The 1000 words that a picture is worth…

will all be misspelled by the Tea bag folk. Next up, Proofreaders for Palin!

No wonder she is writing on her hand.

The Kids are Alright

I thought they did fine. It’s an impossible venue to please everybody. I thought my man Bruce did great last year, but avowed Springsteen fan Jeff Miers didn’t think so. For me, the medley concept is what gives me the willies. I think the last group to do three complete songs instead of snippets was U2

Not bad for AARP recipients.

At Halftime

You might hear part of the song, but this is what it should sound like.

Dodging a Bullet

Better them than us.

I’m no snow hater, like the change of seasons and all, but it’s nice not to get caught up in what is sure a trail of hysterical television weathermen a little to our south. I hope we get a little snow for the Power keg thing, and I know we could handle this if it came our way, as it has many times before, but I do prefer the sunshine that is out there at the moment.

Besides, it’s not a lost opportunity, it’s payback for making Buffalo snow jokes

Into the Mystic

You got to have faith.

In what exactly, that is not always clear. One of the Buddhas of my youth posited that “Blind faith in anything can you killed.” A little extreme, but I think he has a point. We need to ask questions and allow for the fact that we aren’t always right. What works for you should be respected, but might not work for me, and that should be okay.

I go to a church semi-regularly that professes to be all-welcoming, but I’ve seen incidents that we are essentially as full of shit as any other faith based gathering. I still kick myself over not stepping up for this young woman who was sitting with her baby. The baby was cooing and charming the pants out of pretty much everybody in the section except for these two old bitties who harped on “there’s a quite room for babies…” to the point where the woman and her child understandable left. Drives me nuts. Church elders kvetch about the teens not immediately diving into the church community once they are out of high school. One of the really bright young women at the church gave a sermon recently about how she needed to look or looks for God in people. I thought that was incredibly apt, as there really isn’t any other place within which to look. You want to see something tangible. It’s sometimes hard to take written word as gospel (pun entirely intended). A former employer wrote of how it is possible to be good, live a good life without cowtowing to a particular diety, and I do think he’s correct in that regard.

George Carlin used to do a great bit about “how the invisible man in the sky that I believe in can kick the ass of the invisible man that you believe in.”

Faith is a personal thing. What is good for you is naturally going to be different for me. Both those goods have merit. But you don’t always get to those ends by the ritual sunday morning gatherings, sometimes I’ve gotten more from the hour long mental holiday than by what has been presented to me.

But that doesn’t define me and your faith doesn’t define you. By the same token, none of them should determine well, anything for anybody, outside of those gatherings. I guess that is a little redundant, but I guess this has it’s roots in my reading opinions about the ongoing Gay marriage debate and inevitably the columnists against would invariably exclaim “the church recognizes…” Well, for many reasons, it’s a good thing there is more than one church.

We first started taking our kids to the church as more of a community thing, so they can see what is out there and eventually drawn their own conclusions. I’m pretty sure that was the same rationale my folks applied to me and my siblings.

So, I’m not entirely sure where I stand other than to believe anything is possible. As Robin Williams said some years ago, “You know God must have a sense of humor, look at a platypus!”

Wednesday Musical Guilty Pleasure

It’s Richard Pryor’s “Who exactly are these guys?” Intro that makes it Art

True Health Care Reform

I think I know what all the health care debaters are missing. I think the President, Congress, and all the semi-interested parties are focusing in the wrong areas.

I had my only experience to date with an MRI machine in August of 2008. Aside from some claustrophobia that made my 44 year old self wanting my mom (or anybody else’s for that matter) to be there to make it all better, I learned two salient details. MRI machines make sounds like my folks ‘67 Ford used to and there is no way in hell that my 30 minutes of sheer bliss cost $1800.00.

I know the guy running the machine wasn’t pocketing those bucks either. I’m facing yet another chapter in insurance inefficiency once more. My previous employer had dental insurance on my kids until October of 2007 when I left for my current climbs. The kids were picked up by their Mom’s insurer who refused to pay anything in 2007, 2008 and the first part of 2009 because they were under the impression that my ceased policy was doing the work. This didn’t seem to bother them when my policy was active. That in and of itself was a mystery.

To rectify the situation, I had to go to the previous insurer, Met-Life, and have them draft a letter saying that they were not insuring me as of October 2007. Sent that off to GHI and (screw it, I’m naming names) thought all’s good. Dentist office was still twisted. So, I called back GHI and retraced my steps and made an agent process each appointment for each child.

You’d think all’s good. Until yesterday, when we get the notice that two appointments still slipped through the cracks. This really shouldn’t be this hard. Yet, as I write this, I’m about to slip into the void once more and get immersed in a divide of medical customer service that as precious little to do with health.

I’ve never thought it was the health care practitioners, it’s the fact that the first thing you encounter in a clipboard in any doctor’s office. I was able to call the emergency room doctor who initially treated my Bell’s Palsy and successfully get a referral for follow up. It is the craploads of data out there and it is being criminally mismanaged. My kids dental odyssey has taken months to get righted. That is where money is disappearing.

I’d like the President and Congress to come together on that one. Clean that up and you can say you had yourself a bit of a day.

Nice tray, Pee-Wee

We are all gadget junkies. I admit this freely. New toys get our curiousity moving. I had to caution my daughter about loving her cell phone for a little longer as the phone company would sell her one, at the full price of the phone. A harsh dose of reality stuck right there. I’ve been contemplating a smarter phone and am taking the Iphone plunge. Some portable ability & data, along with a little job needs had me leaning in the direction of something with a little more wherewithal. My current carrier decided to reward my almost decade long affiliation with more fees, so the only thing left to do was to hit back where they live, and leave them.

Blackberries left me sort of cold. Might as well have a little fun, so Iphone it is, not sure about the Ipad after the reception it got in the playhouse.

That’s Countdown

Indabuff hipped me to this little piece of footage. Equal opportunity mocker Jon Stewart takes on the extremes of Keith Olbermann in a pointed “Commentary.” Olbermann has the good sense to respond with some agreement. I used to like Olbermann when he and Dan Patrick anchored “Sportscenter.” They were in their heyday, the best of the wisecracking anchor teams. I weaned myself off most of the nightly pundit shows after the Presidential election as they turned into name calling on all the channels with nothing ever really substantively discussed.

Music for a chilly Friday afternoon

Because of the layer of ice on my windows, the fact it is 12 degrees outside, a little better weather music