Bryce Moore's Blog, page 67

Assessing COVID Risk for Kids

I’m going to lead off with the obvious: I’m not a doctor or a medical professional. I’m a librarian. I’m good at finding and evaluating information, but nothing in this post should be viewed as some sort of ironclad definitive statement when it comes to COVID risk for kids.

My main reason for posting this is that I’m the father of an 8-year-old, and I’m tired of vague statements floating around in the interwebs about “COVID isn’t as dangerous for kids, but it can still affect them.” My daughter can’t be vaccinated yet, but there’s a whole ton of things she’d like to do (and things we’d like to do as a family). Playing with friends. Going on trips. Heading to the store to go shopping. Mask mandates and usage are going down, and I recognize there are plenty of unvaccinated people who are going to be out and about not wearing masks.

What I really wanted to know is “how dangerous is it (really) for my daughter?” I understand that she might contract COVID. There are a whole ton of things that might happen to her in the course of any day. She could get eaten by a shark when we go to the beach. She could get struck by lightning. Where exactly does COVID rank in the order of “realistically dangerous”? Since I was already poking around online for the subject anyway, I thought I’d share what I came up with.

The CDC has a page that goes over some of this in a strange way. Using children age 5-17 as their reference group, they show how big of an impact COVID can have on different age groups in terms of hospitalizations and death. So looking at it, I can see that I’m 130 times as likely as my daughter to die from COVID. But that’s such a fuzzy number. I have a hard time wrapping my head around it in any meaningful way.

I tried to look for specific numbers from the CDC, but all I could find was this page that showed how many deaths occurred in children 0-17 years old. (As of this instant, 295 involving COVID. 1,152 if you include COVID and influenza and pneumonia.) That doesn’t seem like much. How many COVID cases have kids actually gotten?

The American Academy of Pediatrics answers that over here. 3.94 million. On the same page, it notes that kids were hospitalized in .1-1.9% of the cases. They died in 0.00-0.03% of their cases, which lines up with the CDC numbers I found. (0.03% of 3.94 million is 1,182, so if you attribute all influenza, pneumonia, and COVID cases as “potentially COVID,” then it’s about the same.)

I’m all about worst case scenarios. Let’s say that 1,152 number is all COVID (it isn’t), and let’s say all those deaths happened in a single year (they didn’t). How does that compare with other causes of death in children. (Talk about a chipper topic today . . .) I can’t find the data for 2020 yet, but here’s a study that details the leading causes of death for children in 2016.

12,336 came from accidents4,074 came from car crashes3,143 came from firearms1,853 came from cancer1,430 came from suffocation995 came from drowning

So COVID deaths in American children rated (at worst) less likely than suffocating, and just a bit more likely than drowning. A more realistic view would put it much lower on the list. (Told you this was chipper.) But isn’t this line of argument the same thing that was criticized back in 2020 when people tried to downplay COVID as a whole? What exactly did the 2020 cause of death numbers end up at? Look no further. In the US, COVID was the third leading cause of death, below heart disease and cancer, but well above everything else. People trying to brush it off as No Big Deal would have to argue suicide, diabetes, Alzheimers, and strokes are NBD either.

Is COVID potentially dangerous? Yes, for children and adults. But it’s much more dangerous for adults. For kids, it’s around the same danger as drowning. And like drowning, that’s a danger that can be further reduced by taking a few basic steps. Avoid deep water. Learn how to swim. Don’t swim unsupervised. Water is a thing that’s familiar, and we know how to do things to make it safer. COVID’s getting to that point as well.

Mind you, this is just looking at deaths. It’s ignoring hospitalizations or long COVID, though the numbers for children in those areas are also much better than for adults. I heard someone say to treat unvaccinated children about the same as you’d treat vaccinated grandparents. The risk levels are about the same. So would I take MC to a huge indoor party, unmasked? Probably not. Would I be fine having her play with friends outside? That seems quite safe to me, as does smaller play dates inside.

COVID cases in the country and in our area continue to fall. I don’t think you have to treat everyone you see now as a potential carrier. In all likelihood, they don’t have it. As I’ve said before, for me fighting COVID was never about getting to 0 deaths. It was about keeping the curve low enough that our healthcare system wasn’t overwhelmed. And in most places in America, we did that. Unless cases begin to spike again for some unforeseen reason, I’m good with having my daughter return to normal in most aspects of her life.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Television Review: Ted Lasso

There are times when I can feel very contrarian when it comes to what I want to watch. I might hear great things about a show, but I just put off watching it for no real reason other than “I don’t want to watch the same thing everyone else is watching.” Of course, other times I’m the first to line up for the thing that everyone else is going to be watching, so it’s not like I’m consistent. But for whatever reason, I delayed watching Ted Lasso even though I’d heard fantastic things about it from many different corners. A show about an American football coach who goes to head a British soccer team? It couldn’t be that good, could it?

Having now watched the whole season in about 4 days, I can confirm that yes, it actually is that good. I gave it a 10/10 and enjoyed every minute. That said, I definitely can’t unequivocally recommend it to everyone, so read on a bit to see why.

First off, why did I love the show? At its heart, it’s just wholesome. Ted Lasso is an incredibly optimistic, genuinely good person, and the show manages to be both heartwarming and very funny by placing him in a variety of situations where his nature just typically doesn’t belong. Perhaps one reason I was avoiding the show was that I generally don’t love shows where the main character does stupid things and is put in awkward positions. While I think The Office is hilarious, it often could make me feel too bad for the people involved, and so I’d have a hard time sticking with it for too long, just because I don’t like cringing non-stop. I worried Ted Lasso would be that sort of humor.

It isn’t. The show isn’t about making fun of Ted Lasso, or about people taking advantage of him. Often, they let him come out on top, showing how good nature can really beat out jaded underhandedness. He’s not the butt of the jokes. He ends up being able to use his positivity to overcome problems, instead of having it create non-stop problems for him.

The writing, the acting, and the characters themselves are all very well done. Really, the biggest complaint I had was that it was just 10 episodes, and I wanted way more.

So why can’t I recommend it to everyone?

The content. It’s rated TV-MA for language alone. There is no sex or violence to speak of, but the language is very salty, and not just with swears, but with subject matter at times. It’s not generally raunchy (though at times some of the characters definitely dip their toe into the raunch pool), but it’s pervasive. Is it necessary? That’s a different question. A lot of what makes the show so good is the contrast between Ted and the people he’s up against. By having the football fans all hate his guts (and be very specific as to why), Ted is even more admirable for being able to stand up to the hate and keep smiling. Could they have done it without all the swears? Definitely. Though then perhaps it would have felt less like Ted’s living in our world and more like he’s living in an alternate TV land.

Like it or not, people swear in the real world. Some of them are often raunchy. And this show is true to life in that way. Not all the characters are like that, but some are. Is this a show you’re going to watch with the whole family? I definitely wouldn’t. But if you’re a grown adult and four letter words aren’t going to turn you off right away, then it’s certainly worth your time. (Of course, it’s also just on Apple TV+, which might be a bigger turn off for many of you than the language . . .)

Have you seen it already? What did you think?

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Puerto Rico: Snorkeling

Keeping going with the various activities we did on our vacation. We spent an entire day going snorkeling, and it was a blast. That said, there are definitely some things I learned in the process that would likely help other people if they’re interested in doing the same thing on a trip to PR.

First off was trying to decide where exactly to go snorkeling. There are a ton of different options when you start poking around. For a long while, I was set on snorkeling right in San Juan. There’s a bay just off the beach in the heart of the touristy area that was supposed to have great snorkeling. No transportation needed (other than an Uber), and the price wasn’t too bad. (About $60/person). On the other hand, most of the articles I was reading about snorkeling down there said you’d be much better set to go out to one of the larger islands: Vieques or Culebra. The biggest trick with those is that they’re quite far away from San Juan. About a 45 minute drive at least. You can get an Uber over there for around $75 or so (one way, though that was just the one time I checked. I don’t know if that was cheap for the time or not), but that still seemed steep.

I did find some companies that said they’d offer transportation over to their launch site. They didn’t list the price, but in the end I decided to go with that. Pure Adventure was the company we went with. For $85/person, you got a boat ride to a beach on Vieques, another ride to the snorkeling site, photographs of the experience, trained divers to help you get started, and snacks. Seemed like a great deal. In many ways it was.

Overall, I’m very happy we went to Vieques, but there are a few ways it could have gone very wrong. First and foremost was the question of transportation. Two days before the excursion, I got an email that said transportation was just a request and not guaranteed. Perhaps I missed that in the advertising, but I had checked it pretty carefully. Suddenly it seemed like there was a chance I might have to pay a ton extra to get us over there. I had quite a few messages out to the company, and they weren’t returning any of them. That was unsettling to say the least. At last they did message us to confirm transportation would be happening. It cost $75 total (round trip), which wasn’t terrible. However, I did see some reviews of the company by people who hadn’t gotten transportation on their trip, and they were very justifiably upset. I would approach that with caution.

That said, the trip itself was fantastic. The boat was big enough for our group of around 25. It was about a half hour ride out to the beach, which was empty except for us, and very picturesque. We were, indeed, provided with snorkeling gear, though the “instruction” was basically, “Make sure it works. If you have any questions, ask us.” On the other hand, I had worried that I wouldn’t be able to see anything if my glasses didn’t fit in the gear. Spoiler alert: glasses will never fit in the gear. They interfere with the seal. By a huge stroke of luck, the company had one pair of goggles with prescription lenses, and those lenses happened to work perfectly for me. However, if I were to do this again, I would likely get my own goggles ahead of time and bring those. Or wear contacts.

The snacks they made us were much more like “lunch” than a simple snack. Nothing extravagant, but good wraps (veggie options were available) and fruit and soda and nuts. We ate after the beach, then headed to the snorkeling area. It wasn’t what I had expected, though I’ve only been snorkeling one time before: in the Red Sea right by a coral reef. This wasn’t like that. The creatures we were looking at were spread out below us about 20 feet, but there were a lot of them. I saw multiple sea turtles, sting rays, tons of fish, and even a shark that was about 5 feet long. (I heard after the fact that seeing a shark there is rare. The dive guides certainly seemed excited about it at the time.)

One thing I wasn’t a huge fan of was that we were all basically going everywhere in a big clumped group. I would have liked to have been more on our own, or better spread out. If I were to do it again, I think I would stay more away from the clump. That said, I was also struggling with my mask. I was getting a bunch of water up my nose, which made it so I had to keep pausing to adjust it every few minutes. After I got back to the hotel, I searched the problem some and discovered that it was happening because of my beard. (Hard to get a good seal with a beard.) Easy to overcome–you just breathe out through your nose instead of your mouth when you want to clear the mask of any bits of water. (That tidbit of information would have been nice for our “dive instructors” to tell me about . . .)

So. All told, it was gorgeous, and fun, and it all worked out, but next time I go, I know more about how to handle things and what to expect. As always, if you have any questions, just ask.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Puerto Rico: Bioluminescent Bay

The promotions I saw for the bioluminescent bay tours seemed just too cool to be true. There are 5 of these in the world (3 of them are in Puerto Rico). Bays were algae live that glow when they get moved. So as you paddle through them at night, the water glows. I’m a sucker for anything glow in the dark, so how could I resist? There was a paired tour (rainforest in the morning, bio bay at night) that offered a discount, so I was sold. The rainforest (as I mentioned a couple of days ago) was incredible. Could the bioluminescence seal the deal?

Because we were going right after the rainforest, we took the first of the two tours the group offers. (They do one around 6:30 and one around 8:30.) I had thought at first that would be way too soon for it to be dark enough, but the sun set around 6:45 each day, and it was usually plenty dark by 7 or so. We left from a spot near Fajardo. (The specific bay we’d be exploring is called Laguna Grande.) To get to it, you paddle about a mile through a mangrove forest. We’d arrive on the bay in time for sunset, hang out until it was dark, and then see the cool glowing things and paddle back.

What could go wrong?

Well, actually . . . To start, we were in a group of about 20 kayaks (with 2 people per kayak). Many of these people had never kayaked before, and they were given about 10 minutes of instruction heading into the trek. Then we were told to kayak in single file. Seems easy enough on the open ocean, the channel through the mangrove forest was anything but straight. It twisted and turned like a snake. and there were roots jutting out all over the place to catch your oars (or your eyes, if you were unlucky). And we weren’t the only group of 20 out there. I saw around 4 other groups making their way through. They try to schedule it so that there aren’t too many people in the channel at once, but that doesn’t work all that well.

It’s not like Denisa and I are kayaking pros, but things got even worse with people ramming into us from behind, or suddenly stopping in front of us. And did I mention there were mosquitoes? Soooooo many mosquitoes. They only came out for dusk, so we just had them on the paddle out, but I probably got 40 bites in about 20 minutes, and that was with me already having put on a fair bit of bug spray.

But we persisted. We got through the channel, and we made it to the bay. Sure, we were scratchier than we’d been at the start of the trip, but we were ready for the glowing!

Sunset was beautiful. Denisa and I paddled around some, and darkness fell quite quickly. The tour guides had us all come together again once it was dark enough, and they told us to each look over a different side of the kayak (so the kayak wouldn’t flip) and move around the water to see the awesome. Honestly, it looked like the water was a bit whiter than usual, but no whiter than air bubbles would have made it. I was very underwhelmed. Undeterred, our guides had us take out tarps they’d put on each kayak. We unrolled them and put them over us, blocking out all light. Once we had done that, we could scoop the water from the bay into our kayaks, and it looked like tiny glowing specks were coming aboard. They were fairly bright, and off white, and there were around 20 per handful of water.

Was it cool? Well, yes. But I was in a row of 20 other kayaks, totally covered by a tarp (and 40 bug bites), trying to maneuver my hand into the water so that I could see the little glowing things. It wasn’t quite what I’d gone in expecting. (I talked to the guides later, and they said it’s really hit or miss with the bioluminescence. It all depends on the ambient light, the temperature of the water, the weather, the time of year, and more. So many factors, it’s impossible to say for sure what the experience each night would be.)

And then we had the opportunity to paddle back through the channel, this time with other groups coming in the opposite direction, and it was almost pitch black, and we had no flashlights. We were also now paddling against the tide.

So. Would I do this again? Definitely not with kids. I think MC would have gone crazy, and trying to steer us and the kids would have been a real challenge. If I did do it again, I would do the later tour. For one thing, I think it would be even darker, which would help. I would also avoid the bugs that came out at dusk. But before I wanted to do it again, I’d want a better idea just how often the experience really is as advertised. Maybe I got unlucky. Or maybe it’s a case of overselling and underdelivering. I would be willing to go with a smaller group in the middle of the night, if that would make for a better, less crowded experience. The large tour group, in this case, drove me batty.

Anyone else out there done this and had a better experience? I’d love to get some more data points.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

It’s Not You, Malazan Book of the Fallen. It’s Me

I’m a completionist at heart. I like finishing what I started, though over the years I’ve been able to wean myself away from the innate need to finish any book I start reading. I also don’t generally write reviews of books that I didn’t like, simply as a professional courtesy to other authors. But here’s the thing: I liked book 8 of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series (Toll the Hounds). Steven Erikson does a tremendous job of making epic fantasy really feel epic. When the book is clicking, it’s really riveting stuff. I care about the characters, I’m in suspense about what’s going to happen next. It’s heady stuff. There were scenes in the book that were fantastic.

And yet I gave the book a 7/10, and I made the decision to not continue with books 9 and 10 to finish the series.

I’m 80% of the way through the books, and I’m stopping? What the what?

The problem is that I just don’t get what’s going on for long swathes of the series. When we talk about epic fantasy, we talk about steep learning curves. The amount of time and attention you have to devote to the book to be able to really understand what’s happening. In fantasy, anything is possible, so it takes some time before you can understand the way a world works. What the rules are of that world. It’s a price I’m willing to pay, typically because the pay off is really good. I think of Neal Stephenson’s books. Anathem was totally confusing and bewildering, until suddenly I got it, and then I devoured the rest.

In earlier books in the Malazan series, I felt that same experience. At some point, the story would crystallize, and I’d be off and running. But the longer I read the series, the more I began to feel like I wasn’t up to the task anymore. I would find myself pausing reading to go look up the Malazan wiki to see just who it was who I was reading about at the moment. I couldn’t remember plot lines. Couldn’t keep track of character arcs.

It was like I was watching a movie through a bad internet connection, and so I kept missing huge chunks of what was going on, and I just ended up bewildered. And the further I went into the series, the more severe this became. New characters were introduced to the point that it felt kind of like I was staring at a Where’s Waldo page, except I knew if I were smart enough, then I’d be able to remember what everyone on that page was doing other than Waldo, and I’d really care about it.

In the end, I just can’t keep it up. Yes, I’m two books away from the finish line. I had thought if I read the series in one big go, then it would all make sense. I thought wrong. And I’ve resigned myself to that. There was a time in my life where that sort of book was just what I was looking for. That time in my life isn’t now. It’s not because the books are bad. It’s because they don’t work for me, even if I wish they did.

If anyone ever asks me for a recommendation for a really epic fantasy, Malazan will be right at the top of my list. But it’ll come with a disclaimer. An acknowledgement that the series was beyond me personally, though I really enjoyed pieces of it. That might sound like faint praise, and it’s certainly conflicted, but it’s not every day you come across a series you both love and yet also realize isn’t quite for you.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Puerto Rico: The Rain Forest

Hands down, the highlight of our trip to Puerto Rico was our tour of El Yunque, the only tropical rain forest in the US national forest system. When I’d first thought of going down to PR, seeing the rain forest was high on my To Do list, but I sort of just assumed I’d do it like I’ve done other national parks. Drive in, check out a visitor’s center, and maybe do a hike somewhere or something. Once we had ditched the “rent a car” idea, driving anywhere was out of the question. (Well, I suppose we could have taken an Uber, but I didn’t want to.)

Thankfully, there are a number of tour companies in the San Juan area that will pick you up from your hotel in the city and drive you out to wherever it is they’re going. We settled on Island Journeys, and we were very happy with them. They swung by our hotel at 9:30am to pick us up in what was basically a mini-bus. There were about 20 other people on the bus, so I was very glad I was vaccinated. (They asked people to keep their masks on for the whole ride. The way there, that wasn’t a problem. The way back . . . people became much more lax with their masks. That was something I saw a lot of on the trip. Once wearing a mask became less than comfortable, people became much less likely to wear one. Surprise surprise.)

We first stopped at a small fruit stand about a half hour outside San Juan. There, our guides bought some fruit for later, and Denisa and I each bought a fruit smoothie. It was basically fruit and ice and nothing else. I had pineapple, and Denisa had mango. They were delicious.

I followed along on Google Maps to see where exactly we were going. El Yunque is a large forest, after all. We ended up not going to the north entrance as I had sort of assumed we would. Instead, we drove around to the southeast corner, where the bus took back roads and ended up going into someone’s private property that adjoined with the rain forest. Seems like the owner has a deal worked out with tour groups to let them park there and hike in. We probably saw 4-5 other 20 person groups through the course of our tour. (Generally speaking, I’m not a fan of tour groups. Especially not in nature. But for this, where we were doing something totally foreign to me, I ended up not minding so much.)

They had told us going into things not to wear sandals. I had to choose between either wearing my sneakers or ignoring their advice and wearing my Columbia sandals. Since they also said we would be getting totally wet, I ended up going with the sandals, since the thought of having drenched sneakers for the rest of the trip was less than appealing. In hindsight, I 100% made the right decision. The path wasn’t just wet. It was muddy. Soooo muddy. My sneakers would have been ruined by the end of the hike. True, there were rocks and roots and whatnot, but nothing my sandals couldn’t handle. Flip flops would have been a big mistake, but athletic sandals were totally fine.

Heading into the hike, we’d read warnings from the guide group that it would be very strenuous, and that we had to be in excellent physical condition. I’m not completely out of shape, but “excellent physical condition” seemed like it might be a stretch for me. I needn’t have worried. The hike itself was slippery in spots, and steep in spots, but I never was out of breath, I don’t know how far we hiked. A mile or two at most would be my guess, round trip. I had gone expecting tons of bugs, but I actually didn’t see a bug the whole time. Apparently the area we were in gets frequent flash floods, and those floods complete wipe out any mosquito population before they can get a toehold.

We hiked into an area with a small river running down the middle of a gorge. Huge tropical plants and jungle walls on both sides. Multiple waterfalls and cliffs. It looked just like you’d imagine it. (I don’t have any pictures yet. The company took some, but I haven’t gotten them, and I didn’t bring my phone, because they weren’t kidding when you said you’d get completely wet.) We went down two different natural water slides, and we jumped off a 10-15 foot cliff. (There was a 30 foot cliff we decided not to jump off from. Because I’m a chicken, I guess. Some people jumped off it three times. They seemed to be having fun.)

They served us the fruit they’d bought in the morning, and it was fantastic. The weather was breezy (something it seemed like was a perpetual state in PR. The temperatures were in the high 80s, and it was tropical, but with the constant wind, it really didn’t matter.) Just a great expedition from start to finish.

Would I do it again? I’m not sure, now that I’ve done it once. I would want to check into other places in the rain forest to see if I might go check out some other parts of it. That said, if it’s your first time, I would 100% recommend it. And who knows? After doing research, I might decide a repeat trip is just the ticket. It really was a wonderful time.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Puerto Rico: Figuring Out San Juan

Not having the chance to blog while I was away on vacation, I’m going to try to post some entries about the different parts of our trip, on the off chance that it’ll help someone later, or at least be interesting to read, should you want to think about things other than the same old same old. First up? The city itself. We picked Puerto Rico because we hoped it would feel international, without actually having to be international. We were definitely not disappointed.

San Juan is the main city of the island. It actually has almost 2.5 million people in it, so you shouldn’t go thinking you’re going to be tucked away in some small backwater. That said, there definitely seemed to be a tourist part of the city and an “everywhere else” part of it. We spent all our time in the city right along the coast, bouncing between the hotel areas and Old San Juan, which is right at the point of the city. I only saw the rest of the city from the plane as we were flying over, so I don’t really have anything to contribute when it comes to that part.

Old San Juan is great, but quite small. It’s filled with touristy shops and restaurants, though it does have a couple of things worth checking out. There are two old forts that are very cool, and it’s got the San Juan Bautista, the second oldest church in the western hemisphere. (Also the burial site of Ponce De Leon, who served as governor of the city.) That said, the church is quite simple, so don’t go expecting anything like the cathedrals you’ll find in Europe. There’s also no real central square or plaza to check out. The old city is more an area of twisting streets with a small public area here and there. (Though cool side note: it uses this blue-grey stone for its cobblestones everywhere. The stone isn’t native to the island. It was brought over to San Juan as ballast by the Spanish trading ships, so they were properly weighted for the voyage to the island. On their voyage home, they’d be loaded down with all the goods they were bringing back from the new world. The people in San Juan had all this rock, so they needed to use it for something . . . )

All told, we went into Old San Juan twice, but the second trip was fairly redundant. (We hadn’t found any good souvenirs for the kids, so we had to trek back in to get them something. In hindsight, we should have bought them on our first trip in on the first day.) I’d say you could plan for an afternoon to see Old San Juan. If I were to do it again, I would probably time the trip to get there in the afternoon, so I could be there for the day, and then see what it looked like at night, but I like seeing cities at night.

I was surprised by how few people were in the Old City. Most of the places we went outside of the city were booked weeks in advance, so I was expecting mobs. There were anything but. Also, I was impressed by the extent all the stores went to for COVID safety measures. You had to take your temperature everywhere, and you had to disinfect your hands each time you entered a store. Masking was very well enforced in the old city.

We had debated getting a car for the trip, but after talking to some friends, we decided against it. A car was going to be expensive ($500 or more for the 6 days we’d be there, and we’d have to pay for parking at the hotel as well). Instead, we took Ubers around the city, which were relatively easy to get (as long as you were in the more populated areas), and typically not too expensive. (Though that changed wildly depending on the time. A 10 minute trip from our hotel to the Old City ranged from $12 to $40. Thankfully, we were able to avoid the $40 times.) To see places outside of the city, we booked tours that included transportation from San Juan. (More on those in a later post.) I’m very glad we didn’t get a car. Maybe on a later trip, if I wanted to check out other places on the island, but for this, it would’ve been a waste.

As far as places to stay, we were constrained somewhat by wanting to use up Marriott nights that would expire in August. We settled on the Courtyard Isla Verde Resort, a place right on the beach that qualified for the free nights. (Though we had to pay $25/night in resort fees. These covered free waters each night, boogie boards, towels, beach chairs, etc.) It was a good resort. Its place on the beach was perfect, and the beach was practically empty the entire time. A few drawbacks: it’s right by the airport, so you’d hear the planes taking off. It’s also an older hotel, so it felt well-used. Restaurant options in the hotel weren’t great, but I attribute a lot of that to COVID. There were some decent places to eat within walking distance.

The other potential downside was that it was quite far from the rest of the Old City. There were many more hotels closer, but other than the more expensive Uber ride, I wasn’t sorry we weren’t down there. Those areas were very dominated by hotels. The one time Denisa and I were there and looking for a place to eat, it was hard to find a lot of options that weren’t in a lobby.

All told, we were happy with where we stayed. The price was great, and it all worked out well. My only real regret is that we didn’t give ourselves enough time to enjoy that beautiful beach. We swam there once, and walked along it twice, and that was it. (Not that we weren’t in the water elsewhere, but still . . . Though then again, what do people actually do when they’re just sitting at the beach? I don’t think I would have liked to be there *too* much more, but another afternoon or a morning would have been nice.)

Oh–one last note. We didn’t get an all-inclusive hotel, and that was on purpose. I wanted to get away from the hotel and do things elsewhere, and I didn’t want to feel like I needed to eat at the hotel all the time to get my money’s worth. If we’d gotten one, I think that would have been my natural inclination. I don’t regret the decision, but then again, I still haven’t stayed at an all-inclusive resort, so maybe I don’t know what I’m missing . . .

That’s it for today’s entry. More to come later!

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

On Ending the Mask Mandates

Man. I leave the mainland for a few days, and everything changes while I’m gone. What’s up with that, America?

Before I left on my vacation, I probably would have had many more issues with the speed of this mask mandate change. Now that I’ve been 6 days among the general population, however? I don’t have nearly as big of an issue with it.

Here’s the thing: from what I’ve now seen, I believe masking has largely been an exercise in health theatrics. Don’t get me wrong. I believe they were (and are) necessary for those people who aren’t vaccinated, and I believe they work, and I believe people who aren’t vaccinated should continue to wear them. (This includes both Daniela and MC, since neither one is vaccinated yet.) However, I also believe the evidence the CDC based its change on is as clear as it’s going to get for now. Vaccinated people don’t need to wear masks.

I know the question that’s going to follow: “But what about all the unvaccinated who are just going to lie and say they’re vaccinated so they don’t have to wear a mask?” Except those people haven’t really been masking anyway, folks. While I was away on vacation, I saw so many different approaches to mask wearing. You’ve got the nosers, who just tuck it under the nose. You’ve got the Abraham Lincolners, who treat it like some sort of chin strap. You’ve got the handers, who keep it in their hands. And you’ve got a lot of people who adjust it so that it’s just close enough to look like it’s on their nose, without actually having it on their nose. (Seriously. I watched older men on two separate occasions fuss with their masks for a long time to just them just right. As in “just right below their nose, where they won’t do nearly as much good.”)

It was one thing to come across these types in Walmart or out and about, but when I was on vacation, I saw so many, it was all much easier to recognize. And having a mask in the general vicinity of your face instead of actually on your face is a huge difference. If nothing else, changing this mandate will make it less likely that people will yell at each other over the issue, or worse.

What will I personally do? I’ll do whatever I’m asked to do. If I’m out and about outside, I won’t wear a mask, I don’t think. There’s just no evidence to say it’s necessary. If I want to go into a store that has a sign that says “Please wear a mask,” then I’ll put a mask on. It’s not difficult. If I’m visiting a friend and they want me to have a mask on, I’ll put one on. That’s just being courteous. If a friend visits me and they’ve been vaccinated? No mask needed!

It does get trickier for my two daughters who haven’t been vaccinated yet. True, COVID is generally less dangerous to them than regular influenza, but there are some fringe cases where they can get long COVID or MIS-C. So I’ll be having my girls mask up when they’re inside with other people, and I’ll think twice before I have them go someplace inside as well. Not necessarily because I’m terrified they’ll get COVID, but more that I want to do what we can to continue slowing the spread of the disease. Kids get COVID and give it to others. Like, for example, those unvaccinated people who think it’s a hoax and lie about being vaccinated so that they don’t have to wear a mask. I might think those people are behaving foolishly, but I still don’t want them to get sick.

It’s called “being kind and considerate,” and it’s something I’ve been trying to be more of, even during the pandemic. I highly recommend it.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Puerto Rico Bound

I will be taking the week off from the blog next week, as I’m heading to Puerto Rico on Sunday morning. PR was about as international as Denisa and I were willing to get at this point. We picked it because we thought it would be fairly easy to get there and back again. I’ve been surprised, however, at just how complicated the process has been. There’s a rule that everyone coming into the territory has to have a PCR molecular COVID test. These are more robust than the ones you can just drive over to the pharmacy to get. We had to make a special appointment at the hospital to get ours this morning, which could only be done by first getting a referral by our Primary Care Physicians. The test itself wasn’t too bad. Just a thin Q-tip up each nostril until they hit brain.

Assuming we’re both clean (and I expect we are, since we’re both fully vaccinated, and I just barely had my weekly COVID test at the university on Wednesday, which came back negative yesterday), then we have to go to a special Puerto Rican website, register, and upload our negative test results. This will in turn generate a QR code that we’ll be able to then scan when we get to San Juan, which will let us out of the airport.

(For those people who don’t get the test, they can pay fines of up to $300 and then take the test in San Juan, at which point they have to quarantine until the negative result comes back. Puerto Rico ain’t messing around. In addition, there’s an island-wide curfew of 10pm, all indoor business and restaurants are capped at 30% capacity, and I’m sure there are likely some other requirements I’ll discover when I get there and try to actually do anything.)

Still, vacation! I will be stepping away from most electronics as much as I can, with the exception of my revision of THE AXEMAN (now tentatively with a new title that I might share when I get back). That’s due at the beginning of June, and I’ve done the math, and I don’t have time to take a week off and stay sane in the last half of May. So sanity will have to win out over vacationing.

Try not to have too much fun while I’m gone!

Bryce’s First Law: People are Bad at Evaluating Evidence

When I was on my mission in Germany, I had the chance to talk to a lot of people (a lot of people) about things you typically don’t talk to strangers about. Yes, it was really outside my comfort zone, but at the same time, it gave me the opportunity to see how many people think. What reasons they have for doing what they’re doing. How they critique what other people are doing. That all comes from starting a lot of your conversations by introducing yourself and asking, “Would you like to hear a message about Jesus Christ?” (In German, of course. Though I don’t recommend using German if you want to try the same thing here in America. Not many people speak it here, you know.)

One of my big takeaways from that experience (and something that’s been confirmed for me time and time again in the 20+ years since then) is that people do what they want to do. I know this shouldn’t seem like a huge revelation, but it gets a bit deeper when you pair it with the realization that people also want to make the right decision. Very few people sit back and say, “This is a stupid thing I want to do, and it makes no sense, and only an idiot would do it, but I’m going to do it anyway, because it’s what I want to do.” Mind you, I think many of us actually do use that sort of logic as we make any number of decisions every day, but we’ve developed this workaround.

We look for someone or something that tells us what we want to do is actually a good idea, and then we listen to that person or source above any other objections.

In religion, this meant that even people who were looking for a new religion were typically focused on finding a religion that told them that everything they already believed was right. This was frustrating to a 19 year-old missionary, since I was trying to get people to see for a moment that if religion is about the worshipping of a literal, real, existing God, then it might make sense to ask God what He expected out of a religion. That said, I’ve since seen plenty of examples of people using religion as a “something that tell us what we want to do is actually a good idea.” (Religion is very handy like that. You can just tell someone you believe something is the right thing, and there’s really no way of arguing that you don’t believe that. It’s the headache of justifications. If I tell you I have a headache and need to go lie down, how in the world are you going to tell me I don’t? Mind you, God knows if you’re using religion as an excuse or not, so I suppose it’ll all even out in the end, but that doesn’t do us much good in the here and now with people using it as a blunt object to support everything from genocide to bigotry to homophobia to who knows what else.)

But this doesn’t just apply to religion. Look at any number of hot button topics being debated in society these days, and you will find the “look for someone or something that tells us what we want to do is actually a good idea, and then listen to that person or source above any other objections” approach in action. Climate change was decided for many people decades ago. They came upon the “some scientists don’t believe it’s true” argument, and they’ve hung onto that argument like grim death ever since, ignoring any and all additional evidence that the world is slowly turning into a hot tub. Abortion? There are any number of sources out there that will convincingly tell you any facts you want to hear to justify any position you want to take on the matter.

The same is true for COVID. Think it’s no big deal? I’ve got some articles and statistics that will confirm that. Think it’s just a shade less bad than bubonic plague? I’m sure we can get you covered for that as well. Want to get vaccinated? Want to not get vaccinated? Want to be vegan? Want to not exercise? Want to drink coffee? Want to not drink coffee? You’re going to be able to find something that will confirm to you that the thing you want to do is actually right and proper and really the best decision to make, all things considered.

Except that’s the thing. All things aren’t being considered, because humans are incredibly bad (on the whole) at evaluating evidence. We’re easily swayed by single examples and exceptions. I’ve talked to numerous people who don’t want to wear seat belts because they knew someone who got trapped in a car wreck because their seatbelt wouldn’t release. So they’ll ignore the mountains of evidence and studies that confirm it’s far safer to wear a seatbelt. With COVID right now, you have people who argue that COVID just isn’t that dangerous, but then they’ll turn around and argue they won’t be vaccinated because those vaccines are too worrisome. On the flip side, you had people who were citing all reputable sources about the importance of mask wearing and COVID precautions who are now refusing to let go of some of those precautions as the vaccine rate increases.

This isn’t a red problem or a blue problem. It isn’t a rich problem or a poor problem. It’s not an educated problem or an ignorance problem. It’s a universal human problem that’s being exacerbated by the fact that there are so many other sources of information out there to provide fodder for justifications.

Of course, it’s one thing to identify a problem, and another to actually do something about it. I have no idea how to combat this principle in every day life. I’d say it would help to share better resources and link to places that have reputable studies, but as I said, there are plenty of places out there that will contradict whatever I link to. People are fond of saying “do the research, you’ll see I’m right,” but just because the random dots you see out there happen to link up to form a shape that’s kind of reminiscent of Scooby Doo if you squint hard doesn’t mean that Hanna Barbera is actually running the universe.

I suppose in the end, all you can really do is try to avoid the problem yourself, and do what you can to help others avoid it as well. If someone really does want to make good, informed decisions, then I believe they’ll win out in the end. Perhaps a good litmus test would be to ask yourself how many times you want to do something and then, after investigating it properly, you end up changing your mind. If the answer to that is “rarely or never,” then you’re likely falling victim to what I’ll call Bryce’s Law (because this is my blog, and I don’t know that anyone’s already named the law. (And even if they have, I can now cite evidence that this has always been called Bryce’s Law . . .)).

How many times have you had a knee-jerk reaction to something, looked into it, and then discovered you were wrong? Again, the correct answer should probably be “frequently.” Or maybe that’s just me, and I’m just typically wrong more often than most . . .

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.