Today is a good day!

 First of all, there's nothing on the calendar. I can sleep as late as I want. I can leave my hair uncombed and wear my PJ-style clothes. I can do a little yoga to get the energy flowing before sitting down at the computer and seeing where the keyboard takes me!

Then I started playing with Snapseed some more. We did our "Button" show on Snapseed this Sunday. I have so much fun with that app! Every time I teach it I learn something more. I was extra excited about the double-exposure feature that I've used before, but really figured it out for a particular purpose on Sunday's show. In this video I show how I took the first two photos below to create the third one.

During the show we had a couple of questions from the audience that have been bouncing around in my head ever since.

1. Can I add text "below" the photo?
2. Can I add a copyright watermark?

I said no to the first one, and yes - but it's work, to the second. Today I figured it out, and it made me dance around the house I was so excited. I'll be writing about my latest Snapseed discoveries in our Geeks on Tour newsletter that will come out in a couple days. 

Next on my To Do list was to rattle some cages with the Trip Insurance claim I filed for our quarantined Central America tour. I've submitted all the documents I have and they still want more. After 2 hours (literally) on hold, I talked to someone who said that someone else will send me an email and clear it all up. I'll believe it when I see it. But, in any case I felt good for doing my part - this kind of detail paperwork is NOT my strong point. I deserve a pat on the back! 

Then I turned my attention to creating the show notes that I write up after each Button Show. I'm really proud of these notes. They're a lot more than bullet points, they are written documentation of everything that we teach during the show, including links to videos and other materials. I review them all the time. I rarely re-watch a whole 45 minute show, but I often refer to the show notes to remember how to do something. 

For our Geeks on Tour Members, I convert the show notes to a .pdf file and it's important that the links in the notes be clickable. What good is a link if you can't click it?! Well, I use the Evernote web clipper to accomplish this and, about a month ago, it had a bug where links did not convert properly in the .pdf file. If you clicked it, you got a 404. I know, I know, I'm getting a bit geeky here, but trust me - this was a major problem for me! I haven't done the show notes for the last 3 shows because of this problem. SO - I was SO HAPPY when I checked it today and the problem is fixed. I can now get the notes done for the last 3 shows.

Today is a good day!

Maybe I'm even ambitious enough to go fill in the blog blanks from the last couple weeks. :-)

El Salvador Recap

 I put together this little video from our photos in El Salvador. It gives a good overview of the trip.

Home and still Negative

 I pride myself on being a very positive person, but right now - Negative is the way to be! We've been home 3 days and just took a home Covid test and both of us tested negative! Yay.

How we got here ...

OAT arranged for a driver to take us to the airport.  It's about 45 minutes from where we were in San Salvador to the airport and we had a delightful conversation the whole way. Our driver was El Salvadoran, but he lived for 20 years in Canada - Edmonton, Alberta no less! Aha! that's why his English was so good. He told us about how he messed up with getting Canadian citizenship because he came back to El Salvador for a visit and stayed just a bit too long. He forgot to read the fine print! Weatherwise - he's certainly better off where he is now, on the Pacific coast of El Salvador running a small business. A hostel for tourists in El Sunzal.  

The airport was a busy place! Everyone, and I do mean everyone, was wearing a mask. There were extra airline employees greeting passengers at the door, guiding them to the correct line, and checking their vaccination cards and Covid-19 results. I'm so glad I thought to get the hotel to print our results out so it was easier to show them.

They were very friendly and efficient getting us checked in, but then we had a problem. The lady at the ticket counter handed us our boarding passes and said, "Gate 6." We looked around and saw no signs for gates. If we walked to the right, it only led to doors outside, so we went left. No signs. We went upstairs - no signs. We just kept following open corridors and ended up in a kind of food court, but no sign of security or gates. So we went back downstairs. We asked someone for directions and they tried to send us back to the ticketing area - no, we have our boarding passes ... WHERE IS GATE 6?

We ended up going outside and starting over again! In the doors by American airlines, take a left and go upstairs. We then noticed a small sign that said "Passenger pre-check" - well, that sounds like security, but there was no line?!? Yep, that was where we needed to go. Take off your shoes, everything out of your pockets, laptop out of your bag etc. etc. I was called aside and they took me and my belt bag to a separate room - oh sh*t - I forgot to take my swiss army knife out of my personal bag and pack it in the checked bag. So, they confiscated it. Oh well, my fault.

We're on our way to Gate 6. I really want a beer. That's our standard airport routine: we make it thru security, find our gate, then find a beer - or if it's morning we get a bloody mary! But, no .. when we found our gate we had to go thru another security - take off your shoes, everything out of your pockets, laptop out of your bag etc. etc. I was called aside this time because my boarding pass had the secret code that identified me as a winner of the special treatment club. They swabbed my palms with some kind of test paper looking for explosives? or drugs? I don't know, but I passed and we could now find a seat to wait for our flight. We still had nearly 2 hours but could not leave our gate in search of food or drink. Oh the horror!

Really, no big deal. We finally boarded the flight, I got a a window seat again and enjoyed seeing the Pacific ocean, then farmland, giving way to mountains further inland and soon I was seeing the Caribbean and Honduras where I've been diving at Roatan. 

Before Jim's movie had even finished, we were landing in Miami. 

Speaking of movies ... things are different from the last time we flew just a few years ago. In 2019, when we flew to Australia, the plane had a sophisticated touch-screen on the back of every seat! This time there were no screens at all. Not in the back of seats, not dropping down from the overhead, NO screens. They assume that every one of us has our own screens - phones or tablets. The plane has an entertainment server with a local Wi-Fi. So, what you do is connect your phone to their server via free Wi-Fi (no Internet, just a connection to their entertainment). The airlines must be saving a ton of money this way!

The space where the fancy touchscreen monitor used to be 

We disembarked in Miami, sailed thru customs with my Global Entry credentials and Jim's Mobile Passport app. We found our bags in short order, made our way to Tri-Rail and got off at the Cypress Creek station where Devon picked us up and took us home.

Yes - we're glad to be home.

Home Covid Test

Oh ... after we got our luggage and were on our way we passed some people from the CDC who were handing out free Home Covid tests. They said we should take them in 3 days. That was today. 

How interesting ...

The kit includes a swab, a dropper of testing fluid, and a tester - and lots of instructions. You need to have a smartphone because the whole thing runs over bluetooth with the special app. What blows me away is how nothing on the package makes it clear that you need a smartphone - it just assumes that everyone has one! The instructions simply say, "Download and install this app" 

In any case, we both tested negative.  Life goes on.

Negativo!

 We did it! Jim and I studied hard all night and took the test again and PASSED it!

This time we took an Antigen test instead of the PCR test - and it came back with negative results for Covid. Either PCR or Antigen tests are accepted for entry back into the US. Both of them are "viral tests", meaning they test for the existence of the Covid  virus - not to be confused with the Antibody test which is completely different, it tests a blood sample and looks for anitbodies which indicate that you had Covid and some time in the past. Both PCR and Antigen use a swab from your nose or back of throat.

All totaled, we took 4 tests:

1. 12/29/21 - PCR test - Jim positive, Chris negative (this was taken at home 3 days before departure, but we didn't get the results until we already in El Salvador)
2. 1/3/22 - PCR test - both Jim and Chris positive
3. 1/7/22 - PCR test - Jim positive, Chris negative
4. 1/10/22 - Antigen test - both Jim and Chris NEGATIVE!

The folks at OAT got right to work rescheduling our flights so that we can catch a flight home tomorrow. The test is only good for one day. We're ready to go home! We will do this trip some time in the future.

To celebrate we went outside! It was just a couple blocks walk to a local Cervezeria.

4 beers, 2 small plate appetizers, one dessert + tip = $11

fyi ...

CDC requirements for entering the US ...

You must be fully vaccinated at least 2 weeks before travel, and ...

All air passengers 2 years or older with a flight departing to the US from a foreign country at or after 12:01am EST (5:01am GMT) on December 6, 2021, are required show a negative COVID-19 viral test result taken no more than 1 day before travel, or documentation of having recovered from COVID-19 in the past 90 days, before they board their flight.

You must be tested with a viral test to look for current infection – these include an antigen test or a nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT).

see CDC link here

Just hangin' out - with a friend in Italy!

 After our positive test results on Friday, it was settled that we would be staying at least another 3 days at this hotel. We hope to get a negative test on Monday and find a flight home on Tuesday. 

So what to do for the weekend? I'll tell you about Saturday later, but for Sunday - that's when we normally do our "What Does This Button Do?" live YouTube show. Well, we weren't interested in preparing a lesson plan and doing our class ... but, might we want to just do a "Gabbing with the Geeks?" We could talk about our experience with travel in the time of Covid. For us, Covid has been an inconvenience, but it made me think about our friend, Cary Tennis. Cary lives in Italy and when he got Covid he spent 5 weeks in an Italian hospital and nearly died. He's OK now, and I wondered if he would join us on our YouTube channel and talk about it. I had already had my share of wine and was feeling invincible, so I shot off an email asking Cary if he would be available for showtime. I got a response on Sunday morning and we were ON!

Cary is an excellent writer - please check out his story: The psychedelic madness of Covid-19 - the introduction is by David Talbot, the founder of Salon.com where Cary wrote a column for many years. Cary also did a podcast about his experience on his own website CaryTennis.com.

Today, Cary joined us on YouTube and Facebook for a live discussion about Covid, Travel, Italy, and El Salvador. You can watch the replay here.