matthearn.com

(If you aren’t a giant nerd, “^2” is shorthand for “squared.” Hence, hour 24*24, or day 24. I know. Don’t worry about it.)

Things continue more-or-less as they were. The number of sick people keeps climbing, as does the number of dead people, sadly. I won’t go into a lot of detail about the virus because that info can be acquired elsewhere. Instead, I offer a few highlights about what Team Hearn has been up to.

Official remote learning has begun! The kids use a tool called Schoology where they can get their assignments and communicate with teachers and peers. So far it seems to be working reasonably well, although it can be very, very hard for parents to figure out what assignments there are for a child without clicking each “course” and digging through it, which for 3 kids with 6-8 courses (specials like PhysEd and Music are included for the youngers) is time-prohibitive. Still, it keeps the children reasonably busy for a few hours, even if we end up having to monitor them and answer questions.

Working from home is going okay. It’s generally fine for me; there’s literally no reason for me to go to the office other than to be face-to-face with people, and because my employer has expanded so much in the last few years, we don’t have enough desks. Half the time I went to the office I had to find a little university-library-style carrel in which to set up my laptop, which means I don’t get my multi-screen view, so it’s actually less productive than being at home. I was working from home 3-4 days a week anyway.

Sarah’s job is more complicated because of the need to manage people and run training sessions and presentations, but she’s been using Zoom to her advantage there. Teacher “inservice” classes have been more or less cancelled at this point. The hardest thing was that she had started “facilitating” an actual college class this year, working with professors and running small discussion sections. That has proved a challenge for everyone involved, but they’re once again using Zoom to help. Hopefully they can avoid being “zoom-bombed” with porn…

As the weather improves we’ve been trying to spend as much time outside as humanly possible. I was able to mount a trailer hitch to our van, which means I can attach my 5-bicycle rack to it and haul wheels to places to ride. On Sunday, we loaded up and went to Bellevue State Park, where the boys and I put a few miles on our legs on the Delaware Greenway Trail, while Sarah and Josephine hiked around the pond.

Being trapped at home does give me more opportunity to work around the house, so I’ve been able to get yard work done when it hasn’t been raining. Hopefully this year I can get my lawn looking decent; every year I try to over-seed and fertilize, and every spring it still comes up with bare patches and brown spots. I also need to hack away at tons of stumps from trees that have fallen or been removed.

Since any church with any ****ing sense has cancelled all in-person services and is doing things online, I haven’t had to get up on Sunday mornings to go sing in weeks. However, I did get the opportunity to be the “Easter soloist” for my usual church, Christ Church Christiana Hundred. On Easter day they’ll release a pretty high-production-value video of a service featuring yours truly fighting his way through some challenging Ralph Vaughan Williams solos, along with hymns and other pieces with organ and trumpet, plus the actual Easter liturgy, minus the Eucharist. We recorded it in pieces last Friday and I think it went very well.

My facial hair situation has gotten…grim.

Sarah is not thrilled, but tolerating it. I keep hoping the moustache will fill out a bit, but based on the rest of the beard my hopes are probably going to be dashed.

Edit: For some reason this didn’t post on the day I expected it to, but instead on roughly day 29. I cannot explain this, but do not feel that you are crazy that this post seems mis-dated.