Neal Wilson ✅ @neal@social.typica.us

Kind of a shame. I was looking forward to the train ride and the event is in New Orleans next year instead of Portland (which has its own benefits) so it's not as if I can just reschedule.

It looks like part of my train trip got cancelled, but I can't change the booking online. I have to call to get the rest of it cancelled and hopefully get some money back. Any guess how long the hold time is going to be?

Tried out the Space Channel 5 VR demo (in which you play the anime girl backup dancer to the swinging reporter delivering live coverage of the return of aliens that are making people dance). That was fun, but I wish it drew my shoulders a little farther apart or lower down or something.

The cat is shoving her head into my knee while enjoying belly rubs.

One of my customers who usually sits in my shop during hours we're now closed is still here, just sitting in her car parked out front instead. I'll leave the WiFi on.

Credit union just gave my publishing company overdraft protection for its mostly nonexistent expenses.

Coffee on the way to NY. This time in a caramel box. The company that makes the caramels thought they were a cheesecake company, but they tried offering caramels as a side thing and that's what took off for them.

Morning cat

Scratch that. Hotel reservation got auto-cancelled, so it's just the train. Next year is New Orleans. It's been a long time since I've been there, but now I can look forward to some great shrimp creole.

SCA Expo is finally officially cancelled. I sent an email to them earlier today letting them know that I can't legally get to that event to teach now, so that's good. Now I need to figure out how to cancel the train tickets I can't legally use and the hotel reservation.

I do want to give a shout out to the WI Dept of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection. I already have an email from them with specific and actionable guidance relevant to my business regarding the new order. The city used to contract them to do our health inspections and that's an agency that's been a tremendously useful resource for my company over the past couple decades as we try to do things in ways that won't get people sick.

The new order lasts a month starting tomorrow unless another order makes it shorter (unlikely and unwise) or longer (possible). The assistance programs that I've looked at so far appear to be mostly useless for us here and the stuff that's upcoming, we can't know what that is until it's actually passed, it's not coming fast enough, and a lot of what's being teased also looks equally worthless.

Further service reductions for the shop will be published later today. My sister is on the phone with the bank about loan options. We're covered under the exemptions for being able to continue operating, but with the new state order we're expecting sales to fall off a cliff and also want to take additional steps to ensure everybody's safety while not going bankrupt. I'll also be working on figuring out how to flip on free shipping for online orders later tonight, but that's not live yet.

This morning the cat was extra insistent that I should stay home. Probably because she just watched the episode of DS9 when O'Brien becomes patient 0 in a station-wide pandemic that only gets as bad as it did because Quark refused to flatten the curve. While the cat made good points about petting the cat, I'm roasting coffee because my shop is probably now the safest place in the city to get that.

Today was stressful. I'll just be over here alternating between eating pizza and hugging the cat.

That's the spot.

Next coffee shipment is going out in a Penzeys Spices box. That box had an Embrace Hope sticker on the outside that I'm not covering/removing.