COVIS 19 VACCINATION

 My health care provider, UCHEALTH, informed all its patients that we would be notified when we were eligible to receive Covid 19 shots here in Colorado. News programs were constantly reporting how the process of vaccinating millions of people in different states was going. 

First states had to get the vaccine. Then decisions as to who would receive and when had to be made. Healthcare providers (nurses and doctors and first-responders) would be first but who next? Our governor at one point thought that prisons should be at the top of list. I do not know what became of that idea.

Then we heard people 70 and over here in Colorado would be receiving soon. Just how soon I didn't know. I was informed I should watch my email and check in my with my healthcare provider for updates. If I somehow missed the announcement about accepting an appointment for the shots my name would go to the bottom of the list. I looked regularly. Finally I was contacted and I signed up.

Today Cindy and I drove down to the Coors Field parking lot C to get my shot. We were really impressed about how efficient the process went.

After receiving my shot we moved to a holding area where we sat for 15 minutes to see if we were going to have any problems. I had a sore arm and I was a little light headed with a slight headache. That was it.

In 3 weeks I repeat this process. As soon as Cindy gets her two shots we will wait two weeks then head to Olive Garden to eat indoors.

STORYTIME WITH GRANDPA

This Covid 19 pandemic has meant fewer opportunities to be with others especially our family both near and far. 

I wanted to be able to stay connected with our grandkids but how? While looking through Facebook and YouTube I saw how people like Dolly Parton were reading stories online for children. That was it but then again the question of how?

I didn't want to simply video me reading since these were picture books. I thought about taping me reading with the camera looking over my shoulder but dropped that idea. Besides the technical issues there was the issue of getting books. Covid means that our local library was closed for a time. I could get books online but then what? After doing some research about resources I came up with a process that works pretty well.

I download 1st Reader ebooks from the library. Then I use a program on my laptop to clip an image of each page. Once I have the images copied (I hope I don't get into trouble for this) I copy them into another program called PhotoStage. PhotoStage is a program for making slideshows with sound. I insert each page into the slideshow. Then I record audio for each page one at a time. Each slide changes the length it is on screen depending on the length of the voice recording. Then I use my webcam to record individual openings and closings. The final step involves changing the file to an avi video file format and then uploading it to YouTube.  

The more I use this process the easier it becomes but it still is a bit labor intensive.

I enjoy doing it especially when I get feedback saying that they were enjoyed.