scott

Insurnace Companies

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I am not a fan of insurance companies right now. I went to fill 2 prescriptions I got from my doctor today and found out some “problems” with one of them. Turns out that even though they were going to charge me $35 and not the traditional $5 co-pay for the drugs, I couldn’t even get one of my migraine drugs because my doctor needs pre-approval from my insurance company before I can get it. I am all for protecting from insurance fraud (since if asked that is the reason the company will probably give for the restriction) but come on. My doctor is prescribing me a drug that he thinks will help me, why on earth can’t I get it? I goto the doctor once a year (if that) and only get prescriptions. I have no major issues thankfully, and I get the run around. I am the perfect person to the insurance companies. They make money off of me. Why then can’t I get my dam drugs?

Not happy right now. Thankfully my doctor and my dad are trying to sort through the situation but it is the weekend. Hopefully the drug I did get works when needed. it is a knock off of Zomig, another drug I used previously. I am just not a fan of the way it makes me feel when I take it.

Lucidity

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For someone who has been unable to sit up and do most normal tasks, being lucid and able to get up and do stuff (any stuff) is like someone in the desert finding water. you want to drink it all, but you know you shouldn’t. that is how I feel now. I am lucid and want to do so many things I couldn’t before. But by doing too much I run the risk of relapsing. I feel almost able to go into work. But if I do I know I will overdo it. So I won’t. For now I am working remotely, and “trying” to take it easy.

I finally had semi normal moments last night around 7PM. I woke up from a nap and I could sit up without getting dizzy. that is always a good sign. this morning I am able to sit up and actually function. I will see how I feel later today!

Have A Green Day

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Well maybe I shouldn’t have said that. I have been a bit queasy recently so green reference should not be on my list of things to say. I got up and showered thinking I was good to go to work today. I felt not 100% but I figured I would try going in. Well while putting on my socks I realized I needed to lie down again. I didn’t get back up again until like 3PM. After further evaluation of my issues we think that I may be having a reaction to one of the drugs I was taking. My doctor is not 100% convinced but my dad and my brother in law (both ER doc’s) think it is entirely possible. if that is the issue, I need to wait until that drug clears out of my system.

So as Tom Petty said, “the waiting is the hardest part”. I am still waiting for the effects to wear off.

Still waiting,

and waiting…

It’s My Birthday, and I Don’t Really Care

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Today is my birthday, and this year I don’t really care. Why you may be asking? I feel like crap. I have been sick, and am still sick. I didn’t go to work today. I went to the doctor. I didn’t go out to eat for my b-day. no hanging with friends, & drinking. I did get blood taken though.

I don’t know how I made it to my doctor? it took a full hour on the subway. Then I waited a full hour until I saw the doctor. He poked and prodded for a while and then gave me a list of new prescriptions. he believes I am just having a cluster of migraines. Wow, I didn’t need to travel to him for someone to tell me that. he upped some med’s and gave me a bunch of different ones. Then he sent me to get blood work, just to be sure it wasn’t anything else.

The nurse took my weight with all my clothes and shoes on. It was higher than it has ever been. She said it didn’t matter since it wasn’t a checkup but put it on my chart anyway. When I got on the stupid gown and took my shoes off I weighed myself again and I was like 8 pounds lighter. Right in range I thought I should be. Dam chart is wrong!

Everyone was so nice. They were like “are you having a happy birthday”? dam DOB on all my paperwork. I was trying to be nice, but I was like I am here and feel like crap, how do you think my birthday is going? The blood lady was the funniest. She is getting ready to stick me with a needle and asks me that. I was like lady I am sick, at the hospital and you are going to stick me with a f–king needle, how do you think I feel? she was like, good point.

Thankfully I made it home with no issues besides a train full of annoying high school kids. Why do kids in packs larger than 3 think they are the only people anywhere they are? That is a question for another post.

I ended up in bed the rest of the night trying to sleep away the constant dull pain in my head. Lets hope the rest of my 31st year is better than my birthday.

Beware The Ides of March

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Actually I usually don’t, but this year Shakespeare was right. What normally is part of 3 fun days for me, turned into a nightmare. I got up early since I couldn’t sleep. I ended up going into the office an hour early because of it. About 2 hours into work I started feeling like crap again. I thought I was being smart and decided to go home. Well I didn’t decide fast enough. I ended up getting really sick at work again (aka puking). Thankfully I felt a bit better after that so I left for home quick. I felt like crap the rest of the day.

My dad convinced me to goto the doctor. I called and thankfully they had a cancelation the next day. I did nothing else but lie in bed the rest of the day. Man I felt like crap.

Mr. Non English Speaking Delivery Guy

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Hello Mr. non english speaking delivery guy. I have a few words to say to you. Since you don’t understand english I will write my frustration on this blog. See I can bitch you out all I want here since you don’t speak english, and probably don’t know what a “blog” is.

You see if I order food, and you deliver it I give you money. Since I am not a magician I give you more than it costs and I TELL YOU how much to give me back in change. Now depending on how good a mood I am in, and how quick you bring the food you get a tip out of that change. Now I almost always give a tip, and try to keep it on or around the traditional 15%. But you don’t really get a say in how much I give you. So if I give you a twenty dollar bill and ask for lets say $13 back, you don’t act like you are just off the boat and give me a ten back. And then when I repeat my self and say $13, you don’t give me 1 more dollar back. See the thing is you may not be the brightest bulb in the lamp, but unless you just got the job that day (and that is after all possible) you know how to count to 20 in english. And since the US government has been nice enough to put the actual number on each bill you can see that also. So by giving me a 10 back and go “ok”, is not ok. See I know you are playing me, so when I tell you 3 times how much change I want, I think you should give me the money. The $7 I paid has your tip in it. It was in fact a good tip, but if you proceed to be an ass, I may decide to ask for 15 back and say f—k your tip.

I am beginning to believe Jayson’s thoughts on the state of food service in this city. I have done food service before myself. Trust me I know it sucks, but unless you were a total ass to me, I treated you right. So why do people working now a days thing everyone else is stupid and play games with us? Of course I am the sucker because I will still order from whatever place I have a problem with if the food is good enough.

I don’t mean to put everyone down that is a delivery person. I won’t say the majority of you are good, but I would say about half. Living in NYC you rely on delivery more than most places. I mean the Domino’s delivery guy who came to my door during a blizzard (really have no idea how he biked over) got like a 40% for his outstanding work.

I leave you with this final question, if I goto mexico and order take out, will the delivery people speak French? English? Anything but the native language? Just wondering!

Old Friends

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Spoke to Gus for the first time in a month or so on the phone. We email back and forth but haven’t spoken in a while. He (hopefully) will be in NYC this week, so we are trying to goto dinner. He also was doing some work with VMware and needed a Windows 98 image. Since he knew I built every windows OS since 3.1 into a virtual machine he gave me a call.

As I mentioned earlier this week I have been emailing back and forth with an old friend from college (jennifer). Yes, I know I need to reply back to your last email. It is on my to do list Jenn!

I also recently heard from Lefty. He is still in jersey. I need to get together with him soon. Not sure if/when that will happen. You would think a few miles and a river wouldn’t prevent people from hanging out. You would guess wrong.

Whats Hot And Not on TV (for me)

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As I always say I am a science fiction geek. I don’t care what you think about that. It is not like I have costumes and goto conventions. There was that time at Burson that I ran around with a Star Wars laser gun, but that was more to make fun of Jeffrey M for having it than anything else, but I digress. Being a sci-fi fan I get very happy when I see a real good sci-fi drama. Battlestar Galactica is my latest favorite. it is dark, gritty and has a real feel to it. Granted it is sci-fi but it is at least tries to put a human element in everything it does. The stories are fantastic, and lets face it CGI doesn’t make everything ok. The story is what makes things work. The first season is more than half over. I am already dreading the months to a year for the next 13 episodes to come out.

Season 3 of Mi-5 (Spooks) is still as good as the first 2 seasons. the only problem is that 10 episodes does not a season make. Maybe that is why the british tv calls it series 3? Even the Soprano’s has more than 10 episodes a season. of course if my only complaint of a show is that they make too few of them, then they are doing something right. Even after 2 of the 3 main characters are out this season it still keeps its stride.

For all those people out there saying DVR’s like Tivo with the ability to keep shows forever are killing DVD sales I have one thing to say. I can (and do) burn shows to DVD for person use, as is my right under fare use laws. I had all 10 episodes of season 2 of Mi-5 on my hard drive. I still went out and bought the dvd series, and deleted the perfectly good high quality MPEG-2 files from my hard drive? Why because I wanted the DVD. you are afraid of losing money because of people like me saving files on my computer. If I can get the season’s of stuff on DVD quick I will still buy them. I will let you in on a little secret, I spend more on DVD’s now that I have a DVR than when I didn’t. Buy tightening the reigns on DVR’s you are only pissing me the consumer with $$$ off. Think about it.

I haven’t watched a complete season of 24 since the first season. I just bought that one on DVD a few weeks ago. This year I watched the first 2 hour episode of season 4 and I was interested. I had the Tivo grab every episode. I find that 24 is better to be watched 6-9 episodes at a time. When I was recovering from being sick I sat and watched all the episodes I have up till now. Man can I say action packed. Granted it is unrealistic, but it is a good serial drama. I still have my season pass waiting to capture the remaining episodes. I actually like what fox did and waited to put the show on until January to give it a 23 week run with all first run episodes.

Now I don’t normally admit I know this show exists, let alone watch it, but Gilmore Girls used to be good. I mean you may ask why a 30 year old guy is watching that show? I say why wouldn’t I? I will watch any show on TV now a days with good witty writing on it, decent stories and did I mention hot actress’s on it! So a chick show, maybe, but don’t mock me for it. Did I mention hot actress’s? I blame my friend Jenn for getting started on that thing. Yes Jenn another plug for you:)

Law & Order is another great show. A semi realistic look at crime fighting. Recently I am a fan of the Special Victims version of that show. Just good all around crime show. It is not as good as my all time favorite crime show, Homicide Life on the Street, but it is better than everything else out there now. Now if you never have seen Homicide, you need to go get the DVD. I need to finish my collection of that series on DVD soon.

Some shows that I watch, but I don’t know why are things like Enterprise. Man I really don’t care if that show gets canceled. I am a sci-fi fan, and an off and on again Star Trek fan, but looking back on all the series they made I only like about 1 1/2 of them. I don’t care if you agree with me or not, but some of those people need some spines. I don’t know about you but if I was on a ship (space ship, naval ship, inflatable raft) and I saw/knew a bad guy is coming after me I wouldn’t try to talk. They don’t want to talk to you. You need to show them a whole six pack of wup ass. I need a good show like Babylon 5 again. The good guys don’t always have to be squeaky clean pussies. OK, I feel better now.

Third Watch was another show that used to be good, but it is so over the top now I don’t know why I watch it? I keep hoping it will get better. I don’t know. It is not like I have more time for TV than I did before. I actually have less. I guess I am an optimist sometimes. Of course there was a time that I liked ER also, and now I can’t stand that show. How some shows should be pulled off the air after a while.

Lastly one last good show Arrested Development. Funny, witty, and well written. If you know me you must be wondering why I didn’t mention the Simpsons sooner? The answer is the Simpsons are always good, no matter what I or anyone else says. Mmmm Simpsons… And that is what is on my mind about what is on TV. Just remember this is my opinion. I don’t care what you or anyone may thing about my opinion. I am just writing because I feel like writing about what is on my mind.

There are plenty other shows out there that I can comment on, good or bad. This was just a few that came to mind when I couldn’t sleep last night.

Mac Mini Twins

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Being single + impulse buyer + tax return = new mac mini for Scott. I was at the apple store Monday. Gus may refer to it as his Mecca! I was looking for a bluetooth USB adapter for my Mini. I happened to ask if the Mini’s were in stock. I wanted another one, but I haven’t wanted to wait for it to show up so I haven’t ordered it yet. Stupid logic, but it works for me. The guy at the store said they had the high end one in stock. In a moment of weakness I said I will take it.

Now I use my mini at home almost excessively. I sometimes use my Thinkpad or my HP desktop, but very rarely. The Thinkpad is only for work emergencies. that happens enough to warrant me taking it home every night. The HP is my DVR and not much else these days. I live off of my Mini. That is why I wanted another one. I spend 10 hours a day at work and allot of it is on a computer. hey I am in the Technology field. So I figured dropping a Mini at my desk would be great. I can do allot (but not all) of my work on a mac. And the mini is portable so I can throw it in my bag and take it with me when I need to. The logic worked for me. As I said I had tax return money. So now I have more computer than I can count. Well that is not true. I have 1 PC desktop, 2 mac desktops, and 1 mac laptop. The rest of the computers I discuss are not technically mine. The Thinkpad is the works. But it makes sense if you look at it a certain way. I need a PC at home, and I need a Mac. Another mac for work, and the powerbook for when I travel. Well in my head the logic worked. I know I am crazy. you don’t need to tell me.

So far I am happy with both Mini’s. I should get my 512 meg ram upgrade for the new mini in a day or so. I didn’t want to shell out the outrageous price for the 1gig chip again. With my new camera phone I can take better pictures of the inside of the unit compared to the bad ones I took when we opened my first mini.

Update, I got the 512 Meg ram upgrade. Jayson had the handy putty knives from the last time we did this and had the memory upgraded on this new mini in 20 minutes. I have it sitting on my desk at work. I was able to use it for more than like 80% of the day Friday. I need to find a good open source SSH client for OS X. I am starting to make a list of business software that I could use on the Mac.

I got the new mini to bluetooth sync with my Treo 650 after about 2 minutes of trying. It worked like a charm. So much simpler than my horror with the 3com PCMCIA card with my Thinkpad, and the Xircom bluetooth card that I never really got to work right.

Computer Buying For Novices

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I had to explain computer purchasing concepts to my brother in law. he doesn’t understand why he cannot buy a $299 computer and be happy with it. I tried (not sure if I succeeded) in explaining that it is low end crap, and that it will be easily outdated in 3-5 years. Since they want to (plan to) keep the computer that long, they should not buy the bottom of the barrel. I didn’t mention but felt like I should mention it, that I wouldn’t recommend to my worst enemy to buy a $299 computer so I would not let my family buy that stuff. The only exception of the rule mentioned above is Gus. Since he seems to think he can run the universe on his old P-2 300mhz, I would recommend a 5 year old used Dell off of ebay for him:)