Granny's lived a full life. She probably believes in Heaven, too. I'm doing her a favor. :haha:

I'm probably the same age as your "granny". I'm not laughing. Can we not be cavalier about people of any age?

I wish him luck. It's no fun being laid off; I know the experience, I was laid off twice. Very stressful, and can be depressing.

Again, good luck to him!

That is happening already in the West Texas oil patch. There is so much due diligence work happening right now as the big boys prepare to take over assets of smaller debt burdened players.

I just had to fill out a form for a state-mandated training I have to attend next week. One of the questions is "What are potential barriers to course attendance and full participation? What supports will be provided to address barriers?" I answered, "Declaration of emergency, banning of meetings and gatherings, illness among training staff or attendees."

And there's fuck-all you can do about any of that. Also, today I've been receiving a lot of emails from the various restaurants of whose loyalty clubs I'm a member. They've all been reassuring me they're taking steps to keep their staffs healthy and their restaurants clean. That's quite sobering if you think about it. I also saw something that raised the hair on my arms today (and I am hairy like sasquatch, so it was great deal of hair)... When I popped in to look around at the grocery store on my lunch break, I saw a big display of Easter candy and cards and paraphernalia and such... right next to a pilfered, half empty bay of toilet paper and an empty endcap of hand sanitizer. Kind of gave me the creeps.

Wait 5 minutes. It'll be cancelled I betcha.

In CA, people over 70 are supposed to renew drivers licenses in person (because they do a vision test and you have to retake the written exam to be sure you aren't senile). They are talking about waving that until the crisis is over. Every hour more things are done to keep people away from each other.

Duke just pulled out of the NCAA tournament. My guys. Good for them!

My little corner of SW Austin is behaving rather normally. I keep seeing pics posted by friends in other parts of the metro showing empty shelves and aisles devoid of toilet paper, paper towels, and bottled water. The HEB in my neighborhood and the Randall's both had plenty of those things in stock when I made a late night run to the store yesterday. I even found a two pack of "extra strength" Purell just the other day at the HEB. I haven't been to the nearby Costco. I did notice that their parking lot is overflowing, so I guess the bulk buyers are having a field day over there. My membership expired, and I am too cheap (and after the recent market collapse probably too broke) to renew my membership.

"It's not political correctness when I'm the one who's offended!"

Uh, actually it is.

^^Whatever.

From my experience in silicon valley alot of contract workers work 15 month contracts and then collect unemployment for 3 months and then return to that company if they havent moved on anywhere else.

On his lunch break my husband went across the street to the supermarket there, and reported to me the parking lot was so full he had to park at nearby restaurant and walk over. Some lady was coming out of the store with a cart filled with nothing but toilet paper -- he counted five packs of it -- while another one was coming out with all she could carry tucked under each arm.

Seems like a switch has flipped.

BART ridership yesterday was down 35% from one week earlier, in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Anecdotally, the usual weekday-evening parade of German steel through my neighborhood failed to appear yesterday. My partner said the downtown Trader Joe's was busy, but a video panorama he took of Market and 4th/Stockton at 6:30 pm showed only a couple dozen people in what would normally be one of the busiest pedestrian hubs in the region. He'll be coming home after lunch and hunkering down with me at home for an indefinite period of time.

joining the NBA and NHL, MLS is now suspended too.

MLB now talking about suspension as well. seems like a forgone conclusion at this point.

NHL is talking about starting playoffs in July based on current standings. Sign me up for summer patio playoff hockey.

How quick this is all moving is pretty incredible

Of course thats how it was going in China 2 months ago and Italy/Iran a few weeks ago.

Just on Monday the Mariners were suggesting playing their first regular season games here in Phoenix for the start of the MLB season. Now I think we are hours away from them cancelling spring training and regular MLB for the time being.

Huge impact for Phoenix as half of spring training takes place in our metro area. (good thing its almost over anyway)

Also went to an AZ Department of Transpiration event this morning. Probably 1/3 of the expected attendees were no-shows.

There was some graph that I was looking at yesterday that said if no measures are taken to control spread, we should expect the number of cases to double per day. So if there are about 1,000 cases in the U.S. yesterday, there could be well over 60,000 in less than a week, if no steps were taken to control the spread.

And there it is:

Officially the biggest impact for us so far. Probably not the last.

https://azbigmedia.com/business/cact...e-of-pandemic/

This from ABC-7 Los Angeles:
https://scontent-fml1-1.xx.fbcdn.net...df&oe=5EA61818

Even Coronavirus knows to avoid San Bernardino.

I'm kidding, I'm kidding!

Ohio just closed all schools in the state until April. https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/...virus-pandemic