Us, May 10, 2020: Roy, John, Leo, Shadow, Ondine
Us, May 10, 2020: Roy, John, Leo, Shadow, Ondine
After a few days of heat, May Gray returned so it's quite nice! Temps are in the 80s.
The beaches have been open for exercise, but will soon be open for sunbathing and hanging out. Cowles Mountain remains closed, but more people are sneaking onto the trails. We still hear the rangers sometimes, but it seems that after a period of heavy scolding, they've gone away. Either that, or they've stopped warning people through loudspeakers and are now just citing them.
More restaurants are open for dine-in, but we haven't been to one. We've had take-out once during all this, pizza from Mountain Mike's. Roy, though, has gone out to eat with friends. (Yup, he's our young libertarian disease vector.)
Coronavirus update: A dismal milestone was reached when the U.S. death toll passed 100,000 earlier this week, more American lives lost than the Korean and Vietnam Wars combined. The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Tracker shows that COVID-19 has been confirmed in over 5,999,000 people worldwide, and has claimed over 367,000 lives. That's over 499,000 more cases and over 18,500 more deaths since Tuesday. The U.S. now has over 1,760,700 confirmed cases and over 103,400 deaths, up over 84,300 cases and another 4,700 deaths since Tuesday. In San Diego, our local toll rose to 7,240 cases with 266 deaths. Meanwhile, U.S. president Donald Trump is cutting ties with the World Health Organization over claims of a Chinese-orchestrated cover-up regarding the pandemic.
In other news, and as a direct result of those conspiracy theories, Americans of any Asian descent are facing more and more racist behaviors, with reports of verbal abuse and threats on the rise right here in San Diego. And, the death of yet another African American man at the hands of a white police officer, this time in Minneapolis, sparked widespread protests, some violent, which were supressed by government authorities and the National Guard.
Good news: Woohoo! Americans in space! Today NASA and SpaceX (Elon Musk's rocket company) successfully launched two astronauts into space on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule. This is SpaceX's first manned launch, the first manned launch from U.S. soil in nine years, and the first NASA launch to use a privately developed vehicle.
The reusable Dragon 2 capsule has been flown before, though, and has two variants, a cargo version called the Cargo Dragon and the seven-passenger Crew Dragon. There are only two people on board for this first flight, though, veteran NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley. We watched live online. So far, all is going smoothly; the Falcon rocket module already made its automated landing on a drone recovery ship. Cool Easter Egg: the "zero-G indicator" was a multi-colored stuffed dinosaur that came floating by inside the capsule. The plan is to have Behnken and Hurley dock with the International Space Station tomorrow.
This was kind of our last total vacation week for a while, because various classes and programs are starting soon, and there are a few events on the calendar including Roy's birthday and Leo's graduation car parade through the Patrick Henry campus.
Leo will be starting Andrew Huang's online course on Music Production and Sound Design. He's looking forward to creating the projects and getting real-time feedback from a pro.
Roy will be starting a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification course through the Project Management Institute. His search for alternative (read: cheaper) ways to get the training came up empty, so he'll be doing the course through PMI. He went to the strawberry fields with Danielle and picked a bunch of strawberries. Friday afternoon, he went to Mission Beach with friends, taking Ondine's Prius. He said the parking lots were still closed, but there was street parking near the bay. Belmont Park is still closed, but he said it looked sort of open at first glance because the park had placed huge stuffed animals in the seats of their iconic roller coaster. The boardwalk was closed, but the restaurants and shops around Mission Beach were open.
Ondine will connect with several friends from Boston and Heidelberg via Zoom over the weekend, a substitute for actually visiting with them o n our now-canceled trip to Boston this summer. She's had to get a pair of old tablets fired up in order to use Zoom.
John has been steadily cranking through MOOCs on Urban Cultural Diversity and Urban Cultural Heritage. He may also be starting an online Cultural Anthropology course at City College; it's in doubt because he's waitlisted. If he doesn't get it, then his class in Physical Anthropology will start next month. And, he's still learning Latin through Duolingo.
Neighborhood gas prices are still about $3.09 per gallon. The stock market closed Friday at 25,383.11.
Back to the Archives page
Back to the Kuraoka Family
main page
Forward to the next Weekly Journal, June 2 2020.