Two Pounds of Crazy

After my pleasure at looking at the scale last week and seeing a two-pound loss, I was surprised to see that I lost another two pounds this week. I don’t feel like I’ve done anything better or deserving of that accomplishment; in fact, I kinda felt like I slipped up a bit. Eating a slice of peach pie on Wednesday and getting a large order of fries from Chic-Fil-A yesterday didn’t feel like I was really trying, but somehow I still lost the weight.

More Than Expected

To top off the weight loss, I looked at my Garmin and saw that instead of the 25 miles I planned on running this week, I actually put in over 26 miles. Perhaps those extra miles are what lead to the continued weight loss, but I don’t know, it could have just as easily been my running all over the Shire in LOTRO or my creeping around in Kingsmouth in SWL that contributed.

In any case, I feel pretty good, and I hope you all are able to get outside as things start to open up.

Government Overreach

Living here in San Diego, we practically live outside, and this lockdown has us going stir-crazy. I’m certainly not a fan of our governor’s slow pace of reopening, and with such a low rate of illness here in the county, I really haven’t seen that the sky was ever even close to falling as far as overwhelming the healthcare system. The biggest spike we seem to have had is when we helped out Imperial County and people on the other side of the border.

Perhaps in California, Los Angeles and San Francisco have healthcare systems that are stressed more than ours here, but I really don’t think that means we should be grouped into the same quarantine restrictions. When I see empty beaches on the weekends and empty hospitals all week long, it really gets frustrating to remember that San Diego is just an afterthought in this huge state.

My heart goes out to the 220 families that have lost loved ones in my county and all those around the world that have suffered because of this illness, but it would be nice if governments started treating people like they have a semblance of intelligence.

Yes, people are dying. Yes, this is a contagious disease. But people have been educated for the past 3 months about what they can do to avoid contracting the illness. How long will people have to suffer from not having a job? How long will people have to struggle to figure out how to feed their family or pay the rent, so they have a roof over their head? How long will family members be forced to be separated from their loved ones as they lay dying?

A lot of so-called scientists say that we can’t go back to ‘normal’ until we have a vaccine. A lot of people say we can’t reopen restaurants or churches for fear of more people catching the disease, but no one seems to recall that the lockdown…the quarantine was not intended to stop everyone from catching this thing. The rational scientists urged the lockdown to ‘flatten the curve’ – to prevent our healthcare systems from being overwhelmed.

We did that. And now, hospitals are sitting with excess capacity because ‘normal’ surgeries are being avoided. People are not going to their doctor for routine care. How many cancer diagnoses are not being made because of this continuing lockdown? How many people are refusing transport to a hospital for back x-rays after a car accident or a fall? How many people aren’t able to mentally deal with this supposed ongoing crisis but are afraid to seek assistance because they’re afraid to catch the coronavirus?

I suppose I’m rambling, raging, venting, or whatever, but I think it’s time we start letting rational people get back to their lives. There is no way we are going to stop this virus from infecting more people. That is going to happen. People are going to die – it happens now; it happened before this virus – and it is going to happen long after this illness has become a memory.

People die of car accidents, and we don’t banish all vehicles. People die of plane crashes, but we don’t ban air travel. People die of shark attacks, but we don’t kill all the sharks or prevent people from swimming in the ocean. People die of the flu, from measles, from mumps, and malaria, and we don’t quarantine the entire world because of those illnesses.

Let’s start being rational again. Let’s start letting reasonable people do reasonable things. Let’s stop letting scientists be terrorists scaring the entire world to shelter in place.

I’m just a silly rambler who blogs about video games, sports, books, and tv shows, but I think I’m rational and have been educated enough – even if it were just in the past 3 months – to be able to look out for myself. I’m not gonna go around hugging strangers. I’m not gonna sneeze into everyone’s face without covering my nose. I’m not gonna stop washing my hands like I was taught decades ago.

Treat me with some respect.

Believe in me, and maybe I’ll start believing in government again.

Ramble 2020.02.31 | Two Pounds of Crazy