Yesterday I wrote of the passing of our 20 year old cat, Jingle. A lot of other things came to a close these past few weeks.

  1. Okay, this is a silly one. Netflix, the company whose founding destroyed movie rental houses big (like Blockbuster) and small (like your local mom ’n pop video rental shop) announced that soon they will end the service that launched them: namely DVDs by postal mail. I used that service for many years. Their archive of movies was great! Besides having hot titles recently released on DVD, I loved that they had obscure movies and television series from yesteryear. One that comes to mind is that my girls saw every episode of the original 1070’s “Wonder Woman” with Lynda Carter.

  2. A couple of weeks ago the Biden administration announced the end of the Covid Public Health Emergency. It’s looking like soon the World Health Organization (WHO) will do likewise. When the emergency lockdowns happened, we got the impression things might end around Easter. We just didn’t know what year they meant.

  3. The FDA removed the original Covid vaccine authorization. They didn’t just recommend getting a new bivalent version. They removed the authorization of the original “safe and effective” version. Curious. This means that there is currently no FDA approved Covid vaccine on the market. The new bivalent shot is once again listed as under Emergency Use Authorization.

  4. It’s been about a year now that we’ve been allowed back in my office. Most staff come in about two days per week, on days chosen by their group. My group comes in Tuesdays and Thursdays. In a few weeks our CEO would like to see us come in four days a week. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out. Employees who were instructed to work from home while the company saw record growth and profits, are suddenly being asked to come back. While there is some value in face to face, there’s also some value in NOT spending two hours a day in my car, as fun as that is.