WuFlu Fallout . . .
A while back I talked about some of the societal changes that may be lurking in our future as a result of the recent WuFlu pandemic.
Some of them are obvious, like working from home and remote schooling. But others are more hidden because they’re connected to others, sometimes several layers deep.
A personal example is our daughter Brandi. She’s a Commercial Insurance Broker with a large national firm with expensive office space in the Westheimer and Beltway 8 area. Brandi’s been working from home for a couple of months now, while our grandson Landon was remote schooling from home also.
Originally her company said that they would be working from home until August. But now that’s changed and they will not be coming back until sometime after the first of the year. And the company is looking at permanently downsizing their office space by 30%, because they like this way this is working out.
And Brandi likes it too. She’s said several times how many money she’s saving on gas, tolls, lunches, clothes, etc., all the expenses of a full-time job and commute. And a lot of parents now working from home on a permanent basis are also looking at home schooling their kids, since they’re home with them.
Not remote schooling, but actual home schooling. There are a number of free K-12 online homeschooling curriculums available with excellent credentials. And more and more parents are, and will be, utilizing them.
One thing interesting is that parents that are already homeschooling find that their kids are testing above grade level, and they’re only spending 4 or 5 hours a day in their studies. No homeroom, no changing classes, no rollcall, etc., all make a difference.
But you also have to look at the fallout of these simple changes. Less commuting means less gas sales, less tolls, and less restaurants sales, just for a start. And then less commercial office rentals, less janitorial services, less electricity used, etc.
And on the homeschool front, more homeschooling means less children in public schools, less government funds coming to the school, less teachers needed, less school buildings needed and new ones being built. Also less busing, less drivers needed, and so on and so on.
And some people are talking about what’s going to happen to NYC. Rents there, commercial and residential, are the highest in the nation, and the WuFlu shutdown has shown many companies that maybe they don’t need that expensive office building, and it’s shown many workers that, if I can work from home, maybe I don’t need to live in the city in that $3000 per month, 600 sq.ft. walkup. Maybe I live upstate where I can rent something 3X as big for half the money.
And maybe it’s a reflection of this that May rentals in NYC are down 62%.
It’s going to be interesting to watch how all this falls out as the changes ripple down through our lives.
Another in our Where We Were 8 Years Ago Today series.
2012 was our first year of Oil Field Gate Guarding. And our last one where we worked during the summer heat. For the next 5 years we worked from the middle of August until the end on November.
June 12, 2012
But it’s a Dry Heat . . .
or, It’s Summer in South Texas!
When someone talks about the summer temperature in Yuma or Tucson, they always end by saying “But it’s a dry heat”. At which time I always say “So’s the inside of an oven”.
But the humidity does make a difference, believe me.
This was the temp here yesterday (Sunday). I actually saw 105 degrees for a few minutes but it was gone before I could capture it.
But note the humidity is 24%, not the 95 to 100% you’d see in Houston. And because of this low humidity, our misting system works to really cool things down. If you tried to use a mister in Houston you’d just end up hot AND dripping wet.
Sometime in the next few days I may try adding two more mister nozzles to my system for a total of four and see how that does. It did make a difference when I went from one to two nozzles.
And of course no blog is really complete without a Landon pic.
Although we just saw him less than two weeks ago, we already really miss the little guy. It’s amazing how fast he’s growing up.
I’ve been trying to get more info on our next drill site location. I know the lease name, and supposedly those leases are back on the east side of I-37, somewhere between Karnes City, where we were last time, and the Gate Guard Services office at the Whitsett exit. Hopefully this will mean we’ll have 3G cell service again.
Jan got in a baking mood yesterday and whipped up a big batch of her Oatmeal Walnut Chocolate Chip cookies. Hmmm, Hmmm, Good.
And then this morning when the Company Man, Juan, and the Company Safety Man, Ryan, made a run to Tita’s Taco Stand, they brought us back 4 of Tita’s delicious breakfast tacos.
Life is Good. Thanks again guys.
That’s about it for now. Things have been kind of slow for the last few days. We only had about 30 vehicles a day through the gate for the last several days.
Good for reading and napping, especially for napping.
Thought for the Day:
‘The Only Defense Against Evil, Violent People is Good People Who Are More Skilled at Violence.’
