Rants

A Little Touchy, Are We?

The medical insurance plan at work has it where if you have your lab work done by a company called LabOne it costs you nothing out of pocket. There is a local lab (Mullins) that acts as a drop off point, they forward the samples off to who knows where for LabOne processing.

A couple of month’s ago I went in to my primary physician (and again, it costs nothing to see him) to have an ugly little mole-like thing on my forehead looked at. He removed it and said he would send it off to the lab for analysis. Unfortunately he didn’t label the sample as LabOne and the local lab ran the sample.

In case you care it was nothing, but that is not why I writing this.

Mullins Lab is not in our circle of friends, so when Mullins billed my insurance, my insurance said no money for you. I have a $200 yearly deductible normally, but for out of service work it is $400, so it denied the claim. Now I owe Mullins Lab $160 for the work. Well I figured the doctor messed up he should pay.

Last week I mailed him a letter outlining what had happened and since it was his error he should pay me the $160. Got a certified letter from the doctor today for the $160. The contents of the letter told me that I was no longer welcome as a patient any more. He would treat emergencies for the next 10 days, but after that, too bad. Just tell him where to send my records.

Did he object to the word error? Oh, well, got to start hunting a new primary doc tomorrow.

Bird’s Nest Ingredients?

God bless my mother-in-law. Really nice lady and great to have around, but she comes up with the weirdest things. We were sitting on the screened porch last night eating supper. We were watching the birds chase each other around the back yard and out of the blue she tells us that when she cuts her toe nails, she saves the clippings and throws them into the back yard in the belief that the birds use them for nest building. WHAT?!? She then suffixed that statement with, “I don’t know how they find them ( the clippings.)” Do they really want to?

Sunday Night

This is the worst night of the week, because tomorrow is Monday, the first day of the work week. Sunday is otherwise a very nice day, sleep in, big paper with lots of ads to dream about, lunch out, movie in the afternoon and celtic music from the Thistle and Shamrock from 6 to 7 PM. After that the dread starts in, have to shave and shower and go to bed – next thing you know it is Monday and the crap rolls in for the next 5 days.

Network Television

Wasted the evening on the couch watching “Men in Black.” I don’t remember specifics, but NBC was promoing some show called “Dog Eat Dog.” I am hopelessly out of touch or old or quite possibly both, but I recognize crap when I see it (after all that is what this blog is) and anything from the producers of “Fear Factor” and “The Weakest Link” copying/combining elements of those crappy shows will be CRAP!

VHS

When I first bought a DVD player about 2 years ago, everyone asked my if the picture quality was so much better than video tape. My response was always, “Not that much, in fact if you have a good copy of the tape it seemed about the same as DVD.” I won’t say that any more. Tonight a friend lent me a copy of Blackhawk Down on VHS. First off is wasn’t letterboxed so that seemed way different, but the movie didn’t seem as sharp as I have gotten used to. The real difference was in any subtitles, signs, words, etc. The real kicker was at the end of the movie they scroll some updates about the real people involved and they were practically unreadable.

Silver Fish

You’ve seen them on the backs of cars, those symbols of Christianity placed so you can tell that the person in front of you is a religious sort. Tonight I was behind a car that had a variation of one on the trunk lid that I had not seen before. In place where the eye of the fish would be, there was a small cross. I suppose it was there to maybe clue in the uneducated as to what the fish symbol meant, but I thought the x-ed out eye made it look like a dead fish.

Bike Club Meeting

Every other month we met at the Stoplight Deli in downtown. They open in the evening just for us, nice folks and really good food. Needless to say, because the only people in the joint are there for the meeting it makes it great. The other month’s we alternate between member’s homes and pot luck it for food. These work out well for the same reasons, no interference from outsiders. This month was supposed to be at a member’s house, but nobody volunteered to do it, so some one suggested that the meet at Teresa’s Mexican Restaurant on Whiskey Road. This suggestion was not meet with resounding approval, but no one wanted it to be at their house, so Teresa’s it was.

When we got there there were only 4 other people at a table in the main room, so we joined them. A few minutes later the woman who said she was going to arrange us a spot entered and saw us there. She immediately found the manager who offered a choice of some tables in the no-smoking section or the Cantina room where the bar is, but rarely are there anybody in there on week day nights. We picked the Cantina. Wrong choice as it turned, but we didn’t want to move again because the six attendees had doubled in size. They make a lot of margaritas at the bar, which means a blender is almost constantly whirring. Then to top it off, another family reunion/birthday party came in and used the other half of the room. They were kind of boisterous which added to the din. We did manage to get the meeting in, but you can bet we won’t do that again.