Corona Virus Dispatch from NYC, Day 218

Challenge of the day

For years, my bike-mounted coffee holder was a hair too big for my Kleen Kanteen. Today, I fixed that problem using some gymnastics tape I had upstairs. As is almost always the case, a low tech no-frills solution worked. My dad would be proud.

The other stuff

  • Woke up, had coffee, a bagel, and lox. Spoke with Maya, and agreed that we are going to make chocolate chip cookies today. Quietly reveled in the fact that I would not do a bit of exercise – just walking, biking, and some goofing off.

  • Did a quick huddle with Maya on her (personal) rotten tomatoes score of Pet Sematary (the 2019 version) - which we watched last night. She gave it a 60, I gave it a 55. Then we discussed a short list of movies that would likely break a score of 90. Here’s that list…

    • The Prestige

    • Inception

    • Arrival

    • The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

    • The Big Lebowski

  • Fixed my bike mounted PDX beverage holder

  • Biked to Coop, got groceries, and tried out the new cargo bags on my Tern GSD – they were awesome. I arrived at 11:10 am, waited in line for 20 minutes, then got in and out with a total of 2 boxes and a case of sparkling water.

  • Maya and I wound up taking careful measurements of our litter box in anticipation of ordering a cabinet-like enclosure. Later, that plan went south because we found out that our litter box is 1/8” too long for any of the enclosures we looked at. Then, we found a goofy plastic dome-shaped unit for $29 on Amazon. We ordered it, and right at checkout, realized that shipping was calculated at $168 fucking dollars. We walked around the corner instead, and bought something from the pet store for $20.

  • Prepped the chocolate chip cookie dough around 1pm with help from Maya. We use a recipe that stipulates 3 parts dark brown sugar to 1 part white sugar; and this is the reason the cookies come out so chewy. We got done with our dough prep in about 20 minutes, put it in the fridge to chill, and cleaned up.

  • Baked the cookies around 3pm. I ate 10. Maya had maybe 2 or 3.

  • I printed out the 2021 SHSAT Sample Test B, and gave it to her, then left to go get some kitty litter with Charlotte. We took the bike, and got to Park Slope really fast – probably in under 15 minutes. On the way back, I ran over some broken glass just before crossing Atlantic Avenue. Thankfully, the bike has Big Bens on both the front and back wheels.

  • Graded Maya’s practice test, went over the problems she got wrong, then took some notes for myself that I plan to use for this week’s review. Below is a recap of some areas we plan to revisit:

    • Compound inequalities & Absolute value inequalities

    • PEMDAS

    • Always write out formulas for area – DO NOT confuse Diameter for Radius

    • Modulus division that runs counter-clockwise

    • Cumulative probabilities that are don’t reset

    • Similar Triangles and ratios

    • Mapping permutations in table format

    • Shifty number theory problems involving odd/even exponents and positive/negative products

  • Had takeout from the Malaysian restaurant on Grand Street, just around the corner from the girls’ old elementary school in Nolita. The total bill was $80 - which suggests to me some pandemic price gouging.

  • Pinged the OGSG slack channel with some work / play pics that predate the acquisition. There were some good ones, and a great video of one of my buddies giving me a mohawk at 4am in Venice. The company was small, and I used to drink in those days.

  • Picked and ate 4 thai chilis from the garden with dinner