Finally Getting "Normal" Back Again

Copyright © 2021

by Ralph F. Couey

"I didn't want normal

until I didn't have it anymore."

--Mary Stiefvater

For the past 16 or so months we've lived in a different world.  COVID-19 rewrote the paradigm for life in so many ways, from the macro to the micro, discovering life under restrictions that at one time might have set a revolution in motion.  We got used to most of it, the masks, the isolation, the masks, the distancing, the masks, and a daily visit to the websites where the grim tally of pandemic statistics were paraded before us.  It didn't take long before we began to mourn that thing we used to call "normal life."

In the past couple of months, however, many mainland states began to drop their restrictions, and people began to embrace the "normal" they had missed so much.  Here in Hawai'i, the bar has been set at 70% of the population fully vaccinated at which point all restrictions will be dropped.  But there was an article in the Star-Advertiser, the Honolulu daily paper, about how much convention business Hawai'i was losing because those events were relocating to states where the restrictions were far less draconian.  Predictably, Governor Ige, in a press conference, said that he might not wait until 70% to end the state of emergency.

The thing is, for all intents and purposes, its pretty much over anyway.  There are around a half-million tourists in the islands from all over the place, few if any wearing masks or distancing, and the numbers of new cases are still very low.  I think if Hawai'i was going to have another breakout, it certainly would have happened by now.

So anyway, what I've seen in the past month especially is the way local people have kind of forced the issue.  On Tuesday late afternoon, I had a doctor's appointment downtown, and rather than inflict rush hour traffic on my emotional state, I decided to go to Kapio'lani Park and do my walking.  It's a great place to to that because it's entirely flat and one lap around the outside is exactly two miles.

The park started out as a horse racing venue for King David Kalakaua and named for his Queen Consort.  In 1952, after years of abuse and neglect, the 300-acre space was renovated into the magnificent greenspace it is today, bridging Diamond Head and Waikiki.  I have gone there on afternoons when I'm running early to work.  I park in the big lot off Paki Street, put a beach towel over the hot hood of my Mustang, and spend a few minutes drinking in the beauty.  Usually during the weekday, the park is pretty empty.  But as schools let out and people get off work, the park begins to populate.  That day, I parked the car and began my walk.  

The Teeny Titan of Tech

 

from bulkmemorycards.com

Copyright ©2021

by Ralph F. Couey

It's such a tiny little thing.  A piece of gray plastic about the size of my little fingernail, so small that if it were accidentally dropped into a bowl of Saimin, it would likely end up in one's stomach without any realization on the part of the consumer.  But it's small size is really a testament to how technology has blown past expectations.

This thing is called a micro SD card, descended from the mini SD card, which descended from the SD card (which looks enormous now), and traces its ancestry all the way back to the old floppy disks when they were really floppy.  It's capacity, helpfully printed on it's face, is 256 gb.  How much is that, you ask?  Well, Grasshopper, according to a Google search just done, it would hold 4.8 million printed pages.

A fair-sized book, to be sure.

When I bought my Galaxy Note 9 two years ago, I ordered this card as extra storage.  The phone itself has a capacity for a terabyte.  And that's 75 million printed pages.  But at the time, a 1tb card was just a bit too expensive, as was the 512gb version.  But despite my fixation with "way bigger is way better" with regards to data storage, this one has proved to be plenty big enough for it's assigned tasks.

I had transferred my entire iTunes library, some 1,700 songs, onto the card and then painstakingly organized them into several play lists.  When I'm walking, or in the car, I can tailor my listening experience depending on my mood, whether traditional Irish, Smooth Jazz, Praise, and one I call "Sing Alongs,"  from which I can entertain myself as long as nobody else is within earshot.  I also record my sermons, not out of ego, but rather to perform a stiff analysis of content, pacing, voice level and tone, all those things that have made me a better public speaker.  

Also stored there were a host of pictures and videos, ranging from nature shots and videos, to more mundane things, like an image of my vaccination card, and the number code that identifies the keys for both the Santa Fe and the Mustang.

I have subscriptions to both VUDU and Movies Anywhere.  Through those apps, I have about 160 full-length features, some of which were downloaded to the card for viewing while flying.  All in all, it has been a great little piece of tech.

Until three days ago.