CoViD-19 San Diego Stats | COVID-19 Tops 1 Million Deaths Globally | President's Debt Is A National Threat | SD Red Flag Warning Continues | Photos: San Diego Zoo

Mid-jump ring-tailed lemur at San Diego Zoo (Taken 9.28.2020)

My godsister works at a fancy salon where she does manicures and pedicures. On Sunday while working, a woman made the last appointment of the day then showed up 20 minutes late, causing Claudes to have to stay past regular operating hours. Then the woman berated her for the job she was doing and told her the "right" way to do her feet, and then left giving her a $2 tip. 

What. A Scumbag.

And the thing of it is, these are the people demanding the reopening of everything to full capacity. It's not the people doing the jobs, though I'm sure there are some, it's the people who want people serving them so they can go to One Paseo and make the young black girl take their shit for a goddamn $2 tip. Today, while flipping through channels, we caught Supervisor Desmond complaining about chasing metrics, meanwhile the world passed 1,000,000 deaths. But to him, they're not "pure deaths" so they must not matter. 

Besides all that, it was a nice birthday. Darren and I hung out in the speakeasy last night, I slept in, Darren made me a lovely charcuterie and cheese board for lunch, we went to the Zoo in the afternoon, and then resumed watching Utopia, which I'm gonna get back to now. 

And in case you're wondering, Michael told me that after doing the math, the County's Tuesday assessment should be 7.2 cases per 100k, putting us back at the purple tier, though we won't move because you have to have two weeks for movement.

CoViD-19 San Diego Sunday Stats | Red Flag Warning For Monday

 

Me and the Fam at the San Diego Zoo (Taken 9.20.2020)

Gonna keep it short again today because I'm still celebrating my birthday weekend and I would like to get back to it. Today we celebrated with my parents and sisters and nieces. We grabbed Filipino food from Jochi Resto and enjoyed some cake and a few beers for good measure. Today's news was kinda crazy and I had some links but they got deleted so I'm just gonna let it go for tonight and maybe sort it out tomorrow. I won't be able to watch the Tuesday media briefing with Dr. Ghaly because I'm stage producing for the virtual North Park Festival of Arts (which won't broadcast until later) but regardless of where we end up, we won't be moving tiers. I'll catch up tomorrow with all the fun and terrible bad news. 

CoViD-19 San Diego Stats | Lockdown Results in Sexy Birds | Torrey Pines Trails Reopen | California Parks Tackle Colonizer Past

 

Today is Mhkaya's 2nd Birthday. I think she's the one on the left with Zuli who is about 2 months older (Taken 9.25.2020 at San Diego Zoo Safari Park) 

I do my best not to run errands on weekends but we made an exception to make a Target run. What a total shitshow. I don't know how they think one line feeding into all the registers is more efficient or safer but hopefully we won't have to go back anytime soon. And I know this is really exciting for nobody but me, but we bought a new toilet seat for the speakeasy and it's looking so much better than it has for the past few years. We also attempted Costco but their lot was nuts so we skipped it, but then we were back home and Nova's friend invited her over for a socially distanced backyard movie night, so we hit the La Mesa Costco and it wasn't quite so crazy being that it was nearing closing time. Plus we only needed a couple things to go with the five cases of beer we loaded up on. (Gotta buy that Alpine box while they still have it!!) Anyway, we're having a chill night in the backyard while the kid's away, so I'm keeping it short today. Stats and articles of interest after the jump.

• California COVID-19 Stats:
• 4,197 New Cases/798,237 Total Cases (0.5% increase)
• 134 New Deaths/15,532 Total Deaths (0.9% increase)
• 2.9% 14-day test positivity rate
• San Diego County Stats
• State Data:
• 405 New Cases/46,003 Total Cases
• 2 Deaths/775 Total Deaths
• 6.9 cases/100k population (Based on week ending 9/5, Assessed on 9/15. State uses Adjusted Case Rate Using Linear Adjustment)
• 3.8% Test Positivity (Based on week ending 9/5, Assessed on 9/15)
• County Data:
• San Diego County COVID-19 Update – 9-26-2020 - County News Center
• 330 New Cases/46,331 Total Cases 
• 0 New Daily Deaths/775 Total Deaths
• 3% Daily Test Positivity/3.6% (7-day avg after 7-day lag)/3.3.% Test Positivity (14-day average)
• 6.8 cases/100k population (Based on week ending 9/12, As assessed on 9/22. County is reporting unadjusted case rate per 100,000 excluding prisons)
• Case Investigation is 97%
• 5 New/18 Community Outbreaks (7-day)
• Universities:
• SDSU COVID-19:
• As of Sept. 25 at 6 p.m., 1,022 confirmed cases and 42 probable cases have been reported for a total of 1,064 cases. Of the 1,064 cases, 380 cases have been connected to students living on-campus. 
• Please note: Of the 83 confirmed cases added to the total case count today (Saturday, Sept. 26), only 16 are new cases. The remaining 67 cases were previously reported to the San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency, but only recently identified, through continued cross-referencing between San Diego State University and HHSA, as having an SDSU-affiliation.  
• Check other stats: UCSD COVID-19, USD COVID-19, CSU San Marcos, PLNU
• Other Stuff:
• How the Pandemic Transformed This Songbird’s Call: When the San Francisco Bay Area locked down, urban noise levels plummeted. In response, the white-crowned sparrow changed its tune. - Wired (9.24.2020)
• State Agencies Announce Steps to Address Discriminatory Names, Inequities in State Parks and Transportation System Features - California State Parks Press Release (9.25.2020) --Hopefully cities and counties follow and we can drop the hideousnous of having Balboa attached to our most beautiful park!!
• California State Parks experience goes virtual for K-12 students - Eagle & Times (9.18.2020)
• Torrey Pines trails have reopened. (9.24.2020)

CoViD-19 San Diego Stats | Photos: San Diego Zoo Safari Park

Southern White Rhino Holly and her new male calf at San Diego Zoo Safari Park (Taken 9.25.2020)

I'm gonna just bury my head from politics for the weekend. Monday's my birthday and I don't really need to keep reading all the back and forth and back and forth about the Supreme Court and the election and there's just so much to be angry about but we shouldn't be surprised so I'm just going to live in my bubble for a few days if I can.

Today we went to San Diego Zoo Safari Park because we heard there's supposed to be another "heat dome" weighing down on the region and once October hits, it's harder to go because all kids are free and it becomes a madhouse. But today was quite lovely, in the low 80s by the time we got there. I was lingering more, so we didn't do the full park, but we had some gorgeous moments with the baby elephants and then Holly, one of the Southern White  Rhinoceros' who recently gave birth was presenting her calf at the lookout so we spent more than an hour just oohing and aahing at how stinkin' cute they are. I'm gonna post a ton of pics at the end of this post after today's stats. Have a great weekend!!

CoViD-19 Math Check | DIre Outlook For Music Venues | Anti-Mask Governor Tests Positive

2020 Mercury Prize Winner Michael Kiwanuka (Taken 1.22.2020 at The Observatory North Park)

I got all dressed today to go to the Zoo and then quickly lost motivation and am now staring down another day at home, which is just fine by me. 

I have to give massive heaps of gratitude to a blog reader, Michael J, who reached out to clarify why my math was so off for the County's case rate. I was using both the county and state's daily cases, which measures the new positive cases by the date of the report. But for the tier system, they use the "cases by episode date", which can also be called the onset date, though not every case is symptomatic. Anyway, you have to be a super ambitious spreadsheet nerd to go through the data, but it can be found here. Thanks again, Michael, for walking me through that, and apologies for anyone who was misled by my past posts. 

The state changed their website today, so it took me a little longer to find things but it's actually a much nicer format. They, too, have open data which can be found here. Its a little too in the weeds for me, but I might geek out on it when I have more time. 

Today I watched a clip of Joe Biden speaking about how the president said "practically nobody dies" and Biden saying the 200,000 people who have died were not nobodies, and it got me curious about the people running this country. Did you know that besides the president, 27 senators are 70 or older? A good chunk of those are over 80. And a solid majority of them are over 60. I guess we can all only dream that we could have the healthcare that they do. 

CoViD-19 San Diego Stats | County's Remains Red Through (At Least) October 6 | We Need More Nathan Fletchers | Study Your Props | CalIfornia Advances Climate Initiatives

Haven't Left The House in 3 Days, So Here's Another Picture of Tikka On The Catio (9.23.2020)

Today's Governor's briefing was pretty long-winded but addressed the climate crisis. He signed an executive order that ends sales of internal-combustion cars effective 2035, but also included a number of initiatives regarding fracking, e-bikes and scooters, public transit, and infrastructure. I may read through the thing at some point but not today. The County Supervisors briefing, on the other hand, was pretty short because Fletch wasn't present and the phone lines weren't working so they just took a few media questions via text. I have got to get that number!! 
Anyway, Nova stayed home sick from school yesterday, so we've been laying low to keep an eye and we're pretty sure it was because she ate too much pepperoni too early in the day and it just didn't agree with her stomach. So, we'll get back in the world. She's gonna do derby right now and I'm gonna go shopping to pick up a few things we need and then we'll get her and tonight feels like a speakeasy night for sure. I keep saying that and falling asleep by 9pm. Not that that is a bad thing, but I purposefully slept in so I can go all night. 

CoViD-19: San Diego County Stays Red By Some Mythical Math Miracle | Rental Assistance Applications Open | San Diego Opera Announces Drive-In Series | More News

Today is also Elephant Appreciation Day (Taken at San Diego Zoo Safari Park on 8.23.2020)

After a new data assessment (which occur every Tuesday,) the County of San Diego is staying in the red tier. I don't know what magical math was done to make this happen, but it certainly isn't the data the state and the county have been presenting every day. Perhaps it's the reporting glitch that Dr. Wooten spoke of a couple weeks back, or maybe the daily counts have included jails and prisons, but it simply doesn't make sense. And if that's the case, then why don't they remove jail/prison counts from daily counts so we, as citizens, can actually follow the data that has been prescribed? This morning the asshole supervisor held a rally for their new efforts to reopen and a couple restaurant groups including Cohn and the Brigantine Family of Restaurants participated. My family doesn't really eat out much and we never choose those overpriced restaurant cliches anyway, but this pandemic sure is bringing to light businesses and restaurants that I will never visit. Anyway, I'm standing by for whenever Dr. Ghaly decides to speak. I have updated will update this post later this evening when with the County data comes in.

US Surpasses 200,000 COVID-19 Deaths | County Crosses 45k Cases | New Research Finds Pet Susceptibility | GAO: USA Lacks Plan

September 22 is World Rhino Day (Taken 6.28.2020 at San Diego Zoo Safari Park

In advance of today's weekly media briefing with California Health and Human Services Secretary, Dr. Ghaly, I thought I would do a little explainer on that fun little "linear adjustment factor" and COVID-19 news. State website generally updates at 11am, the County has a special meeting today at 3pm, with County data usually updates after 5pm.
More after the jump. 

Support San Diego Zoo's Virtual Food, Wine & Brew Celebration This Saturday

 

This Saturday at 5pm the San Diego Zoo is hosting a virtual Food, Wine & Brew Celebration. You can buy tickets to the virtual party, which also includes one of four boxes for pickup this week, including a Wine Lover Box, a Beer Enthusiast Box, or a Spirits Sipper Box for $50 each, or a $25 Non-Boozer Box. Get your tickets here until noon on September 25th. More information after the jump.

Today is National Voter Registration Day

Today is #NationalVoterRegistrationDay. Celebrate with @HeadCountOrg and make sure you’re #VoteReady. Register to vote or check your status now at HeadCount.org

You can also follow your ballot for San Diego here.

CoViD-19 Stats | What News Channels Keep Getting Wrong | Small Biz Defiance | Colds Are Back With A Vengeance

A Year Ago Today I Was Working at the Loft for a show with Phum Viphurit (9.21.2019)

I have a rant today, but I'll leave it after the jump because I'm actually in a pretty great mood tonight, despite over 400 new emails today. Seriously, it feels really tone-deaf for the moment, but maybe that's just because I'm the recipient of so much garbage. I slept so solidly (thanks, Bulleit) after a super fun night in the speakeasy. We kinda have fun rearranging things little by little and a good buzz certainly helps. 

What I'm really enjoying at the moment is watching all of Pea Hix's found footage videos on his YouTube channel, particularly this one with old footage of Balboa Park from the 70s. I'm also feeling a little mischievous because while Nova was at an open derby practice, Darren and I sneakily had Tacos el Panson. Seriously, they are the best. So things are bad in the world and also good. I hope everyone out there is coping as best they can with the world as it is. Though it may be time for a rewatch of Man In The High Castle. 

CoViD-19 Daily Stats | California Crosses 15k Deaths | Happy Birthday, Mom | San Diego Zoo Pics

My Dad Turned 72 on 9/7. Today My Mom Turned 70. (Taken 9.20.2020)

No doubt I've been hiding from the internet this weekend. I can't handle the right-wing hypocrisy, but I also can't stand the left-wing outrage, as if the moves this administration and Senate are taking should come as any goddamn surprise. They do whatever the fuck they want to, and until we stop letting our elections be determined by the minority with our bullshit electoral system, we are where we are. 
That said, I'm trying to make the most of the freedoms we still have. This morning we went to San Diego Zoo. It was kind of a mistake...arriving at 9:26am, the screening line twists about 9 times and went all the way to the Rondavel. In reality, it took 24 minutes to get in, but by the time you do, you've had enough sun, enough standing around, and enough of cringing at the people refusing to wear masks in line until the very last minute, only to take them off the second they pass the screening. Once inside it was mostly chill. We took some time to reenergize in Fern Canyon, got to see the Andean Bears and the Grizzlies before they went back in their 'apartments', and we got to see the keepers leash a dog and cheetah to walk them to a behind-the-scenes program. We got to see the amur cubs tumble around a little bit. We decided to Skyfari from the West Mesa, which took another half hour or so because they're skipping cars. I would NOT recommend this if you have kids in strollers, because you are no longer allowed to transport your stroller...meaning you either have to wait in line again to ride back or hike across the park with your kid(s) without the stroller to retrieve.
We left before noon because Nova was mopey and it was irritating me. So much so that I dropped her and Darren off for some alone time to do some shopping for a few things we've been adding to our neverending list. I like the Big Lots and Ross on Lake Murray and then swerve through San Carlos to hit the Grocery Outlet in Allied Gardens. 
After I got home I was way more chill, we put everything away, and after a little rest, we grabbed an ice cream cake at Baskin Robbins and spent the rest of the night enjoying Royal Mandarin and dessert to celebrate my mom's 70th birthday. Now D and I are hanging in the speakeasy and he needs attention, so I'm gonna end this here. I'll do news and stuff tomorrow, but today's stats are after the jump. 

CoViD-19 Stats | Purple Tier Math |

An oldie of Clark the Red Panda for #InternationalRedPandaDay (Taken 11.20.2019)

I attempted to be a functional human being today and have done my best to avoid the anger and punditry back an forth as a result of the death of RBG. I think I signed about a dozen petitions which will likely do absolutely nothing but then I really had to focus on staying offline. It didn't help that I woke up at the crack of dawn because my dad accidentally dialed me at 5:30am, but I found dumb ways to fill the day: some self-care/grooming (my eyebrows haven't gotten much attention these past several months), putting away laundry, making breakfast tacos. I finally started reading a book I had checked out from the San Diego Public Library app that I'm thus far enjoying called Hieroglyphics. We also vacuumed the house, which led me to a two hour project of taking apart my vacuum to clean the brush, hoses, and filters because it just wasn't sucking the way I want it to. Then I read some more until it lulled me into a proper nap.
It's now evening and my family was all gathered on our little balcony enjoying the golden hour of sunlight before Darren made us some bomb-ass cheeseburgers. Sunday is my mom's birthday, so I'm looking forward to hanging out in my parents' backyard, but I'm gonna have to give my sister shit and be especially sure to distance because she took the girls to yet another gathering where our friends are not masking themselves or their dirty little vector children. Needless to say I've not been invited to their gatherings in a very long time. Maybe next year. Today's stats are after the jump.