The Valley health Center in Sunnyvale at 4:50 am. About 40 people in line for the H1N1 Flu Shot Clinic already. The first in line arrived at 1am, the first 10 around 3am. Temperature 50F and it's starting to drizzle.

The center is expected to have at least several hundret shots so things are looking good.

The Center an hour later at 5:50am. Now there are close to 100 people and arrivals are picking up. It's mostly men in line with their families arriving later.

With the rain and no gloves, it is getting too cold to work on the laptop.

Dawn at 6:30, now there are close to 200 people in line and the line is snaking is folding back and forth in front of the building. Without an umbrella or one of the few dry spots next to the building you will be very wet by now.

Families start arriving and I feel bad for the kids. For a three year old, standing in the rain for 3 more hours is rough.

Laptops were pretty popular with the early crowd, but only the first 75 people had dry sport where you could use them.

Around 7am the line starts wrapping around the building. Shortly after the first officers arrive to manage the crowds. The first two make the mistake of handing tickets out in one place and they get rushed. Ticket distribution is stopped, but not before I get the ones I need. They call in reinforcements and eventually manage to get the situation under control. At 8:30 the line starts moving and people get tickets. Pregnant women have top priority, followed by the other priority cases.

More officers to get the situation under control. At the peak there were around 8 cars from both the County as well as the Sunnyvale Police.

The line is hard to estimate but wraps around the building more than once. My best guess is that at 9:30 it was between 1000 and 2000 people.

At 9:30 they start letting in people and administer shots. Inside the organization is efficient and fast. By 10:00 we are on our way back.

Overall the best advice is to get your shots via your medical provider.