After a 6-year hiatus I'm back! Don't let the name fool you though, the vacation/school blog theme is not being continued [note: this used to be my Costa Rican blog. The name has since changed, obviously]. Instead, the spirit of the blog is "staycation". For you old people out there (I think the dividing line might be the 5 months between Mom and Dad's birthdays. Mom usually seems to get it and Dad doesn't - those few months really are a differentiator apparently), a staycation is where you don't go into work and stay home - creating a stay at home vacation: a staycation. There is one unique twist to my staycation - mine is government-mandated. Boom. Beat that all you other cheap deadbeats who are just avoiding work.

Let's figure out how I got here for those of you playing at home (hopefully no one's playing at work. Your employer is not paying you to read a hilarious blog. Back to work!). I flew home to Cleveland on October 10 in order to see my friend's wedding in Canton. October 10 ... Cleveland ... this might start to ring a bell for those of you who haven't been living under a rock for the past week. And to answer the next logical question, yes I flew Frontier. Flight 1142. At the time, this of course was not a concern to me at all. Despite a horrific flight back on Sunday night (5+ hour delay), I made it home in one piece with a fun trip back to Ohio seeing family and friends.

Flash forward to Wednesday morning when I got up to go to swim practice. Swim practice is at 5:30 so I leave my apartment at 5:15, well before any sane individual is up and about. Wednesday was a little different though, and there were cop cars everywhere. Me: "hmm, this is interesting. Let me send out a funny text about it to some people for a laugh." I proceed to send off a text about what the chances are all these cops are ebola-related. I get my laughs in and go to swim practice. On the way home I decide to stop at the grocery store around the corner and as I'm coming out of the store I see 3 news helicopters above my apartment. S***. (Trying to keep it PG. I'm assuming the reincarnation of this blog will be highly-acclaimed and I will have a wide readership). I call Ian and tell him the news of the helicopters, fearing the worst. He gleefully tells me that Court has googled and found that a new ebola patient has been found, and she lives at Skillman & Village Bend. I wouldn't happen to know where that is, would I? Of course I do - it's only my intersection!

After a quick run-in with Dallas' finest in order to get down my street, I am back in the hot zone. Right then and there I decide that I need to get out of this mess and I ask Justin and Ashley if I can stay with them in Addison (a few miles north of Dallas). They, being the amazing people that they are, welcome me with open arms. So I pack a bag, and head to work with no intention of coming back to this zoo for a few days.

As the day wore on more stories start to pop up regarding the most recent ebola patient (to clarify, AJV) and her whereabouts leading up to her diagnosis. She flew to Cleveland and had mild flu symptoms on her flight back, meaning that she could have been contagious on the flight back to DFW. It comes to light that she flew Frontier (eek!). By now I have people calling me and texting me about what's going on and asking if I was on the flights. I wasn't on the Monday flight, and the CDC didn't seem too concerned about the Friday flight so I was able to keep it reasonably under control. I even called the CDC letting them know I was on the flight, but they were curt with me and told me I was fine. I buy a thermometer just in case (and for those of you studying economics, there is a huge shift in the demand curve occurring right now - those controlling the supply should adjust accordingly and increase the price. Just saying. You're leaving money on the table).

To be honest work seemed more freaked out than the CDC about my presence on the October 10 flight and had me send my itinerary to verify my flight schedule. However, this seemed normal to me because the Cleveland institutions seemed to be getting more proactive about the situation. The Clinic had just sent 3 nurses home for just being on the plane, so I understood that the bank most likely wanted to follow a similar protocol.

At this point, I feel it prudent to mention that karma deals a hard dose of medicine. I have a co-worker who was diagnosed with an ailment that required pretty extensive surgery. Me being me, I made various jokes about the situation which could potentially be interpreted by some particularly sensitive individuals as insensitive (I was just trying to lighten everyone up about the situation, I swear!). So when it was coming to light that I was on the Friday October 10 flight and lived in close proximity to the new ebola case, people were having a good time freaking me out. Like I said: karma.

Thursday rolls around and I am working out of the office being the office rockstar that I am, and I get a call from my boss. He wants me to work from home for the time being until they can get some stuff figured out. It seems a little overkill given that I work in an office that is only available to two people, and one of them is currently recovering from said operation. However, I say: "No problem here. You got it, boss," and pack it up - remember I'm living with Justin and Ashley. So I drive back to Addison and get to hang out with Ashley, Riley (their 10-month old daughter), and Shiner (their hunting dog). I'm having a great time - there's actually people here and I can still get work done.

Now it's Friday and I'm living with Justin, Ashley, Riley, and Shiner. Life is good. The family is supposed to leave for the weekend - Justin goes to school in Chicago and Ashley and Riley are going for the trip to see some old friends. We agree that I can camp out at the house and play with Mr. Shiner for the weekend - I am amped! However, there's a problem. Apparently some yahoo on CNN has decided that AJV may have had symptoms on her October 10 flight, the one that I was on. Uh oh. I check my temperature for the 3rd time that morning and call the CDC again. This time they have a special hotline for people who were on the flights. I'm always happy to receive VIP treatment in almost any scenario, so I'm generally in a good mood already. The special helpline asks for my information and seat number and then tells me that I'm fine and I can go live my life normally (if you don't believe me, you can ask Ashley. She heard).

This news has me feeling relieved, because, to be honest, I was starting to feel a little nervous about being with Justin and Ashley while the news outlets were telling everyone that people on the October 10 flight 1142 might be a danger. However, Justin's bromance with Mr. Shiner get the best of him and he says he's boarding Shiner "just in case things go south." When I receive this text from Justin at work, I feel completely awful for putting the family in this position and I pack my things up. I didn't mean to put them in the line of fire and I didn't want to make them feel more uncomfortable. Plus, the action at my apartment had likely died down so I really didn't need to escape to Addison any more.

At this point I'm back at my place in Dallas working from my apartment when I get a call from the Dallas Department of Public Health (DPH). Apparently Frontier Airlines had been looking for me but didn't have a number on file. The Dallas DPH had googled me and found my LinkedIn profile - so they took a stab at calling around the office for me and eventually we got connected. They confirm that I am who they are looking for, and confirm that I was in my assigned seat on that flight. They then say that I was on the "contact zone" with AJV on the flight in question. What's the contact zone? Oh, it's just a three-foot radius. So essentially I was sitting right next to this person on the flight to Cleveland. After a quick inquiry asking if I remembered anyone coughing or sneezing on my face, they informed me that I was quarantined. (To backtrack, seriously? You don't think I would have been checking myself into the nearest hospital if I recalled someone coughing/sneezing on me on flight 1142?)

It's now Friday afternoon and I am under a voluntary quarantine by the CDC. I have a person from the DPH who comes to my apartment every day to check up on me and take my temperature and see how I'm doing. They do, on multiple occasions, remind me that this is voluntary. However showing up at my place on Friday with a signed letter from the CDC and Department of Homeland Security somehow makes me feel that this quarantine is not as "voluntary" as they are making it out to be.

One week after flying I am quarantined. Remember, the purpose of this quarantine is to minimize the amount of people I interact with. Let's recap the places I went and people I interacted with before the CDC determined that I was a danger to society and shouldn't be interacting with people:
- 10/10  I arrived in Cleveland, went to a retirement home and saw my grandparents, went to dinner in a restaurant, and stayed with my parents (people interaction post-potential contact: mild)
- 10/11 I woke at my parents, visited my uncle and aunt, visited my cousins and their two kids, went to a wedding and reception and bar (won't even try to count the people in attendance), and stayed at my friends with 4 people there (interaction: DEFCON 5)
- 10/12 Woke at my friends, went to a restaurant for brunch, went to the lake house with my parents and grandparents, went to Hopkins and flew home (interaction: DEFCON 5)
- 10/13 Worked from home and went in and took an exam at school (interaction: moderate)
- 10/14 Swim practice in the morning and went into the office (interaction: moderate)
- 10/15 Swim practice, office, exam at school (I tried in earnest to not come in, but my teacher was unimpressed at my attempts to not take the final ...), restaurant for dinner, and Justin & Ashley's that night (interaction: moderate)
- 10/16 Office and was sent home early, Whole Foods for lunch, Justin & Ashley's the rest of the day (interaction: moderate)
- 10/17 Justin & Ashley's, and I also made a brief appearance at the Addison Athletic Club (Funny story actually: I had attempted to use Justin's ID to use their pool. I look nothing like Justin, and consequently got his card confiscated. First time I ever had an ID confiscated from me at age 26. Unbelievable. I'll reimburse you for the cost of a new card, sorry buddy.) (interaction: mild)

Good thing they finally wrangled me on 10/17 and quarantined me. It would have been awful if I were able to go out and interact with society while I was potentially infectious after being on the flight on 10/10.

The story of my adventures in isolation will come in the next blog post. I'm going to be honest, I'm running out of steam and I want to make sure these posts all have the same pep that you know and love.

For my dedicated followers I'm going to continue an old trend --- I'm bringing back the song of the blog. It's funny, the last time I did this, I just wrote a song and I assumed most people wouldn't know or care what the song was. If you didn't know it, too bad (I didn't really care, these were primarily targeted for Ian anyway). But now they have invented this thing called "YouTube" (I think even DK knows that this is, so it must have crossed the aforementioned 5-month barrier. It's not impenetrable after all!) so I can just post links and you guys can listen to my song of the blog. But as we discussed earlier, don't do this at work. It's bad form, and if you were to get fired you might find it easy to blame me and my gripping writing for the loss of your employment. I don't need that blood on my hands.

Without further ado, the song of the blog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFu1Dhh4HC8

I kind of like this new format to be honest, it's like a mystery to you guys until you click the link. Better hope I don't Rickroll you! (Dad, I know you don't know what this is. Google is your friend.)