I was originally planning to title this post “There Is No Vaccine.”  But I decided that would be uncharacteristically (and unnecessarily) pessimistic.  Why was I thinking that way?

Remember when we used to be able to go to concerts?  We would get in line at 6am or earlier for tickets to see Elvis, Springsteen or Taylor Swift (not me!) that went on sale at 10am, only to find out at 10:01 that they sold out online?  I’m afraid the vaccine is going to be something like that.  Oh, we’ll probably be able to get it eventually, but in the meantime, we can listen to our favorite music on Spotify.  In other words, it’s going to be a long wait.

The New York Times has a tool on their website that allows us to estimate when we might have a chance to get the vaccine.  Based on my age, location and lack of underlying conditions, my estimated place in line is 268.7 million out of 331 million in the country, 8.5 million out of 10.5 million in the state, and 885,900 out of 1,127,080 in the county.

There are plenty of people out there that need it more than me, and I’m happy for them to have priority.  Truthfully, I don’t like to be an “early adopter” on anything for pretty obvious reasons.  It’s just frustrating that it is going to be such a slow process for everyone.

I don’t have a lot of faith in our ability to distribute a vaccine efficiently anyway, and since the Powers That Be apparently forfeited a chance to order enough for everyone in the first installment, it sounds like it’s gonna be a while.  Since each person has to get 2 doses the initial 100 million doses will only vaccinate 50 million people.  Out of 330 million!  At this point the Pfizer vaccine is the only hope, and while the Moderna vaccine is evidently in the approval pipeline, no one seems to be saying when that will be approved.  The downside of having a surplus of vaccine is what?  We get to give it to countries that need it?

While we’re all waiting anxiously to be “saved” by a vaccine, for now I’m just telling myself that there isn’t one.  That way, when we finally do get one we can be pleasantly surprised.

Kathy and I often refer to important events as “BFDs.”. But since this is a family-friendly blog we’ll use the term RBD instead.

We’re in Asheville, NC this weekend celebrating our 40th anniversary.  That’s a BFD.  And all 40 years to the same person! 😉  And as much in love now as we were then, just with a few added aches and pains. 🙁

This photo is from the archives.  Photos (and stories) from Asheville once we get back home in a few days.

Much is made these days of the idea of “social distancing,” a term I abhor because there ain’t nothing “social” about it.  I understand and support the idea of maintaining space, but I can’t help but wish that “they” had come up with a better term for it!

Kathy & I were having a conversation recently where – one of our frequent subjects – we talked about the fact that there is way too much information available these days – that there is a big difference between information and facts.  And she mentioned that there needs to be some term for the idea of maintaining “virtual distancing” from all the crap that circulates in the media and on the Internet.

Social Distancing, of course, means that my chances of getting cooties from someone decreases dramatically if they are outside my imaginary 6-foot personal space.  By a similar token, if some virtual boogieman – real or imagined – is outside my zone of relevance, it’s importance to me means very little.  We as a society pay way too much attention to people, voices and noise that have little or no direct influence on us.  Because it is out there we feel some sense of obligation, and we never take the time to think about whether or not it is useful, helpful or relevant.

Case in point: our upcoming presidential election.  We now know who the candidates are for each respective party.  I now know who I’m going to vote for.  Until I get my ballot in the mail, I don’t need to follow every analysis and every story relating to who vs. who or what vs. what or he said/she said.  And you can be assured there will be plenty of it – it’s been going on for months and will really get started today (although I would love to see a head to head debate between Ms. Harris and Trumpty Dumpty, which of course will never happen).  Send me my ballot and let me vote.  Beyond that I have no influence, I have no emotional investment.  I’ll do my civic duty as a responsible citizen and live with the results when I read them the next day.

I’m liking the concept of Virtual Distancing even more than Social Distancing.  Social Distancing is pretty easy – stay away from people!  Virtual distancing isn’t any harder, as long as we pay attention to who and what is trying to get our attention.  While the most effective form of distancing means staying completely away from people,  their ideas and their opinions, that just isn’t practical.  But just like we cast a wary eye on that person behind us in line at the grocery store, we need to approach our media consumption with the same level of caution and skepticism.  And turn it off when it makes sense to do so.

If there is something you really want to do, don’t avoid doing it just because things you can’t control make it uncomfortable.  Go! (Me)

We had been waiting for a clear evening to try and see the Comet NEOWISE and finally got it on Sunday.  Unfortunately, our neighbors are afraid of the dark and we have way too many lights around to see the sky.  We had pre-scouted a place out in the country for just such an occasion, and ventured out there after dark on Sunday.

The comet was harder to spot than I thought it would be, but we finally did locate it with binoculars.  I tried to make a decent photograph of it, but between not being able to focus and using a too-long shutter speed for the focal length of my lens, I got mostly junk.  The in-focus shots are sharp but have long star trails, and the out of focus shots have blurry lines.

Most night photography how-tos suggest using a wide-angle lens, but I was using a longer lens because I knew that with a wide-angle lens the comet would be even less visible than it was with the telephoto.

The first shot was taken at 55mm for about 10 seconds, and even it has some blur.  The second one was taken at 200mm, but I made a rookie mistake by using a 12 second exposure when it should have been about 5 seconds or less.  Oh well, it was an interesting outing with or without photos and satisfied my desire to just see the comet.  My philosophy is that there are other people taking night photos far better than mine, so I don’t need to make my own, just look at theirs instead!