Month: September 2007

Lovers Lane

Lovers LaneGnorm went for a walk in Hitchcock Woods with us today (some peektures) It was another beautiful fall day, almost a carbon copy of yesterday; cool, crisp with the very definition of blue sky overhead. It was great to get out and take a hike. Because we got a late (for us) start we had to share the woods with dog walkers, runners (Hi Anne) and horseback riders. We probably saw 10 people! Donna and I took Gnorm down our favorite trail, but it just made him sad because his new girlfriend from yesterday wasn’t with him.

At the end of last week, every time I came home from work the internet connection was down. I would have to reboot the modem, and sometimes the router too, a couple/few of times to get it stable. Yesterday it was fine, but today as I prepared to listen to the FRS‘s last game of the season, it just wouldn’t work no matter how many times I rebooted everything. I ended up on the back porch with the laptop and took a ride on the internet on a neighbor’s dime. Someone close by has an unsecured WAP… After on more reboot of everything, including the PC, I now have internet on the desktop. I can connect to my wireless network with the laptop, but I cannot see the desktop nor the internet. Plus I can no longer get the router’s admin panel from the desktop even after resetting the router. Fixing that will be a job for tomorrow after work.

The Emperor got a bath this afternoon and had the royal scary dentures installed. They will add a little spice to some of the October Post Office photos.

Started down, went up, still up.
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Polo, the Sport of Gnomes

Gnorm Watches PoloThis morning the local horse set celebrated the 125th Anniversary of Whitney Field and Polo in Aiken. There was a parade that started from downtown, winding it’s way through the horse district and ending up at Whitney Field for a couple of demonstration chukkas of polo.

Because it was a beautiful fall day in Aiken and Whitney Field is only about a mile and a half from home, Donna and I walked up to see the parade. There were local politicians in shiny cars, polo players on sleek ponies and regal carriages pulled by teams of horses. After the parade we went over to watch the polo action for a while. The players dressed as players would have in the late 1800s with hats instead of helmets and shirts with no numbers. The teams consisted of five members instead of today’s four. Also, the rules were slightly different in that back shots were not allowed then and today’s players had a hard time curbing that instinct.

You can see about a dozen photos from the parade and the polo on my Flickr! site.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 424

General Elliott Inn

Haven’t talked much about eating out since I stopped keeping track of expenses. And I might not have said anything about tonight either because we didn’t pay. A coworker, who took me out to eat when I first got hired at ASCO, after 18 years, got around to doing it again tonight. He and his wife took Donna and I out to eat at a local B & B that serves dinner only on Friday and Saturday evenings.

When Eddie and his wife Lee moved out of town twenty years ago the 16 acres they bought was way out in the sticks. As Aiken has grown there has been a little bit of developing out that way, but not too much. Within the last five years though, out northeast of town has become a haven for polo players with large chunks of property being broken up into slightly smaller sections for polo farms. With it has come some money and road improvements, why even, Lee and Eddie no longer live on a dirt road.

A few years ago a couple bought a big house across from a polo club and opened a Bed & Breakfast. That B & B is just a stones throw from where Lee and Eddie live, so consequentially they have befriended the Innkeepers and with that have found a place to eat their Friday evening’s dinners, the General Elliott Inn.

I can see why they like to eat here every Friday night. The food was excellent, plentiful and rich, but for that very reason I know Donna and I couldn’t eat there every week. Once every couple months is about our tolerance level for that sort of decadence.

Thanks Eddie. I’ll be looking forward to 2025.

Started up, went down, back up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 424

Post Offices Everywhere

OctoberI had uploaded last weekend’s Post Office photos to Flickr! and the old gallery, so tonight I uploaded them to the new gallery too. The Flickr! and old galleries have some captioning, 9 of 23 photos, and the Flickr! ones have been geotagged so that they show on my map. Unfortunately the 200 photo limit on the free ride takes away a lot of the map’s impact because as I fill in one spot of the state, another clears out…

It is also almost October and that means Halloween. Time to break out the decorations, including the Vampire teeth for the Emperor.

Started down, wen up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 421

Somebody Has Paid Somebody Off

When I first started dealing with GERD a couple years ago I was prescribed Nexium by he ENT specialist. It was on the non-preferred list of drugs and carried a much higher co-pay ($50 or 25% of cost.) I used it for about three months until my sore throat cleared and then I started using an OTC antacid. Pecid, for maintenance.

This worked good for a while, but the sore throat returned and my GP doctor wrote a prescription for Nexium. After he first month, my insurance administrator company (BCBS of AL) balked, they wanted me to step up to Nexium if this was to be a maintenance drug. I needed to start with a generic or preferred, we went with Protonix off the preferred list for a $25 a month co-pay.

The Protonix has worked out fine for the last year or so. The other day I got a letter in the mail telling me that starting October 1st, Protonix is being bumped to the non-preferred list, meaning a bigger co-pay. Guess what is replacing it on the preferred list? Nexium.

For grins I called my pharmacy to see what these medicines cost. They could only tell me list prices; 40mg Nexium is $180 a month, 40mg Protonix is $150 a month. The generic, omeprazole (AKA Prilosec) in a 20mg dose costs $110 a month and if I needed 40mg that would double to $220. Seems kind of backwards to me, the non-preferred drug is now the cheapest while the generic is he most expensive.

And just is what’s up with the generic, omeprazole, at $110 a month? You can get Prilosec OTC for less than $20 a month at the local drug store….

I know these costs don’t really accurately reflect he price of these drugs because the discounts negotiated by Blue Cross Blue Shield. The pharmacist told me to call BCBS to find out the real cost, but I didn’t feel like dealing with that today (maybe tomorrow.)

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 420

Spenser For Sale

They won’t be here in time, but my birthday present is going to be the last eight of my unread Spenser books. They are all used, mostly paperbacks and from 4 different Amazon affiliate vendors. Figured it would be a lot easier to get them this way than to keep poking our noses into used book stores in the cities we visit.

Changed the gallery style to more match my new default theme. I’m on the fence with the new Post Office Gallery, it seems like more work than I want to do. I’ve got 23 new photos to add into 3 different directories and I have manually added the files to three different ext files so they can display 3 different ways. Plus there is that whole no descriptive caption thing, even though I am sometimes at a loss for what to write, when I do, it personalizes the photos. For now all I’ve done is stick the new images into the old gallery (which I may end up going back to.)

Started up, went down, back up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 418

Burnin’ Baby

My DVD Burner was delivered by a guy in a brown truck today. Drive went in smooth and XP recognized it for what it is on boot up. I have played a DVD movie and an audio CD. The PC had 2 drives in it to begin with, a DVD player and a CDRW drive. I pulled out the DVD player to put in the new CD & DVD read/writer. Now I’m wondering which one I should keep as the second drive, the DVD player or the CDRW drive?

Because I went cheap, my package didn’t include a free copy of Nero or one of those other big name burning software titles. A quick trip over to Sourceforge and 2.6Megs later I was in business – InfraRecorder. So far I can highly recommend it, but all I’ve done with it is back up all my MP3s to 5 DVD +R discs. Further testing is required.

I pulled the fancy flash gallery/viewers from the the two picture galleries I did last week. I did like the interface, but hated the lack of captioning. I guess I’ll have to get busy and change the galleries to have the same red/maroon color scheme as the new WordPress theme.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 415