These times are new and rough for many of us, not knowing exactly how to navigate our new pandemiscape.

I’m going to say first that I’m actually thankful for being furloughed from my job at this time. It IS hard to deal with, being used to working and working and working, then told nope, go home, and stay there until we pull you back in. Occasionally, yes, I need a break or vacation of sorts, but the way this is happening is beyond the mindset of folks my age.

I’m choosing to look at this in the least stressful manner possible: I’m using the time off to recuperate and mentally recharge as much as I can. On one hand, the impact to my budget is definitely present at the moment, as I am only collecting the state unemployment benefit, but I look at it from the other side: I’m also going fewer places, spending less cash overall because I want to know I have the power to pay bills as necessary. So, the smaller payments are still survivable at this time.

I had paid for a new computer prior to this furlough, thinking things would pan out in such a way that I’d be considered essential and/or vital to operations and having the time off wouldn’t happen. But then, the furlough nation attacked, and I’ve been pretty much home bound for the last two and a half weeks.

I’ve done some house cleaning, need to do a bunch more, may want to ask our landlord to up-size our waste bin for the next month so I can be rid of much more crap without dominating the garbage from everyone.

I’ve actually worked on a project of mine that I didn’t think would be one until yesterday: I have an old Chuwi Hi10 Pro tablet that had its digitizer shattered on an Amtrak train last year. At first, I thought it’d be useless, because finding a replacement digitizer for the thing was not panning out well, and additionally, getting this thing apart and a new one on would be tedious at best.

Welcome to my first blog post from the old Hi10 Pro: I didn’t replace the screen. I replaced the entire operating system stack with Lubuntu 19.10, using a keyboard dock for it, and installed NoMachine on it so I can remote in. I am considering replacing the keyboard dock with a USB Type C hub, so that I can plug in either a better wi-fi adapter, or if the hub has Ethernet, a proper Ethernet cable as the onboard wi-fi in this thing is godawful.

There’s an actual use case for me to do this: There are several things that I could easily offload to a low powered machine, like I used to do back when I still used my Wyse Winterm 9455XL. Further, I would like to see if I can get one of the Android emulators running on this remotely: I have smart lights, and occasionally want to adjust them when I don’t have my phone on me.

I’m waiting for my unemployment benefits to come in, because I really would like to mount some shelves in my bedroom. It’s my biggest annoyance: Not enough flat surfaces for items, so they stay in boxes for a ridiculously long time.

Could I buy shelves right now? Yeah, I could, but I have a mental aversion to spending on something less essential than medicine or food.

For now, though, I’m going to have to go for walks around the block so I don’t go stir crazy sitting here at home for the next month or so, and get cracking on some of these projects.

Until then, be safe, wash your hands, wear a mask in public, and don’t buy 64 damned rolls of toilet paper unless you have a real need.

Be safe out there.

Base, clear.