Friday, June 5, 2020

CQ: Day 85: Birthday Quarantined

Today is my 46th birthday. Our county opened up last week, and most of Pennsylvania is now open (with capacity restrictions, and you have to wear a mask), but we're still self-isolating. It's not that weird for me because we don't typically go anywhere on the yearly anniversary, and we usually get take-out, which we did again today.

Funny thing was - we drove to Dairy Queen to get an ice cream cake, and their driveway was blocked. You had to go in the back way into the parking lot because the drive through, which was open, was wrapped around the entire building. You could only go in IF you were picking up food ordered online, or you were getting an ice cream cake. Our DQ's booths are very close together and not able to be easily socially distanced. I imagine they will try to run the drive through like that all Summer.

During the last two months, neighborhood has had several birthday (and graduation) "drive through" parties - where attendants drive by the person's front yard in their cars. It's a bizarre thing to see. 

I also got my first haircut today in 4 months. Needless to say, my "quarantine cut" had been getting a little out of control. Weird thing was, I had to wear a mask today during the cut, and I had to give them 4 hours of advanced notice then wait an hour outside the salon. 

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

CQ: Day 83: GDP Could Fall by 53%

A report from the Atlanta Federal reserve now estimates that the U.S. GDP (Gross Domestic Product) could fall 53% in the second quarter of 2020. I wondered what that looked like, and I couldn't find a graph of it, so I created this one, which shows quarterly GDP change since 1947, which is as far back as they calculated it.

It's not pretty.