a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
It’s in my arm, my second shot of Pfizer-made COVID-19 vaccine.
To the COVID-19 deniers and conspiracy theorists:
YES, COVID-19 is real.
NO, the COVID-19 death rate numbers are not inflated.
NO, there is no microchip in the vaccines.
NO, the vaccine will not change my DNA.
NO, the vaccine is not a plot by Bill Gates, by the US Government, or by any other entity, to take over the world.
The Tuesday & Thursday social tennis sessions for spring / summer at the lower Woodland Park tennis courts, has started.
I was the only one of the 12 in our group playing that wore a mask on the court, and it did not bother me one bit.
It’s impossible to consistently stay 6 feet away from your doubles partner, and we brush by the others as we change sides, or courts. Why be careless, now that I am so close to get my second shot of the vaccine?
Washington State, as most other states, allow vehicle owners to personalize their license plates — for an extra license renewal fee, of course. I think it’s $80 per year.
I’ve been there, and had done that, with my two Toyota Camrys: just the letters for my name or a slight variation of that (not very imaginative, but definitely personalized).
The last number of years I had just gone with the randomly assigned plate number issued to me by the licensing agent for Washington State DOT.
Now with my super high-tech and exciting electric car on the way, I’m tempted to go for it again.
Here’s a rundown of some possibilities.
The plates in the leftmost column are all taken, per the licensing website, so those are not available! Those in the 2nd and 3rd columns still are.
BLIKSEM Let me help with the decoding here. BLIKSEM (say ‘blɪksəm’) is the evergreen favorite of personalized car plates for South Africans. It’s Afrikaans for ‘lightning’. It is also an expression of surprise, or shock, or disgust, and slang for ‘rogue’ or ‘devilish-but-maybe-still-likeable person’, as in Man! Did you do that? You are a BLIKSEM! BLITS (say ‘blitz’) means ‘lightning’ or ‘very fast thing’.
WATTSUP, NOWWATT WATT is the SI unit of power/ electric power. I thought of AMPERE3 and VOLT3 as well. VOLT is the name of Chevrolet’s 2011–2019 electric car, and not ideal to use, though.
3SACHRM Short for ‘Three’s a charm’ (third time is a charm). Three for Model 3, with the SA in there for South Africa, let’s say. And —very obscure, I will admit — a charm quark is a sub-atomic particle, found in protons and neutrons (but not in electrons).
VUVUZLA Vuvuzela, a long horn blown by fans at soccer matches in South Africa. Made famous during the World Cup of 2010 in South Africa.
10SNE1 Tennis anyone?
JENESQA Je ne sais quoi, the French expression for ‘that certain something’ (such as an appealing quality), that cannot be adequately described or expressed with any other words. Unfortunately, some people might think there is also a QANon conspiracy theory in there.
heath
/hēTH/
noun
BRITISH
an area of open uncultivated land, especially in Britain, with characteristic vegetation of heather, gorse, and coarse grasses.
It’s the month of May, so the rhododendron flowers are blooming here on Capitol Hill. These plants belong to Ericaceae, a family of flowering plants, commonly known as the heath or heather family.
I found a great deal on a rental car for four weeks, and went down to Hertz on 8th Ave to go pick it up. I hope to get my new car early in June. These pictures are from my walk down to Hertz on Friday.
Here’s the 240-volt adapter for charging my Tesla’s car battery. (I had to buy it separately; it does not come with the car. Now all I need is the actual car with its battery, right?).
I will need a new electrical outlet, connected to a 240 V circuit, in my garage, similar to the one that I have in my basement for the clothes dryer. The standard 120 V outlet will actually do the job, charging the car. It will just charge a lot slower, up to 8 miles (of battery range) per hour vs. about 30 miles per hour for the 240 V outlet.
Think of electricity current (electrons) as water in a pipe, and voltage as the pressure that is applied to push the water through the pipeline. High voltage pushes more electric charge per second through the charging cable, and gets the battery charged quicker.
Just for fun, here’s a table with examples of electricity flow, current and voltage.
One ampere of current is one coulomb of charge moving past a given point per second. One coulomb is exactly 1/(1.602176634×10−19) elementary* charges.
*the charge on an electron
| Electricity Flow | Current | Voltage |
|---|---|---|
| Current across human cell membrane | a few µA | 70 mV |
| iPhone consuming battery power | 0.1- 0.5 A | 3.7 V |
| LED light bulb (12W) | 0.1 A | 120 V |
| Incandescent light bulb (60W) | 0.5 A | 120 V |
| Electric eel, delivering a shock | 1 A | 600 V |
| Household clothes dryer | 11 A | 240 V |
| Tesla car battery, charging | 12- 48 A | 240 V |
| Long-distance power transmission line | 700 A | 350 kV |
| Lightning bolt (run for cover) | 30 kA | 300 MV |
I have been counting the days after Wednesday, April 14 when I got my first Covid-19 vaccine shot.
The graph below has been doing the rounds on Twitter, and has been featured in articles about the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
It was compiled in 2020 by Pfizer with data from the vaccine trials.
New coronavirus cases quickly tapered off in the vaccinated group of volunteers about 10 days after the first dose*. In the placebo group, cases kept steadily increasing.
The second dose boosts and extends the protection (for at least 6 months, possibly for much longer).
*If someone in the vaccinated group did get infected, the symptoms were milder, and there were no fatalities, either.
Tomorrow marks President Joe Biden’s first 100 days in office.
Tonight, he addressed a joint session of Congress, with two women on the dais behind him for the first time in the country’s history (Madam VP Kamala Harris and Madam Speaker Nancy Pelosi).
The president noted that 220 million vaccine shots had been given since he had taken office, and talked about his $2 trillion infrastructure plan.
Biden’s plans are big and bold. All told, there is a total of $6 trillion in the spending plans he has rolled out.
He says he will move ahead with these plans, even if he does not receive a single Republican vote of support in Congress:
The American Rescue Plan (the coronavirus relief bill), passed by Congress in March, $1.9 trillion.
The American Jobs Plan (infrastructure plan), unveiled Mar. 31, $2.3 trillion (paid for in part by raising the corporate tax rate).
The American Families Plan, unveiled this week, $1.8 trillion (paid for by increases in tax collection and high-earner income & capital gains taxes).
Here’s the QFC grocery store on 15th Ave, that had closed its doors for the last time on Saturday.
The store’s owners, the Kroger Co. based in Cincinnati, Ohio, says it was not profitable enough. The $4-per-hour hazard pay to grocery workers, mandated by the City of Seattle, ‘had forced their hand to close it’.
I took my rental car back this morning. The plan is to go carless for a week or so, and then get another one. There is still a good number of weeks to go before I get my new car.
It was a pleasant day, and I could walk up, up along Pine Street to get to the other side of Interstate 5, and to Capitol Hill where my house is.
It’s about 30 mins of walking with no stopping, but I took my time, and took some pictures as I went.
There was more rain today, bringing the April total to 0.95 in (24 mm). This is still far below the average for April (2.71 in / 69 mm).
I played a little tennis indoors this morning, mask on. My friend from tennis volunteers at the big vaccination clinic at the Lumen Field football stadium here in the city. He says they give 8,000 people a jab in the arm there every day, but could take it up to 22,000 if they could get more doses of vaccine.
There was light rain outside and cold weather, all day long (49 °F/ 9 °C).
My appointment for the second Pfizer shot has been rescheduled, to exactly 21 days out, from my first shot (4 days later than the 17 days out, that I was told at first).
Per a text message from my health care provider, the CDC guidance for second shots has been updated. (It seems that before today, there was a 4-day grace period, so the second shot could be had as early as 4 days before the 21-day mark, or 4 days after the 21-day mark).
From cdc.gov:
You should get your second shot as close to the recommended 3-week or 4-week interval as possible. However, your second dose may be given up to 6 weeks (42 days) after the first dose, if necessary. You should not get the second dose early … However, if you do receive your second shot of COVID-19 vaccine earlier or later than recommended, you do not have to restart the vaccine series.
P.S. So Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot vaccine is back in business, in the US, in Europe and in South Africa. Good news.
I hesitate to say ‘Happy Earth Day’.
Of course we should celebrate Earth, but earthlings— our governments and corporations, that is— have to enact and execute aggressive policies to reduce green house gas emissions, and plastics production.
At least the Biden-Harris Administration is a force for good.
President Biden recently announced a new US goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 52 percent of 2005 levels, by the year 2035. In a virtual summit with more than three dozen countries, he urged other nations to do the same.
Every little bit will help.
From the National Weather Service Seattle @NWSSeattle on Twitter:
Average high temp. in Seattle, April 15-21, 2021: 75.7 °F (24.3 °C)
Normal average high temp in Seattle, July 11-17: 75.7 °F (24.3 °C)
Our little Indian summer has come to a close today (temperatures will drop back to the 60s tomorrow), which is a good thing.
It’s way too early on the calendar to have mid-70s highs.
Firefighters from the Washington State Dept. of Natural Resources have responded to 91 wildfires this last week.
Today’s verdict isn’t ‘justice’ .. but accountability is a first step to justice.
– Keith Ellison, Minnesota Attorney General
That a family had to lose a son, brother and father; that a teenage girl had to film and post a murder, that millions across the country had to organize and march just for George Floyd to be seen and valued is not justice. And this verdict is not a substitute for policy change’.
– Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Representative for New York’s 14th congressional district
I was watching the announcement of the verdict on live television today.
Man! Don’t mess this up for all of us! I thought of the jury.
The guilty verdict of former police officer Chauvin is a relief, but a very rare outcome. In many other egregious cases over the last 20 years, the law enforcement officer had come off scot free.
Sentencing is in 8 weeks, and the remaining officers (Lane, Thao, and Kueng) charged in the death of George Floyd, will be tried together on August 23.
All of this made me think back to the verdict in the OJ Simpson trial, in October of 1995. I had arrived on the shores of the United States that February. My coworkers and I, at Anheuser-Busch in downtown St Louis, MO, rushed down to the lobby to see the announcement on television. That jury handed down a verdict that dismayed many people, but the majority of African Americans supported it. They saw Simpson’s acquittal as a victory in a legal system that systematically discriminates against them.
Everyone in the USA over age 16 now qualifies for the vaccine.
Now if only everyone (alright, 70% of everyone) will go and get it.
It’s not going to be easy.
Too many Americans subject themselves/ are influenced by, information bubbles that stoke their fears, or lie to them.
Patience is a virtue.
– Origin unknown, possibly Cato the Elder in the 3rd or 4th century, or from the The Canterbury Tales, written during the 14th century.
Here’s a sneak preview of the electric car that I took for a test drive today.
I actually put an order in for one as well.
It’s a 2021 Tesla Model 3.
I picked the the long-range model (average of 353 mi on a full charge), with all-wheel drive, deep blue metallic color, standard 18’’ aerodynamic wheels, all-black interior — and steered clear of the ‘Full Self-Driving Capability’ option (that’s an extra $10,000).
I am going to have to be patient, though.
The delivery date is 7 to 11 weeks out.
Hey, three years ago the wait was 12 months.
It’s official: my Toyota Camry is going to be written off, and not be repaired.
I’ve told everyone I know for four years that my next car is an electric car, or no car at all*.
*Use Uber and the train or bus here in the city.
Since we’re still in a pandemic, and it would be so much more convenient to have a car, I am about to pull the trigger and put in my order for an electric car. (It’s from a company that is named after the last name of Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and futurist Nikola Tesla).
Here’s Mr & Mrs Jay*, dropping by for a bit on my front lawn.
It looks like one of them indulged in a little sunning (bottom picture below, lying on the ground, wings spread out, to catch more of the warming rays of the sun). It was morning and still not very warm, when I took the picture.
Meanwhile, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has announced that backyard bird feeders can be put back up (the number of reports of sick or dead birds across Washington due to the outbreak of salmonellosis, has dropped).
*Steller’s jay (Cyanocitta stelleri); Cyanocitta from the Greek words kuanos (‘dark blue’) and kitta (‘jay’).
