Big Dan’s Site

Health care and President Obama’s mandate for socialized medicine is something I’ve been meaning to write about for while now, I’ve held off so I can form all my thoughts into something semi-concise and not just a long, rambling, wind bag collection of random thoughts pertaining to socialized medicine in America. There are several points I’d like to make. This is going to be a long one but stay with me for the ride.   Here I go.

The current state of health care does not work for a good number of Americans. America’s current system doesn’t work for the working poor these are people who make ‘to much money’  to qualify for state assistance (Medicaid), yet their jobs don’t provide them with affordable or decent health insurance. When we look at it from a business perspective the so called working poor are the ones who do all the physical jobs that make life easier for the more affluent people who can afford private insurance so it’s stands to reason that healthier people mean more able bodied people to work.

Our current system of government provided health care (Medicare and Medicaid) systems are ginormous bureaucracies with volumes of rules and regulations that no one seems to really understand. The system is open to abuse and is abused daily by not only patients but the doctors and other people who provide services. We know it’s broken yet no one is bothering to fix it. If history is any indicator, the government will bungle health care for every American not just the relatively few who receive government assisted health care currently.

An example of abuse: My sister who has medicare/medicaid went for a dental checkup. It turns out she has 10 or so cavities. The office wants her to come back for each tooth separately. Now I personally have had 5 teeth pulled in one session, I know people who have had 2 or 3 root canals done in one day. Why would the office want her to come back separately for each tooth? Simple, every tooth is an office visit charge for Medicaid. Instead of one, two, or even three office visits and doing multiple fillings in one session the dentist wants to rake in the office fee 10 separate times. If this is flagrant abuse of the system, I don’t know what is. Who’s supposed to be auditing the billing? Why aren’t they catching straight forward fraud like this? Shoot a computer program should be able to pick up on situations like this. Why is X patient seeing the same dentist 10 times in one year? Does the patient have underlying conditions that require separate visits? If not, then sorry doctor you can longer take medicaid patients. Period that’s it. Scam the system once you’re out.

The problems are very complex though it’s not just an issue of the working poor not being able to afford private insurance. It’s also an issue of hospitals and other providers overcharging private insurance companies because they know they will pay. The common counter to the overcharging statement is that hospitals over charge to cover all the people who use their services and don’t pay the bill. There may be some truth to that but what about charging a fair price to everyone? This way perhaps some of the people who have to pay out of pocket can actually afford it. Instead of charging over $1000 to walk in to an emergency room to receive basic care. How about $200 for a dose of Tylenol and best yet they give you the generic. For $200 I can get a whole case of the brand name Tylenol.  How can you rationalize that price? There is no way possible, you just cannot. Please don’t feed me the line ‘well the hospital has to pay to maintain it’s facilities and stay on the cutting edge’. Charge the people who use advanced medical care to stay on the cutting edge. Don’t tell me well you’re using up an ER bed that could be used for someone who needs advanced care, I call bull chit. First of all that’s why pretty much every ER has trauma rooms and regular rooms, that’s why you have triage so the worst patients go first and if something catastrophic happened while I was sitting in a room getting a saline drip and the room was need for someone in worse condition than me, you would pull me right out and I wouldn’t have a problem with that.

The problem also extends to wastes of resources, this takes many forms.  Why do we need a phlebotomist to draw blood? Are you going to tell me the same nurse who just stuck an IV in my arm cannot draw a few viles of blood? Are you going to tell me that you cannot save sometime and have the triage nurse take a minute to draw blood if indicated?

Diagnostic tests are another issue a lot of these tests are wasted. Let’s face doctors pretty much guess what’s wrong with you. Wait a second, let me be fair here they hypothesize what’s wrong with you after years of  very expensive education.  They take your symptoms and run them against a list of probable diseases, infections, etcetera in their heads. Sometimes diagnostic tests just confirm the doctor’s hypothesis but other times a gauntlet of tests are run just to be sure they don’t miss something. More often then not the ‘not missing something’ tests aren’t for any other reason then covering their one arse from malpractice law suits which is sad.

Doctors charge outrageous hourly rates partially because they need malpractice insurance which is mega expensive because there’s no caps on pain and suffering amount. I sincerely believe most doctors are in the business to make people feel better and live a more comfortable life sure the money is an important aspect but I still believe doctors have one of the most noble professions out there. If a doctor makes an honest mistake and it isn’t because they were tired or under the influence of alcohol and drugs the damages should be capped. What the cap should be? I don’t know depending on how bad the mistake was if you can no longer work..The cap should be how much YOU were expected to make for the rest of your career adjusted for inflation and possible promotions. If a doctor’s mistake caused you to lose work or caused you to undergo additional treatments cap it at money lost + cost of additional treatment + nominal pain and suffering.

Capping pain and suffering payouts would allow malpractice insurers to low their rates and in theory therefore allow doctors to lower their fees. As to how this pans out in the real world, we all know how greed people can be.

Here’s what I think we need to do: Utilize more licensed nurse practitioners and Physician’s assistants.  In just about every state LPN’s and PA’s have most of the powers of a doctor such as ordering tests, diagnosing and treating you, writing prescriptions, etcetera. Often times these folks have more real world experience then just out of medical school ER docs. Have a 1 or 2 doctors staff an ER with several PA’s and LPNs. The PAs and LPNs can ‘treat and street’ all the non-serious cases. Let the doctors worry about the serious cases and be there to advise the LPNs and PAs IF they need it. I’d even go so far as to say the easiest cases such as idiots who go to the ER for a common cold, or simple upper respiratory infections and stuff like that should be treated right in the waiting room. Heck if the triage nurse were an LPN or PA, they could diagnose, write a script, and get the patient out of the ER without even taking up a bed in little more than the time it takes to do the triage vitals.

Open 24 hour clinics all over the place. By all over the place, I mean clinics should be just as easily reachable as hospitals.  They don’t need much more than a few exam rooms, a waiting room and basic medical supplies. Staff those clinics with LPNs and PAs as mentioned above. Allow ambulance to take non-life threatening cases to the clinic. Take some of the load of the hospitals while providing cheaper but competent health care.

Face it, so long as hospitals have a duty to provide care and people don’t have insurance there are going to be people who go to the ER for stupid things that a regular doctor should be treating. Clinics will alleviate the pressure on hospitals freeing them up to care for those who really need a full staff of doctors, nurses, and on demand diagnostic testing.

Now you ask who’s going to pay for this. That’s the 100 billion dollar question. I really don’t think it’s fair that someone who went to college, got a degree, and makes a good living to provide for his or her family should have to subsidize health care for someone like me via taxes. It’s just plain unfair. What about people, even the working poor, who make a conscious effort to live a healthy life style..Why should they have to pay additional taxes to pay for the health care someone like me, a fat guy who smokes? That doesn’t seem very fair or even wise.

My suggestion is this:  Instead of lumping everyone into socialized medicine. Let the people who are happy with their current coverage keep it, and not have to pay a dime extra in taxes to subsidize a national health program. Revamp and expand the Medicaid and Medicare systems, set strict standard, weed out the scamming doctors and patients. Now, let average Joe the plumbers buy into the the system instead of saying ‘you make to much money you’re ineligible’. People should be able to buy in on a sliding scale with discounts for maintaining a healthy lifestyle and up charges for living an unhealthy lifestyle. The more you make, the more you pay. Now what happens is commercial insurance can compete with nationalized health care. Affluent people can choose between private and socialized insurance as in theory the prices will be similar for affluent folks.

As for the clinics the need to be built. I’m sure we can slip something in a stimulus package to build them.. Think of all the jobs it will create; perhaps even the government can stop propping up the auto industry under the guise of saving jobs if those clinic building jobs were earmarked specifically already unemployed people.

The whole thing is that the government doesn’t have to make a profit as hospitals owned by corporations do or even doctors with their own practices have to. The government only has to break even with a very small margin of profit for system upgrades. This is how a network of  clinics could work, even if you don’t buy into the medicare/medicate program above cost per visit out of pocket would still be nominal. If people don’t pay their bill you take it directly out of their next federal tax return no questions asked this way the system can support and sustain itself.

What are your thoughts? Do you think my plan pans out or make things worse?

One of the members on the DJ board posted this a while back, I thought it was interesting/funny and wanted to share it with you all.

It is the month of August, on the shores of the Black Sea. It is raining,
and the little town looks totally deserted. It is tough times, everybody is
in debt, and everybody lives on credit.

Suddenly, a rich tourist comes to town.

He enters the only hotel, lays a 100 Euro note on the reception counter,
and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one.

The hotel proprietor takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to
the butcher.

The Butcher takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the pig
grower.

The pig grower takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the
supplier of his feed and fuel.

The supplier of feed and fuel takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his
debt to the town’s prostitute that in these hard times, gave her “services”
on credit.

The hooker runs to the hotel, and pays off her debt with the 100 Euro note
to the hotel proprietor to pay for the rooms that she rented when she
brought her clients there.

The hotel proprietor then lays the 100 Euro note back on the counter so
that the rich tourist will not suspect anything.

At that moment, the rich tourist comes down after inspecting the rooms,
and takes his 100 Euro note, after saying that he did not like any of the
rooms, and leaves town.

No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now without debt, and
looks to the future with a lot of optimism..

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the United States Government is doing
business today.

I wrote this for my DJ Forum, for this thread: Want to work for the city? Hand over your facebook login info but it’s probably more suited to my blog:

It’s funny as we move more and more into the so called digital/information age less and less of our information is personal or private. Think about it on face book, myspace, etc we broadcast our relationship status list our name, address, phone number, websites, etc.

Most of the times we share this information without even thinking about who has the ability to see the information today who will have the ability to see the information tomorrow. There have actually been many newspaper articles on weather or not to ‘friend’ your parents or coworkers.

How many of you have ‘friends’ on facebook that you rarely if ever talk to? Are they really friends or just people you’re too polite to ‘defriend’? No offense, to anyone who is on my facebook page but I have many people on there whom I never talk to yet they have access to all my current information. At no time in history has this been possible unless you wrote or phoned your old friends they had no way to get your information unless it was through a friend/family member of yours who would more than likely know if you didn’t want that other person to have your information for what ever reason.

For me it seems like it’s an all in or all out thing. It seems that you either put the information there for all to see OR no information for anyone to see. It would be nice if you could control what information goes out to who. For instance maybe only real life friends and family should be able to see my address and phone number. As it is today, once you’re my BFF on facebook you know where I live.. Is that smart? I don’t know personally I don’t think I make very many enemies and those that I do make enemies out of probably aren’t crazy enough to do something like try and shoot me through my front facing bedroom window.

But what happens if I friend someone who I don’t realize is a crazed lunatic and down the line I piss them off in some way then they try and off me through my street facing bedroom window?

I’m joking a bit and perhaps taking things to the extreme but it is something to think about.

Since I bought my Mac Mini this past February I’ve had mixed ideas about how to use it. First it went into use as my primary computer for a few weeks, then the ’shiny new toy’ effect wore off and I put it on my entertainment center along with my new TV (which has a VGA input), then back to my desk, I did this twice right now it resides on my desk and I’m using it as my primary computer. I really like the Mini, I do think it’s a great little machine very capable for a such tiny footprint. I can easily do 90% of my work on it. Meanwhile my primary Windows desktop just sits there looking stupid. . Funny thing is that even with a faster processor, more memory, and more hard drive space I don’t miss my Windows Desktop. The Mac for the most part just works for me, I’ve grown accustom the little eccentricities of OS X and have actually come to like them. I find myself trying to do Mac keyboard shortcuts on the Windows side which drives me crazy.

Having two keyboards on my desk drives me nuts, I cannot tell you how many times I start typing on the wrong keyboard especially when both machines are running. Aside from that it just looks cluttered. The Mac wireless keyboard is a tiny little thing that I never thought I’d get used to but I find myself liking the tactile feel of it over my more expensive Microsoft keyboard. I never thought I’d be able to do without my navigation keys (Page Up, Page, Down, home, end, etc) or a number pad but I seem to have adopted just fine. I still haven’t gotten used to the Mighty Mouse and have since gave up on it, swapping it out for a $10 USB mouse.

On the Mac side applications seem to always follow the same flow, that is they all pretty much look and act the same. Where as on the Windows side apps don’t always have the same look or shortcuts from application to application nor do they always follow the windows GUI guidelines On OSX, I’ve only run into one application that looks crappy and that’s the GIMP which depends on the X11 Windowing system, this is the windowing system that Linux uses and I imagine a throwback to the ‘classic’ days (OS 8 and 9). I’ve never thought of myself as much of an eye candy person and I don’t really think it’s the eye candy aspect of it, it’s the continuity between apps on OS X that I enjoy. I know that pressing Cmd , in any app will bring up it’s preferences stuff like that matters to me, someone who does not have the time to go hunting through help files to find some obscure keyboard shortcut or setting.

Most apps seem to run better and be less intrusive under OS X then their windows counterparts, even if they don’t have all the features of the Window’s app. Yahoo Messenger is one, it’s done very well and elegantly for OS X and does not set itself to run on start up.

That’s always been a sticking point with me, no application should set itself to run on start up without my explicit permission. On Windows nearly every instant messenger and many other programs set themselves to run at start up without even asking, disabling auto start is confusing running through the programs options or worse yet some don’t even have the option and you have to force it via msconfig. Then there’s the programs that explicitly set themselves to run at start up on every update after you told it not to. Just plain bad behavior that boarders on malware, IMHO.You just don’t find many auto self starting programs on Mac, I only found one Skype which was very easy to disable under Users in system preferences.

My only problem with Mac’s lie in the cost, not just the initial hardware costs either, which is ridiculous in itself  but we’ll touch on that a bit later. It seems that any hardware made specifically for Mac or that advertises Mac compatibility is inherently more expensive than their windows counter parts. Simple things like a web cam, I can buy $10 web cams for Windows all day, try doing it for a Mac. I haven’t been able to find anything sub-$80. For as much as I use the web cam it’s just not worth it to me. I cannot buy a regular microphone off the shelf for my mini, I need to buy some USB adapter for $40 then I can use a regular mic, or buy a ridiculously priced headset made specifiably for me Mac and use one of my precious USB ports.

Mac Zealots always go around pounding the initially more expensive but cheaper in the long run drum. I don’t buy it, unless you have an all inclusive system like a laptop or iMac that includes the microphone and web cam, things like Mac compatible web cams and microphones add into the cost. Then you run into issues with those all inclusive systems, they aren’t easy to service, in fact they’re made outside of RAM and sometimes hard drive upgrades to be only serviced by “Apple Geniuses”, which factors into the cost of ownership too. I can pop open my windows desktop and replace every component while this is possible on Mac systems they seem to be purposely made to be hard to crack open and get to the guts of the machine.

Other Mac zealots will argue that the design of the computer is factored into the price, okay you’ve got me here they are beautifully designed but again I’m not much of an eye candy guy give me a while box computer and I’ll shove it in a CPU cabinet somewhere. I don’t need the all-in-one look of the iMac or the bushed aluminum look of the new iMacs/Mac Books.

Yet others will argue that last longer, I haven’t been playing with Macs long enough to know that. I do know that Snow Leopard the next version of OS X is coming in September dropped support for PPC processors this means in a mere three years machines that supposedly last longer can no longer upgrade to the latest version of OS X. I’m sure they’re still perfectly functional but so much for the last longer argument. My last PC last me through 6 years of heavy use before I put it out to pasture and gave it to my mother for games, it’s still running today 7 years later. I doubt that an Apple machine will be usable for much longer than that.

I’ll always compare price vs features and for me the so called Apple tax does not add up. I could go for a pimped out new Mini and do all my computer work on that but at over $1000 it just isn’t cost effective. I can build a machine with same hardware and a windows license for $500-$600 and have an upgradeable machine that runs pretty much everything under the sun. I do think Apple is being stingy by keeping OS X on Apple hardware only, it just shows greed especially now that OS X runs on X86 and x64 processors there is no good reason why it cannot run on a ‘white box’ PC.

My problem with the Mini now is I can see myself getting so used to and comfortable with it, tying myself to the platform, so that down the road when it comes time to upgrade I’m going to be forced to pay the apple tax because I want OS X. I’m really thinking of going cold turkey using my Windows computer as my main desktop and putting the Mac back on my entertainment center as a media computer for streaming, this way I don’t get too used to it and ‘need’ a mac when I upgrade.

I promised I would post pictures of my new desk setup, without further ado here they are you can click on each image for a full description:

I know I had promised pictures of my new setup yesterday but I was busy trying to get our new car on the road so I didn’t even get my surround sound done yesterday. Long story short, our  current car is a money sink. We just put over $1000 into and it still doesn’t run right the icing on the cake was when the rear air shocks dropped and the car was practically sitting on it’s tires making driving it a bad idea idea all around. Add to it that just when you think nothing else can go wrong with the junker something else goes wrong. We were planning on getting the shocks replaced just so we had something to drive as out in here in the country you need a car.

Long story short, last week mom was looking at a car on the side of the road that was for sale. She hymned and haed with the guy but he wouldn’t take payments. So, we left it at that figuring we’re not getting the car.

Yesterday out of now where he called dropped the price by $200 and decided to take payments so we made the down payment and got the title and keys.It’s 1996 Buick Regal Custom. Aside from fading paint and a few dents on the trunk it looks pretty sharp. The interior is all leather although a bit cracked and stained but that can be taken care of with some cleaning or worse comes to worse a seat cover. I checked out everything all the fluids look good and the electrical system works just fine. The only problem with car is it’s not made for tall guys, I’ve got the seat all the way back and sunk (power seat) and I still have bend my neck to see out the windshield. I don’t think I’ll be driving around to much in this.

As luck would have it, I wanted to take her to the car wash to wash, wax, vacuum, shampoo, and armor all the car but no dice it’s raining.

But for what we paid, if it lasts a year I’ll happy. It seems like a solid car though we used to have an older one just like it a 1992 it was a great car I think we finally got rid of it at over 220,000 miles because the tranny went aside from that I remember we used to run through brakes every couple of months.

Tomorrow I’m going to do my surround sound take pictures of that and the new car.

It’s been a while again, I don’t know if I’ll ever get back to posting with any frequency as I’ve been quite busy with other projects however today I took most of the day away from the computer and spent it changing my room around again. I changed everything around for two reasons. 1) I gave my mother my air conditioner and wanted to move my bed by the windows so I can get air flow on those hot summer nights and 2) I wanted my TV closer to my bed since the screen is smaller.

I spent yesterday fixing up all my computers the laptop is now dual booting Windows 7 plus Ubuntu and with the desktop I opted to keep Vista on since it’s the current stable version that dual boots with Ubuntu too. I tend to spend most of my time in Windows anyhow.. Ubuntu become more of a hobby OS for me.

The Mac Mini is back on my entertainment center with the screen being close to the bed, it’s more comforatable to view text from the bed which is great for a quick email check or IM session plus I can stream Hulu & Netflix direct to my TV now.

I don’t have any pictures yet, I was planning on posting some however I’m pooped out. Tomorrow I just have to re-run my surround sound speakers, that should only be an hour job but it’s still a major pain in the arse. This time around I opted to my two  4′ tables which I use as my desk in a stright line rather than using them in an L shape. So far it’s working out pretty good.

That’s that I’ll post pictures tomorrow.  Aside from that I’m back to walking again, I won’t bore you with the details and I’m still trying to quit smoking.. Big surprise.

Pics tomorrow.

Lots of little things have been keep me away from my blog lately. From it just being spring time and me wanting to be outside with da bird and the bees, hopefully some fine ladies too. ( ), to exercise, to work and the frustration of lack of work, and the chasing around of people to pay there bills boy can that be frustrating. Let me give you quick run down of what’s been going on.

I last posted about my new TV, it’s great I really like it, I think it’s better than my old one albeit a 9 inches smaller, it’s still better. On the HD TV front I’m really dissatisfied the cable companies are marketing HD TV like it’s the holy grail meanwhile out of the 20 or so HDTV channels I get, I’m lucky if half of them show HD shows all the time, it’s like a bait and switch, IMHO…Anyway, I’ve got my RCA switch hooked up along with my ‘old school’ (PS 2, Game Cube, Xbox [original] ) game consoles they all look 110% better on this TV especially with the games that support 16:9 format. Ya know it’s funny I consider myself somewhat of a geek although I’m not much of a gamer, I think if I’ve played all my consoles combined for more than 6 hours in the last year that would be a lot. Well last year was a turbulent year for me BUT I only switch on my PS2 or xBox to watch a DVD, I only actually play when I’m bored out of my mind, Grand Theft Auto 3 (PS2) and the Sonic Mega Collection (GC) are my favorite games to kill an evening with hence my hesitance to upgrade. If I were to upgrade, I’d buy the PS 3 first as Playstation has always been *the* game console for me but if GTA 3 and Sonic Mega Collection, which is all the old sonic games from Sega rolled into one game cube game CD do it for me, why should I drop $400 on the PS 3?

Other than that I had my Mini Mac hooked to the new TV via it’s VGA (dated computer monitor) input it was nice for while but I decided I wasn’t using mini enough due to it being on the TV stand rather than my desk, so I moved it back over to my desk and switching between the Mini and my workhorse desktop via one monitor. I really like OS X’s presentation style and eye candy BUT OS X, contrary to what the I’m a Mac ads would have you believe isn’t without it’s drawbacks and need of maintenance just like any other OS, don’t be tricked into buying a computer with the Apple upcharge thinking it just works, it doesn’t. However I could use and adapt to OS X very easy if I had a more powerful Mac computer, I’m just not prepared to pay the apple tax for an iMac. For now my Mini is used primarily as my morning/before bed email/feeds/instant messenger checker and whenever I have any ‘heavy’ work to do I switch to my Windows desktop.

What else? Ubuntu 9.04 aka Jaunty Jackalope was released last month I upgraded both my desktop and laptop to it then was shocked!! to see that Intel graphics cards weren’t supported under the new kernel without the driver desktop effects don’t work.  I was shocked only because the community makes such big thing about proprietary, closed source drivers and Intel gave them them the whole source and they still couldn’t make it work. So, I boycotted Ubuntu for about a month but realized how silly it was to discount a whole operating system just because one thing doesn’t work and this weekend I reinstalled Ubuntu on both my desktop and laptop. So far, so good. I’m actually typing this in Ubuntu right now. Although Firefox is abysmally slow under Ubuntu compared to Windows or the Mac. I don’t get it and cannot understand why. It seems other people have this issue and no one has figured it out yet. Firefox still ’ships’ with the Great Britain English dictionary instead of giving the American users their own for some reason too, this makes build in spell checking a minefield of sorts.

Also on the OS front, Windows 7 RC 1 (release candidate) was release at the begining on of May. It’s awesome it’s really what Vista should have been. It’s so good that I’ve wiped Vista off both my Window’s machines and am using W7 RC 1 and Ubuntu (just this weekend) exclusively. Me running a non-stable version as a production machine because I like it so much over it’s predecessor is a major win for MS

Other than that I’ve upgraded to a premium dropbox account after playing with the free (2 GB) account for about a year. For $10 a month I get 50 GB of space which is more than enough for me. I’ve really fell head of heals for Dropbox. It’s not really a back up tool than it is a sync tool. Basically if you have two computers, you put files in your dropbox on one computer and when you turn on your other computer the file automatically updates. Or if you have the other computer on at the same time, it updates as fast as you can upload the file then have the other computer download it. It’s just a great tool, I have nothing bad to say about it. It also supports verisoning which for you non-geek types is where when you change a file the old file is still saved for restoration. It’s saved my kiester a couple of times, by having the auto-save feature of a text editor wipe out my TODO.txt file. one trip to dropbox’s website and the old file (version) is swapped out for the new one. A vast majority of my files are now stored in my dropbox. With dropbox being cross platform whenever I load a new OS, I just install dropbox and let all my files download for a couple of hours.. Presto most of my files are all accessible from the new OS.

Outside of the the tech front and geek stuff:

I’ve been dieting and exercising like crazy since the nice weather got here. I started off walking about a half mile a day with my long Johns on, in the begining of April and I could barely do that, now I’m up to 2.6 miles a day with some resting on the walk, a lot less resting than when I started. I push myself a little further every week, I’m hoping by July to be up to 5 miles a day. That’s probably what’s taken me away from blogging the most; I have to leave by 5p or else I’ll be walking in the dark on the way back and with the bears I just cannot do that. By the time I get home I’m wiped and really only have the energy to force myself to do what I have to.

On the eating front, I’ve drastically reduced my intake. There is still some stuff to cut like how much coffee I drink and late night snacks BUT overall I’m doing very well.

My birthday was two weeks ago. I was wished Happy Birthday many times over via email, forums, facebook, myspace, etc that always brings a smile to my face, so if you wished me a happy birthday and didn’t get a personal thank you, I’m sorry consider this your thank you.

Mother’s Day was nice, I was a little low on funds so it wound up just being flowers and a cake but we still had a nice time. My mom-a-lah is a great woman and treats me better than any man could ask for.. Why do we celebrate her gifts to us only 1 day a year?

Other than that the normally working on issues behind the scenes of my DJ forum and chasing after people for bills they owe me has been the norm lately. I realize this has been a long post covering several topics hopefully you stuck with me. As always, thanks for reading.

Lots of little things have been keep me away from my blog lately. From it just being spring time and me wanting to be outside with da bird and the bees, hopefully some fine ladies too. ( ), to exercise, to work and the frustration of lack of work, and the chasing around of people to pay there bills boy can that be frustrating. Let me give you quick run down of what’s been going on.

I last posted about my new TV, it’s great I really like it, I think it’s better than my old one albeit a 9 inches smaller, it’s still better. On the HD TV front I’m really dissatisfied the cable companies are marketing HD TV like it’s the holy grail meanwhile out of the 20 or so HDTV channels I get, I’m lucky if half of them show HD shows all the time, it’s like a bait and switch, IMHO…Anyway, I’ve got my RCA switch hooked up along with my ‘old school’ (PS 2, Game Cube, Xbox [original] ) game consoles they all look 110% better on this TV especially with the games that support 16:9 format. Ya know it’s funny I consider myself somewhat of a geek although I’m not much of a gamer, I think if I’ve played all my consoles combined for more than 6 hours in the last year that would be a lot. Well last year was a turbulent year for me BUT I only switch on my PS2 or xBox to watch a DVD, I only actually play when I’m bored out of my mind, Grand Theft Auto 3 (PS2) and the Sonic Mega Collection (GC) are my favorite games to kill an evening with hence my hesitance to upgrade. If I were to upgrade, I’d buy the PS 3 first as Playstation has always been *the* game console for me but if GTA 3 and Sonic Mega Collection, which is all the old sonic games from Sega rolled into one game cube game CD do it for me, why should I drop $400 on the PS 3?

Other than that I had my Mini Mac hooked to the new TV via it’s VGA (dated computer monitor) input it was nice for while but I decided I wasn’t using mini enough due to it being on the TV stand rather than my desk, so I moved it back over to my desk and switching between the Mini and my workhorse desktop via one monitor. I really like OS X’s presentation style and eye candy BUT OS X, contrary to what the I’m a Mac ads would have you believe isn’t without it’s drawbacks and need of maintenance just like any other OS, don’t be tricked into buying a computer with the Apple upcharge thinking it just works, it doesn’t. However I could use and adapt to OS X very easy if I had a more powerful Mac computer, I’m just not prepared to pay the apple tax for an iMac. For now my Mini is used primarily as my morning/before bed email/feeds/instant messenger checker and whenever I have any ‘heavy’ work to do I switch to my Windows desktop.

What else? Ubuntu 9.04 aka Jaunty Jackalope was released last month I upgraded both my desktop and laptop to it then was shocked!! to see that Intel graphics cards weren’t supported under the new kernel without the driver desktop effects don’t work.  I was shocked only because the community makes such big thing about proprietary, closed source drivers and Intel gave them them the whole source and they still couldn’t make it work. So, I boycotted Ubuntu for about a month but realized how silly it was to discount a whole operating system just because one thing doesn’t work and this weekend I reinstalled Ubuntu on both my desktop and laptop. So far, so good. I’m actually typing this in Ubuntu right now. Although Firefox is abysmally slow under Ubuntu compared to Windows or the Mac. I don’t get it and cannot understand why. It seems other people have this issue and no one has figured it out yet. Firefox still ’ships’ with the Great Britain English dictionary instead of giving the American users their own for some reason too, this makes build in spell checking a minefield of sorts.

Also on the OS front, Windows 7 RC 1 (release candidate) was release at the begining on of May. It’s awesome it’s really what Vista should have been. It’s so good that I’ve wiped Vista off both my Window’s machines and am using W7 RC 1 and Ubuntu (just this weekend) exclusively. Me running a non-stable version as a production machine because I like it so much over it’s predecessor is a major win for MS

Other than that I’ve upgraded to a premium dropbox account after playing with the free (2 GB) account for about a year. For $10 a month I get 50 GB of space which is more than enough for me. I’ve really fell head of heals for Dropbox. It’s not really a back up tool than it is a sync tool. Basically if you have two computers, you put files in your dropbox on one computer and when you turn on your other computer the file automatically updates. Or if you have the other computer on at the same time, it updates as fast as you can upload the file then have the other computer download it. It’s just a great tool, I have nothing bad to say about it. It also supports verisoning which for you non-geek types is where when you change a file the old file is still saved for restoration. It’s saved my kiester a couple of times, by having the auto-save feature of a text editor wipe out my TODO.txt file. one trip to dropbox’s website and the old file (version) is swapped out for the new one. A vast majority of my files are now stored in my dropbox. With dropbox being cross platform whenever I load a new OS, I just install dropbox and let all my files download for a couple of hours.. Presto most of my files are all accessible from the new OS.

Outside of the the tech front and geek stuff:

I’ve been dieting and exercising like crazy since the nice weather got here. I started off walking about a half mile a day with my long Johns on, in the begining of April and I could barely do that, now I’m up to 2.6 miles a day with some resting on the walk, a lot less resting than when I started. I push myself a little further every week, I’m hoping by July to be up to 5 miles a day. That’s probably what’s taken me away from blogging the most; I have to leave by 5p or else I’ll be walking in the dark on the way back and with the bears I just cannot do that. By the time I get home I’m wiped and really only have the energy to force myself to do what I have to.

On the eating front, I’ve drastically reduced my intake. There is still some stuff to cut like how much coffee I drink and late night snacks BUT overall I’m doing very well.

My birthday was two weeks ago. I was wished Happy Birthday many times over via email, forums, facebook, myspace, etc that always brings a smile to my face, so if you wished me a happy birthday and didn’t get a personal thank you, I’m sorry consider this your thank you.

Mother’s Day was nice, I was a little low on funds so it wound up just being flowers and a cake but we still had a nice time. My mom-a-lah is a great woman and treats me better than any man could ask for.. Why do we celebrate her gifts to us only 1 day a year?

Other than that the normally working on issues behind the scenes of my DJ forum and chasing after people for bills they owe me has been the norm lately. I realize this has been a long post covering several topics hopefully you stuck with me. As always, thanks for reading.

TWC Hit's a wall

The cable guy came out today, showed up with only one cable box, the box for my sisters room. I haggled with him a bit explaining that we called 3 times to confirm the order. First time to change the appointment time, second time to change the order to a new room install plus a DVR swap for an HD-DVR, the operator the second time sounded flighty so we called back to confirm the order. All was well, supposedly until the guy showed up.

I kind of felt bad for the guy, you could see he was tired and frustrated by yet another screw up at the central office but he was nice enough to track down another cable installer in the area and try to get a box for me. It turns out he got the same DVR I already have not the HD-DVR. Not his fault the boxes look identical. So, I didn’t get my the HDTV package in time for my birthday. All in all it’s no big deal but I’m still not happy with Time Warner Cable.

While the tech was here I explained that I’m not receiving a few channels I should be receiving, this is strange because just a few months ago we had a tech out here and he ran us a new drop from the pole. He plugged my cable into his tester and seen that I’m getting a very weak signal but he couldn’t fix it as he’s just a contractor for installs.

So, we call the cable company and gripe about not getting the box plus we need our line fixed, probably all we need is an in line amplifier, I could go buy one and install it however that’s not my job. The rep on the phone decides he wants to charge us another service charge for them to come out and install the box. This makes no sense as it was the companies fault we didn’t get the right box in the first place. Long story short,  we talk to a supervisor and get that straightened out. Now, Monday we got a guy coming to fix the line and Wednesday we have someone coming to install the correct box. This makes no sense and we wonder why companies are going bankrupt? They waste resources. I know for a fact that the tech to fix the line comes out of the office in Liberty (45 mins away) where I can go pick up the HD-DVR myself, why cannot he grab that box? Installing it is nothing, plug in a few plugs and you’re done. I don’t get it.

Then I asked about digital phone, it’s cheaper than our landline through the telco and I’ve been interested it I was all set to order it until they told me it was a $22 activation charge. WTF? TWC charges $15/mo more than Vonage and other VIOP providers, why are they charging me an “activation charge? Sounds like a money grab, so I declined to get the digital phone service.

Now next week I have to be home two days for the cable company that’s just plain assine.