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UniverSOUL HealthCare

Sheesh..I'm not the biggest fan of a full-scale Universal Health Care situation, but I certainly like to hear ideas about it. I am not an economist, nor do I play one on TV, but the cost of this long, drawn-out and stupid war may have caused us to kiss that concept good-bye.

:(

Working the System

I'm not naive and am well-aware that the "system" gets worked everyday, all over the world in many different forms and fashions. The system I am referring to in this post is the welfare system in the US of A. Man, this situation just pissed me off when I witnessed it. It goes a little something like this....I was at the store today getting some groceries. I finished shopping and was looking for a checkout line. I found one and fell into the queue. The obligatory review of magazines, gossip mags and other fish wraps consumed me for several minutes. As the line began to evaporate, I was on deck to get checked out and be on my way. I noticed one of my neighbors getting some items. I was looking right at her to see if she would see me and we would exchange hellos. She did not notice me and I did not disrupt her to inform her I was there. Well, I was literally 2ft away from her and noticed when it was time to pay, this married mother of several whips out a Bridge Card. Post double-take turned to anger in my mind since I see this lady every day. Guess what she pulls up into her driveway with? A freaking Cadillac Escalade!!
The other vehicle is a Jeep Commander. 2 SUVs. She does not work either. The real amazing thing about this is they put their house up for sale last year for a few months, then took it off the market and then they brought another child into the world and then got the Caddy and all the while I am confused at all of this. I see her pay with that card that my tax dollars have helped generate and walked out of that store a very pissed off person since this idiot lives on my street, drives a vehicle over 3X the cost of what I drive and had the state cover her $70 of groceries. Man, if that is not working the system, I am not sure what is.

My issue is certainly not with individuals on welfare. I am in full support of having that system, BUT the government should be better equipped to reduce the amount of fraud going on everyday. I know that people sell those cards to get cash and run all kinds of schemes, but I was just amazed at witnessing this episode today. Some people have no shame at all.

Need......summer....now!

Sheesh. I am so tired of cold and snow and snow and cold. I should not be surprised. This is MI, but if there is ever a year I yearn for spring, this is it. Maybe it is because I know M is really wanting to get out there since she looks outside everyday and I can tell she wants to feel the sun on her face and touch the grass. Maybe it is because I am sick of the treadmill and would rather run/walk outside. Maybe it is because I envision caring for my garden and am tired of the inconsistent produce I get at various stores. Whatever it is, I need summer.....I need the sun to bake my skin and I need it now!

How I beat the flu........almost.

At this time last week, I felt it brewing in my bio. Not good. I was not equipped with a flu shot for 2008. I may have gotten 2-3 in my lifetime after high school....as far as I can recall. No reason for not getting one other than I am young and pretty healthy and don't want to steal any supply from the elders and kiddies.
Well, everyone and their mother is sick at my work. I thought I could be strong enough to not get infected since I have not had the flu in years. I frequently wash my hands and avoid as many people who I know are sick as possible. Somehow, doing both of those things did not help me. It hit me hard and I was out two days last week and I should have been out 3. My boss even told me to go home, but I had lots of things to get done and was not trying to be a hero or anything. I just did not want double the fires when I eventually would return. Anyway, I am about 90% at this moment and should the flu hit you, here is my advice:
1. Rest (as in sleep).
2. Consume fluids (as in water that is NOT too cold)
3. Use some Vicks VapoRub on your upper chest and mix in a small towel to promote some heat and concentration of the product.
--OPTIONAL-- 4. If you have sore muscles, nasal congestion and coughing, take a multi-symptom set of over the counter capsules to speed up recovery.

#4 is optional because the flu will run its course if you sleep more and consume liquids. I avoid meds at all cost since the side-effects are not natural.

Good luck to all and may the (IMMUNITY) FORCE be with you.

Language Misfits

I was the unfortunate witness to a conversation at the grocery store the other day. Whole Foods was the scene and two middle aged women were the actors in this play before me. I was there on my lunch hour grabbing a few items. I am not a WF diehard by any stretch, but it's near my work and I get very specific items not found at my other usual spots. I think they have SOME decent products, but primarily they are pretty overpriced, overrated and a marketing juggernaut. Yuppies, vegans and the same people who fill up gyms the first month of every year flood WF for "natural" foods and health products. Anyway, these two women were discussing details of a SuperBowl party they were going to throw. Appetizers were the main subject of the dialog I caught. I had to here them speak of terms like FO-KA-CHI-A (Focaccia) and BRU-SHEDDA (Bruschetta). I am annoyed by many things and improper pronunciation of other languages when spoken with arrogance and pseudo conviction is at the top of that list. I mostly love when many 'merAkin people try and correct me when I pronounce something in regards to food (like Ceviche, Carne Asado or Ricotta to name a few items not native to English) correctly or say, "You say it with an accent." Accent? How about the correct way, you moron! Ethnocentrism is alive and well.....

Killer Side Eye

O better watch it. Hill is giving him the Side-Eye from Hades. There is some pretty fierce radiant heat being projected from her sockets....

Techno-Envy

Man, I wish I was in Vegas right now for CES 2008. It's a geek's paradise! Having followed several different site previews of the show does nothing but make me envious of anyone there.

One day.........one day.

I want one

Asus Eee PC. Sure, it's not for the poweruser tendencies I possess, but the form factor and durability are absolutely perfect for casual web surfing and the lack of harddrive is another plus. This little (7" screen) monster runs on flash memory and comes with a flavor of linux installed. When I get it, I'll keep linux on there and embrace all of the open source apps (open office, firefox and skype as a few examples) it comes with that I am familiar with anyway. You have the ability to install XP on it, but then performance takes a major hit and because this thing will be a true ultra portable, I can use my PC or Mac for other tasks.

I am hyped about getting this thing, but 8G is the top performer right now. I'm waiting for the first few months of 2008 before I get it. I am positive there will be storage, speed and other boosts and hopefully the price does not climb too high.

I'll post a detailed review once I get my hands on it.

The Arabic term for "cover"

I'm pretty sure we have all heard of this story about the Pakistani father who allegedly choked his daughter in Canada due her wearing Western dress to school and not opting for the Hijab that is customary for many Muslim women. At work today, I stopped in the breakroom and the TV was on and this story was being discussed by some talking heads. This is where my reality takes a turn for the ignorant. I was eating a great snack when a person from another department was in there consuming their lunch and heard the news story and said out loud, "That girl is in the US now and should dress like we dress and hijab is a silly name." I looked over at the person and said, "Wow, you are pretty tolerant of other cultures. That silly thing is an Arabic term for cover and it's a scarf that I am sure you have seen worn by Muslim women." This person then said, "So, you think what the father did was OK?" I said, "How do you draw THAT conclusion by me commenting on YOUR comment and saying nothing about the father in this story?" The person says, "Well, if he wants her to dress in that scarf, they should move back to where they came from!" I said, "Are you serious? It's amazing how this "LAND OF THE FREE" we live in only applies to Americans who speak one language and really believe the world is only about the US."

I know the father was 100% wrong for killing his daughter, but the real issue is that this father did not properly deal with a rebellious daughter and lost his mind and now his daughter is dead and he will sit in jail until he dies. My point was that the family in this story has customs that tunnel-visioned Americans think are "stupid" and just because many American kids can step all over their parents and many of the US laws give children WAY TOO MANY rights that the government has no business stepping into, immigrants are to not be judged by what one idiot did because their customs were not being followed.

I suggested this person get some Diversity Training and told them to remember that the US is not the only country in this world and holding on to cultural traditions is a major part of many people's identity when they move to another country for whatever reason. I shook my head and went back to work......

The Med Ball and This Morning....

Let me preface this post by saying that Dub may be the only one who can appreciate it, but I will throw it out to the blogosphere anyway.

Saturday mornings typically involve me going to a friend's house to work out in his basement and yesterday was no different. It's a finished basement with alot of room and since I do work out at home, but I cannot max out at for fear of pinning myself to my bench and having a screaming wife find me in that state. This friend and I are really close in strength levels and that is an important detail since we can spot each other with no issues and are right around plus/minus 5-10lbs for a max on various exercises.

Anyway, we like to mix up the workouts on occasion so we decided to use the 12lb medicine ball that I purchased a few weeks ago. At this point, it's important to mention that we worked shoulders first. We decided on the following 3 different med ball exercises: on knees facing each other about 8 ft from each other, standing about 8ft from each other w/two hand under-arm motion in throwing and seated tossing back/forth kind of rapidly. We did three sets of 30reps. It felt good AFTER, but was tough as we were going through each set since we worked shoulders pretty good. I felt like I had a really intense workout.

Fast-forward to this morning....I wake up and can barely lift my arms above my head. In conjunction with the deltoids work we did, man, the lactic acid was all over my muscle fibers and super-uncomfortable. It's mid-day now and it has somewhat dissipated, but my delts, bis, tris and forearms still feel pretty pumped.

Morale of the story: change up your workouts and do not fear the med ball! Who would have thought that 12lbs would have been the catalyst to a feeling of soreness and a reality of being pumped the next day?

Enjoy TER-KEY Day, ya'll!

Apparently, I am the FLASH

Who are you?

Formal Education is Fashionable

This post is brought to you by any college dropout you may know in your life...Allow me to drill down further...I made many friends in my undergrad years and a few more in my grad years and it's always an interesting exercise when I reflect on those who I kept in touch with who never finished the program that they started with me. I have an interesting perspective on formal education. I am all for it, but unless you are in school for the simple "love of learning", you have a goal in mind and typically that goal includes being able to put food on your table and a roof over your head. Degrees do not impress me in any way. I have a BS, MS and a post-grad certificate and will be working on a 2nd MS in January. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy learning and building my professional network, but in no way do I think college dropouts are "dumb" if they find other ways to provide for themselves and their families. A friend I work with and I were discussing a crack on his windshield. I said, "I went to school with a guy who owns a windshield repair business. Should I call him and ask if he can take care of you?" My friend says, "Ok." I called the guy, some logistics were worked out and my friend ended up going there and getting this taken care of. My friend shows me the business card of the guy who took care of his windshield and says, "Look at how many of these shops he owns." The owner is a college dropout, but he lives in a better area than I do, drives a nicer car and his business is growing. Small business ownership is where it's at kids. Degrees are nice to hang on the wall, but the risk/reward of jumping out of the "expected path" to enlightenment can also work. It's been said that people hate working 80-100hrs a week for someone else, but are willing to do that for themselves trying to establish/grow a business.

Here are some famous college dropouts to cogitate on:
Bill Gates
Steve Jobs
Michael Dell
Tom Hanks

My point is that the US pushes formal education as if that is the ONLY option to self-sufficiency and although EDUCATION is definitely the key, formal education in respect to a University setting is not and should not be the only way to be a productive member of society and a "well-rounded" citizen.

I keep leaning over and staring into the entrepreneurial pool and one day I will jump in....

Does this look like 18K to you?

Haha!

I stumbled upon this "deal" at Overstock. and literally laughed out loud at the notion of anyone paying 18THOU for a time piece as compared to 24K and then getting it shipped for $1.00. How comforting is it knowing that your 18Grand is going through the USPS, FedEx or Brown like every other piece of crap being sent for $1.00?

18,000 for a stupid watch?! Freaking amazing....

An almost 5hour Blow Job...

We're talking home improvement here you gutter-minded sea donkeys! :p Cellulose Insulation in my attic is what was blown, to be exact. What I had planned to take 2-2.5 hrs was double that and man did it suck....or actually, it really blew.

They changed out the machines at the Home Depot near me and this "new&improved" version was not that great.

This took place on Friday night. My bro-in-law helped me out since you do need two people to do this. I was in the attic with the 80ft of tubing to spray the insulation and my bro-in-law was in the garage feeding the machine (aka hopper) each of the 60 bags of this stuff. Correct, I said 60 bags! Each bag covered 40square feet. What can I say, I was going for a high R Value and I was able to achieve that based on my measurements and a guide they gave us at Home Depot. If you have one roll of traditional insulation (the pink ish that makes you itch and you actually roll it out), then you have approximately R19. I wanted to achieve R50. I actually ended up with about R40 because the machine we rented from HD was slow and as you added the additional 40ft of tubing to be at 80ft to reach the corners of the house, the power was further compromised and that is what actually made the job take longer than it needed to; I actually said F it and was left with 10bags that we just brought back since I still made a drastic improvement in my insulation anyway. THAT is the part that pissed me off. My attic is unfinished, so I was basically Spider-Man up there walking on joists and repositioning a powerful light so I could see what was going on. Had to wear a mask, safety glasses, hat and long sleeves. The inside of the mask was jet black and filled with all kinds of nastiness. If it were summer, I would have had a heat stroke, indeed, but the fall temps helped immensely.

Anyway, thank God that crap is over and I hope to save some cash on my utilities with this action over time.

Reason 2,478 why I like APPLE

Today, Steve Jobs mentioned that the iPhone will be open to developers. Is that big news, you ask? H-U-G-E NEWS indeed! It was the right thing to do. It was somewhat of a change in direction by Apple based on a recent update that basically "bricked" people's phones who unlocked them for other carriers since AT&T is the primary carrier at the moment for service. In the microwave society we exist in, not allowing people to use your technology for purposes outside of your simple intentions is very bad. It may please shareholders, but you alienate your consumer. Alienation is bad. This will do nothing but move more iPhones for Apple and REALLY cause Motorola, Nokia and Sony to step up their game in terms of hardware and cause rewriting of lots-o-business plans out there.

I saw another report that has Apple #3 in terms of market share behind Dell and HP for Q3; that is a sidenote because this post is more about one hardware component that Apple has put out.

I expect hundreds of apps to be built within the next few weeks.

I'm waiting for 1-2more price drops before I actually get one, but I can see an eventual purchase of the iPod Touch although I would have to get more apps on it because I don't necessarily care about absolutely getting an iPhone and it being an all-in-one super device for me. I am just not a big fan of all-in-one devices as a whole. We'll see what happens, but Apple continues to innovate and get more people to pay attention.

Carbon Footprints

The other day, I was looking at some propaganda literature from one of my utility companies and it had a small postcard mentioning a new program customers could join that would "offset carbon emissions" and help the environment; reduce your carbon footprint, in other words.

Well, I am all for helping the environment and Carbon Offsetting is the rage right now. Just ask big Al who just picked up a Nobel peace prize for some of his work and attention to environmental issues. Not only are utility companies trying to push consumers over the edge by appealing to their emotions, but airlines are now on board and asking for X amount of dollars to offset your flight and save the earth.

Again, I am all for tangible and concrete actions on reducing waste and truly minimizing emissions and guys like Al do a good service to the planet when they shift people's thinking.....to a point. Don't try and scare me into action or try and pull my heart strings to get me to open my purse strings.

I have an issue when no hard science exists to truly quantify carbon emissions and the idea of my giving $50 to an airline to allegedly plant some trees to offset my plane trip is an absolute scam and consumers are blind sheep that think throwing some cash for a cause will cure the problem. What would be more likely to help the cause would be a severe reduction in SUV purchases, more local purchase of goods and services and heavy R&D into alternative energy and no dependence on oil, but since our government cannot tax the sun or the wind, you can forget those two options for taking us off the grid........People need to start thinking!

Maybe she thought he was Asian...yeah, that's it..

Oh brother.....this episode is indicative of the vast cultural awareness that is possessed by most Americans. The other day, a lady at work brings a guy over to my cube and asks me if "Mr Bla-bla-bla" (insert ethnic last name) is around and I said, "well, he is in the building, but just not around here." And she proceeds to tell me that the guy she is walking with has just arrived from India and "Mr Bla-bla-bla" could probably relate to him. Of course, I was completely aware that "Mr Bla-bla-bla" is actually from Pakistan and NOT India and was pretty sure that these two guys would be unable to communicate in their native tongue. There are hundreds of thousands of people within the country of India that cannot even communicate with each other due to dialect differences. After this foolish woman walked away, I leaned back and looked at another coworker and asked, "How is Mr Bla-bla-bla going to relate to this guy from India when the guy she is walking with speaks better English than her and does she even know that Pakistan is not located within India?"

My point is that the ignorance of Americans and geography/culture/language is pretty sickening. Ethnocentrism is everywhere in this country.

Trilingual = Three Languages
Bilingual = Two Languages
Monolingual = American

What a joke!

Ad of the Day

I'm not a Harley guy by any stretch although I appreciate seeing those machines up close, but this ad is pretty hilarious to me. I literally laughed out loud when I saw this.