The Last Days of Mask Mandates are Now

I feel suffocated by the face mask that California requires me to wear in the hospital where our daughter recuperates. The rule applies to healthcare facilities of every ilk. But count the days. Starting April 3, 2023, face coverings will no longer be required. Related: The mandate demanding that healthcare workers to be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2)/COVID-19 also ends.

Across San Diego, significantly noticeable number of residents continue to wear masks. Meanwhile, I see more and more of them discarded, each and every day, like the Featured Image. The mask presented for photographing, inside IKEA, on March 1, 2023.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 24, 20239:38 pm

A Solemn Story

Sometimes the best photo isn’t the best shot but the one you need. The Featured Image won’t flatter my photographic skills—or entice you to do the same. But the serene view, overlooking the stairs going down to Swami’s Beach in Encinitas means to soften today’s grim story.

In the hospital where our daughter recuperates, the woman in the room’s other bed isn’t so fortunate. She has moaned in pain, for several days now, and a mass of relatives has come to see her. The lady looks to be quite large, and because she suffers from failing kidneys, I assumed she must be diabetic. I was mistaken. Grossly.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 23, 202310:04 pm

‘I am Strong!’

For relatives, or anyone else interested, here is another update about our daughter, who has spent 22 days in the hospital—twelve on a ventilator. As she progresses—and more rapidly than anyone on staff would have guessed even a week ago—indications of stroke are obvious. While she can speak, her speech sounds nothing like herself; mumbled and stilted. She is jittery but by no means invalid. Cognition is good, but processes and motor functions are sluggish. That’s not a negative report. She recovers well, and briskly, without an intensive rehabilitation regime.

But that could change soon. Last night, around 8 p.m. PDT, the physical medicine and rehabilitation doctor called, and we spoke for about 54 minutes. He sees our daughter as being a very good candidate for entering an acute care program followed up by more out-patient rehab (which is fairly intensive). So that’s the tentative plan, depending on one of the facilities accepting her as a patient and insurance authorizing treatment.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 22, 202310:13 pm

Urban Husky

Depending on when I drive home from the hospital where is our daughter, choice is either I-5 or I-805. (Californians aren’t content with 5 or 805 but “the five” or “the eight-oh-five”, and I make a habit of avoiding adding “the”; just to be onery.) The latter highway exits at Adams but immediately becomes Madison. Because of construction at Texas, I turn at Hamilton, cutting over to Meade and using that street to go into our San Diego neighborhood.

For the past few passes along Hamilton, I marveled at a dog mural on the frontside of a multiunit residence that appears to be undergoing renovation. (Some locals refer to these as renovictions. Evict lower-paying tenants; make modifications; raise rents for new residents.) Tonight, setting sun filled the sky rather than rain pummeling down from it. I parked, go out, and walked over for a single shot taken with Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 21, 202310:19 pm

My Cat Wants to Know: What’s Your Problem with DPReview, Amazon?

Amazon’s decision to shutter (absolutely no pun intended) photography site DPReview demonstrates why I recommend that creators own their content whenever possible. Speaking from personal experience, I bleed for the hardworking editors, reviewers, and writers (among other staffers) whose body of work may soon be whisked away.

Seven years ago, I discovered that during a publishing system upgrade, CNET expunged my byline from my thousands of stories written for the site. In a separate incident, the analyst firm I had worked for merged with another and all my online musings vanished. What I consider to be the most valuable, posted to the Apple Watch and Microsoft Watch blogs between 2006-09, disappeared from the web in 2010. You wouldn’t know I had written anything professionally online for the 10 years 1999-2009. All was deleted when publishers decided to scrub the sites (or in the case of CNET modernize).

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 20, 202310:24 pm

Lose Something?

I do not recall taking the Featured Image, presumably from a laundromat that my wife used to frequent in San Diego’s North Park neighborhood. In January 2010, we owned the same smartphone, so metadata can’t confirm whom. However, sixth of the month means me.

About that device: Nexus One, Google’s first of many mobiles. Do read my first three stories (sequentially presented), following the device’s debut. They accurately analyze what the mobile meant for the future of contextual computing, particularly around search and voice: “Google Takes Ownership of a New Mobile Category“; “Nexus One Foreshadows Google Mobility That Could Get Ugly for Apple and Microsoft“; “Google’s Superphone is Super Surprising“.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 19, 202310:43 pm

Do You Feel Rooked?

If not today, you may soon. The sudden shakeup toppling several banks was long foreshadowed. Classic run ruined Silicon Valley Bank less than two weeks ago. Dominos fell. First Republic required $30 billion bailout to avoid similar fate. Regulators took over Signature Bank, which was besieged by cryptocurrency losses. Over the weekend, 166-year-old Credit Suisse agreed to be acquired by UBS, in a $3.2 stock swap that is a mere pittance.

Long before the SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2)/COVID-19 pandemic, I told my wife that too many companies, banks among them, had assumed too much debt during the long period of low interest rates. Wall Street Journal story “First Republic, SVB, Credit Suisse Show How Higher Interest Rates Caught Up With Banks“, dateline today, affirms my hypothesis and gives analysis you want to give some attention.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 18, 20239:50 pm

Ode to a Good Day

“She talked” is how our daughter’s nurse greeted me today. That statement upfront is so I don’t bury the lede. But behind it are several tumultuous days of disappointment and progress.

Consider this the third installment about our adult child, who suffered oxygen-deprivation following an incident that receives no explanation for now. “Our Family Emergency Revealed” and “From Intubation to Extubation” are parts one and two, respectively. Because my Facebook is deactivated (since July 2019), this post means to update relatives and any one else interested in following the saga.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 17, 20239:39 pm

An Angel’s Trumpet Calls

Google Photos suggested something I couldn’t refuse: This fragrant flower from the courtyard of our old apartment—15 years ago. Your math is right: March 17, 2008. Better still, the Featured Image comes from one of my most loved and loathed digital compacts: Sigma DP1. Vitals: f/7.1, ISO 100, 1/125 sec, 28mm (film equivalent): 9:44 a.m. PDT.

Something isn’t right that teaches an important lesson about metadata and the passage of time. According to my story about procuring the camera, I didn’t purchase the shooter until March 27, 2008. How could I take a photo 10 days before buying? Oh, these are the mysteries.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 16, 202310:16 pm

The (Honorary) Cats of University Heights: Floofy

Members of the Honorary contingent belong to a special group: twenty-three profiles (including this one) out of 535 since the series started on Oct. 17, 2016. By definition, these animals live outside the neighborhood boundaries, but usually not more than a few blocks.

But three are far beyond, and the farthest share something in common: Our daughter. Moophie lived nearby one of her apartments. Comber was seen in Pacific Beach, after my wife and I visited our girl in the community on Christmas day. Today’s kitty appeared nearby the hospital where our daughter recovers from a tragic, life-changing incident.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 15, 202310:23 pm

Java Blues

Another archived find, once again saved by Google Photos, is a mug Mom sent for my birthday nine years ago. The thing isn’t my style, and I fumed she spent so much money shipping the bulky thing. Mom was sweet and notoriously generous, but her resources were limited. I ached when seeing the postal costs.

As such, the coffee cup languished until Annie recently remembered it tucked away. She kindly sends black Café Bustelo to the hospital with me, which saves $2.60 (buying Starbucks from the facility’s eatery). The mug is too big, but that’s okay. Taking the present along, I am reminded of Mom when visiting our daughter.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 14, 202310:23 pm

Peek-a-Mew

Keeping things simple tonight, and a bit more cheerful, I share something sweet and silly. Neko hides in one of two blankets that Annie and I received following our blessed marriage ceremony in Korea on Jan. 12, 1989. I can’t find the original file; this comes from a Google Photos backup.

I used Fujifilm X-E1 to capture the Featured Image, on Nov. 24, 2013. Vitals: f/4, ISO 3200, 1/28 sec, 55mm; 4:32 p.m. PST. This camera, like its successors, is greatly underrated. Detail here is sharp, even at higher ISO.