Squirrels cause power outages?

Did you know squirrels are a signifigant cause for power outages in the U.S? They jump on the powerlines and accelerate the wear and tear of these utilities.

Also! Another fun fact: Fall is the most dangerous and delay-prone season for riding trains! This is because leaves on train tracks lead to a braking hazard if the trains need to slow down. This is very similar to what its like on the roads when there is heavy rain, cautious drivers!

Sources: Lillian and unknown.

Some minor updates – The firefox extension did not make it easy to implement the features I wanted so I transferred my focus to another cause, my youtube-dowloader. Someone else also decided to look at the issues I had created for new features to be implemented and decided to make a PR on my repo, this was so cool! I love seeing this kind of collaboration. During the next week, I started spending lots of time towards working hard, finishing the novel that I was working on Pierce Brown’s Golden Son (part of the Red Rising series). It was excellent, I am deeply impressed by the character development and the mind-bending twists and turns the plot makes. More on this book to come in its own dedicated post. I did well on my school assignments for the week but found myself feeling a little behind in 551 Scientific comp. so I attented office hours. I started planning for the weekend of Cody Champagne’s wedding towards the end of the week and got myself packed late thursday night (9/3/2020). We left early next morning with my grandmother who had arriced the day before (5:15am) for the airport to fly down to Birmingham, AL. We had a connection in Charlotte NC and then after a 1 1/2 hour drive out of Birmingham, we arrived at our destination, Clanton AL, Mitchell Lake. This was the location of the house for us to stay at (Near Walnut Creek). It was very beautiful and I even saw a Bald Eagle. After festivities friday night, a wedding ceremony and party the following night (9/5/2020) we went home early Sunday morning beginning my quarantine. Being around many people, even though I sported a mask and kept my distance, I believe it is better to be safe than sorry. I will be waiting with just the immediate family members that went down with me (Dad and grandma) until I get a negative test result or until it has been 14 days. I will not be in close contact with anyone and will be wearing a mask at all times in public.

Yesterday when we got home, we got to see Ivy for the first time. Ivy is the name of our brand new puppy (Silver Lab). She is 8 weeks old and is the most precious thing in the whole wide world. She is extremely docile, well-mannered, and has a great temperment. She takes lots of naps and loves to play tug of war. I love her and am looking forward to spending these first few days back home, while I am missing my girlfriend, distracting myself with the dog. Ivy comes from the color of her eyes and Hailey was inspired when a Frank Ocean song came on when she had picked her up much earlier on Sunday morning.

Today (9/7/2020) we all got a test from ConvenientMD in Pembroke MA. I was very productive this past weekend and also today and want to continue this trend. The youtube downloader has helped tremendously by completely separating me from the time-engagement focused youtube algorithm. Things have been well! The dog is great and I am really proud of her and I think we got a really great, calm, easy to train puppy that will be a loving family member for years and years to come.

Update - Negative test recieved yesterday at 3pm (~26 hours after I had gotten tested). What a turn around time!

See ya!