July in the Pandemic

Saturday I went to the office to get some work done. I use dual screens at work, but only individual screens at home, so sometimes my office is preferable.  Our building is not heavily tenanted so social distancing there is easy. Still, sometimes one sees an unmasked person in the parking lot, though that is less common now.

One aspect of our local Glendover Park causes more concern. A youth sports football team holds practices there a couple of times a week. A few kids wear masks. Most do not. Their parents, who come in a small but material contingent, fail to wear masks or socially distance. I joked with my wife that the team name was Community Spread.

I heard an NPR interview about how school re-opening went well in Denmark. A teacher's union representative explained that all the stakeholders got together to work on safety, protect the vulnerable and implement common sense guidelines. I wish we lived in a time of stakeholder cooperation in this country.  The core thing the story did not cover, though, was that Denmark made material strides to contain the virus.

I like Facebook memories because it reminds me of great trips we took in the past but may not take for years to come.Yesterday the memory was of visiting Yoho National Park in British Columbia, Canada. I wonder when next I will fly in an airline.

I also like the Dreamwidth "search posts" feature. This morning I searched to find that I purchased the laptop on which I type this post some four years ago. I got it used for $ 102 on eBay. I have replaced the hard drive once, but otherwise it has worked out well. Similarly, I bought my desktop computer over four years ago used from a Microcenter. It also still runs well though it runs a Core 2 Duo processor and probably had some years' life before I got it.  I run Peppermint OS on my desktop and Q4OS on my laptop.

Yesterday I worked a good bit. At lunch I walked in Heritage Park and in Dave Sanford Park. Then, in that time when the late afternoon turns into early evening, I walked in Limestone Quarry Park in Frisco and its surrounding neighborhood, near Liberty High School. I saw 12 bird species. New homes were being built in new subdivisions.  On the park's trail, known as the Taychas Trail, the masks were fairly evident on many but not all and social distancing was largely strictly maintained. 

Thursday I did not sleep well, and watched the first Harry Potter movie again at 2 in the morning.

My 2020 eBird statistics through the end of July: 
85 species seen in Collin County, 13 species behind my 2019 pace.
65 species seen in Dallas County, a record for me in any full year, much less by August 1.

I think the latter is because my lunchtime short walks are now coordinated to occur in conjunction with take-out windows. Since my office is in Dallas County but adjacent to Collin County, perhaps I went afield from my office into Collin County more prior to the pandemic. We'll see if the gap closes any through Autumn migration. 

Forster's Tern

I've been working on some paperwork this evening, after earlier having a breast and wing, broccoli, corn tortillas and charro beans from the take-out window at El Pollo Loco. We watched the show on PBS today about the family trying to recreate a 1900-era Welsh fishing village experience. The hard nature of that life, combined with the less-favorable waters for fishing today, made the whole business seem difficult.

I got out early and walked in Glendover Park, where I saw 12 different species of bird. August is supposedly the slow month in our birding calendar, with only a bit of early migration and nesting largely wrapped up. But I like walking and seeing birds in August. Our Glendover Park pond lacked any ducks today--the Mallards tend to move over to another park in August, after apparently eating the local forage. They show up again in late September or so. The two domestic mallards also left--I suspect that they followed the rainwater upstream to the Twin Creeks duck pond. After all,they may have come from there at the beginning of their sojourn in our pond.

One of the Audubon Society members posted on Facebook that he had seen migrating shorebirds at Brockdale Park in Lake Lavon. When I arrived there in the late morning, I found that I had not brought along my camera. I had my binoculars, though, which helped me see my first Forster's Tern of the year. I only saw three species on this visit, which is quite low. I kept hearing a bunting singing in a tree, but never getting a look at it.

I decided to walk in Spirit Park near our home. This park is of recent construction. I used to bicycle by it when it was an empty field. The ballfields there were largely empty. Two older fellows sat at a distance on a park bench, each wearing a mask. A father and his children played on the swing-sets. I walked around the park a few times, past largely open fields and a bit of Watters Creek. I saw ten species of bird there. Then I went to small Green Park and saw six more species.

I remembered how Friday evening we ordered delivery from Tian An Mien wok. I tipped the young man when he brought the food. A few moments later, he rang the doorbell. He told me that my wife had already tipped when making the order and returned my tip. I appreciated his integrity.

I read a few pages of Sofia Samatar's "A Stranger in Olondria."  I prefer my books in 250 to 300 ebook page increments rather than 640, but it is holding my interest quite well.

I saw that more of my music is on Spotify now, after Lee Rosevere posted the songs from our collaboration. Maybe someday I will write
30 3-minute melodies and release them for streaming without a Creative Commons license. Those licenses are my favorite, but they do nto work well with the terms of service of Youtube and some other outlets. That is an issue that Creative Commons should have addressed, in my view, with a streaming-service-friendly and artist-friendly license. But it remains largely unaddressed.

I started a new chess game with a 3 day time control at Chess.com. This time I am defending a Caro-Kann Defense. I used to play that defense regularly. We'll see if I remember any of the moves..

I attended my virtual Weight Watchers meeting. I was down a bit. I reread one of my favorite poems, Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Recuerdo."