canyonwalker: coronavirus (coronavirus)
Today I got my Covid-19 booster shot. I made an appointment on Sunday, picked a time from a fairly wide-open schedule today, and best of all, only had to drive 4 miles each way instead of 105 miles.

Getting my Covid-19 booster shot (Oct 2021)

I got the Covid-19 booster (the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine) along with an annual flu shot. The whole process took about 5 minutes, and most of that was waiting for my turn in the chair.

It's good the nurse was able to do this quickly. She told me she had 100 people on her schedule today!

BTW, in case anyone reading this is wary of needles, know that I barely even felt the jab. The needles nowadays are very thin, and the nurses don't have to hunt around for a vein. (It's not like drawing blood.) If you're the least bit squeamish about needles you can turn your head for a few seconds and you'll barely know it happened.

canyonwalker: coronavirus (coronavirus)
Today I scheduled my Covid-19 booster shot. I'm pretty much on the verge of 6 months since getting my 2nd Pfizer vaccine dose, and I match the conditions approved by the FDA and CDC for getting a booster right now. Thankfully the CVS pharmacy website has been fixed so I didn't technically have to lie (see previous link) to get an appointment. And I don't have to travel over 100 miles for it, either! I'll get my booster shot at a clinic a few miles away on Monday just before lunchtime.

There's irony in the fact I've scheduled my third shot just as Covid-19 finished ripping through part of my family that dithered and made excuses not to get their first shots. Some of us boarded the clue train right away; others don't get it even when hit in the face with a clue-by-4. Well, I'd like to these relatives when I travel for Thanksgiving— but it's got to be safe. Getting a booster this week sets me up for being as safe as I can in visiting Head-in-the-sand America 6 weeks from now.
canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
My mom got her shot of the Coronavirus vaccine recently. Up until a few weeks ago she was dead-set against it, citing various conspiracy theories from the fever swamps of conservative TV "news". It turns out the big stumbling block for her was having to deal with anything involving a computer to get it. She explained that while she was driving the main road through town recently she saw a sign in front of the recreation center advertising the vaccine and encouraging people to stop in to make an appointment. Once she was able to get a shot in the good ol' 1950s way— no searching online, no using computer, not even having to make a phone call, just go to the right place— she did it.

It's tempting to point out this is an example of how expecting people to use online mechanisms is unfair to the elderly and the poor, who may lack skills or resources to use the Internet. It's tempting but not entirely accurate because my mom lives with one of my sisters, who is Internet savvy and begged Mom for months to let her set up an appointment for her. Mom is in the sad zone where lack of computer skills intersects with belief in conspiracy theories. I believe she looked at it as, "If you can't get the vaccine just by walking into a clinic, it's a scam and it's not important."

Either way, I'm glad she's on Team Vax now.
canyonwalker: coronavirus (coronavirus)
Since getting my second Covid-19 shot yesterday I've experienced only mild side effects. Yesterday I felt achier than seemed warranted given the modest physical exercise I did. Overnight I had a sore throat and a stuffy nose... though I believe these are more attributable to the seasonal allergies I've had the past 2 weeks than to the vaccine. Throughout the day I've continued to have dull body aches. I'm now at T+32 hours. Overall this seems even milder than the side effects I had after my first shot— and definitely milder than Hawk's second-shot symptoms. ...Assuming that my allergy- and cold-like symptoms are, indeed, from allergies and/or a light cold.

Two more weeks now. Two more weeks to build maximum immunity. Then I can shift up to the next stage of returning to normalcy. All I'll have to worry about when will be all the Covidiots who aren't getting shots because they think the pandemic is a hoax and the vaccine is deadly sham.

canyonwalker: Cheers! (wine tasting)
Saturday Hawk and I took a road trip up to Napa wine country. The impetus for the trip was getting my 2nd Covid-19 vaccine shot in Napa. We planned a bunch of other activities around it to make a day out of it. ...But mostly low-key, because I wasn't sure if I'd start experiencing side-effects of the shot or how soon they might come. It turns out I held up fairly well, though, so we made a pretty full day out of it.

Let's Go Shopping!

Vaccination is important, so are discounts! )

Shot #2

Wow, that was fastβ€” NOT! )

Let's "Do" Lunch

When in Yuppie-ville, do as the Yuppies do )

Time to Hike!

There's always time for waterfalls )

Back Through Napa... to More Shopping!

I had to buy wine somewhere! )

MOAR Shopping, and Dinner

Oh, but we weren't done with shopping. Further along the route home we stopped near Walnut Creek. For— you guessed it— a HomeGoods and a TJ Maxx store. After brief stops at those it was after 6pm, so we decided to get dinner on the road. We found a nice little Mexican joint with decent outdoor seating and ate there.

I was still feeling achy, so Hawk had taken over the driving after the Costco stop. After dinner we drove straight home the last ~60 miles. I was glad to relax. It was after 8pm by the time we got in. I relaxed for a while, took a shower, and went to bed shortly after 10.



canyonwalker: My old '98 M3 convertible (cars)
Three weeks after I got my first Covid-19 vaccine shot— which entailed a road trip of 108 miles each way— I'm heading out to get my second shot tomorrow morning. And this one only requires driving 87 miles each way! πŸ˜‚

It's closer because this time I'm only driving to Napa. "Only"!



Yes, Napa is well known as wine country. Napa Valley is the most prestigious wine-growing region in the US and one of the premier locations in the world. While "Napa Valley" is regional designation used for classifying where wine grapes are grown, Napa is also an actual city (pop. 80,000-ish) in that region and is the county seat of Napa County.

That fun little bit of travelog aside, I'm not actually going to Napa, Napa Valley, or Napa County for wines. I'm going for my second vaccine shot. Could I combine the trip with wine tasting? Sure; but it's just not fun right now. Wineries have changed their tasting programs for the practical demands of the no-really-it's-not-over-yet Coronavirus pandemic. It's not fun for Hawk, who's accompanying me and can't drink, and it's not worth it.

So, are we just going to drive 174 miles round trip for my shot and call it a day? Heck, no! There's great weather on tap— sunny and 77° in the forecast— and beautiful countryside to enjoy it in. We plan to go for a short hike to a waterfall after I get my shot.

Then, if time permits and I'm feeling well, maaaybe we'll stop at a winery or two. πŸ˜‡πŸ˜…πŸ·

Update: See how the day turned out! Keep reading in next blog.

canyonwalker: coronavirus (coronavirus)
After I got my first Covid-19 vaccine shot yesterday, Hawk got her second this morning. We are both experiencing reactions today.

After not really experiencing any symptoms yesterday (I got my shot at 4:15pm) or early this morning, I felt sluggish this afternoon. I checked my temperature (I've done this once or twice a day anyway as an early-detection precaution for Covid-19) and found that I'm running almost 1° F hot. Then I took a nap for a few hours in the afternoon.

In a way I am glad for this reaction. It shows my body is reacting to the fake virus in the vaccine, recognizing it as an intruder and building natural defenses against it. This is what we want to happen.

Hawk's having a similar reaction to her second shot of vaccine. After getting shot around 9 this morning she's feeling achy and sluggish this evening.

We downsized our dinner plans from making tomatillo chicken. "Let's order a pizza," Hawk suggested. You know I must be running a fever because I said No. πŸ˜… Instead we made easier comfort food: mashed potatoes and green beans for her, and frozen ravioli with fresh meat sauce for me.


canyonwalker: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Travel! (planes trains and automobiles)
The roadtrip I planned yesterday to get my first Covid-19 vaccine shot was successful. This was me at about 4:35pm Friday:

Getting my shot! [Mar 2021]

The background in this picture may look familiar. You see the aisles and shelves of a well known chain drugstore/pharmacy, the kind of which there are several within 5 miles of my home. As I've written previously this week, though, I wasn't able to get a shot within five miles of home. I searched and searched and found the closest appointment one hundred and five miles from home.

Just finding that appointment took way longer than should have been necessary, but that was only the start. As is often the case, getting there was most of the battle. Here are Five Things:

1) My appointment was in Davis, California, 105 miles away. Davis is beyond even the exurbs of the San Francisco Bay Area. It's out in the Central Valley, part of the greater Sacramento region, in the mostly agricultural and rural County of Yolo. It's not a cow town, though. It's a college town. UC Davis, one of the campuses of the prestigious University of California, is there. Cow Town, aka Vacaville, is 15 miles away. Yes, there's really a city in California whose name literally translates to "Cow Town"!



2) The 105 mile route is mostly highways and could be driven in as little as 1 hour 35 minutes. That's the timing Google Maps gave as I wrote this at 7am Saturday. Going on a Friday afternoon, though, I knew I'd hit traffic. As I left home at 1:30pm Google estimated arrival at 3:31. I was in good shape, I figured. With my 4:15 appointment I'd have time to spare.

It's a good thing I planned "time to spare". There was traffic seemingly everywhere along the route. Friday afternoons, starting as early as 1pm, have always been hell leaving Silicon Valley and driving out toward Sacramento. I thought from Google Maps' estimate the "Friday escape" traffic had abated a bit thanks to the lockdown. Alas, no. Whether it's due to warming weather, people getting more confident about the end of the pandemic, or people just getting sick of pandemic precautions and wanting to travel, the Friday escape route was clogged all the way.

As I sat in one particular traffic jam, barely moving, I updated Google Maps and saw that my ETA had slipped to almost 4:30. I'd be late! Will they give my shot away? I worried. I told myself the answer was "No". If they were going to give it away it'd be at the end of the day, at the end of the week. ...Though here it was Friday afternoon. Acquaintances of mine have gotten shots on Friday afternoons on the basis of, "Hey, we've got unused shots, come on over and get one!"

Traffic picked up a bit after that, and I parked at the pharmacy at exactly 4:15pm. The wait was short, though by the time I was done with my shot 20 minutes later there were several people in line.

3) I was surprised how lax enforcement of the policies for vaccine eligibility is. If you made an appointment, you were given a shot. They simply asked you if you were eligible. All you had to do was nod your head. There was no verification of anything. I didn't even have to show ID.

On the one hand, this is how it should be. Shots for everyone, few questions asked. On the other hand, that's not how it should be. Shots are in short supply, and governments are managing policies to determine which groups of people get priority first, second, third, etc. It's evident from yesterday than where the rubber meets the road, all the policies and rules are just idle talk.

4) On my drive home— which BTW went extremely fast, right around Google Maps' no-traffic 1:35 estimate— I heard an interesting news piece on NPR's "California Report". Vaccine distribution varies significantly by county in California right now. A recent policy to allocate 40% of the supply to "hard hit" areas has disrupted plans counties made before the change. The article noted that Santa Clara County, where I live, has zero zip codes identified by the state as "hard hit". Santa Clara has had to stop scheduling first-shot appointments to save its supply for second shots, they explained. Well, no wonder; the county lost 40% of its supply! Meanwhile, the article continued, counties such as Solano have so much supply they can't find enough people to take the shots. Solano has opened up eligibility wider than state guidelines so its supply doesn't go to waste.

It was ironic that I heard about Solano County as I was driving through Solano County. That's not where I got the shot, though. Davis is in Yolo County, the next one over. But quite possibly Yolo is in a similar situation to neighboring Solano, and that's why there were lots of appointments available there when I searched on Monday and zero anywhere less than 100 miles from home.

5) It occurred to me as I was driving home, along a route that I've driven countless times in the past for Friday escape/Sunday return, that this 105 mile (each way) trek is the farthest from home I've been in five months. The last was our road trip to the North Coast mid-October. Yes, just trying to get a damn vaccination has been my biggest adventure in almost half a year.


canyonwalker: My old '98 M3 convertible (cars)
I'll leave home in a moment to get my first Covid-19 vaccine shot. As I noted a few days ago, I have to go to Davis, CA, 105 miles away. "Have to", in this case, means if I even want to be on the schedule at all. There is absolutely zero availability anywhere closer right now. Yes, perhaps availability will open up closer to home... sometime. I am choosing now at 105 miles away over maybe sometime soon closer to home.

Since I booked this appointment Monday I've asked myself several times, is my solution part of the problem? Plenty of news articles about the problems in vaccine distribution note that people scooping up the early vaccinations are disproportionately those who have money, free time, and computer skills. Here I am, driving 105 miles away, outside my metro area, across a few county lines... am I taking a shot that should be going to someone else?

No, I've decided, I am not taking somebody else's shot. I am eligible for a shot now under California's rules announced months ago and reiterated Monday. It's literally my turn.

Yes, within that framework of eligibility I did have to scramble to take my turn. The sad fact is that while several million people were added to the eligibility list there are not enough doses for all of us right away. I decided months ago, even before the vaccine rollout began, that I would not support excessive hand-wringing over who goes before whom. We've got a policy in place; it's a decent policy; and according to that policy, I'm eligible. I am not going to split hairs about whether someone else in this eligibility group should be one step ahead of me in line.


canyonwalker: coronavirus (coronavirus)
After looking for a Coronavirus vaccine appointment this morning and finding absolutely none available anywhere near home anytime I took another look this afternoon. This time I specifically searched in Fresno, which I obliquely referred to in my previous post as "a city 160 miles away". Indeed, CVS pharmacies around Fresno had numerous appointments available this week Tue/Wed/Thu/Fri. I checked back because after letting the idea percolate for a few hours because I was ready to make a multi-day trip out of it.



The CVS store I focused in on was actually in Clovis, CA. It's part of the metropolitan Fresno area (FWIW I'm chucking as I write that phrase) and it's about 170 miles away. Traveling there & back would be a 350 mile roundtrip. To make it work during the workweek without taking time off (I have critical meetings this week) I figured I could drive down the night before, get a hotel, get a shot the next day after my meetings— oh, and stay at the hotel a second night so I wouldn't have to drive home 3 hours while possibly experiencing side effects of the shot.

I had literally already started looking up hotels when I decided to try the appointments site one more time for options closer to home. A few appointments in Hayward (30 miles away) appeared for Wednesday afternoon then disappeared moments later in the time it took me to double-check my work schedule. As I typed in the names of cities in the area in an ever widening radius from home I hit pay dirt in Davis.



Davis is closer to home; it's "only" 105-110 miles away. That may not seem numerically like a huge savings vs. 170 miles for Clovis but the difference is that the roundtrip becomes feasible as a half-day drive. I can get out there & back in a tad over 2 hours each way. With a late afternoon appointment on Friday I only need to take a few hours off from work and I can be back home in time for dinner.

CVS prompted me to schedule an appointment for my second shot while I was booking the first. (I'm scheduled to get the Pfizer vaccine.) Davis area stores had no appointments available in the +3 weeks timeframe. I went back to searching in a widening spiral from home and found an appointment in Napa for Saturday, April 10. "I can take you wine-tasting afterward!" Hawk gushed. Uh, I'm not sure that would be wise... and for now I'm just happy enough to have appointments scheduled.


canyonwalker: coronavirus (coronavirus)
Starting today I'm eligible to get my Covid vaccination, per the rules of California. Good luck finding one, though! As I noted when Hawk got her first shot a few weeks ago, excessive delegation and shortage of supply relative to demand have made figuring out how to get an appointment, and then actually getting a shot at an appointment, a mess.

"Excessive delegation" means that some health systems, but not others, are offering vaccinations. Some pharmacy chains offer them, too, but only in some areas. Looking for an appointment today meant searching across half a dozen different organizations' websites.

Supply and demand mean, well, what it sounds like. I searched across half a dozen organizations' website only to find that none of them have appointments anywhere near me for 3 months. Maaaybe if I were willing to drive to a city 160 miles away I could find something sooner, but I am not yet at the point of wanting to commit to such a drive only to hope I can schedule an appointment they don't cancel before I arrive.

UpdateI've gotten an appointment for my first shot on Friday, 108 miles away

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