Items

• 
  2020-10-28

  Selfish World Series

  I like many people needed a sense of normalcy in my life after the shut down and curfews day to day with no new entertainment on tv. Just the growing numbers of COVID on tv as well as the news from around the world, places singing while under lockdown. Soon Americans were wondering would that be us? Finally we got the news that sports were trying to make a comeback by using testing measures at that at that point were reserved for the people in hospitals, and those that were most at risk. This rubbed many people the wrong way. While months after those days had passed, multiple sports were back on and the playoffs of the MLB was the topic of the world with a heroic comeback in game 5 of the world series. The game 6 topic was that Justin Turner was pulled from the game during the eighth inning. He would come back to the field to celebrate the world series even though his inconclusive test turned out to be positive during the game. The pictures after the game show him without a mask on the field with the other players celebrating the win.
• 
  2020-06-01

  Drive Thru Graduation

  During the Pandemic there was panic and indecisiveness around graduation, soon ideas began to flow in, while I was on my way home from work one day nearing when graduations were happening I saw a long line of cars driving by with 2020 balloons, ribbons and soap writing “congratulations”, “ Class of 2020”, and other celebratory slogans. I realized there was a graduation at one of the schools close by. This caravan had people stopped on the side of the road or driving by honking and cheering those students in the car! It was heartwarming because during all of this there came something good and pure. While I had no part in these kid’s lives, I hope being there honking along with others I gave them a memory that will last forever. I sure won’t forget that either. I found this picture, but did not take it, because I was driving it was not safe with so many other cars around, so I used a photo I found online.
• 
  2020-09-24

  Zlatan Ibrahimović Gets COVID, Bad Idea

  During the return to play, Zlatan Ibrahimović was like any other player, he wanted to return to the game as fast as safely possible. During the next couple of months, the European leagues would open up with no crowds, cutout fans in the stands and the simulated sounds that tried to make it seem as fans were in the stands. Obviously, these players were not all free from COVID, with the traveling and the other people they inherently came in contact with play that would happen. Players were tested regularly, and sure enough Zlatan Ibrahimović tested positive.
• 
  2020-06-23

  A COVID Graduation

  I found this story of an in-person graduation to be a bit tragic story. This is because people wanted to believe that COVID was simply ignored in some states. While living in NC we had people that felt that it was just too little risk to slow down large gatherings, we also had restrictions that prevented this exact behavior. I saw many people were doing graduations online, and some were just not even having graduations at all. But this article shows that there was an attempt to hold this ceremony with indications that people were maybe encouraged to wear masks, but they were not mandatory. While there is no indication of more COVID positive people after the graduation, there is a sense of dread to have to go be tested especially after what should be a cause for celebration.
• 
  2020-05-05

  Boogaloo Bois

  During the riots after the death of George Floyd the Boogaloo Bois started to attend these rallies and seemingly supporting the BLM movement, while they seemed to look like they were supporting the police at first glance with their heavy weaponry and body vests that take a militaristic look with Hawaiian shirts under those vests. These are mainly gun enthusiasts who want to protect gun rights and want to have a government with less control. They are anti-government, pro-gun, who mainly are not racists as many people do believe. This was told to me by a coworker who I had the chance to get to know while working with him during the COVID pandemic. He told me that these guys are mainly misunderstood because people like to link them with White Supremacy because of the way they look and the way that they are perceived, due to some White Supremacy’s trying to link themselves to the Boogaloo movement. They have been given a bad rap because a small handful were arrested for shooting up a police building in early May 2020, in Minneapolis during a protest.
• 2020-08-28

  NBA Bubble

  During the pandemic all sports stopped, at least until there was enough safety procedures to safely play. The NBA found a location in Orlando at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at the Walt Disney World Resort, which was able to both house the teams invited as well as the staff and support staff for the teams. The games would be broadcast with virtual fans. This worked pretty well because the people in the bubble were tested and could work out and play on the many courts that the complex boasts. This idea was one of the better sporting decisions but with the size of the teams much more easily done than with other sports, with larger teams and more staff. The NBA soon returned and began to play and give people live entertainment with few COVID cases reported from the bubble
• 
  2020-08-10

  NCAA Football May Be back

  During the reopening phase, many schools were deciding on if there would be a college football season, after many of the professional sports seemed to be ok in starting. Baseball started out with a few games that were cancelled but would travel, and test players. The NBA had figured a way to play in a “bubble” where the players would stay on Disney resort and play each other and be regularly tested. But the NCAA had yet to figure out it’s procedure for College Football. Trevor Lawrence the star QB at Clemson wanted to play and let his voice, as well as other be known that they hoped to have the chance to have a season, and through playing many of these players would have a better chance of avoiding COVID-19 at school versus where they would normally be if no football or school happened.
• 
  2020-05-01

  What I did During Lockdown

  During the Covid pandemic lockdown was starting to ramp up and my manager came through the hospital with sheets that basically were to be shown to police or someone who would stop me from driving on the highway, or roads while going to work. This paper stated that I was an essential employee of the UNC hospitals, and that I had permission to leave my house. However many people were not allowed to go to work because their buildings were shut down and local government were not allowing businesses to operate. Some of my friends were let go, my sister was furloughed, and my roommates had to work from home. I never realized that the sheer boredom started to get to people. One of my friends had to take medication for anxiety because not being able to go to work or do anything social was becoming too stressful. While I worked a full 40 hours every week, I found that I had my weekends that I filled with classic films, new TV shows and all types of social media. Cleaning the house every weekend was part of my weekend routine because there was no where else I really felt like being, and seeing the whole hospital cleaned up I started finding things to clean around the house. Within a few weeks I began going to the local lake, Falls lake and would take long walks around it or just sit and watch the sunset, during the later part of the summer I went to photograph the sand storms from Africa that made the sunsets spectacular. While many people had to make things up and go back and forth between work and boredom and being in the same environment all the time, I was given the luxury to see the weekend in a whole new way. With the coming of the summer at the time people were expecting to have a summer hopefully and as can be seen in this video from Wral planning on having outdoor time that they could go about in the old social environments, such as the mall or local shops.
• 
  2020-10-16

  N95 Masks

  During the 2020 Pandemic my job shutdown like many others, but since it is part of the larger UNC hospital systems it was able to start a labor pool and my coworkers and I began working at the UNC Medical Center. The first day I was told that I would be working in environmental services, which means cleaning patient rooms. During my second day the manager told me that I needed to follow him after lunch and we started what would become a 6 month long journey. Day after day I slowly learned to navigate the large medical center, through multiple buildings all floors, all departments were going through masks. Every day I would travel to floors where Covid-19 patients would be in isolation rooms and slowly the floors were restricted to essential personnel. But my two coworkers and I, all seemed out of place. We would travel to each floor to collect the N95 masks that were discarded for sterilization. We would also receive boxes of use masks from other UNC Hospitals around the state. The process was for the three of us to go to each floor and collect the masks, bring them to a "dirty room" and sort out trash and masks that were either dirty due to makeup or that were broken or were not N95 masks. From there we would count the masks that we thought that could be cleaned and put them in boxes waiting for sterilization. We went through four sterilization processes, and the first three did not meet standards so the final process did work and was approved. The final process used an aerosolized hydrogen peroxide that would be in a converted shipping container that would circulate air and the hydrogen peroxide over and around the masks. After this process was complete we would take the masks out of the container and take them to a "clean room" and sort them once again for masks that had made it through our first screening and then we would package them for future use if necessary. Hopefully those masks will never be used. By the time I left that job there was talk that UNC was close to getting a provider for new masks!