We Got Lucky! 

I was online as soon as registrations opened for COVID-19 vaccinations at the Volusia County Fairgrounds yesterday morning and managed to get us registered for ours on Monday afternoon. They had openings today and Friday and again on Monday, and you had to choose a one-hour time slot. I clicked on 10 – 11 a.m. today, and the icon just spun, saying Searching. I thought everybody probably wanted to get vaccinated as soon as possible, so I opened a second window and chose Monday from 3-4 p.m. and instantly got confirmed.

There was no way I was going to click on Friday because they have a gun show at the fairgrounds this weekend. Friday is the setup day, so there would be vendors all over the place getting ready for the show. Even though there are different entrances for vendors and vaccinations, you just know somebody was going to screw that up and cause one big traffic jam.

We got the e-mail confirmation for our vaccination appointment, showing me as the person with the registration, but both vaccines were scheduled for Terry at the same time. I sent an e-mail correction, hoping to get that resolved, and I also called the health department about both appointments being in Terry’s name. After being on hold for an hour and 40 minutes, someone finally came on the line and told me not to worry about it, as there were several problems in the system and to just bring our driver’s licenses and the e-mail and it would be okay.

She also asked if we would please have the email confirmation and our drivers licenses out and in hand, and wear short sleeve shirts, if at all possible since it is a drive up vaccination. Apparently, a lot of people get to the front of the line, then have to search for their driver’s license, search for their appointment confirmation paperwork, and then roll their shirtsleeves up, which only makes the process take longer and frustrates the people in line behind them. I assured her we would do that.

A couple of hours later, I got a call from a different person at the health department in response to the e-mail I sent. He basically confirmed everything the woman I had already spoken to told me and reiterated that it was important to be ready when we got there so things keep moving along quickly. This is the Moderna vaccine, and once we get the first shot, we automatically have a reservation made for the same appointment time four weeks down the road. We are so relieved to take this first step toward getting back some semblance of normalcy.

With that out of the way, we watched the inauguration of our new president and vice president. I know there is a lot of discourse in our country about the election, and I know some diehard Trump supporters who still believe it was stolen. I’m not going to waste anybody’s time trying to confuse them with facts when their minds are already made up. When Barack Obama was sworn in for his first term, I was not a fan, and I wrote a blog saying that I thought his would be a failed presidency. He proved me wrong, and I came to have a great deal of respect for him. He wasn’t perfect by any means, but I believe he was a good man who had the country’s best interests at heart. Not only was he a very successful president, he also had some of the highest approval ratings ever when he left office eight years later. I look forward to the Biden presidency and seeing what it can do for our country.

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It’s Thursday, so it’s time for a new Free Drawing. This week’s prize is an autographed copy of Big Lake Blizzard, the fourth book in my Big Lake mystery series. This is the last one of the first printing of this book with the original cover. To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening. Note: Due to high the shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books to foreign countries, only entries with U.S. addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed.

Thought For The Day – Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.