Partial Lockdown Day 6 (Monday)
Curfew
There’s talk on Facebook that the curfew is going to go into full lockdown. Supposedly, there’s going to be a meeting this afternoon to decide. I have a feeling they will put us into full lockdown. I’m going to have to do a bit more grocery shopping if that’s going to happen.
Work
Did a tiny amount of work today. Ran out to two houses for their usual Monday walkthrough. Nothing special happened there. With it being the last day of the month I could get started on accounting, but at the moment I don’t feel like it.
Gardening
I took the opportunity while I was out to stop by the hardware store. I was very happy to see that they had a few different styles of planters, so I grabbed a couple big, round ones and a long rectangular one. They also had potting soil, although not what I usually get. With the way I’ve been going through soil I decided to pick up three bags this time.
Restocking
With the new rumors of a full lockdown I figured it couldn’t hurt to grow my stockpile. While I was out I took a look at the grocery stores, but they were all packed. There ain’t no way I’ma deal with that. I guess I wasn’t the only one with the idea of stocking up. I just hope I have enough food to last through whatever lockdown may come.
Partial Lockdown Day 7 (Tuesday)
Restocking
I decided to try to go grocery shopping again this morning. I went out a little earlier than normal, and found one of the stores wasn’t too packed. I headed on inside and picked up some necessities like milk, sugar, eggs, and flour. Those were the main things on my list. That, combined with everything else I have, should be enough to get me through another lockdown if it happens.
I didn’t bother trying the other two stores, one looked like it was super-busy, with cars parked on the street. The other isn’t near where I was, so I didn’t go over there to see. The government has announced that they will be doing another update around 11am. I’m going to try going out again to the other two stores around that time. I’m hoping people will be inside watching and the stores will be empty.
Of course, I probably wasn’t the only one with that idea. One store was just too full of people for me to bother with. The other one was okay though, so I went in and picked up some more supplies that I wanted. Unfortunately, I didn’t get quite everything on my list.
Accounting
I spent a fair bit of time this morning working on the month-end checklist. By the time I took my first break I was halfway through the list. It’s all just glorified data entry, so it’s not too time consuming. The real problem is my brain can’t handle doing data entry like that for too long.
Power
And in a perfect coincidence, the power went out just as I stopped to take a break. Only thirty minutes to go until the government does its next covid update too. You know, the one where we expect to be put on a hard, 24 hour lockdown. . . Will the power come back in time for that? Not that I’ll be watching, it’s almost time to go out shopping again.
Wow, not only did the power go out, but it also killed my internet connection. I guess whichever tower(s) I connect to lost power as well. Usually the cell service is okay during these outages. At least the internet connection was restored pretty quick, even if the power wasn’t. Amazingly, the power was only out for about fifteen minutes!
Curfew
Because of my shopping trip I totally missed the important parts of the government update. I had to sit through the worst public speaker to get the info. Probably would have been better off just waiting until they released it in writing. It does seem that none of the cases are on my island. So far we’re looking at a total of 47 infections since tracking began with one death and I think 8 recoveries.
It’s hard to know, because the guy sucks so much, but it sounds like there isn’t going to be a complete lockdown. I think I’ll have to wait until they release it in writing to know for sure. I’m almost certain they’re extending this current curfew for another week and modifying the hours. Basically, for the next two weeks starting tomorrow, we’re allowed out between 5am and 1pm.
Partial Lockdown Day 8 (Wednesday)
Accounting
I got to work early today. I started on the accounting, since that’s basically the only work I have right now. I got all the employee hours and pay entered into QuickBooks before I even ate breakfast. That leaves me with four items left on my checklist to take care of after I eat.
And then, after eating I went through and finished the rest of the accounting. Month end for August is complete and it’s only September 2! That leaves me no work for tomorrow! I will have pools to do on Friday, but with no quests I really don’t have much of anything besides relaxation.
Gardening
One of my jalapeno seeds began to sprout! I checked on all my seeds this morning and found one had a little root coming out of it. So I filled the new, long rectangular, planter with soil and dropped the seed in there. I think the thing is big enough for another couple of plants. I think it’s more meant for herbs, so it might not be the right size for peppers, but I’m going to try anyway.
Partial Lockdown Day 9 (Thursday)
Game Development
I spent a good few hours this morning working on the game. This time I got to work on improving the quest system I previously built. I’ve added functionality to the quest system that was sorely needed as well as fixing the way I originally built it. The changes have really expanded on all sorts of things I can do in the game going forward.
Gardening
The second jalapeno seed I set out to sprout started showing roots! So I grabbed a milk carton out of the trash, cleaned it up and cut it open. Threw in a bit of dirt and dropped the seed in there to grow. Hopefully at least one of the seeds will grow. I also dropped a bunch of bell pepper seeds to germinate. I don’t know why I have such bad luck with peppers.
Home
Ugh, just as I was baking brownies I ran out of gas! And wouldn’t you know it, it’s past curfew time so there’s no getting any gas today. Got in touch with my handyman to take care of it in the morning for me while I’m out doing pool stuff.
Partial Lockdown Day 10 (Friday)
Pools
Got my handyman busy dealing with my gas refill so I’m out to do pools. With another gov’t update coming this morning, and the early afternoon curfew, I don’t have a lot of time for them. I’m just going to run around, check levels, add water as needed, and move on to the next. No serious cleaning today because of the lockdown.
Restocking
I finished with pools early enough to make a run to the stores. I started with filling two 5gal jugs with water. Then stopped at the nearby store. They were decently busy and stock was atrocious, but I did get a couple things I wanted. I am almost out of vanilla and have been looking for a while now. I finally found some, but it’s like a gallon. I bought it, not gonna need any for a while! I ran by the other two stores, but they were really busy so it wasn’t worth my effort.
Curfew
I got back just in time for the government’s live update. We’re now up to 63 total cases (52 active cases currently). It looks like there’s no change in the current curfew order though, which is good I guess. I think they’re relaxing the requirements for work permit renewals though, which means I should be able to get mine done now.
Game Development
Diving back in to world design. With the improvements I made to my “engine” it is now time to put them to use by drawing more of the world. The first thing I did was try to pick out a couple of tilesets to use. It’s not easy finding something free that fits my vision. So, to keep in the spirit of simple, I use what I have and adjust my plan. I got two tilesets from Kenney that should work well together.
Partial Lockdown Day 11 (Saturday)
Work
So, the owners of one of our houses (my nemesis) is worried once again about their water bill. Every single time they get their monthly invoice, and it has a payment for water on it, they are concerned with how high it is. Keep in mind, these people have very lush landscaping around their house. The only way to keep it healthy is to water it, constantly. Every four hours they are watering the plants automatically for fifteen minutes. Their water bill spiked for one month, then went back down (paid two months at once).
There is no issue with their water, it was a very hot and dry month. If anything, their water usage is lower than ever because we fixed a major leak a while back. But, to be a good properly manager, I have to go check on it. So now everyday at about the same time I’m going to go down to the house and get a reading of the meter. Maybe do a little walk around to look for signs of issues. I did that this morning for the first time.
Gardening
Still no signs of life from the two jalapeno sprouts I’ve planted. I do see a tiny little set of leaves popping out of the soil where I planted lettuce. Lots of flowers all over my tomatoes, but no signs of any pollinators. The catnip and lavender still haven’t sprouted yet, but the basil is really starting to grow back after I chopped it all down.
Game Development
I can’t bring myself to continue working on the game. I think I’m overwhelmed by the task of improving the game world. It doesn’t help that I’m not happy with the assets I have to work with. Really, I just need to bite the bullet and start drawing. The other issue is that I want to have a dynamic game world, to a degree, so I need a way to change parts of the world, which is extra work and takes more planning from the beginning.
I’m really not happy with the tilesets I have. So I tried playing around with isometric tiles. I had such a hard time using the tile sheets supplied! Then I realized I could just use the individual tile images provided. Now it should be much easier to work with. It just takes a while to import so many assets. And it looks like I have to go through and manually modify some settings on each one of those assets. . .
Partial Lockdown Day 12 (Sunday)
Gardening
My jalapeno seed has finally broken ground! I have a tiny little pair of leaves poking out of the soil. Everything else in my garden is the same. Still no signs of any tomatoes from the flowers. None of the other pepper seeds have sprouted.
Game Development
I keep going back and forth trying to find art to use in my game that fits my vision. And I keep telling myself to just use something that’s good enough. I finally just grabbed something that will work and it’s not bad. I didn’t spend a ton of time on the game today, but I did enough to say that I actually got something done.
Featured Image
This week’s featured image is another throwback to two years ago when this site was still new. Back then I was taking new pictures everyday. Now I can’t get myself to take a picture, like, ever.
