matthearn.com

(If you aren’t a giant nerd, “^2” is shorthand for “squared.” Hence, hour 24*24, or day 24. I know. Don’t worry about it.)

Things continue more-or-less as they were. The number of sick people keeps climbing, as does the number of dead people, sadly. I won’t go into a lot of detail about the virus because that info can be acquired elsewhere. Instead, I offer a few highlights about what Team Hearn has been up to.

Official remote learning has begun! The kids use a tool called Schoology where they can get their assignments and communicate with teachers and peers. So far it seems to be working reasonably well, although it can be very, very hard for parents to figure out what assignments there are for a child without clicking each “course” and digging through it, which for 3 kids with 6-8 courses (specials like PhysEd and Music are included for the youngers) is time-prohibitive. Still, it keeps the children reasonably busy for a few hours, even if we end up having to monitor them and answer questions.

Working from home is going okay. It’s generally fine for me; there’s literally no reason for me to go to the office other than to be face-to-face with people, and because my employer has expanded so much in the last few years, we don’t have enough desks. Half the time I went to the office I had to find a little university-library-style carrel in which to set up my laptop, which means I don’t get my multi-screen view, so it’s actually less productive than being at home. I was working from home 3-4 days a week anyway.

Sarah’s job is more complicated because of the need to manage people and run training sessions and presentations, but she’s been using Zoom to her advantage there. Teacher “inservice” classes have been more or less cancelled at this point. The hardest thing was that she had started “facilitating” an actual college class this year, working with professors and running small discussion sections. That has proved a challenge for everyone involved, but they’re once again using Zoom to help. Hopefully they can avoid being “zoom-bombed” with porn…

As the weather improves we’ve been trying to spend as much time outside as humanly possible. I was able to mount a trailer hitch to our van, which means I can attach my 5-bicycle rack to it and haul wheels to places to ride. On Sunday, we loaded up and went to Bellevue State Park, where the boys and I put a few miles on our legs on the Delaware Greenway Trail, while Sarah and Josephine hiked around the pond.

Being trapped at home does give me more opportunity to work around the house, so I’ve been able to get yard work done when it hasn’t been raining. Hopefully this year I can get my lawn looking decent; every year I try to over-seed and fertilize, and every spring it still comes up with bare patches and brown spots. I also need to hack away at tons of stumps from trees that have fallen or been removed.

Since any church with any ****ing sense has cancelled all in-person services and is doing things online, I haven’t had to get up on Sunday mornings to go sing in weeks. However, I did get the opportunity to be the “Easter soloist” for my usual church, Christ Church Christiana Hundred. On Easter day they’ll release a pretty high-production-value video of a service featuring yours truly fighting his way through some challenging Ralph Vaughan Williams solos, along with hymns and other pieces with organ and trumpet, plus the actual Easter liturgy, minus the Eucharist. We recorded it in pieces last Friday and I think it went very well.

My facial hair situation has gotten…grim.

Sarah is not thrilled, but tolerating it. I keep hoping the moustache will fill out a bit, but based on the rest of the beard my hopes are probably going to be dashed.

Edit: For some reason this didn’t post on the day I expected it to, but instead on roughly day 29. I cannot explain this, but do not feel that you are crazy that this post seems mis-dated.

COVID cases continue to climb throughout the country, including Delaware, which sadly saw its first death from the virus this week. Reportedly our healthcare workers are starting to be infected as well, which is to be expected, but still terrifying. So far only one person I know has been confirmed to have it, but I’m sure it’s going to start making the rounds.

Went to the grocery store today, and was surprised to see that they’re still out of most paper goods: toilet paper, paper towels, etc. Are people still buying that stuff up like they’re going to stop producing it? My mind was boggled. Other things are hit-and-miss as far as availability. They had tons of pork chops and chicken, but absolutely no hot dogs, and very limited supplies of butter, red meat, and sugary cereals (though they had plenty of “healthy” stuff like Grape Nuts, Special K, Sugar-free Kitty Litter, etc.).

Team Hearn has been muddling through. We haven’t been eating or drinking very well; too much booze, too much sugar, not enough exercise. I’ve been able to get in my usual weight-lifting schedule, but I suspect I’ll come out of this crisis weighing 285 pounds and being unable to go upstairs without having to lie down for a while.

We’ve done a pretty good job of having the kids do at least 3 hours of various educational activities, and we were able to take advantage of the warm weather on Tuesday to get a nice walk in on the paved trails around Newark. We saw trains! I love trains.

We find ourselves getting pretty loopy most days, particularly by mid-afternoon. We get the giggles, and start doing things like figuring out how I would look with a Sam Elliott moustache (answer: breathtaking):

I’ve also taken advantage of downtime to watch a truly embarrassing number of NASCAR races from the early-to-mid-80s, AKA “when NASCAR was worth watching.” So far my favorite is this classic from 1983 at the old Richmond Fairgrounds Raceway, when it was a 0.542-mile track (before the 1988 reconfiguration that expanded it to 3/4-mile). I’ve also enjoyed the heck out of some of the Daytona and Talladega races from before they used restrictor plates, when the cars actually had to handle well and could separate from each other.

Only 7 more weeks to go!

(Day 10, for those uninitiated into Snoopisms.)

As others have noted, the COVID19 quarantine is giving people a lot of opportunities for activities. Folks are spending time outside, cleaning their homes, educating their kids, learning to play instruments, and even putting on virtual concerts.

In addition to some of the stuff I mentioned last week, we’ve been doing some baking:

Working on a 1000-piece puzzle:

Creating art:

I’ve been practicing the piano nearly every day for at least a half-hour, and have taken my skills from “yikes” to “I can play like a couple Bach 2-part inventions fairly well and fumble my way through sight-reading easier hymns.” By the end of the crisis I hope to be up to “Playing some portion of Joplin’s ‘The Entertainer’.”

The call came in tonight; schools are closed until May 15th, which is terrifying. We’ve decided to try and do at least 3 hours of “learning” a day, in sort of a Montessori-style method. The kids are given some tasks, and then choose from among them to be completed in any order:

• Some Duolingo language practice
• Online learning (Dreambox, Khan Academy, etc.)
• Practicing musical instruments
• Math
• Lots and lots (and lots) of reading, followed by crafting some kind of response

If they want to do other stuff, like googling up how the nudibranch do, they can absotively have at it. The kids seem to have embraced the new schedule, at least after day one, and we’re happy to have their heads out of devices for a few hours. The downside is that they require a certain amount of monitoring and they constantly request help or attention, which means getting our actual jobs done is a touch challenging.

As to the crisis itself, so far nobody we know is sick, but the counts just keep going up, so I suspect it’s inevitable. I’m legit worried about my older relatives and friends, particularly since people don’t seem to have the sense God gave a gooseberry and keep going out and getting breathed on and touched. It’s a shame that governments are having to order people to stay home, but apparently we’re too stupid to be relied on.

We’re also getting our spring allergies, so every day I wake up with a tickle in my throat thinking “Uh oh,” and by mid-morning I’m feeling fine. Probably going to continue until one of us actually gets the dreaded COVID.

Avoid touching, you know, anything. Especially your face. Tell your kids to read. Stay safe out there!

The best day to start documenting what’s going on during a quarantine is during the first day of the quarantine; the second best day is whatever today happens to be. Today, six days in, is when it finally occurred to me it might be wise to start noting what’s been happening, what might happen next, and any other thoughts that occur to me.

So, after 5 years of zero updates, I’m resurrecting matthearn.com, at least for the Duration of the Current Emergency.

A brief glimpse of what’s happened so far, just for posterity; the details can be found at many other sources far more reliable than I.

• A new (“novel”) coronavirus erupted in Wuhan, China in late 2019.
• It reached the United States via cruise ship and other travelers in early 2020, and rapidly began to spread throughout the country.
• The Trump Administration, in its collective “wisdom,” played down the severity of the outbreak, even implying that it is a “Democratic hoax.”
• In mid-March, the first cases were confirmed in Delaware; a professor and three of his students who apparently picked it up at a conference out of state. Other cases began to be confirmed over the following days.
• Friday, March 13th, Governor Carney ordered schools to be closed for two weeks, and asked people to begin to use “social distancing” to slow the spread of the virus and avoid overwhelming the healthcare system, which only has so many ventilators and ICU beds.
• Shortly thereafter, following the lead of other states, the Governor orders restaurants and bars to become “take-out only”, with no eat-in service.
• Saturday, March 14th, the Hearn family goes into more-or-less complete lockdown. Our eldest asks if he can still play with his friends; we decree that he can only do so outside, not trapped in the same room sharing germs.
• Tuesday, March 17th, our eldest and his friends spend the afternoon writhing all over each other on the trampoline in our backyard.
• Wednesday, March 18th, one of those friends is now reportedly “sick.”

So we’re playing the waiting game to see if any of us contract some sort of virulent illness. The good news is that none of us is in the demographic that’s in significant danger, so I’m not terribly concerned about any of us getting sick to the point of hospitalization or worse.

There is much to be concerned about, of course. We’re lucky; my jobs can be done from anywhere, and Sarah’s office completely closed, so she and I have both continued to work, while trying to keep our children’s brains from atrophying. We’ve been making them try to do a little bit of schoolwork every day, though at this point they’ve completed everything that had been assigned before schools closed their doors, and have mostly moved on towards educational videos and Duolingo. I’m hoping we can start doing some actual instructional time, because it’s looking increasingly likely that schools will be out for far more than the two weeks that the Governor originally decreed.

I’m worried for people who can’t work remotely, or whose jobs depend on folks actually being able to leave their homes. We’re going to try and get in the habit of getting take-out from local restaurants on occasion to help keep them afloat. It does look like the Federal government is actually doing its job; we could see billions of dollars spent on actually helping people, which is more novel than the virus itself.

My main concern is for anyone over the age of 60. Not just for their health, though the virus seems to be far more dangerous for them, but the stock market tanking seems to be hitting everybody’s retirement funds pretty hard. I know the value of mine has dropped 25% in the last 3 weeks. Luckily, I’m 17 years away from being able to withdraw anything from mine, so I’ve actually increased my 401K contribution to buy while the funds are cheap. Plenty of older folks are in a tough spot right now, particularly if they didn’t move their money from the stock market to less volatile investments as they got closer to retirement.

We’ve decided that it’s possible for us to “isolate” but still spend some time outside, which is good. The kids and I have played soccer in our yard every evening this week, and yesterday afternoon we drove to the DuPont Environmental Education Center (the funny-looking building in Churchman’s Marsh south of Frawley Stadium and the Shipyard Shops in south Wilmington); the center itself is closed, but all of the walking paths are open. There were a fair number of other people there as well, taking advantage of the warm sun. The Jack Markell Trail was also open and busy; I might need to take a bicycle down there and go for a ride if I can break away for a few hours. We hope to start going to state parks, particularly as the weather warms, but have to deal with the fact that the younger kids will want to use playgrounds where they found them, and I have to assume that every inch of a jungle gym is crawling with COVID19 and my children cannot stop touching their own faces.

From reports, China is starting to recover from its outbreak; hopefully more good news comes from there. Meanwhile, hunker down and wash your hands everyone!

Ah, weekends.

Weekends are hard, as you probably are aware. I was a good little boy, staying under 2000 calories every day last week, until Friday when I think I topped out at 3500, but I had also lifted weights and bicycled 10 miles that day, so I didn’t feel too bad. Then we had a party on Saturday, and watched the Super Bowl on Sunday (more on that in a moment), and suddenly I’d blown through a conservatively-estimated 384,014 calories in about 36 hours. Glucose is a hell of a drug. As is rye whisky.

I hate weekends. But I also love weekends.

Last week was a pretty solid week from a training perspective; aside from the missed swim on Monday, I hit all my scheduled sessions, including two of weights, a run, a stationary bike, a road bike, and a good hard swim. So while I’m disappointed in how I handled the weekend, I’m satisfied with my activity levels for the week in general.

As to the football: a couple of good commercials (I didn’t think the Nationwide one was nearly so egregious as to warrant the massive overreaction; I’ll concede maybe the Superbowl isn’t the best time to trot out your “dead kids” commercial, though I’m not sure what the best time would actually be), a disappointing first quarter, and then tha game got 2 hype brah. The consensus among my Facebook friends was that Pete Carroll made a shitty playcall, so I was amused to see that the consensus among the national media was that Russell Wilson screwed up. Maybe he made a poor throw, although I’m much more likely to give a little leeway to a guy who’s making split-second decisions while possibly suffering the effects from a concussion 2 suffered in the AFC title game. I’m not likely to give any leeway to the coach who had 15-20 seconds to figure out a play from the 1 yard line and picked something other than “give the ball to my unstoppable running back.”

I thought Katy Perry did an admirable job, and I thought Adele Dazeem did fine with the National Anthem, even though she was a little too self-indulgent, though certainly no worse than we’ve heard in the past.

The plan for this week is two swims, two bikes, a run, and two solid weight training seshes, and hopefully still stay under 2000 calories every day, and try to be a good boy on the weekend, though I’m not holding out much hope.

Things have been (mostly) looking up from a “decision-making” perspective. I went back to proper calorie-counting as of Tuesday, using LoseIt!, and I feel I’m doing pretty well, though I haven’t checked my weight recently. I’m not always perfect from a “hitting my macros” perspective; yesterday I decided I really needed an evening glass of whiskey, which took me to 2300 calories on the day instead of the 2000 I’ve been shooting for, but my primary goal is to just back into the habit of recording everything I eat. Historically it’s been an issue because I’ll get to the weekend and not bother to track things. I’m going to try and be very very good about tracking, even if I’m binging.

(Pointless side note: “binging” looks like the Microsoft equivalent of “googling.” It should be spelt bingeing to make it clear what the verb is. I think I’m going to start deliberately spelling it that way and step up my letter-writing to the Oxford English Dictionary people about it.)

There are a million ways to calculate what one’s caloric requirements are, but for me they tend to average out to about 2500 calories a day, if I’m “sedentary.” I’m obviously not sedentary, but my workouts are so hit or miss that I’m loathe to include them into the TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) calculations. If I shoot for about 2000 calories every day, then I’m short about 3500 a week, which is roughly enough to lose a pound a week. If I do 5 half-hour cardio sessions (which will obviously ramp up a ton as I get closer to triathlon race season), that should add between 1500 and 2000 calories burned every week, which is enough to either lose me another half-pound, or (more likely) make up for poor eating on the weekends, or if I decide to eat a bit more after lifting weights.

I’m sticking to a generally low-carb plan, and shooting for 200 grams of protein a day. Let’s call this a “New Year’s Resolution Reset” and get back to it, ‘Murica. Gotta lose dem 20 pounds by late May.

I’ve been generally good with workouts this week; I missed a swim on Monday because of the snow day, but I got in a run on Tuesday, a stationary bike ride on Wednesday, and made it to the Y for a brief swim over lunch today. I lifted weights on Tuesday as well, and of course gave myself a mild back injury ’cause it had been a few weeks since that had happened. I’m kinda getting the hang of working those mild strains out, though; I actually felt it stiffen up on my 2nd-to-last set of deadlifts, but did the last set anyway with no additional pain, and went for my run afterwards. I anticipate being able to squat heavy tomorrow, though obviously I’ll take it easy and see how things go.

I hope everyone is surviving this devastating blizzard and haven’t had a roof collapse under the weight of all this snow. </SARCASM> At least the Brandywine School District behaved a bit more rationally last night than they had yesterday morning; after dismissing all the schools at lunch time because of light flurries, they held off cancelling school today until this morning, and of course were able to have a regular school day as a result because we got no more white flakes on our driveway than I would get on my bedspread after brushing my cat. (Siamese produce much less dander than other breeds.)

The weather has made it difficult to get in my regularly scheduled workouts, which is frustrating and making me a bit depressed; I had to leave work at lunchtime yesterday to meet the kids at the bus stop, so I didn’t get to swim, and my general malaise has made me less likely to do my chinups, pushups, and planks; I haven’t done a plank since the middle of last week, and the last few days have failed to meet my daily 30-rep goal on the other two. At the same time, being trapped at home with my children has made me much more likely to drink delicious, calming liquor, as well as completely fall off the wagon food-wise.

My plan to try and shed fat by simply avoiding carbs most of the time isn’t going very well; after last week’s birthday-related debauchery, I haven’t dared step on a scale, and I’m still eating far too much sugar and crunchy snacks in the evenings. As much as it pains me, it’s probably time to start deliberately counting calories to try and stay under my daily limit, even on weight-training days. ‘Tis the season for seasonal depression, something that’s affected me in recent years, and it’s a bit of a death-spiral: I get sad because it’s cold and dismal, which makes me more likely to eat and drink things I shouldn’t, which makes me more sad and frustrated with myself, which makes me more likely to skip out on workouts, which makes me *more* sad and frustrated with myself, which makes me a rather crappy husband and father ’cause I just become a completely miserable jerk.

I’ve done better at staying out of my funks than I did last year (when a few times I think Sarah was going to simply put a pillow over my head to put me out of everyone’s misery), but the winter is yet young. Only 52 days until spring.

Golly, it’s been a brutal week. I actually wrote a post on Monday but forgot to actually, you know, publish it, and I kept putting it off, and procrasting, as I do, and yesterday was my birthday so Sarah’s just been stuffing me with things that are very bad for me and inspiring me to drink too much.

So it’s all her fault, as you can obviously see.

I’ve managed to keep up with my workouts, for the most part, though today was supposed to be a scheduled swim and I just didn’t have it in me. I decided to go for a nice hike at the office instead, wandered through the woods and did about 3 miles of hills in an hour. I didn’t measure my heart rate but it was definitely elevated; I might add a weekly hike to my workouts, at least until early March when I start really ramping up the triathlon training.

Tomorrow’s going to be fairly hectic, so it remains to be seen if I’ll get any training in at all other than my chins and pushups; I have to take my truck to the shop for repairs and borrow a car and drive to take a certification test about an hour away, and I’m cutting things a little fine to get there in time. If I can’t lift tomorrow, hopefully I find time for it over the weekend, otherwise I will have a super sad.

I haven’t checked my weight in a few days because my diet has been horrific, though I don’t seem to have backslid much when I look in the mirror. It looks like I may be writing off most of January, and I probably need to seriously think about a different way to stay accountable and make better food choices more frequently.

It was rather a busy weekend, as you might surmise from my silence.

I hit all my usual workout metrics on Friday; squat and overhead press, plus all the usual chins and pushups, plus a nice little 30 minute jog. I was supposed to do 4×3 of the squat and overhead press, but found after two sets that I couldn’t get all three reps, so I switched to doubles to finish things out. This is probably an indication that I am due for a reset of some kind, but I’ll wait until I actually fail on the big singles that are scheduled for next week.

Saturday I did all my chins, pushups, and planks, but we went out to dinner with friends in honor of our various birthdays, and I ate and drank too much, which caused Sunday to be a bit of a misery. At least I didn’t have to go to church, just sat around watching soccer and football and trying not to move too much or be in direct sunlight, which was helped a bit by the fact that it absolutely poured rain all day. I did not do any chins or pushups because agony. I also ate poorly, something I’m sure I’ll pay for all week.

Here we are on Monday, and unlike civilized folks I’m at work. I ran over to the YMCA for a swim and it was outrageously busy and I still felt kinda iffy, but I managed to pound out 1800 yards. Anything’s better than nothing. I haven’t done any chins or pushups yet, I’m not looking forward to trying to pack all of them into one Monday evening when I’m not feeling 100%, but we’ll see what happens; I may short today a bit and make it up tomorrow when I’m working from home.

This not-particularly-interesting update has been brought to you by hangovers, exhaustion, and hunger.

Eating out can be challenging. Even in places with good healthy choices on the menu, those choices can sometimes be pretty boring (salad, chicken and broccoli, etc.), and eating out always feels like a “special occasion” when one should be able to splurge a little, even if you eat out once a week like I think most families do. You go in with good intentions, and then look over the menu and think “Man, if I have another piece of skinless chicken breast I may weep openly. Maybe a piece of fish…oh look, they have fish and chips.” And then you eat a nice 1500 calorie meal, which, at least in my case, leads to thinking “Well, I already screwed up, might as well go whole hog” and you drink a bunch of beer and a fantastic dessert.

If it really is a “special occasion” (your birthday, wife got a big raise at work, your eldest son came out of the closet), then a little splurge is fine, but you can’t do it very frequently, which is a problem for me ’cause I do so love me some splurgin’. So whaddaya do if you find yourself at a Red Robin and are trying to steer away from a double cheeseburger with guacamole, bacon, and a fried egg?

What I like to do is try and pick something that’s going to provide me with a ton of protein. So even if I end up getting a 1000 calorie meal, I might get 70 grams of protein from it, which is pretty stellar. A good chicken sandwich with some awesome flavors might get you close to that. Then the trick is the side dishes; maybe don’t go with regular french fries, but you could rock some sweet potato fries instead. Slightly fewer calories and a ton more micronutrients and fiber.

Tonight we met my parents and my sister and her family for dinner at a local Mexican restaurant, and I managed to steer away from the “Sampler platter” (two plates of awesomeness that have to total at least 2000 calories) and got fajitas instead, with chicken, beef, and shrimp. Staggering amounts of protein. Did I also eat chips with huge loads of salsa on them? I did. Did I eat beans and rice? Of course. Was it probably 1500 calories of awesome? Perhaps, but lunch was just some chicken and veggies, and I did swim another 1500 yards today, so I think it’s a wash.

Per uzh*, I’ve banged out my 30 chins and pushups, and need to blast through some planks before heading to bed. My back feels a ton better so I should be able to do my OHP and Squat workout tomorrow, and maybe even get a short run in, time permitting.

*“Usual,” duh.