Sunday, January 17, 2021

Day 4042

I signed up for the vaccine on a few websites today. I thought this whole vaccination effort would be more organized, but this is apparently how you do it. All the pharmacies, hospitals, and other locations that have been designated as distribution centers have websites saying that they'll have the vaccine soon. None of them appear to have it now. You just leave your e-mail address on the websites and I guess they'll get back to you. I was just going to wait until I could get the shot at my doctor's office, but if Janet and I can get vaccinated earlier, we'll feel a lot better about traveling.

I'm sure there are side effects to the vaccine but I'm not going to worry about them. I've already been vaccinated for almost everything and there were side effects to all those other vaccines too. Most vaccines leave me with a sore arm for a few days and that's it. I'm old enough to remember kids who had polio. You really want to eliminate these kind of problems if you've got a chance. If we all end up growing a third ear a few years from now, well it won't be the first time that humanity screwed up.

Dawn seems to be walking fine now. She's not very adventurous and only wants to walk for one mile on very familiar routes, but she does seem to be enjoying herself. What was going through her head when she used to take much longer walks with us? We thought she was enjoying herself then too. This is a fairly dramatic change and there doesn't appear to be any physical reason for it. We've had Dalmatians for many, many years and they've all loved to walk. Maybe something happened when Dawn had her seizure several months ago. Maybe she's finally become confident enough to let us know how she really feels. I have a feeling that we may never know what has caused this strange change in behavior.

After we took Dawn back to the house, Janet and I continued walking along the old route where we used to take Dawn. It was a beautiful day, but it didn't seem the same without a dog. We both kept thinking that Dawn was missing out on an enjoyable afternoon. Dawn probably thought we were missing out on an enjoyable nap.

I feel like I've lost my momentum. I'd made some good contacts at Kennedy Space Center and had made three trips out to McDonald Observatory. Stories were getting published and I felt like I was on my way. Then Covid ruined everything. NASA became much more restrictive with press credentials. My main contact at the Air Force retired and I'm going to have to start all over again getting credentialed through them. West Texas became a virus hot spot and the observatory shut down. There's absolutely nothing I'm interested in writing about in Dallas. I get up in the morning and I walk. That's about it.

We'll go visit the Dalmatians at the kennel tomorrow. On Tuesday Dawn has an appointment to have her teeth cleaned and then on Wednesday I have my own dental appointment. I think that the SN9 Starship prototype is supposed to fly next week as well. It should be a fairly busy week. I don't think there will be time to get the leaves raked before the next big trash day. We'll save that for next month.

Chief is today's Dalmatian of the Day


Watch of the Day