shouldn’t count on that for drinking water, necessarily. You could always use it for flushing toilets I suppose.

functionoverfashion > BigBlock440
03/04/2020 at 20:12

This is true, and why we love having a woodstove for heat - even if it’s not usually our ONLY source of heat, it certainly could be in a pinch - and a gas stove, which works perfectly fine without power, you just need a lighter or a match. And I have an inverter that can power our fridge. We’d be good for quite a while without power.

BigBlock440 > functionoverfashion
03/04/2020 at 21:19

Stainless is neat, that’s a plus if it’s never been dirty. The few times I’ve done it, I was also using the hose hookup, but they were in new-to-me houses, so it’s probable they weren’t regularly flushed. The other concern is l egionella if you don’t keep it hot enough, but boiling it would address that.

I just moved recently , normally I have a coal stove as supplemental heat in case of power loss, except this year I didn’t have time to get it set up because of the move, relying on electric baseboard instead . I also did not move my generator to the new house yet. Of course this is the year I actually lose power for longer than a minute, luckily it was only a low of 40 or so last night and it was only out for about 8 hours, so not terrible, but definitely wouldn’t have been so good if it were colder. I don’t like not being set up to weather stuff like that, and know that I’m just relying on luck for it not to happen at that point. Oh well, next year I’ll be prepared with a big stack of firewood, and it’s spring so sub-zero temperatures should be done for a while.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
03/05/2020 at 00:29

Some real shit going on in the world if you ever need that!

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
03/05/2020 at 07:30

Indeed.