Titanic

Things are starting to get interesting. I went uptown to cash my check and go to the hardware store this morning. Drove by the grocery store on the way and the parking lot was packed to the gills. I stopped in there last evening on my way home from work and while there weren't many people in the store, the store was either out of or low on many items.

The bank lobby is now closed until further notice, so I had to use the drive-up. Not much of an inconvenience and I won't be drawing much in the way of checks for a while anyway.

The cashiers at the hardware store were wearing masks and gloves. I wouldn't even have gone in except my new welder didn't come with a plug so I wanted to get that up and running. The salesman from the welding supply dropped off my oxygen bottle yesterday. He hooked me up with another big tank with a fresh test date, so I'm good for another ten years. Since I bought the plasma cutter, this tank should last me pretty much my lifetime.

I need to get a couple of pieces of material so I think I'm going to order them online. It'll cost me a bit more but my local guy doesn't have exactly what I need anyway.

A buddy of mine needed to borrow something and I told him I'd just leave it outside on the porch for him. Usually we'd spend some time in the shop BS-ing but I told him we're doing the self quarantine thing and he understood completely. As of yesterday there were 126 cases  of the virus in the state, none in our county. So the odds of catching this thing are still pretty slim but might as well get into the proper mindset. I'm sure it won't be long and the governor will ban all non-essential travel. I think Illinois put such a ban into effect last evening.

Stay safe, stay home as much as possible, reduce the risk to yourself and others.