Save humanity with burger pods

Image added in response to a comment by Roger. Thanks, Roger.

I have a brother who has more than a passing acquaintance with the manufacturing processes used to make burger pods, disposable cups and the like.

I pointed out that one of the Big Three auto makers bragged about making 2000 N-95 masks in their first shift of production.

My brother didn't quite smirk.

I asked him what a typical plant that makes "killing the planet" disposable burger pods makes in a shift. He said "Anywhere between 2 million and 6 million units. They often run three shifts a day so call it 6m to 18m units a day."

Granted, paper and EPS cups are not spun-bonded poly-pro but conceivably some of the same technologies could be used. That is, heat stamping, di-electric bonding and the like. The transfer equipment would have to be adapted and elastic hand-stapled but that is immensely faster than sewing.

Point being, if everybody who provides medical care is supposed to change PPE between patients then 2000 masks will disappear in a heartbeat. 18 million units in a day, though, that gets peoples attention.

Nice try, Cuomo

The governor of New York is demanding that all "extra" ventilators be shipped to New York City. He is also signing an executive order to for out-state hospitals to ship "un-used" ventilators to NYC.

He says that when NYC is done, they will ship the ventilators back to the originating source. He says this will work because different states will "peak" at different times.

This is the old shell game where the pea is not under the shell you are directed to look at.

The number of NEW cases will peak at different times. However, the need for ventilators will lag the discovery of new cases and, once a patient is hooked up to one, removing them from the ventilator is premeditated murder if that patient dies.

So New York City will be a black hole that sucks up all the "extra" ventilators in the nation and many of the patients will still be plugged into them three weeks after they were diagnosed. Oh, and that peak is not very sharp. NYC will continue to generate cases that indicate the need for a ventilator for WEEKS after the peak.

The up-state hospitals that shipped their ventilators will not get them in time as the cases peak in less densely populated areas.

So Cuomo's plan is to send the National Guard, armed, to hospitals to collect ventilators out of inventory. They will be transported to NYC where they are running out of respiratory professionals to use the ventilators  so they will either not get used or will be used inappropriately.

And at this time 65% of the patients who go on the ventilators die anyway. Sucks to have something other than Covid-19 in out-state NY and need a ventilator. I guess Cuomo doesn't need ANY out-state votes to get re-elected.

If I managed any of those out-state hospitals, I would coach my respiratory professionals that if they didn't have a patient plugged into one then they were going to lose it. So if they had a patient that they thought might-maybe need it in the future, to plug them in NOW.  After all, Cuomo can't tell doctors to unplug them because he would be guilty of first degree murder if that patient died.

Just saying, that knife cuts both ways.

***Added later*** 

Cuomo said he will return the ventilators or pay for them. Let's look at both options.

Is it possible that the returned ventilators will not be returned with all the pieces parts? Maybe it will come with a random bag of loose parts that may, or may not fit that model of ventilator. Maybe it won't even come with a full kit, that is, it will come back with some necessary parts missing or non-functional. Perhaps all the consumables will be consumed.

Cuomo's hands are tied with regards to repaying. New York is broke. He cannot pay this year but maybe he can pay next year. Even if he could pay cash-on-the-barrel-hea, there are no ventilators to be bought NOW. An electronic transfer of funds into the "donating" hospital's account does the cardiac patient no good when he needs a ventilator NOW, this very minute.

***

Quest: Down Day

The recovery day at the Bazylewicz compound saw Steve, Sally and Walt going their separate ways. It was not that they disliked each others company. Rather, they knew that chances to meet other people would be severely limited.

Through the course of the dinner the night before, Mike had been probing to get a feel for each person’s “verb”, the thing that motivated them.

He had his daughter-in-law Helen come and pick up Sally.

Steve went with his son Louis and Walt went with his son Mike Junior.

Helen’s family specialized in clothing. “Mr B. said everybody in your expedition needed warmer clothing.” Helen said.

“Oh, no. We are fine. We are from Michigan and we know about cold weather.” Sally assured her.

Helen’s silvery laugh brightened the room. “I am from Minnesota and trust me when I tell you that you know nothing about cold weather.”

Sally would have been offended except for Helen’s good nature and, well, Minnesota is a whole different kind of cold.

“What you don’t realize about Iowa and western Illinois is that it gets much colder at night than back home in Michigan. Michigan, blech, what a gloomy, cheerless state. The sun doesn’t shine from October until April.” Helen said.

“What do you mean?” Sally said. “The sun doesn’t shine in the winter anywhere.”

“That is where you are wrong” Helen said. “Lake Michigan pumps moisture in the sky and fills it with clouds. Illinois and Iowa...not so much.”

“But wouldn’t clouds make it colder?” Sally objected.

“Clouds might might make it cooler in the day but it keeps things warmer at night. And you gotta remember, you have twice as many hours of darkness as light.” Helen said.

“And then there is the wind.” Helen said. “You are dressed fine for twenty degrees Fahrenheit but you need clothing for weeks of zero weather and dips to -30 F. Otherwise you are going to lose fingers and toes, maybe even die.” Helen said in all seriousness.

Sally was distressed. “What are we going to do?”

“That is why Mr B. put you with me. I need to have you find a pair of trousers and a shirt that fit Steve and Walt. I can find a couple of lads their size and we can start layering them up until I am convinced they can survive Iowa/Minnesota wind and temperatures.”

Since laundering was on Sally’s list of assignments (funny how that happened) she had access to the relatively few clothes they had brought along.

Helen’s plan was quickly put into action.

*

Among Louis’s many tasks was running the tobacco barn. “Do you smoke or dip?” Louis asked.

“No. Can’t say that I do.” Steve said.

“Good. You are less likely to smoke the profits.” Louis said. Of course, anything Steve had said was going to be fine.

“Mr B was wondering if you could do some ‘Brand Building’ as you went west.” Louis said. The capital “B”s were obvious.

Steve cocked an eyebrow. “What does he mean by ‘Brand Building’?”

“We grew ten acres of tobacco this year. We have cigarettes. We have loose tobacco. We have dippin’ tobacco. We also have ‘chiklets chewing’ tobacco.” Louis said.

“What are chiklets chewing tobacco?” Steve asked.

“A pre-measured dip with a candy shell that dissolves when you put it between your lip and gum.” Louis said. “The candy shell makes them easy to pour and measure and store. Mr B’s idea: Clear Creek Tobacco Company Chiklets.”

“Doesn’t getting wet make a mess?” Steve asked. “We are going to be out in the weather and potentially crossing flooded creeks.”

“Thought of that. Pockets get damp, too. There is a thin wash of wax over the candy coating.” Louis said.

“Sounds expensive” Steve said.

“Sounds like you can charge a lot, is what you mean” Louis said. “You don’t need to tell your customers this, but we can hide a lot of stems and imperfect leaf when we grind it up and compress it into a chiklet.”

“I don’t know what I have to trade for them” Steve said.

“Word went around that you have a supply of pain-killers, some kind of tincture.” Louis said.

“Yes, Mrs Cherrystone’s Very Finest Laudanum” Steve said. Tincture of opium was always a strong seller, especially when there were medical people around.

“I think we can work out a deal where you trade most of your laudanum for tobacco. The remainder can be on consignment” Louis said. “We will give you a heck of a deal because Mr B wants to build demand for genuine Clear Creek Tobacco Company products. These river bottoms grow excellent tobacco.”

“Would you consider selling me tobacco seeds?” Steve asked.

Louis gave Steve a bracing punch on the shoulder. “Nice try, guy. But not a chance.”

*

Walt went with Mike Junior who was the diesel, heavy equipment mechanic.

Walt was taken aback when Mike Junior said, out of nowhere “My dad is not really that great of a guy. Actually, he can be a real asshole.”

“What do you mean?” Walt was not about to trash-talk their host nor did he want to get into an argument with his guide for the day.

“My dad is a control-freak” Mike said, shortly.

“Did he tell you that he made $30,000 in two weeks, once. It was Christmas and the plant needed to start up and make-rate on January 2? Yeah? He tells everybody that story. About how the Great Michael Bazylewicz lived in the plant and snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.” Mike said.

“Look at me” Mike said. “I am thirty-eight and basically living in my dad’s basement.”

“I thought you guys owned the property your house was on” Walt objected.

Frankly, Walt was a bit put off by a grown man, twice his age, acting like a spoiled child.

“I do. I own the house and a small lot but not the property around it. But the deed comes with restrictions where I have to offer my siblings last right-of-refusal if somebody outside the family wants to buy it. All they have to do is offer one more dollar than the outside and it is theirs.”

“Why is that a problem?” Walt asked. “And why would you want to move?” The Bazylewicz compound seemed like a pretty sweet set-up to him, at least compared to most of what people were doing to get by.

“Don’t you see? I am trapped here. Nobody has any money. Nobody would bid on this property, knowing that whatever they bid one of my siblings would simply out-bid them.” Mike said, bitterly.

“Do they have the money?” Walt asked.

“Dad would loan it to them.” Mike said.

Having vented his bile, Mike took Walt into his workshop where he showed him some water turbines he was assembling. “Most of the diesels I worked on had turbines to increase horse-power” Mike said. “The proportions and shapes come naturally to me.”

Mike even had a foundry where he made his own castings and a machine shop to finish them.

Ultimately, Walt was saddened that Mike, a gifted craftsman in his own right, felt so over-shadowed by his father. Walt knew of several small streams that tumbled down to the Grand River in their last quarter-mile; streams that were almost perfect for the turbines Mike Junior was making. If the expedition passed back through the Bazylewicz compound on the way back, Walt intended to buy one or two with his profits.

Next

Springtime

Springtime means starting seeds. Caro Rich tomatoes on the bottom. Sweet peppers on the top. The container is a tissue box lined with a disposable, plastic grocery bag.

Ash. It is spelled "Ash".

Belladonna went cutting firewood with me on her birthday. We spent a couple hours cutting dead ash.

What a great gal. She can cook. Dress a deer. Cut firewood. Lift heavy things. She even smells good. I am taking applications for future son-in-laws.

We were both heartened to see that the farmers were able to harvest the marshmallows before the weather got hot. Looks like a good year for S'mores.

Note to self: Remove covering when Charlotte has 150 GDD b50

This does not look like much. It is some yard trash stacked on top of an "elite" wild grape selection (L50-S from Minnesota). The difficulty in using Vitis riparia as a parent in grape breeding is that it blooms way before other, larger fruited and larger clustered selections.

One of the work-arounds is to lay some fruiting canes on the ground and cover them up to keep them cool. Then, after the later blooming, potential papas have a whacking good head-start, to uncover the Vitis riparia canes and tie them up on the wire.

God willing, I will generate hundreds of seeds of L50-S X Steuben or Swenson Red. I am not sure what I will do with them, but they should have interesting genetics.

Reducing the number of caretakers to reduce risk
My concerns about the 17 caretakers who care for my mother has been self correcting.

When I arrived back at home, Mrs ERJ informed me that there had been a barrage of messages. Three of Mom's caretakers are out for the duration. One is out temporarily and the third was exposed to three patients who MIGHT have had Covid-19.

So we are down to twelve caretakers to cover 168 hours a week. I would bet money that we lose more caretakers as time marches forward.

Playing with numbers

Covid-19 cases and deaths in Michigan. Data supplied by frequent commenter Coyoteken

The error implicit in the presentation of this data is that the cases that died rarely died the day they were diagnosed.

There is a lag between exposure and testing positive and an even longer lag between exposure and death.

While it is not possible to estimate the time lag between exposure and death, it may be possible to estimate the time lag between diagnosis and death.

One way to perform this estimate is to calculate the correlation between the number of positive tests and the number of deaths. If you do that starting with March 18 (the date of the first death in Michigan) then you get a correlation of 0.983

If you slide the death data up five days so you are comparing the number of deaths with the number of positive cases recorded five days earlier you get a correlation of 0.996 which is much better correlation than 0.983

Sliding the data six days yields a correlation of 0.997 while sliding it seven days yields a correlation of 0.995

That suggests that the typical time-lag between a positive test and death is approximately six days.

Now the scary part
Lining up the number of deaths with the number of cases diagnosed six days earlier suggests an 10% fatality rate.

Data started March 19 when testing became more generally available. Wild jumps in computed death rate suggests small numbers issues.

Yes, I know that the Number of Cases is garbage data. The actual number is undoubtedly much, much higher than reported because many people are not going to go to the doctor or hospital until the symptoms are severe.

Nevertheless, it does paint a picture of the freight train that is hitting hospitals across the country, starting with the ones in major, metropolitan areas.

Quest: Bazylewicz

The expedition pulled into the Bazylewicz compound an hour before sunset on the sixth day. Mike Bazylewicz willing, they would have a lay-over day there as well.

Steve could not think of any other description as they pulled up Fish Hawk Point Drive. The property was surrounded with a tall, high tensile fence as if it were an exotic game ranch. The gate was self-closing and latched behind them, with pipes that dropped over inch-and-a-hald diameter rods that protruded from the ground.

Within the fence, the grass was cropped short. There were no buildings visible until they had climbed more than halfway up the grade. Apparently there were sensors...although it could have been the dogs. There was a small reception committee waiting for them.

“And who might you be?” a older man wearing a leather vest asked. Steve introduced the party. “My name is Steve Straeder. This is my wife Sally. The other gentleman is Walt Shaw. We are from Eaton Rapids, Michigan and I bring a letter-of-introduction from somebody you might know, Rick Salazar.”

At Rick’s name, the man asked “So Rick made it through Ebola? I hadn’t heard. That is good news.”

“My name is Mike Bazylewicz” the man said, confirming Steve’s hope.

“Let me show you where to take the horses.” Bazylewicz said. Then turning to a young woman in the crowd he said “Michelle, have Ma put on the good china. We have guests.”

*

Bazylewicz read the letter while Sally and the men did a careful check of the horse’s hooves, groomed and fed them. Lay-overs were when they had time to reshoe the horses and Bazylewicz clearly had horses and even a small forge attached to the barn. Steve intended to ask about the fire-risk.

Dinner was delayed so the travelers had time to wash up and change into clean clothes.

The meal started with grace. Mr Bazylewicz included a list of things he was thankful for and included this visitors in the list. Then everybody around the table was expected to add one thing they were thankful for.

Dinner was around a large wooden table. In addition to Mike and Cindy, Michelle and Jason (daughter and son-in-law) and their brood of five children were in attendance. Three more diners were hardly noticable.


The first course was a salad served in large salad bowls. “Jason and Michelle have greenhouses and specialize in salad greens” Bazylewicz confided. "They brought the salad and many of the vegetables in the soup."

“We have a family over every day for dinner. Seven days in a week and seven families. It is as if God had a plan.” Mrs. Bazylewicz said jovially.

Mike Bazylewicz was extremely animated during dinner. He insisted that they call him “Mike” and told them how he and Rick had first met.

They had both been a couple of young engineers who had been thrown together in a plant retooling that went south. Nearly everything that could go wrong, did.

Mike had been the black sheep of a family of super high-achievers. Instead of becoming a professor or a doctor, Mike had gone into skilled trades and became a tool-maker. Then, even as he was working sixty hours a week, he went to college and graduated as a Mechanical Engineer, graduating in the top 20% of his class.

“Clearly you are smart.” Steve observed. “Why didn’t you want to become a professor or a doctor?”

“Even as a young guy I was bothered that knowledge was splintering. Experts focused on smaller and smaller bits of the universe. In medicine, General Practitioners were considered plow horses. You had to be a specialist to get ahead. Then it wasn’t enough to be a Dermatologist, you had to specialize in Skin Cancer. Then it was a type of skin cancer.” Mike said.

“But even as a 12 year-old, I could see that the interesting events, the failures if you will, happened at the boundaries.” Mike said.

“Can you give an example I would understand?” Sally asked.

“Sure” Mike said. “You cannot eat your way to good health. Nor can you exercise your way to good health. Surrounding yourself with healthy people will not make you healthy. The way to make yourself healthy is to FIT all those pieces together.”

“Anyway” Mike said, getting back to how he and Rick met “the change-over was a train-wreck. Everybody was covering their asses and protecting their turf. Nothing was getting solved.”

“They didn’t know what to do with a couple wet-behind-the-ears engineers who wore cargo pants instead of suits and carried backpacks instead of briefcases.” Mike said.

“So what kinds of problems were you solving?” Walt asked.

“Mostly they weren’t getting things done on time. The product they were producing did not meet EPA regs that were going into effect in six months and the way things were going the plant wouldn’t be ready to make the new product for eighteen months.” Mike said. “It was going to cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars.

“How did you guys fix it?” Walt wanted to know.

“Most of the answers were sitting in plain sight” Mike said. “Or they could be had for the price of a couple of cups of coffee.”

“The other engineers were going into meetings with management and telling them all the things that could not be done. Rick and I went into the tool-room and electrician cribs and bought coffee and listened.” Mike said.

“They didn’t have all the answers but they were closer to the real problems and had a better grip on why things weren’t falling together.” Mike said.

“Can you be more concrete?” Sally asked.

“Well, the first big problem we solved was that they were missing their tombstone dates by a country mile” Mike said. “An electrician on third shift told us what the problem was. Kohl, an electrician on first shift who thought he was God’s gift to robot programming was deleting second and third shift’s work because he didn’t like the way it looked. It made rate. It did not damage the product or equipment. It put the welds in the right place but it was not the way HE would have done it.”

“None of the other engineers came in early or stayed late to talk to the other shifts. They believed everything that Kohl told them.” Mike said.

“How did you solve that?” Sally asked.

“Rick and I wrote a memo authorizing that certain functions on the robots be enabled. Basically, all programming was downloaded to central files hourly and anybody who tried to reprogram a robot had to log-in with their unique ID and password. There was no way Kohl on first shift was going to be able to make his bullshit claims and get away with it.” Mike said.

“The other thing we did was to demonstrate that they needed four times as much prototype material on the line to program to. That was the only way to organize the job so one robot programmer could program one entire program without having to integrate his work with other shifts.” Mike said.

“Then I talked to the Union Steward. The union was getting a black-eye because the engineers and management assumed the skilled trades were deliberately under-performing. After talking to the Steward, word got around through back channels to Kohl that if his ID was found deleting anybody’s work that he was going to have an accident and every bone in his right hand was going to be broken.” Rick said.

“I learned that clear ownership is necessary for a tidy, well run ship. That is why none of my other kids mess around with greenhouses. That is Jason and Michelle’s expertise and they do it very, very well.” Mike said.

Next

Quest: No Postage Due

Image from HERE

The party kept running into Amish throughout the fifth day. Once word got out, the community started bringing them mail to take to Iowa. Apparently young Amish had been moving to eastern Iowa drawn by the lure of less expensive land.

The best farm land in Iowa was every bit as expensive as the land in Indiana. The land that was cheap was the rolling land near rivers where fields were smaller and irregular in shape. The land not well suited to three-hundred horsepower tractors and enormous equipment. The rolling land near rivers was a more human scaled landscape, a landscape where fields could be tilled economically by teams of horses.

With the chaos of Ebola, the postal system vaporized and it became very difficult for families to stay in touch with the children who had moved west.

Steve was taken back by the requests. The letters weighed almost nothing. He told the father (usually) when they rode up on a horse or driving a fast buggy “We cannot go out of our way. I cannot promise to put this in your child’s hands.”

The father invariable said “Get it as close as you can. Give it to an Amish or Mennonite. God will see it to their hands from there.”

Steve envied them their simple faith.

Steve did not know quite how to charge for the service. Sally said “Don’t sweat it. Like you said, the letters don’t weigh anything and things will work out in the end.”

Steve asked Walt if he minded not charging the Amish for postal service. Walt had grown up a home-schooled kid. His parent’s faith was not of the Mennonite tradition but their strict adherence to it had drawn many of the same looks and snide comments the Amish received.

“The Good Book says ‘What-so-ever you do for the least of my brothers, you do unto me.’” Walt intoned. “I don’t see how we can say no, especially since they aren’t asking us to chase down folks on the other end.”

Steve had reason to regret his generosity in the morning when there was a veritable traffic jam of Amish buggies.

Six of the buggies had two passengers. The Amish matrons tended toward small-boned and slight of weight. To a woman, they sought out Sally and asked a favor of her. “I have a daughter in Dodgeville. Can you give her a small package?”

A quick confab revealed that Dodgeville was within five miles of where they were going. In fact, with a small adjustment in the route it really didn’t add any distance at all. With a nod from Steve, Sally agreed “As long as it is small.”

Each woman. in their turn, pulled a small rectangular package out of her satchel, a box hardly larger than a pound of butter. “It is a fruit-cake.” the woman said apologetically. “We don’t celebrate Christmas the way you English do, but I want my daughter’s family to have a taste of home.”

The Amish woman must have spent the night baking them. They were still warm.

Steve was not sure he wanted to transport cake.

Sally hefted the first box. It felt like a brick. Dried fruit, candied melon, nuts and honey are dense. Judging by the mass and stiffness, there was scarcely any butter-rich batter holding the mass together and the rich aroma suggested that whatever batter that served as mortar had been soaked in bourbon after leaving the oven.

“Not sure we could hurt this” she opined after the first woman was out of hearing. The other five women also had small fruit-cakes that they wanted delivered to Dodgeville.

“The only thing I ask” the woman had said “is that you put it directly into my daughter’s hands. It is not something I trust getting handed person-to-person.”

Steve’s irritation at the delayed departure and extra cargo evaporated as the Amish men unloaded hams and bacon and jerky as payment. “We don’t have any stamps so we hope these will work.

Steve massaged one of the hams. It was dry-salted and carried a thick rind of fat. It was an old-style country ham that could keep for a year without refrigeration as long as it didn’t get wet.

Since he was suddenly making a profit, a delicious one at that, Steve was suddenly jovial. “Of course I will accept those as postage.”

“You know” one of the younger Amish men said “I was curious. Why don’t you just fly to Iowa on a plane?”

Steve frowned in the lightening gloom. “Well, I guess mostly because I didn’t think of it.”

“It has been better than a year since I heard or saw a plane flying. I sort of forgot about them.” he continued.

“Of course, there are probably good reasons they aren’t flying. I am not sure how long the fuel stays good and even if I could find a plane and a pilot and fuel, I wouldn’t know if we were landing into the middle of a civil war.”

Steve’s recent experiences in Livingston County were still raw. He could only imagine the fate of a plane and passengers landing in Howell as the forces from Washtenaw County were invading.

The broad brim of the Amish man’s hat was visible as he nodded in agreement. “Yep. Now that you mention it, I haven’t heard or seen one in a long time, either. Like I said, I was just curious.”

Since the departure was delayed and the company had some information about the general path they were going to travel, Steve and Walt started asking them about places to camp with horses and places to avoid.

The only large city on the route was Peoria, Illinois. Steve asked if there were any ways to avoid it. He was leery of getting too close to big cities.

One of the patriarchs volunteered that he had a cousin who lived in Pekin, Illinois. The cousin was a fallen-away Amish but was still a good man who would provide bed-and-board for travelers who were doing a favor for the Amish. Pekin was south of Peoria and would allow them to cross the Illinois River without going through Peoria.

In all, the morning was proving very profitable. Sixty pounds of prime pork was thirty day's wages in many places.

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