How has the virus affected your day to day life?

[ZX-12R]

I'm fortunate that our household income has been unaffected as we are both "essential." She's in education and I'm part of the defense industrial base.

The type of work I do has some aspects that are well suited for working at home while others require me to be in the office. Up until last week, I was nearly 100% at home but then our production group ran into some issues which required me to commute in for a week. While not as bad as a NH to Boston commute, mine is still a pain in the ass but with the lighter traffic my ride into work has been a dream. Set the cruise, listen to the radio, and enjoy the escape from the house. I was even scheduled to fly to a government facility this week but it was cancelled last minute due to a couple of people testing positive for Covid.

The wife has transitioned to 100% work from home with some incidental trips to her building for administrative reasons.

My kids (3rd and 5th grade) have been doing pretty well with online learning. We are fortunate that the school district they are in was prepared for the shutdown and the transition to schooling at home went off with little fanfare. Trying to keep them entertained after they finish their work has been a challenge especially on rainy days like today. There are some neighborhood kids they play with even though the parents are keeping their distance. I think everyone appreciates the struggle of young kids being cooped up for too long.

We are lucky that we can walk into Bear Brook State Park from our house so we have been taking regular walks on the trails. We enter from the back side of the park (Southern end) and rarely encounter more than 2 or 3 people on a 5 mile walk. I've been told it's a lot busier near the main entrance.

Grocery shopping hasn't been much of an issue. My wife doesn't like to food shop so I've been the only one going which is fine by me. Other than certain paper products, every grocery store in my area has had plenty of stock of everything I've needed.

I usually consider myself fairly introverted but I'm dying for some social interaction!

[Tricky Mike]

here's some glamour shots...

NSFW!

[csmutty]

Bear Brook is awesome! Lucky to live next to it! Mountain biking there is

[number9]

My daughter's college is giving a refund on the meal plan. But not tuition or room, which is most of the $$$.

Dartmouth is giving us back the mean plans (small $), the program fee (small $), and the housing fee (moderate $, but only some first-years live on campus).

There are definitely calls to get bigger refunds, as the tuition is stratospheric, but I don't think those calls are going to get answered.

[Stoneman]

My boy (7th grader, 13 years old) is doing incredibly well with his schoolwork now. He had struggles with schoolwork for the last two years to the point of getting him extra help. And of course, our wonderful school teachers up here down right refuse to do ANY after school help (they didn't get the 8% raises they wanted last year, we "only" voted in a 3% raise) so we were left to find a solution on our own.

The first couple days of remote learning were sketchy & shaky and I thought we were in for a world. Nope! His grades are better than they've been in these last two years without any outside help. And due to the lack of stress on his part, his attitude has changed drastically. What a turnaround for that kid!

[e30addict]

Dartmouth is giving us back the mean plans (small $), the program fee (small $), and the housing fee (moderate $, but only some first-years live on campus).

There are definitely calls to get bigger refunds, as the tuition is stratospheric, but I don't think those calls are going to get answered.

Double edged sword here. The cynic in me says colleges giving out large refunds to be people will have an easier excuse as to why tuition needs to be raised in the future. Dire financial times due to increased Cornona shut down costs...........

[number9]

Double edged sword here. The cynic in me says colleges giving out large refunds to be people will have an easier excuse as to why tuition needs to be raised in the future. Dire financial times due to increased Cornona shut down costs...........

It's business school, not undergrad school, so they don't really need a reason to jack the prices

[e30addict]

It's business school, not undergrad school, so they don't really need a reason to jack the prices

I was thinking more tuition b.s. in general.

B.U. is talking about pushing things until next year at this point. Small colleges were going under before this whole deal. I imagine the smaller schools are under immense pressure and the larger ones are seeing unacceptable hits that they'll want to reverse in due time.

[Garandman]

Dartmouth is giving us back the mean plans (small $), the program fee (small $), and the housing fee (moderate $, but only some first-years live on campus).

There are definitely calls to get bigger refunds, as the tuition is stratospheric, but I don't think those calls are going to get answered.

Dartmouth's Tuck Business School Tuition and Fees.

Yikes! Princeton undergrad is "only" $74,000 - not even Top 10!

Ivy endowments fell 20-25% in 2008-2009. Not clear where they will wind up after all this. The many schools that were marginally solvent are going to be badly hurt. Not to mention the whole resident-student business model has been overturned by these distance-learning programs, most of which being offered pass/fail.

[Paul_E_D]

My boy (7th grader, 13 years old) is doing incredibly well with his schoolwork now. He had struggles with schoolwork for the last two years to the point of getting him extra help. And of course, our wonderful school teachers up here down right refuse to do ANY after school help (they didn't get the 8% raises they wanted last year, we "only" voted in a 3% raise) so we were left to find a solution on our own.

The first couple days of remote learning were sketchy & shaky and I thought we were in for a world. Nope! His grades are better than they've been in these last two years without any outside help. And due to the lack of stress on his part, his attitude has changed drastically. What a turnaround for that kid!

In this situation, there was likely nothing the teachers could have done after school. The institution is creating the stress for your son. This is not uncommon. It's great that you have discovered that he can thrive in a less structured learning environment. There is a program local to me that is high school without walls so to speak. I highly recommend you look for something like this for him. http://www.northstarteens.org/

[Stoneman]

I'm putting my flame suit on give me a minute.

The teachers refused to stay after school to help him so you were left to find a solution on your own..... He's your kid man

Don't even start with me you fuckin' twerp. Anyone who knows us knows our kids are our lives and our lives revolve around them. Always have, always will. We do everything we can for them all. You wanna have a discussion about how we treat our kids, what we do for them and/or your fucked up perception about how we feel about spending time/resources with them? We'll have that discussion face-to-face you fuckin' twat...

[Stoneman]

In this situation, there was likely nothing the teachers could have done after school. The institution is creating the stress for your son. This is not uncommon. It's great that you have discovered that he can thrive in a less structured learning environment. There is a program local to me that is high school without walls so to speak. I highly recommend you look for something like this for him. http://www.northstarteens.org/

Bottom line is, we HAVE to get him out of that school. I'd love to have this discussion offline, in private with you. You could probably provide some great insight. We've seen too many kids like him struggle like hell in our middle school only to get to our wonderful high school and thrive. Once he started having scholastic problems, he gets labeled as a troubled kid. They start targeting kids like him and brow beat them - really put the screws to him. That added stress has only made things worse & worse. And with that added stress naturally comes some behavioral issues, many of them unfair to him. Again, I won't get into it here. Specifically I'm not about ready to listen to fucksticks like G21forme offer their dickhead commentary.

The simple fact that he doesn't have to deal with those teachers that run him like that is the sole reason behind him now excelling. We WILL be finding an alternative for him to finish junior high someplace other than his present school.

And we're far from the only parents that have had to deal with this these last couple years. It's rather wide spread and the current school board is too chicken shit to do anything about it. Thankfully, we have a group of parents that have vowed to run for the board that promise to clean this shit up.

[tsorfas]

Greg, no bs, im seriously beginning to question your English comprehension at this point. And English is my third language man.

[Stoneman]

Damn man really flew off the rails there. My boy is or was in the same boat. Behavioral issues, learning disability, anger issues you name it. His mum and I spent the time and money to take him out of public school and enrolled him in a charter school that had less students per class and more hands on if you will. And there was no bus so we had to coordinate our schedules to drop him off, 25 min each way. We also kept in touch with his teachers via email, texts, calls, and meetings. Every night has been homework, dinner, family games, and then he gets to go nuts with his mic on ps4 with his friends. I'm sorry your kids teachers aren't doing a good job of raising your child I really am, did you offer to pay them to stay late? Nope you didn't. My sister and sister in law have each been teaching for 20 years and this entitled bullshit is really tough on them because they really do want to see kids succeed. Or you could just blame teachers for not staying late for free...

It's your mouth that flies off the rails you fuck. FREE? The average salary of teachers in my town is now DOUBLE the average income of most single full-time workers. Fuck, a lot of them make about what a DOUBLE INCOME family make. FREE? Try again, you little grunt.

Again, move on. If you REALLY want to carry this on, I'll be happy to meet you somewhere to discuss this. It looks like we may not have much travelling to do.

[JettaJayGLS]

Definitely a change, but I'd say the +/-'s net out pretty good.

We both work in early stage biotech. Both of our companies are already many years away and have a low probability of ever generating revenue. That means we live and die based on our clinical results as they happen. This means we ALREADY were in a situation where we work strictly off of externally raised funds before any of this happened. Luckily for her, their trial has not been delayed and they just announced positive P2 results for their one clinical asset. Luckily for me, my company is focused on infectious disease...so yeah...we just raised $250M last week. On the flip side, all of our existing clinical trials are on hold.

She already worked 100% remote. Maybe went into the office 1 day a week. I went in everyday as my life is about 50% meetings and 50% excel. We went full remote almost immediately as did most of SF. Working remote through Zoom isn't hard since we are ALL on Zoom. Once you have part of the room in person and part of the room on camera it gets tricky.

Honestly. I love working like this, but both of us in 1 small apartment is tricky. For awhile we worked in the same room and it was distracting. We ordered another desk and separated to different rooms and it is much better. I find myself working more hours...but I like it. I'm regularly behind the computer until midnight, but I have full flexibility. I go ride my bike, walk the dog, etc when I can. I used to get up at 5:30, ride my bike before work, get in before 9, then try to make it home to go climbing and/or for dinner. Now everything is just a blend. I've been working a lot on weekends but it doesn't matter. They closed most of the parking lots to the parks to keep traffic down. However, everything is still open to bikes, so its a huge win for me: the best roads don't have any cars and the multi-use trails don't have any hikers on them. On the flip side, the parks within walking distance are absolutely PACKED and we frequent those too with the dog.

Food wise - we got most of our groceries delivered already. There is a bodega around the corner from us that is pretty well stocked that we go to for one-offs on an as needed basis. She made a sourdough starter like everyone else and we've been eating a loaf of bread a day, easy. The worst part is the coffee shop we live next to shut its doors. I was surprised - it was always packed and there was a long line of people standing 6 feet apart to pick up their to go orders. We usually went out to dinner Saturday and/or Sunday, which we now do via take-out. Thankfully, food delivery service here is pretty amazing. All the restaurants are on Uber Eats/Door Dash/other third party apps. We are tipping out the ass. We continue to pay our membership fees for the climbing gym and prepaid as much as they would let us. We are doing what we can whenever the opportunity arises to help out the local businesses and people.

Social wise. Ton's of Zoom meetings with friends. Lots of group chats. Had to get my dad an iPhone so he could face time. LOTS of card games on apps with friends while zooming at the same time. I would say total social interaction time is actually up because my friends are scattered across the entire country. In person it has been reduced to nothing. I miss riding my bike with my friends the most. Been just the two of us riding which is fun, but cycling provided the serious bro time I need.

The biggest downside is the lack of travel. We will ride our bikes places, but have decided we will not drive our cars to go do something. That means no Tahoe, no Santa Cruz, limited MTB. Europe trip cancelled.
I usually flew home ~once a month to see my family/friends and take care of house stuff. My grandmother slipped the other day and broke her pelvis. Things like that remind me I may never actually see them again. That is a tough pill to swallow.

[tsorfas]

But what he said had absolutely nothing to do with that. Not support from teachers or anything like that.

[Stoneman]

Threatened you?!? You're a bigger pussy than I thought. I extended an offer to discuss this face to face. Listening to your blathering from behind a keyboard is getting stale.

[jimmycapp]

I already work out of the house, but used to travel 2-3 days a week for sales calls. We sell into every industry, but in New England it's a lot more medical driven. Components for o2 concentrators, ventilators, respirators, ultrasonic welders (for making masks), and analytical devices. Production is over max, and running 24/7. Wife's hair salon is shut down for foreseeable future, so it will be nice when she starts collecting unemployment. Glad it's pretty nice out. Rescued a puppy last month, so we've both had lots of time for training and exercise.

[maxim_X]

For me work is similar. I build power lines, so we can't really quit that. staying in a hotel is a bit of a pain these days, because I have to 'prove' that I'm 'essential'. Outside of work, missing the gym is a huge life change. On top of that no racing for the foreseeable future.

My wife is a high school special education teacher. She is working more hours now than she ever did at school She has to track down and contact kids who are struggling, not turning in work, etc. Today she was on the phone with one of her students. With no precedent the teachers have made online lessons, and curriculum while having their hands tied in many ways. On the plus side she gets to hang out with our mutts everyday,

[xrocket21]

For me work is similar. I build power lines, so we can't really quit that. staying in a hotel is a bit of a pain these days, because I have to 'prove' that I'm 'essential'. Outside of work, missing the gym is a huge life change. On top of that no racing for the foreseeable future.

My wife is a high school special education teacher. She is working more hours now than she ever did at school She has to track down and contact kids who are struggling, not turning in work, etc. Today she was on the phone with one of her students. With no precedent the teachers have made online lessons, and curriculum while having their hands tied in many ways. On the plus side she gets to hang out with our mutts everyday,

Good on ya man. Lineman is tough and dangerous work.

[OreoGaborio]

Clearly an Australian Snowball

[Jim]

Rescued a puppy last month, so we've both had lots of time for training and exercise.

i've been looking to do the same thing. applied saturday. been replacing/building fence to close the back yard off for a dog.

[jimmycapp]

Yea. She looks like a polar bear.

We picked her up at a rescue in nyc, just before the shit hit the fan. Came from down south. Great Pyrenees. She’s going to be big. Just turned 3 months and she’s 30 lbs.

Lot of rescues are super strict on visible fencing. It’s crazy. I’m on 2 acres out of town and people would even call us back. Finally lied and got a phone interview. Socialteenyc is the one we got her from. Applied on Friday. Approved Saturday. They wanted specifics about containment outside. We have a run and will train for off leash like out last dog. They were content with that and we picked her up that Tuesday. Couldn’t believe how fast.

[Stoneman]

I already work out of the house, but used to travel 2-3 days a week for sales calls. We sell into every industry, but in New England it's a lot more medical driven. Components for o2 concentrators, ventilators, respirators, ultrasonic welders (for making masks), and analytical devices. Production is over max, and running 24/7. Wife's hair salon is shut down for foreseeable future, so it will be nice when she starts collecting unemployment. Glad it's pretty nice out. Rescued a puppy last month, so we've both had lots of time for training and exercise.

Is that a Samoyed?!?

[jimmycapp]

Is that a Samoyed?!?

No. Looks a lot like one but shes a Great Pyrenees. They said mixed with some husky.