They shot me... with my first does of the vaccine of vid of co. I finally got an appointment and did the deed. I tried before by signing up on the state's "official" website several weeks ago but got nothing, no call, no text, no email, just nothing (the site ran by the same "make everything horrible" politicians that ran the power grid to the ground, so go figure). I registered my mom back then too and she got nothing as well. She is in the age risk group and I have a medical condition that should have have gave us priority. Instead we got absolutely no response. And I work full time too which makes it harder to call around to get something. There are stories of people being put on hold for hours.

A co-worker told me that the medical clinics at a mall had excess vaccines at the end of the day due to people not showing up. He said a doctor told him that the best times are after 7:20PM on Fridays and Saturdays as usually 2% of no-shows. So I gave that a try after work last Friday (the previous week had a holiday). But no luck after waiting for over an hour as all doses was taken. What a bummer.

For my mother, she met the age requirement to get a no-appointment shot at the Alamodome. So I took her there the following day. It was crazy. We waited for over an hour in the long lines in the parking lot. They had us parked in rows with the columns drive one by one to a different lot. Here we got forms to fill out (should have done that in the first lot as we sat there in our car). Then it was creeping up the lines while filling out the forms. That took awhile but she finally got her shot.

As for me, a different co-worker told me about a website that does the searching for you. It is at https://www.teamherdimmunity.org/ if you want to try it out. I think it is for TeXaS only though. They was able to get me an appointment but it was literally on the other side of town. I was willing to go but my brother found that HEB website does appointments a day or two ahead so there is a chance of openings if one keep checking. None of being booked for weeks on end. So I gave that a try and was able to get something the next day.

I had to be quick as the time slots was being snatched up by the second. I found a store that is kinda on my way to work that had a spot in the morning. So I did that and canceled the far away one.

The shot itself was quick, barely felt the prick. It was less painful than the usual flu shot. My upper arm had a sore spot later in the day that I only can feel if I move my arm around. It largely went away a day or so later. I can only feel it if I touched the site of injection to prevent the infection.

I was happy to get any of the varieties of vaxies out there. I happen to ended up with Pfizer. I do believe that is one that gives you a set of wings. I already have my dragon wings so no bonus for me. I would rather getting the one that grows an extra set of arms as I could see it being more useful than the one that produces a third eye. Oh well, at least I finally got the vax tax so I could relax to the max.

Now I wait for the second does in a few weeks. I wanted the vax not only to be safe but to be ready for when furcon season starts back up. There is a new con in Houston this year in August and I want to go. I know some people there but the room they are getting are full. I am on the lookout for roomies as I don't want to get a room by myself. If someone is interested, let me know. I'll make another post later about it once I see if it is feasible for me to go and such.

But the craziness doesn't end. A few weeks ago, a couple of firefighters came down out street and told us we had to evacuate. A house down the block had a suspicious package on the lawn. The person living there had a know history with the local law enforcement. Let's just say he was "well known" with them. So he could have pissed someone off and planted a "present" for him.

We left and a lot of the folks ended up going to a nearby Dairy Queen restaurant. I haven't been there in years. After waiting due to all the people that went there at the same time, I finally got my food. It was, um, quite terrible I must say. The unsweet tea tasted bad and the fries was bland especially without giving me any ketchup. The burger was ok at best, a little dry but serviceable. The dryness was worse since the tea as nasty and no ketchup to break up the fries. As a side note is I got a burger meal at a Sonic restaurant a few weeks later and had a much better experience. Not only the burger better but the tater tots was not dry and came with packets of ketchup. But they did burn my on the "unsweet" tea as gave me the sweetened kind. Ugh, I only got some small sips out of it just to wet my lips while I chomped on the burger. I stopped drinking sodas many moons ago and the super sweet drinks are just nasty after my taste buds recovered. Same thing with salty food as I cut back on those as well.

We did get to return after a few hours after the bomb squad did their thing. It turns out that the package was a shipment of some sort Nutrisystem diet supplement or something. Supposedly one of the local news station truck came out but I didn't see a story published. One of the neighbors said a video about the incident was posted on YouTube but I couldn't find that either.

But wait, it gets even crazier. I am sure some of you (those who manage to read this far) hear the news of the "Big Freeze" back in February. Here in TeXaS, the snowstorm knocked power out for a huge part of the state's population for days on end. Our side of the street had no power for three days. Normally an inconvenience but with the temps dipped in the single digits Fahrenheit (-13ish Celsius), it was tough. Some people had it worse, a week or more of no power. But since no fun. The snow was nice since it is super rare to get any these days, but without power, we couldn't really enjoyed it. It even snowed twice in one week, something unheard of in these parts. Crazy.

Then the lack of water came on top of that. Some people lost all water. We was lucky here as just the pressure dropped and didn't completely stop. I saved water in pots before beforepaw just in case when the power cut off, so I didn't have to boil it. I do have a gas stove so I could if needed along with the ability to cook food. So there is that though I had to get stuff out of the panty as I didn't want to open the refrigerator door with no power. The problem was I could not find a manual can opener. So I had to used this can punch thing to cut many holes on the top of a can that left los of sharp edges. I could have sworn I had a proper can opener. Oh yeah, I took it to work to open soup cans for lunches. I used to eat a bunch of those for a while there. Well, despite how bad it was, it could have been worse I supposed. So people had no power, no water, and no food.

Hopefully they will fix the power grid but I feel it'll won't happen anytime soon until the current state politician's regime finally lose their jobs as they are the main reason we are in this mess to begin with. But the political climate have been slowing changing so maybe this will speed up that trend.

The only other thing to say of this year, we had our first virus fatality at my workplace. One of co-worker went to his brother's funeral during the holidays (who died of the virus) and caught it there. They took him off the ventilator like a month after. A little bit of a rant here but wear your mask.

Even though we have a mandatory mask policy at work, he was part of a certain group that aligned themselves with a certain poltical party that tend have a big percentage of the anti-maskers in it (as well as anti-maskers among other things but I digress). That group even put a "This area is mask free" in their corner of the building. I avoided going there as you can imagine. I even saw them walking down the hallways without the mandatory mask on more than one occasion. I hope it was worth it. The only person to perish out of 500ish employees we have worldwide (we even have a china plant that we sent over 40,000 mask too during their peak) just happen to be from that one particular group. So sad. He was a nice guy and all that. It didn't have to happen. Totally preventable. We did have some close calls but that was our first death. Hopefully there will be no more though I still see that group often without there mask. I shake my head every time I see that.

Well, I hate to end on a down note, but "it is what it is". The future does look better however. If I don't make it to that new Houston con, I certainly be at this year's ACFI. I can't miss that. And next year's TFF should be a go too but we'll get that when we get to that. The second half of 2021 is where everything should be picking back up, so I am looking forward to that.

There was supposed to be a new con in Austin back in January but you can guess that didn't happen due to certain circumstances. But if they manage it next Year, that would make it four furcons in TeXaS, a huge jump in just a few years. Four cons in drivable distance a year would be awesome indeed. 2022 could be shaping to be a standout year... if nothing else goes wrong.

I just heard that the Alamodome is now allow no-appointment vaccinations for those 16 and over at 2PM to 5PM from Monday to Saturday. Getting shot should be much easier now.