Wednesday, October 28, 2009
The cost of health Insurance
I received my benefits pamphlet this week to go over so I can be ready to make my choices next month during open season. Boy was I shocked by the changes. They say that the cost will be lower for most employees. I found out that I am not most employees. My biweekly premium is going up by 30 dollars a pay period. If that is not bad enough, the insurance is going from a 90/10 to an 80/20! My deductible is going up from 600 dollars to 1000 dollars and my max out-of-pocket is going up to 8000 dollars. This new plan is now going to cost me over the year 12800 dollars, over 1000 dollars a month. But what can you do except take what they offer. At least I have insurance.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
The "chrysalis"
I was in my back yard this last weekend trying to start my lawnmowers. With the drought there has not been a need to cut the grass. I noticed that there was a dead insect and it brought back a memory that makes me laugh out loud every time.
We moved to Okinawa in the summer and after we settled down in the house we had a lot of exploring to do. During our explorations if we found something interesting or something that we did not know what it was we would bring it back to the expert, our Dad. If he didn’t know what it was, we would look it up in the encyclopedia. (Al Gore hadn’t invented the internet yet!) On one such occasion we brought home an object that intrigued us. We showed it to Dad and he thought it was a chrysalis. He explained that in a short time a butterfly should appear. We just had to see what the butterfly would look like. Dad got a jar and put a paper with a small amount of water on it, for the humidity he explained.
During the course of the week we had accumulated many of these objects and had the jars lined up in the living room. Dad finally had to put an end to it because there was too many and no room in the house. I can’t recall the exact number, but there were approximately ten to fifteen jars with five to ten of these objects in each one. Every day we would check the jars but never did we see any butterflies. As the days went by we lost interest in the jars and had all but given up on seeing any results. What ever it was had to be dead. Dad was ready to dump it all as well. One more week and it is all out of here.
About two days later we had a huge surprise! Not one had emerged, but it appeared that all of them had over night! The housekeeper was not happy. If fact she was screaming and really freaked out. She spoke very little English and we spoke even less Japanese at the time. I turned the corner out of my room and could not believe my eyes. The walls and ceiling were almost covered with preying mantises. There were green ones and brown ones and they were crawling all over the place. The maid came from the kitchen pointing a finger and yelling “Out! Out!” So I started to leave. Her yelling then became more persistent, “NO….Out!” She was pointing at all of the little mantises.
I gathered up my brothers (they helped collect the egg cases) and we started to collect the little guys and put them out of the house. We learned to use a piece of paper to scoop them up and remove them. It took us hours to collect the brood and remove the bulk of them. It was several weeks before we did not find them in the house.
We learned a valuable lesson with the mantis egg cases. In the future we then made sure that if we were going to have an unknown object in the house it was to be in a container that had a lid or top to it. We also learned that even though Dad was the smartest person we knew he didn’t know everything!
We moved to Okinawa in the summer and after we settled down in the house we had a lot of exploring to do. During our explorations if we found something interesting or something that we did not know what it was we would bring it back to the expert, our Dad. If he didn’t know what it was, we would look it up in the encyclopedia. (Al Gore hadn’t invented the internet yet!) On one such occasion we brought home an object that intrigued us. We showed it to Dad and he thought it was a chrysalis. He explained that in a short time a butterfly should appear. We just had to see what the butterfly would look like. Dad got a jar and put a paper with a small amount of water on it, for the humidity he explained.
During the course of the week we had accumulated many of these objects and had the jars lined up in the living room. Dad finally had to put an end to it because there was too many and no room in the house. I can’t recall the exact number, but there were approximately ten to fifteen jars with five to ten of these objects in each one. Every day we would check the jars but never did we see any butterflies. As the days went by we lost interest in the jars and had all but given up on seeing any results. What ever it was had to be dead. Dad was ready to dump it all as well. One more week and it is all out of here.
About two days later we had a huge surprise! Not one had emerged, but it appeared that all of them had over night! The housekeeper was not happy. If fact she was screaming and really freaked out. She spoke very little English and we spoke even less Japanese at the time. I turned the corner out of my room and could not believe my eyes. The walls and ceiling were almost covered with preying mantises. There were green ones and brown ones and they were crawling all over the place. The maid came from the kitchen pointing a finger and yelling “Out! Out!” So I started to leave. Her yelling then became more persistent, “NO….Out!” She was pointing at all of the little mantises.
I gathered up my brothers (they helped collect the egg cases) and we started to collect the little guys and put them out of the house. We learned to use a piece of paper to scoop them up and remove them. It took us hours to collect the brood and remove the bulk of them. It was several weeks before we did not find them in the house.
We learned a valuable lesson with the mantis egg cases. In the future we then made sure that if we were going to have an unknown object in the house it was to be in a container that had a lid or top to it. We also learned that even though Dad was the smartest person we knew he didn’t know everything!
Monday, October 19, 2009
Frogs in the tomb
The house that we started off with on Okinawa was way too small for our family. It was Dad with the five kids and the best they had available at the time was a three bedroom. It did have a screened in porch that Donnie used as his bedroom. Dad had one, Teri and Tracy had one and David and I shared the last. A four bedroom opened up in Plaza housing and Dad took it. This meant moving away from the neighborhood that we had just got familiar with. But that was O-Kay. We now had new adventures to keep us busy. One such adventure involved a tomb, an underwater flashlight and very daring kids.
We moved into the new house over the summer. Dad had to go back to work and it was just the five of us kids left home alone with the housekeeper. We would get up early, have breakfast and be out the door not to be seen again until lunch time. Our fascination was always with the boonies. We were in the boonies and found a small pond that was at the entrance of an abandoned tomb. There were tadpoles swimming around and we were looking for the frogs. Now these were not your every day run of the mill tadpoles. These guys were huge! We walk around the edge of the water and we heard a big splash. We looked around and could not see anything.
We kept this up for several days, never seeing the frogs but always hearing the splash. The entrance to the tomb was just visible above the water line. Donnie and I had it in our heads that the frogs had to be in the tomb. How could we get them out was the question. We were avid Scuba divers and we had underwater flashlights that we could use to check it out. One afternoon we took the lights down to the pond with us. Rock/paper/scissor to decide who goes first, I lost. The water was not all that deep, maybe three to three and a half feet. The thing was to get into the tomb you had to have your head under the water and come up the other side not knowing what was there. What the hell were we thinking!
I reached my hand to the other side and felt that there was room to come up. Down I went with the flashlight on. I raised my head out of the water and was lighting the place up. It was safe so I called Donnie in. The tomb was not that large and we now had two lights to explore with. When the light went to a small out cropping we saw the eyes shinning back at us. Before we knew what it was it jumped right at us. Talk about scaring the crap out of you. We then heard several more plops into the water. Too late, the frogs had made their escape. We ducked back under the water and out of the tomb. We tried this several more time before we decided we needed a new plan.
The new plan consisted of entering the tomb with the lights out and getting into position to pounce on them. We were both in the tomb and slowly moved over to the edge where they always rested. I turned on the light as Donnie jumped at the frogs. He had two frogs pinned under his hands. I set the light down and grabbed one while he secured the other. Holy crap they were huge. The biggest frogs we had ever seen. Well, what now. Show them off of course! We headed home, Donnie holding a frog, I’m holding a frog and David is carrying the flashlights.
We made it out of the tomb with the frogs and flashlights and headed back to the house. There was a large wash sink in the laundry room so we put some water in the sink and dropped the frogs off. What a catch! We were so proud of ourselves. We couldn’t wait for Dad to get home so we could show him our bounty. Dad arrived and he was greeted by three anxious boys. David was the first to greet Dad. Donnie and I were going to play the guessing game. You know, guess what we found today? But no….David blurts “Guess what Dad, we found giant frogs today and they are in the sink!” The look on Dads face was like yeah right. We grabbed him by the arms and dragged him back to the sink. He looked down and saw two frogs that were almost the size of dinner plates. His eyes got big and his jaw dropped. “Were in the hell did you boys come up with that!”
So we told the story on how we found them and how we caught them. The whole time he was just shaking his head in disbelief. “So, what now?” he asked. All three of us chimed in “can we keep them? Please!” He sat us down and we had a talk. In the end we decided that it was enough to just have caught them. We packed up the frogs and headed back to the tomb to turn them loose. Plop, plop. Back in the water and to the security of the tomb they headed.
Looking back at what we had to go through to catch the frogs I am amazed that nothing bad happened to us. There could have been other critters in the water. To think that we put our heads under the water! We never seemed to think before leaped.
We moved into the new house over the summer. Dad had to go back to work and it was just the five of us kids left home alone with the housekeeper. We would get up early, have breakfast and be out the door not to be seen again until lunch time. Our fascination was always with the boonies. We were in the boonies and found a small pond that was at the entrance of an abandoned tomb. There were tadpoles swimming around and we were looking for the frogs. Now these were not your every day run of the mill tadpoles. These guys were huge! We walk around the edge of the water and we heard a big splash. We looked around and could not see anything.
We kept this up for several days, never seeing the frogs but always hearing the splash. The entrance to the tomb was just visible above the water line. Donnie and I had it in our heads that the frogs had to be in the tomb. How could we get them out was the question. We were avid Scuba divers and we had underwater flashlights that we could use to check it out. One afternoon we took the lights down to the pond with us. Rock/paper/scissor to decide who goes first, I lost. The water was not all that deep, maybe three to three and a half feet. The thing was to get into the tomb you had to have your head under the water and come up the other side not knowing what was there. What the hell were we thinking!
I reached my hand to the other side and felt that there was room to come up. Down I went with the flashlight on. I raised my head out of the water and was lighting the place up. It was safe so I called Donnie in. The tomb was not that large and we now had two lights to explore with. When the light went to a small out cropping we saw the eyes shinning back at us. Before we knew what it was it jumped right at us. Talk about scaring the crap out of you. We then heard several more plops into the water. Too late, the frogs had made their escape. We ducked back under the water and out of the tomb. We tried this several more time before we decided we needed a new plan.
The new plan consisted of entering the tomb with the lights out and getting into position to pounce on them. We were both in the tomb and slowly moved over to the edge where they always rested. I turned on the light as Donnie jumped at the frogs. He had two frogs pinned under his hands. I set the light down and grabbed one while he secured the other. Holy crap they were huge. The biggest frogs we had ever seen. Well, what now. Show them off of course! We headed home, Donnie holding a frog, I’m holding a frog and David is carrying the flashlights.
We made it out of the tomb with the frogs and flashlights and headed back to the house. There was a large wash sink in the laundry room so we put some water in the sink and dropped the frogs off. What a catch! We were so proud of ourselves. We couldn’t wait for Dad to get home so we could show him our bounty. Dad arrived and he was greeted by three anxious boys. David was the first to greet Dad. Donnie and I were going to play the guessing game. You know, guess what we found today? But no….David blurts “Guess what Dad, we found giant frogs today and they are in the sink!” The look on Dads face was like yeah right. We grabbed him by the arms and dragged him back to the sink. He looked down and saw two frogs that were almost the size of dinner plates. His eyes got big and his jaw dropped. “Were in the hell did you boys come up with that!”
So we told the story on how we found them and how we caught them. The whole time he was just shaking his head in disbelief. “So, what now?” he asked. All three of us chimed in “can we keep them? Please!” He sat us down and we had a talk. In the end we decided that it was enough to just have caught them. We packed up the frogs and headed back to the tomb to turn them loose. Plop, plop. Back in the water and to the security of the tomb they headed.
Looking back at what we had to go through to catch the frogs I am amazed that nothing bad happened to us. There could have been other critters in the water. To think that we put our heads under the water! We never seemed to think before leaped.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Changing weather
I was in Lubbock when the front moved through. The temperature went from the 80's to the 40's very fast. When I got back To San Antonio the front had moved through already. It lost some of its punch along the way but it dropped the temperature to light jacket weather. We started the day at Fiesta Texas with a jacket at noon. By 4 o'clock the jackets were off, and then back on around 7. Very nice! With the over cast skies it looks cooler than it really is. I looked out this morning and just knew it was soup weather. So I threw together a quick potato soup with steamed cabbage on the side. I like to put the cabbage in the bottom of the bowl and then ladle the potato soup over the top. Delicious!
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Travel
The pain is gone and the body feels normal again after the Tour DaVita. At first I said I didn't want to see a bike for a year, but now I am looking forward to getting back on it. After my traveling settles down I plan on getting back on it. I have been out of town for the last three days in Chicago. It was cool and rainy the entire time so I did not get out much. I did get out for about an hour between showers. I am always impressed with the number of tall buildings. I was there for the Managers meeting. It was a very informative and relaxing time. The first night there we went to a fine Italian restaurant and then went to a comedy club called Second City. It is where Saturday Night Live actors get their start. It was a very funny show. The next night we had dinner and an awards presentation with the team from Chicago at the hotel. Tomorrow I leave to Lubbock. (I wish I had a UT shirt to wear!) I will be there for five days to help out our newest Access Center. I have just one more trip planned for the year. It will be the first weekend in November down to Houston. Time will tell what other trips are on the horizon.
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