Christmas went about as well possible for 2020 and our current state of affairs.  We’re still isolating as the second wave of COVID-19 blows through.  Now there’s a 3rd issue – a new, supposedly much-stronger strain coming.  Oh joy, could it get much worse?  According to the movie “Songbird”, yes, it could.  That movie is about COVID-23, and you don’t even want to know how things go with that one.  For now, it’s just fiction.  I pray it stays that way.

Our Christmas was quiet.  We had our own private Christmas, just Sandy, Kevin, and I, then had a nice dinner on the 26th with Matt and the grandkids over to visit for the day.  Sandy prepared an awesome dinner, with ham, corn, potato casserole, cole slaw, rolls… everything was just amazing.  We played some VR for awhile, just hung out, and swapped a few presents.

VR has become quite the destination for me lately.  I find myself spending more and more time in there, just exploring and learning the controls for the environments, learning the games, and even taking virtual museum tours and exploring other worlds.  It’s a blast, and sure beats just sitting at home all the time.  Now I’m STANDING at home, walking in a circle, reaching and punching at imaginary things no one else can see.  Ah, much better.  Talk about immersive though… As I play Flying Hero – a very simple VR game – I find my legs cramping up once in awhile from tensing up too much as I try to balance atop skyscrapers and ledges, trying not to fall off.  For me, it can seem a bit too real at times.  I have to calm down and just stop and tell myself “I’m just standing in my basement, there’s no real risk of falling to my death”….then I trip over a chihuahua coming in the room for a visit and the possibility of falling FOR REAL comes rushing back and my worlds collide.

Then there’s this:  https://www.thegamer.com/broke-neck-population-one-facebook-oculus-deleted/.  How?  Just how?  Not the Facebook and Oculus account loss, but the broken neck?  It doesn’t even sound like he fell or slammed into something.  Was it just from tensing up too much in VR?  If so, hopefully that’s an extremely rare occurence.  Wow.

Right here in Kenosha prosecutors determined this week that no charges will be filed against the police officers involved in the Jacob Blake shooting.  Kenosha was again in fear of violence as protestors gathered.  But the authorities showed their numbers very quickly this time and kept things well in order this week with very little violence and destruction.

And last Wednesday hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the capitol building in Washington D.C. and attempted a “coup” of all things.  Shockingly, they were easily able to break in and take over many offices and the capitol building itself!  They apparently assumed, that with enough force, they could simply force the reversal of the certified presidential election results and keep Trump in office.  And Trump encouraged them.  Pipe bombs were later found planted around D.C., including at both party’s headquarters.  What has our country devolved into?  How much worse can Trump make things with two weeks left in office?  I guess we’ll find out soon enough.  Can they actually impeach him – AGAIN – before the official inauguration in less that two weeks?  And will it further divide the country?  I don’t think it should go unaddressed, but I worry about what more this president is capable of in his final few days.  I just want to crawl into my perfect little VR world and stay there until January 21st, then carefully crawl out and see what’s left.