Category: Pandemic

12 February 2021

Today marks the end of my 14 day period of isolation after the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. Hooray!

The pandemic still rages but there is some good news in that the number of new cases seem to be consistently falling as well as number of deaths. Perhaps it’s an opportune time to think of what we have learned during this world-wide tragedy. Experience is sometimes a harsh teacher but lessons learned by experience can stick with us for generations. It’s like the hot iron analogy, once burned…. We may not like some of the things we have learned but learned them we (at least most of us) have.

Most of us have learned that we are interconnected with people everywhere on this planet. It’s inane to refer to some disease as “Spanish” flu as we did with the 1918 pandemic or the Chinese virus as some have insisted on calling COVID-19. What is known as the Spanish flu was first reported at an army camp at Fort Funston in Kansas. It was the United States soldiers sent over to Europe in WWI that probably led to the most significant spread of the virus at the time.

In this age of jet travel, anyone can carry the disease anywhere unknowingly. By the time any disease enters any country and is recognized by any authority, it’s probably already too late to do anything but attempt to stop the spread. Each and every person on this planet is interconnected and the sooner we realize it, the better off we’ll be.

Another harsh reality learned is how deficient basic science knowledge is in the United States and the rest of the world. One good thing that has come of this virus is more and more people have learned a little about viruses and science in general. Another is that most have recognized we have not paid attention to science as well as we should.

Speaking of science, it rode to the rescue once again. When you think of the lengthy process in developing a vaccine, testing the vaccine, and getting approval for a vaccine (and rightly so – remember thalidomide?) the rapidity of what scientists and research labs across the globe accomplished in the amount of time they accomplished it is simply astounding. As a former biology professor, I take great pride in these scientific feats. Also, remember, it was a world wide effort to make the progress we saw with vaccines.

I think we can all say we had more than a little time on our hands for self reflection. Hopefully we made wise assessments of our lives during that time. If you are like me, you’ve noticed that cursory conversations with neighbors and friends seem to take a little longer. The person who may deliver stuff to your door may linger a bit with explanations or bits of information. We’ve learned to converse a little more and hopefully a little more civilly.

In spite of political divisions, for the most part, the pandemic has drawn us together. It has been the great leveler. Unfortunately, it has “leveled” some segments of our society more than some others: Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, the poor. Perhaps the pandemic has opened our eyes a little more to that.

I’ve learned the world doesn’t orbit around athletes, movie stars, pop idols, and politicians. Football, baseball and basketball games are not essential. I’ve learned the important people on this planet are those that do the everyday big and small tasks required of them: teachers, grocery store personnel, plant employees, delivery people, doctors, nurses, nursing home employees, police and fire personnel.

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While athletic endeavors are not essential, the arts are. I’ve listened to more music, watched more documentaries and cultural events on television, and revisited some of those old classic movies. I’ve missed going to museums and concerts and exhibitions.

We’ve had reinforced that life is fragile. The pandemic has taught us that even though older individuals with medical conditions are most at risk, the virus is nondiscriminatory and can attack anyone at any age. Since life is fragile we’ve probably been a little kinder, a little more gentle, and a little more understanding – except for those damn fools who won’t wear a mask.

I’ve relearned the joy of reading. I was introduced to recreational reading by my mother when she took me to the town library in Morton, Mississippi (above the fire station) and the librarian suggested a Hardy Boys mystery. I grudgingly checked one of the series out and after constant pestering by my mother, I began to read it. I was hooked. I read the entire series that summer as well as other series recommended by my new best friend, the librarian.

I was reading books in junior high that were considered advanced for my age and when I hit high school, I became a student librarian.

College put me off reading. Partly because each course would often assign three or four books – all of them dull as dishwater. Later when I worked on my masters and PhD (didn’t finish the PhD) it was scientific papers. As a biology instructor it was more scientific papers, textbooks, and scientific magazines. I hadn’t read for enjoyment in many years. I think I probably have read at least one book a day during the pandemic.

There are over 475,000 deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. and counting. We are not out of this yet. We still need more vaccine and we need better distribution, and we need to vaccinate many, many more people. We need to make available and distribute and vaccinate the entire world because just because the U.S. is making progress doesn’t mean the rest of the world is. If we cannot control this across the globe, we’ll constantly be working to combat more and more variants of the virus.

Most importantly, let’s take what we learned from this dreadful experience and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

My song recommendation is Louis Armstrong’s “What A Wonderful World.”

3 February 2020

Baxter Restoration returned today and reinstalled the cabinet door that fits under the sink. There was a lot of sawing and noise but at least the doors close correctly and they look good. I’m afraid to look too close in case there is some other problem with them. At least I still have time on my year warranty on workmanship.

Just so you know, I’ve officially snapped and gone off the deep end. The pandemic finally got to me.

I’ve started thinking about getting back on the trail (even the winter trails) and I finally broke down and bought a pair of snow shoes. I’ve snowshoed three times in my life and loved each and every time. I’ve always wanted a pair and I finally logged onto the REI site and purchased my first (and probably last) pair.

I may never use these but I would dearly love to get back into some snow and hike with my new snow shoes. I decided on the Mountain Safety Research (MSR) Revo Ascent Mens snowshoe. I’ve previoiusly purchased some of MSR equipment and really like it. Now, I know I’m 72 and probably don’t need to put on a pair of snowshoes and go plowing through the snow, but why not. Either die on the trail on in my bed at home, right? Better than a crash on I-95.

To further cement my insanity, I decided to purchase the new iPhone 12 Pro and a new iPad Air. I’ve been locked up in the house too long. To justify, my current iPad is running extremely slow and is almost out of memory (128GB). The new iPad Air is 256GB. I have no excuse for the new iPhone 12 Pro. I just wanted it.

Part of the mania is also due to a pleasant surprise in my bank balance. I took a big hit in 2020 when I had to pay out $4800 to a public adjuster (my mistake) and $2500 for the Citizens’ deductible for my water damage. It seemed like I never got to put any money into my savings account for emergencies. I was fortunate to not have to dip into my small amount of savings from 2019 to make any of those payments but I scrimped from March 2020 to January 2021 in order to not do so.

The good news is that I will probably get a nice tax refund this year, my social security jumped $146.30 a month (because of a lower income bracket allowed me to decrease my Part B contribution) and my Florida retirement changed $6.16 a month to the positive for some unknown reason.

In any case (judicious spending on my part?) I saw a nice jump in my savings account for February. Even with these two major expenses (iPhone and iPad) I should still be able to put away some money every month for the rest of the year for emergencies (and trips).

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More and more of my friends are either getting their first dosage of the vaccine or even their second shot. Maybe there is hope the Biden administration will be able to unsnarl the problems created by the previous administration and we’ll have a real chance to put this pandemic behind us. It still does not negate the need for masks and social distancing. I suspect we’ll be doing that for quite a while yet.

Florida continues to yo-yo in the number of cases and deaths. Look for a major jump in both after the super bowl in Tampa two weeks after next Sunday. I continue to see people post images on Facebook with no social distancing and no masks. Even after you tell a child an iron is hot and don’t touch and they do, they know not to try that a second time. At least I learned that when I was about 5 years old and it’s stuck with me.

I’ve started shopping Fresh Market and Whole Foods as opposed to Publix. Julie Jenkins Fancelli, daughter of the founder and heiress to a part of the Publix fortune and member of their board donated $300k to pay for the rally for Trump on January 6th (facilitated by Alex Jones).

Previously, our governor Ron DeSantis received $100k from Publix to be added to his campaign fund. After a series of payments that totaled $100k, Publix received allocations of the vaccine to be distributed through their pharmacies in 105 stores and 12 counties. Even more significant is that many Publix cannot be found in the poorer neighborhoods of Florida and in Palm Beach (not known for poor people) the governor had to take some of the vaccine away from Publix and give it back to the health department for the poorer areas of Palm Beach county.

Before that, Majorie Stoneman Douglas students held a “die-in” in several Publix stores because of Publix contributions to the NRA.

There are some boycott murmurings on Facebook and other social media sites. I generally try not to get too involved in boycotts but I think I see a pattern here with Publix and I can spend money at other places than Publix. I will admit, both Whole Foods and Fresh Market are more expensive but even Publix has become more expensive during the pandemic.

My song recommendation is Lefty Frizzell’s “If You’ve Got the Money Honey, I’ve Got the Time.” Money seems to be on my mind these days, both in good and bad ways.

Stay tuned and stay safe!

31 January 2021

I wonder if January is similar to March – in like a lion, out like a lamb? I don’t think we could get more lion-y than an attempt to overthrow the government on January 6th. At least it seemed to calm down somewhat from the point of the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kama Harris.

At one point, the Republican party seemed to try to distance themselves from Donald Trump. It didn’t last long. I wonder if Washington D.C. ends up being an occupied city for the rest of my life.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, California leads with the number of hate groups at 88. Guess who is second? Florida has 67 and we edge out Texas by 4 more hate groups. Nationwide, there are 940 hate groups. Choose your hate and there’s probably some group out there for you.

One big event in my life lately has been the second dose of the COVID vaccine. I received it on January 29th. It took me about 2 1/2 hours in line to get the vaccine and another 15 minutes waiting for any reaction. Now I have a fourteen day period before the full effect of the vaccine. My fourteen day period ends on February 12th. I’m already salivating at the prospect of going somewhere, anywhere! I’ll still socially distance and wear a mask but at least I feel there is the possibility of life after COVID.

Then there are the variants. Florida has the U.K. variant and the South African variant. The only good news is we don’t, as yet, have the Brazilian variant but south Florida has a large Brazilian population so it is only a matter of time before we have our first positive case. I’m sure we’ll soon have boosters for those variants and I suspect we’ll soon accommodate ourselves to have “annual” COVID vaccinations, like the flu.

Social distancing in Florida seems to be a suggestion. I’ve mentioned one night club in Fort Lauderdale that was closed due to people being packed in like sardines (sans masks). My friend Holley sent me a photo of the famous (infamous) Elbo Room in Fort Lauderdale – again sardines without masks. In theory, Fort Lauderdale should be fining those establishments and threatening closure but south Florida really has no economy other than tourism so no one is going to put a damper on that.

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You’ll be happy to know, from my last post, that I got a few household repairs accomplished (the microwave handle is replaced) and another added to the list (the bottom kitchen cabinet doors overlap). Baxter Restoration who did my kitchen and floors sent someone out on Friday and determined a new hinge will be required. I assume they’ll be back next week.

Life continues with zoom meetings, exercise, naps, and reading, not necessarily in that order. I can now say I’ve gone 21 days without booze. I felt I was overdoing the drinking this past year. I suppose one can justify it with the pandemic but in reality, it got a little too comfortable. I also stopped because of my reflux disease. Normally, when I wake in the mornings, I go through a short coughing routine due to the reflux. It got to where it was lasting longer than mornings and then it even progressed to the afternoon and into the evenings. Stopping the alcohol seems to have put me back to phase one on the coughing and even the morning ritual has been reduced.

Like Andrew Jackson, when asked why he didn’t drink, he replied he liked it too much. When I was a freshman at Ole Miss, many students told me they had to develop a taste for beer. I never had to. I always like the taste of beer and any other alcoholic beverage but I always had to be careful and imbibe with moderation. Both parents were alcoholics.

Strangely, I don’t miss my nightly nightcap. I guess that’s a good thing. So, I’ve mostly cut out meat from my diet and booze from my diet. Wonder what to cut out next?

My song recommendation is Billie Holiday’s “Gimme A Pigfoot (and A Bottle of Beer).” You can keep the pigfoot.

Stay tuned and stay safe!

19 January 2021

I’m not sure what got into me yesterday, other than the fact that I’ve basically been a slug the past week, but I had a burst of energy. I awoke at 4:30am and finally got out of bed around 5:30. Breakfast and web surfing led to my morning walk (1.45 miles), yoga stretches, pool laps and then I really got motivated.

I have some very tall haliconias in two locations in my back yard and they constantly need trimming. I’m not always diligent about the trimming but I went at it yesterday after swimming and got all the dead growth out and in the yard waste container.

The right nozzle of my windshield wiper was not working properly last week so I attempted to unclog it with a thin wire. That didn’t work so I wanted to check the hose that attached to it under the hood. It broke off in my hand. So yesterday I searched the web for a replacement (and YouTube video on how to replace it). MOPAR is jeep’s parts and service section and I found a replacement on their site for $30 with shipping. I double checked Amazon and that was the going price for a MOPAR replacement price. It should be in the first week in February. The YouTube video looks simple enough but stay tuned for my attempt at replacing it without having to buy a new jeep.

Somehow the latch on my fence gate got damaged and the bottom screw that holds the latch on came out. Every time you opened the gate from the outside it felt like the latch was going to come off in your hand. I tried a quick fix with an anchor and screw but that pulled out immediately. Yesterday I got out my drill and drilled through the wood and metal frame of the gate and anchored the bottom of the latch with a screw and lock washers and a nut. That certainly should hold it until the fence falls apart.

You may get the idea my house is falling apart because the next thing I noticed was my microwave door handle had come loose at the bottom. I did some checking and found the plastic piece the screw enters had broken off. After a lengthy internet search I finally found the correct handle for my GE Spacematic microwave. Apparently, every model has its own specific part number and handle. That ran about $52 with shipping and should be here by the end of the month. If I ordered the correct part, the YouTube video makes the replacement seem easy. I’m not sure how anything ever got done before YouTube videos.

That afternoon I did a 3.6 mile bike ride around the neighborhood. Needless to say, I was pretty tired after dinner and I think I crashed about 9:30pm last night. All in all, it was a productive day.

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The pandemic in Florida continues to be out of control in Florida. A five day average of new cases from 13 January – 17 January shows 14,300 new cases. The death toll average from 13 January – 17 January is 175 per day (low of 135 and high of 222). Based on that average the number of people who will die from COVID from 18 January until 31 January is 2, 450. As of 18 January, the death toll in Florida since March 1st is 24,657.

One million, thirty-0ne thousand seven hundred and ninety five first doses have been given as of 18 January 2021 and 93,m 258 second doses. Strangely, 40,661 have been offered the second dose but have not been given. Wikipedia gives the 2019 population of Florida as 21,477,737. By my calculation only 4.8% of the state has been inoculated with the first dose of vaccine and 0.4% have had both doses.

The first dose of the vaccine was administered in Tampa on December 14th. As of today, that means Florida is, on the average, inoculating 31, 266 people a day. Based on the state’s population and this average, it will only take 686 days to complete the vaccination of the state’s population. Oh wait! That does not take into account the people from Canada, South America, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, etc. who are coming into the state for their vaccinations since there is no residency requirement to receive the vaccine in Florida – only an appointment. No wonder the phone lines and web sites of facilities are crashing when trying to make appointments. Please! Set up a national inoculation program!

My song recommendation is “Give Peace A Chance” by John Lenon. In particular, the lyrics

“Let me tell you now
Ev’rybody’s talking about
Revolution, evolution, masturbation
Flagellation, regulation, integrations
Meditations, United Nations
Congratulations.”

To that I would inoculations.

Stay tuned and stay safe!

14 January 2021

Someone on Facebook posted some comment today about hating some particular thing. It doesn’t really matter what it was about but it got me to thinking about hate.

I remember as a kid often disliking something, not wanting to do something, being reluctant about something and even saying “I hate that!” but not really, truly hating anything or anyone (except my brother when he tormented me. I actually love my brother and haven’t really tried to kill him in years.) I do remember being admonished in Bible school, by my teachers, by my aunts and uncles, and grandparents that it wasn’t a good thing to use the word hate.

It seems the word hate has become more prevalent, but more disconcerningly, used with more intent. Times change. I remember my Aunt Sue chastising me for saying the word pregnant. That just wasn’t done. Now the word fuck seems to be used in everyday conversation.

I was always taught the saying “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” That was a lie. Words do hurt – badly. I know because a lot of words were used against me as a kid. Words like sissy, queer, faggot, cry baby, stupid.

One of my colleagues at the college where I taught invited me on a camping trip down to the Keys. Along the way, we fell into an easy conversation and one of the topics he brought up was political correctness. He was against it and wanted to know my opinion. I was for political correctness because I had been on the receiving end of unpolitical correctness for most of my life.

I explained to him what it felt like to hear faggot jokes told in my presence – some of the relators unknowingly doing so and some knowingly doing so. My friend knew I was gay and as he begin to think about my response, I’m sure he thought of times he had told a few faggot jokes. I didn’t really change his mind about political correctness but at least he did a pause and thought a little more in depth about the topic.

I probably am guilty of saying I hate Donald Trump or Republicans in general. I’m sure I didn’t mean it in the literal sense but I do strongly disagree with him and the Republican party. When, exactly, did we being to hate so much?

Words have consequences and I think Donald Trump and some of the Representatives and Senators are beginning to find that out. I think we all need to be a little more judicious.

The pandemic continues to spiral out of control. The Trump administration has now lowered the age for vaccination to 65 (something the incoming Biden administration planned to do) and now there is genuine concern that those who received the first dose will not be able to receive the second dose.

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Just to give you an idea of how confused people are, Broward County gave the first dose and told everyone who received it to show up 21 days later – no reservations required. Miami-Dade county administered the first dose, gave them a vaccination card that told them to get their second dose 21 days later but also told them they had to have a reservation. All sites and phones for reservations are shut down with overload in Miami-Dade county. In addition, not all nursing homes have been completely vaccinated with the first dose.

The county in Florida with the most number of cases and deaths is Miami-Dade. The second is Broward. Both counties yo-yo as far as percentage of population – going up one day, dropping the next and then climbing the next. There still doesn’t seem to be any one good indicator as to the progress of the disease.

The Florida Department of Health web site doesn’t list total number of cases of the virus nor does it list total deaths, only daily totals – too depressing for Governor DeSantis otherwise.

The website created by Rebekah Jones, the person fired by the state of Florida for blowing the whistle on incorrect data on the Florida Department of Health Website, lists 1,1612,813 total cases as of 12 January 2021 and 23, 759 deaths.

The Johns-Hopkins’ website provides no date for their data but list 1,517,472 cases and 23,396 deaths.

As you can see, there is no consistency in the data. If there is no consistency in the data, no consistency in how states administer vaccines, and no consistency who gets the vaccines, how do you control the pandemic?

At least with vaccines, we have hope. It’s amazing the feeling of liberation I got when I received my first dose. I’m even beginning to toy with the idea, once I get my second dose, of getting back out into the great outdoors. Imagine a world where you can sit down for dinner with friends again!

The sourdough starter is doing well – too well. I have so much left over starter it’s beginning to take over the refrigerator!

My song recommendation to day is a little dig at the Donald. It’s Gene Watson’s “Turn Out the Lights, the Party’s Over.”

Stay tuned and stay safe – until you get both doses – and stay safe anyway.

12 January 2021

It’s come down to this. I’ve been reduced to bread making. I finally cracked. With my torn biceps tendon and restorative surgery, the pandemic, the renovation of my floors and kitchen, and the insurrection/uncivil war incited by Donald Trump, I have finally given in and started baking bread.

It started with two loaves of white bread with a little whole wheat flour mixed in. Then it got worse. I made sourdough starter three days ago and yesterday made three loaves. Even worse, I’ve taken on the task of feeding the starter once a day. What’s next? Brioche? I’m not even particularly good at baking bread – but it does make the house smell wonderful.

I’m still not over January 6th. If you had asked me at an early age what to expect in the far distant year of 2021, I would never have imagined Proud Boys, Qanon, white nationalists, Nazis, and members of the Republican party to try to overthrow the government of the United States. Hell hath no fury like white privilege scorned.

I say impeach. When the House sends the articles over, maybe there will be 17 Republican Senators that will find a backbone. There will have to be a new classifications for Presidents through history. The top 5 best, the top five worst, and Trump. Even worse, it seems there are plans to attack (I think they use the term protest) the 50 state capitals’ capitols as well as Washington, D.C. again. So much for Blue Lives Matter when the white mob pulled three Capitol Police out and down the steps of the Capitol and proceed to beat them – one with the flag of the United States. Old Gory [sic].

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I mentioned in a previous post about fearing for my country. Those fears have been exacerbated in the last week. I do hold out hope that the U.S. Senate will expel Ted Cruise and Josh Hawley. One ray of sunshine this week is that corporations have begun to announce they are withholding any campaign donations to the 147 Republican House members and Senators who voted to challenge the results of Arizona and Pennsylvania. I say hit them where it hurts – their pocketbooks. If the Republican members of the Congress really mean what they say when they don’t condone violence in the Capitol, let them form the human shield in front. I’m sure the police will have their backs.

I admit to going a little nuts on January 6th. The next day, I sat down on Facebook and “shared” every anti-Trump and anti-Republican meme I could find. I’m sure I lost a good many Facebook friends from my home town of Morton, but honestly, enough of this bullshit. One person from the town posted a heart felt missive about enough was enough and Trump should not have done what he did. She was then flooded with replies that were, to be honest, embarrassing. For example, one reply was that the courts didn’t even try to hear any of Trump’s cases. Duh! Courts don’t hear cases with evidence. None was ever presented, even by Trump’s own lawyers’ admissions.

The hate that these groups exude, the conspiracies they embrace, the righteousness they espouse will not go away as long as others continue to stoke their white nationalist insecurities.

My song recommendation is the Beatles “Revolution.”

Stay tuned and stay safe!

8 January 2021

Today I got the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. I go back in 21 days for the second dose and then and only then will I think life will begin to feel semi-normal. It was an interesting experience. I’m sure your experience will be different, depending upon which state you are in, who is providing the vaccine, and where it is being administered. However, I think there are several recommendations I would make to everyone (see below).

The state of Florida decided to modify the CDC recommendations and vaccinate anyone over the age of 65 (CDC recommended 75+). I didn’t agree with the governor on this issue – I could have remained home for longer and it would have freed up vaccine for essential workers. However, I decided that since it was being offered, I would take it.

I was very lucky to get a reservation. My friends Jim and Holley sent out a text message early one morning that the Broward County Health Department (BCHD) website was actually functioning for a change. I logged on around 6:30 am and with one misstep and reload, I got a reservation for today at the rather specific time of 9:59 – 10:00 am at Central Regional Park in Lauderhill, Florida – about a 12 minute drive from my house. By 7:30 am the website was down and out for the count. By the end of the day, BCHD stated they had filled all available slots until February.

What BCHD didn’t tell you was you could show up any time, not your scheduled time. They also didn’t tell you which park entrance to take. There is a west entrance on US441 north and an entrance on Sunrise Blvd. I had read one post from someone who had gotten their vaccination there and they said use the west entrance. Wrong. It’s the Sunrise Blvd entrance.

I was, at first, surprised there was no line of cars on Sunrise Blvd. waiting to get into the park. There’s a reason. If you look at the map above, Sunrise in the double lane road south of the park. I made it all the way to the first circle. What I didn’t realize until a little later is that the roads heading east were where you zig-zagged back and forth until you hit the loop road. Those 6 rectangular gray areas in the loop is the approximate location of the tents for inoculations.

I pulled into the park at 9:07 am and had my injection 2 hours and 28 minutes later. The line actually moved pretty fast. For those of you my age, there were 4 port-a-potties along the line and there were also two regular park bathroom facilities along the route. People took advantage of them from time to time. Usually, it was because there were two people in the car. One got out, used the facility and then got into the driver’s seat and the other person ran to the facility.

You were stopped three times in route and once at the end of the process. The first time, you were handed the registration form for your second inoculation and reminded to fill it out before you return for the second inoculation 21 days later. They then placed a blue dot on my windshield.

The second stop was pretty soon after that. They asked you to take your first pre-filled registration form and place it in a plastic bag. That was then inserted under your windshield wiper. You then got a red mark added to your windshield.

The third stop was the gate keeper to the inoculation tents. There were nine. The gate keeper waited until a vaccination came open and then directed you to a specific station. Fortunately, each station was clearly marked by a number.

How long it took to be sent to a station depended on how many people were in the car as to how long it took. One car in front of me had three people. They come out with a cart and visit each window to vaccinate. You never get out of the car. With nine vaccination tents, it moved pretty quickly.

After your vaccination, you were handed a inoculation card with your new date scheduled for the second dose. Everyone with BCHD did a very professional job and once you wove your way through the car line up, the actual procedure to get the vaccination was quick and easy. So far, no pain or after effects.

No one broke in line and everyone was pretty cool about it. After the injection, you were directed to a final line of cars.

The last stop was simply a very slow moving line of cars. They required you to wait 10 minutes after your vaccination to see if you had any severe side effects. There was even an ambulance with paramedics stationed at the end. When you got vaccinated, the last thing they did was write a time on your windshield. For example, my time was 11:47. She wrote that at 11:37 am. I then was stopped once last time. When the time reached 11:47 I was allowed to exit the park.

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I would recommend several things before you try something similar.

(1) Make sure you have topped off the fuel in your tank. I suspect 2 1/2 hours is a very quick time for the whole process but I had friends that, at different locations, spent 4 hours in their cars.

(2) Make sure your coolant is up to snuff. Because you are in line for so long, you are idling much more than you would normally do. My engine temperature started to climb and I got that coolant smell a couple of times.

(3) Bring something to snack on. I made it out before noon but I could have just as easily have been much longer in line.

(4) Make sure you have your registration form pre-filled. I saw at least one car that had to pull to the side of the park and fill out the form before proceeding.

(5) Take your favorite playlist with you or, like me, be prepared to listen to NPR for a long time.

(6) Try to find out the entrance before hand. I did but it was bad information. It’ll save you a few minutes and several curse words.

(7) For your second shot, show up anytime – the earlier the better – unless specifically told not to do so.

(8) I suggest you take a photo of the front and back of your inoculation card with your cell phone in case you lose the inoculation card. Then you’ll at least have a record of your vaccination.

The following is from a text message from my friend Catherine:

“Note to all – takes 14 days after second vaccination to assure you wont get Covid. You can still get it up until  the 2 week mark after  2  second dose. 

Should you get a shot if you have had Covid?  Wait 90 days and let somebody else receive vaccine. Then vaccinate.

Take second shot in opposite arm if possible.

Masks should be worn at all times after taking Covid vaccine.”

Additionally, she wrote: “Must  still quarantine if you have been exposed even after  vaccine. Do not get any other vaccinations of any type until  14 days after any other vaccination.”

She got this information by watching medical presentation at BC / Memorial Health.

My song recommendation is “I don’t need no doctor” by Ray Charles.

Stay tuned and stay safe!

3 January 2021

Success! When I waked this morning I had a message from my friend Holley that the Broward County Health Department website for reservations for Covid vaccination was now on line. As soon as I got the coffee made, I sat down and registered. At first, it had me select a date and later in the process told me the date was unavailable. The first available date was this Tuesday. I started again and decided to try for Friday around 10am. Perhaps they will have the bugs out of the process by then. I was able to register and get a confirmation.

Apparently the site was on line at 6:21 am after being down for three days. I just made it around 7:30 am because the site crashed again at 9 am. Then again 9:46 am. As of this writing (2:56 pm) the site is still down.

There were several city and county parks listed where you could get the vaccination. I was fortunate to get the one closest to me at Central Regional Park in Lauderhill – all of 12 minutes from me by car.

Still to be determined is how you go about getting the second dose. The vaccine to be administered is the Pfizer vaccine and I need the booster in 21 days January 8th. There is no where on the BCHD site that indicates how you are to schedule the second shot. Perhaps they’ll let us know when we get the first dose. There is a possibility they have not received enough vaccine as yet to administer the second dose.

The rest of the morning was spent notifying friends via iMessage and answering questions. One friend got registered but received no confirmation – she later found it in her junk folder. Another friend got his partner registered and confirmed but could not get his. As a result, he and his partner will have to visit two separate sites about an hour apart in schedule time. That should be interesting. By the time one set of friends got their confirmation, it was for January 20th. I heard via text messages from friends that now BCHD is now scheduled all the way into February (this from 3 hours on line availability).

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Also, no one knows if this is a drive thru vaccination or if you have to get out of your vehicle. The BCHD is not too forthcoming with the details. In any case, you have to hang around (anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes, depending on who you read) to see if you have any allergic reactions. I saw one statement that you would have to wait 15 minutes and if you had a reaction, to call 911. I can envision people thinking they are having a reaction and flooding 911 with calls after getting the vaccine.

One person quoted in the Sun-Sentinel asked how is it in 2021 you can order a pizza online and have it delivered 30 minutes later but you can’t get a life saving vaccination?

In other top news, the Washington Post has a recording of The Donald begging, pleading, bullying, and threatening the Georgia Secretary of State to overturn the election in Georgia. The President sounds pretty derranged in the recording and Raffensperger was adamant that Trump was wrong and being mislead. Even if Raffensperger did overturn the election, it would still not be enough to swing the election to Trump. We also have Gomert of Texas saying the only recourse seems to be protests and armed militia in the streets. It seems we are Weimar Republic territory here.

Speaking of Weimar Republic, my song recommendation is “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” from the complete score of Cabaret. In the movie, Sally Bowles (Liza Minelli) Brian Roberts (Michael York) and Maximilian von Heune (Helmut Griem) are returning to Berlin after a stay in Max’s country home (read that as castle). They stop at a beer garden and German Youth stop by and begin to sing “Tomorrow Belongs to Me.” The song was actually written for Broadway and is not a part of Germany’s repertoire nor part of the German Youth movement. Indeed, it was written by Fred Ebb and John Kander – both Jewish. At the end, the three leave and Brian turns to Max and asks “You still think you can control them?” Personally, I’m not so sure any more. The Republican party will do anything to stay in power.

Stay tuned and stay safe!

1 January 2021

I enter the new year with a very pessimistic viewpoint. That could be due to the three hours of sleep I got last night. People were shooting off fireworks at 3 am (with a 1 am curfew). I finally got up and started reading around 3:30 am. I did manage to make my walk, do my yoga stretches and do my shortened swim routine. I also made black-eyed peas for good luck. I think we are going to need it.

Why the pessimism? The governor of Florida has decided not to follow CDC guidelines for the Covid vaccine. Instead of first responders, nursing homes and essential personnel, he’s decided that since Florida is pretty much a retirement state to vaccinate people 65 and older before essential personnel. Probably a good political decision but not much of a medical decision. My understanding of essential personnel is they have no choice – they must go in to work – the state and country depends on them – think grocery personnel, garbage collectors, postal carriers, etc.

As someone who is 72 and is pre-diabetic, I am at risk for Covid but I don’t have to go out. I can self quarantine and be OK. Be that as it may, Broward Health (formerly Broward General Hospital) decided to do the governor’s bidding. On the first day to register for the vaccine, and before their phone lines crashed, they had booked enough people to last until February and closed down accepting reservations for vaccination on the first day (actually, the first few hours).

The Broward County Health Department (BCHD) on the same day, opened up reservations for vaccination, only for their web site to crash the first day. It hasn’t come back up yet and this is the third day it is down. The city of Fort Lauderdale is closing the Holiday Park testing center and converting it to a vaccination center with the vaccine coming from the Broward County Health Department (remember, no web site running) and promises to be open on Wednesday of this week. The only way to get vaccinated is with a reservation – that you cannot make.

Less than 2% of the people in Florida have been vaccinated. One news source suggested at the current rate of vaccination in the United States, it would take until 2031 to get enough people in the U.S. vaccinated to get us to herd immunity.

One hospital in Miami has said they have the vaccine but not enough personnel to administer the vaccine because the staff are overworked, burned out, or dealing with their own Covid issues. Then there’s the pharmacist that destroyed 500 vials of the vaccine. The only thing that approaches the incompetence of the vaccination program is the failed program to prevent spread of Covid by the President and Republican governors.

Of course, we’ve only known the vaccine was coming for how many months? You think maybe they could have planned a little better for distribution?

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My personal feeling is that even when the BCHD web site becomes functional, it’ll be sometime in May before I get the first vaccination. Some counties are doing well with vaccine distribution but they are counties with small populations. Whether or not there will be enough vaccine for the second inoculation is debatable. The dysfunctional government of the U.S. is trying to kill us all. Florida hit 13,871 new cases today. The day before is was 17, 192 – the highest since the pandemic began. We now have 1, 323,307 cases in Florida with 21,672 deaths from the disease. Oh yeah, we are also the third state that has the new more infectious variant. The person found with the new variant is in his 20’s and has no history of travel so that obviously means he got it from someone else in the state.

Even though the new variant is not thought to be any more lethal than the original strain, since it is more infectious, that means more cases which means more deaths. That assumes the vaccine will work on the new variant – which no ones knows for sure.

All this doom and gloom on my part doesn’t take into consideration the sending of bombers to the Middle East to threaten Iran. We may be in a war before January 20th.

My forecast for the year is that 2021 will pretty much be similar to 2020. One source suggests we will have 567, 195 cases by April 2021. The statistics are too painful so the state of Florida has suspended reporting on Covid until after New Year’s day. No one in power seems to take this very seriously. We all may pay the consequences of that.

My song recommendation is “Linger in Blissful Repose” by Stephen Foster as sung by Gilbert Kalish and Jan De Gaetani. I originally heard this as part of the sound track of the movie Big Eden. I highly recommend the movie. The song is sung at the funeral of the protagonist’s grandfather. We all may be hearing this song a lot. The movie was filmed in Glacier National Park and the scenery alone is stunning.

Stay tuned and stay safe!

20 December 2020

I no longer mark the week’s passage by my wall calendar. Instead, it is by my weekly pill organizers. I have one for morning pills and one for evening pills. Fortunately, none of my medications require a middle time frame organizer or pills four times a day.

Sunday evenings are when I restock the organizers and that’s when I know another week has passed. There used to be a lot of ways to denote the passing of a week – calendars, favorite tv shows, exercise patterns – but all that pales in comparison to social distancing during the pandemic when tv shows are repeated ad nauseum, or at least available on your favorite streaming service.

Even weekly pill organizers are not fool proof, particularly if you forget a change in medication or get busy and forget to take the evening pills. Then what do you do? What I do is fill six slots next time, not seven. You’d think at 72 years of age and retired I could come up with a better system for marking time but here I am.

This past week has been situation normal. The pandemic is still roaring away, new exposés every day about our governor’s attempts to mislead people on Covid, the daily rate of cases continues to yo-yo, Donald Trump is thinking about a coup d’état and the weather is beautiful.

It’s actually a little too beautiful. I had to work on the sprinkler system this past week to clear the sprinkler heads. My sprinkler system is on well water (high in iron content) and therefore doesn’t affect my water bill. Homeowners tap into the Floridan aquifer for water to water the yards and golf courses. Of course, we are slowly/quickly depleting the aquifer.

I haven’t needed sprinklers during the rainy season and the heads somehow get clogged over the summer. From here on until the rainy season in May I’ll be using the sprinklers twice a week (Broward county is still under water restrictions and we can only water two days a week) and periodically adding water to the pool because of the rapid evaporation rate. The pool water level can drop an inch or two within a week. Too low and you burn out the pool pump.

I never thought about evaporation rate until I worked for a short time as a botanist/plant ecologist with the Bureau of Land Management in Miles City, Montana. I was hired on in the fall of the year and it snowed on Thanksgiving day. That original snow was still on the ground when I left in April to take up a job as park manager of Golden Memorial State Park in Walnut Grove, Mississippi.

The reason I learned about evaporation rates was Montana had seasonal bodies of water on which ranchers depended. What little water that was available was either by very deep wells or seasonal coulees that ran through ranches or constructed ponds.

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There was a short rainy season in Montana (nothing like Mississippi or Florida) and these temporary bodies of water were important to water the cattle. As you might guess, evaporation rates were severe in Montana. If anyone decided to build a pond on a ranch, there were all kinds of considerations that had to be taken into account to assure it would hold enough water for cattle use. It does no good to build a pond if it doesn’t hold water. Ranchers often came to the Bureau for evaporation tables and data before attempting construction.

Some of my time this week was helping out a friend figure out his new lap top and getting his printer to work. The job was made more difficult because his lap top is a PC product and all my gear is Apple. It’s been 5 years since I’ve worked on a PC and the Windows operating system and I’ve forgotten all the commands and short cuts for Windows.

We finally worked out a system where we did FaceTime with his and my iPhone and I got him to reverse the camera on his phone so he could show me his lap top screen. It took a while but we finally got everything figured out. We even got the printer to working. Fortunately, control P seems to be a fairly universal command.

Today has been a lazy day for me. I did my morning walk of 2 miles but didn’t do my yoga stretches or get into the pool. That’s another thing. With the cooler temperatures, the pool heater comes on in the morning so that will mean a higher gas bill. It’s not completely offset by the lower A/C bill but it does allow me to swim year round. Later on in the “winter” it’ll come on in both the morning and afternoon and then I’ll really be paying a high gas bill.

Three more friends were exposed to the virus but fortunately did not test positive. This thing is a long way from being over. Great Britain has now discovered a variant that is more highly contagious. I predict we’ll be getting Covid vaccines every year just like the flu vaccine.

My song recommendation is Don Gibson’s “Sea of Heartbreak.” Seems appropriate considering the continuing bad news.

Stay tuned and stay safe!