Category: Male

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Situational Awareness

Wheee

I was doing a little shopping in the OC yesterday.  It was a little rainy so… well, people were more than a little nuts.

Water! FROM THE SKY??? It’s the END of the world!

Growing up on the East coast I think nothing of rain. Hail on the other hand just pisses me off if I’m driving in it, it’s hell on the paint.

I digress!

Glad I didn't buy lunch

As I’m walking around in the mall, I’m noticing people walking around and texting. I can only think that I’d like to position myself in front of the nearest fountain, have a nice cup of coffee and wait for some dumbass to try to walk on water.

Then I notice that the majority of the people in the mall are women. That makes sense, these are soccer moms and they’re trying to get ahead on the shopping while the kids are at school.

Text Fountain

As I walk past the Sony store (yes really) there’s a CNN report blaring about the “War on Women” and that idiot publicity seeker Lena Dunham. Suddenly it hits me like a ton of bricks…

Every single one of these women I’ve been having to avoid because they aren’t watching what they’re doing, is a potential target.

I’m probably going to take some flack about this. But really ladies get a freaking clue, if you’re so focused on texting or looking something up on your phone in a mall that you don’t notice a guy walking toward you, then you turn directly into his path and stand still, you’re a target.

It’s equally possible for someone to be walking behind you waiting to pass in front of one of the service hallways or a construction barrier, then grab you, cover your mouth, and drag you out of the sight of anyone who could help. 

Texting Lady

If it’s a rapist they’re going to have their way with you and no-one would be the wiser. If it’s just someone who wants your purse, phone, or the bags you’re carrying they too are going to take your shit and be gone before you’ve even figured out what’s happening.

In addition to you being completely checked out of life, you’re rude as hell.

Ladies, if you need to text someone, move out of the walkway. Find a spot on a bench or with your back against a wall then text away!

This serves two functions.

1) You’re out of the way of the rest of the mall’s patrons.

2) At least you’ve narrowed the directions that attack could come from. Who knows, you might even see someone coming at you out of the corner of your eye.

The message I’m trying to convey ladies is; don’t be so clueless that you become a victim.

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Enjoying the rain today and glad its not tomorrow.

Man Walking In The Rain - pixgood.com

It’s been raining here all day.

I had to dash out for a little while to deal with a client issue. Thankfully traffic wasn’t too bad and I didn’t have to go far. 

The rain in my local area has been pretty constant. Not terribly heavy so a lot of it is soaking into the ground. I noticed the wash was roaring but that’s not surprising since the mountain to the south is over 8000 feet of mostly bare granite.  Almost all of the water that or snow that falls there runs straight into the wash. I see that water rushing downhill and I think it’s a pity we can’t capture it just long enough to let it soak into the slopes.

I got lucky too. I’ve got a Drs. Appointment tomorrow, so the majority of the storm should have passed and the roads won’t be oil slicks.

Doctor

It’s my annual physical so I get to do the full monty, sigh.

In general, I don’t mind having my nether regions squeezed & fondled. But usually I know I’m going to have a nice orgasm at the end. The anti-climax of a medical exam is a real letdown.  Thank god I don’t have a medical fetish or I’d be really frustrated. 

As it is I have to go in fasting. Fine, I don’t usually eat breakfast anyway.

I can’t have my usual coffee either and that makes me just a TAD cranky. The appointment isn’t until 11am, I can’t even imagine what I’ll be like in the waiting room.

Exam Room Waiting

It’s been a while since I had sex as well.

I can’t rub one out either because the Doc likes a PSA test where you’ve been fasting on the sex front as well. I’ll ask him if the robins egg blue of my balls is appropriate for the PSA test.

As much as I love that guy, there are times when I wonder if he’s a closet sadist! 

On the up side, it gives me fodder to mess with him. Maybe after he’s done with the exam  I’ll ask him if I could have a few minutes alone with a tube of lube and offer to whitewash one wall of the exam room and maybe part of the ceiling too.

I don’t know if that would freak him out or just embarrass him. Either way I get to exact a little revenge. I like the idea of him trying to keep it together with his next patient. I suspect that secretly, he looks forward to me putting a little chaos, and off color humor into his day.

I guess that’s why he calls me “Trouble”

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You know, I’m beginning to think this is all a SCAM

Healthcare Insurance Logos

Welcome to Open Enrollment! Your ACA plan is serving you… UP!

As I’ve chronicled over the past year I’ve been involved with a nightmare called Anthem Blue Cross of California.

A month or two ago I was told that I’d have to wait for open enrollment to change my health care, I’m still not even sure how that works, or how they think that is going to work. I can change my health care any time I want to, ALL I have to do is not pay the bill!

And speaking of bills… I understood having open enrollment periods when I was working for a corporation. That makes sense, it tends to allow the company to budget their expenses and keeps the employees from jumping healthcare providers each time they don’t like something.

HealthInsurance Marketplace

However, since I’m paying the bill, I’m the one buying the goods or in this case services, why do I have to screw around with open enrollment at all?

caduceus

Technically, as a consumer of the insurance service, I am the Insurance company’s employer. As such, I ultimately have the capacity (Or I would in a non-socialist country…)  to hire and fire a poor provider at will. Oh yeah, but NOT under Obamacare.

Anyway, I’m shopping.

I can’t see myself putting up with more of the same from Anthem and not being able to see my primary care physician, (Even though they said I could. Then when I found that I couldn’t, they told me he must have dropped out of their network. But I have a PPO plan, networks are irrelevant… Well apparently it’s not really a PPO and My Doctor was NEVER in the plan they sold me). Or not being able to find a dermatologist. (And neither could they within 90 miles of my location.) 

Assurant

You see, I’ve been paying through the nose for a policy that was at best only a catastrophic plan with prescription coverage because none of the doctors I wanted to see were in fact accepting the Anthem Pseudo- PPO. I could have saved about 1/2 of my medical costs per month by just having a catastrophic care plan, and paying for everything else out of pocket which is essentially what I’m doing anyway.  By the way, a catastrophic plan is one of the options I’m looking into.

Under the “Won’t get fooled again” premise I’m trying to compare companies based on how they’re rated by consumers. As I’ve been sorting through the data I’ve discovered a couple of interesting things. 

NewHealthinsurance Marketplace2

1) Of five companies I’ve checked on thus far, only two will allow me to purchase their policies based on my zip code.

All of these companies appear to service California but apparently they don’t all service the county in which I live.  

Sorry folks I’m an all or nothing kind of guy. If you’re selectively insuring counties that means that technically I can’t move from one county to another until the next open enrollment period. Doesn’t that also mean that when I drive across county lines, I’m out of network? Either you sell in all of California or don’t sell at all. 

I recall speaking to some insurance agent last year. That person said that even though I could purchase their insurance policy, AND that my Doctor was in their network, AND that the policy and my doctor were compatible, I still would be unable to see my doctor. Their explanation for this was that since my doctor and I were in different counties, he would be considered “Out of Network”. I seem to recall not purchasing that particular policy.

2) I can’t narrow down if my county theory is correct without requesting a quote from each possible provider — this is significantly slowing down the shopping process.

More Logos

The upshot of all of this is that insurance shopping, which was always painful, has now become 100 fold more painful because there is no simple way to sort through the data to compare stuff. I have noticed that every policy seems to have an ACA metallic moniker;

Bronze, Silver, Tin, Rusted Iron, Busted Galvanized Pipe, Copper, Pyrite…

All of which mean the same damn thing…

I’m beginning to think we have no choice in policies, just a choice in the company administering them. 

In dealing with all of this bullcrap, I think that I’d rather pound my own testicles with a sledgehammer, (1000 FemNazis just came in their jeans) than shop for health insurance!

I just don’t think I have medical coverage for that…

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Ahhh!

Dentist1

I started Veterans day off in a dentist chair.

Yeah, no big deal… I had an old filling fall out, the new dentist is freaking AWESOME!

I lost the filling on Thursday, no pain just needed to have it repaired. I called Friday morning, explained it wasn’t painful, just annoying.

I was asked if I could wait until Tuesday. I said sure, no problem and was told if I felt pain to let them know and they’d see me sooner.

I was good, yesterday I popped in for my appointment,  got comfortable and after a small consulting period was good to go. I told the dentist that I probably wouldn’t need any drugs unless he had to go deep. He told me he didn’t think I’d need anything either. 

40 Minutes later I’m walking out the door new filling in place, all polished and natural looking. 

I couldn’t ask for any better treatment.

If you’re in the Inland Empire…

Dentist stickman

Don’t ask any questions, don’t bother looking for another dentist, just call Winning Smiles and put yourself in Dr. Finazzo’s awesome care. 

This is totally a no brainer folks. Great staff, great service, and no pain.

As many of you know, I’m a picky bastard about medical care. If I’m singing someone’s praises you can bet your ass, the Doctor is good.

No this is NOT a paid advertisement.  If there was payment involved, I’d be doing a lot more gushing!

 

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What’s a guy to do?

Home Theater

So, you pay a ton of cash for a surround system and you decide that you’d like to enjoy it.

Ya take the dogs out to potty, settle in with your beer and fire up a movie that you’d like to watch.

Then your other half comes in.

They’ve had a long day so you give them time to settle too.

All is quiet again.

Ya press play, (it should be noted that when you’re alone in the house you don’t need the TV sound up to more than 25.) Yet with the other half in the house, you find yourself creaping the volume up, 26, 27, 30, 35, 40, 45 and you’re still missing dialog.

Your other half is reaching into a bag of snacks, over and over and over again and the crinkling of the mylar bag is swamping all the midrange dialog from a beautiful seductive actress, and most of the dialog from the softer spoken men.

Then one dog starts panting, the other dog decides it is time to drink half a bowl of water and does it for the next 3 minutes

MartyMcFly Speakers

slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp, crinkle, crinkle, crinkle,crinkle, crinkle, crinkle,crinkle, crinkle, crinkle,crinkle, crinkle, crinkle,crinkle, crinkle, crinkle,crinkle, crinkle, crinkle,crinkle, crinkle, crinkle,crinkle, crinkle, crinkle,crinkle, crinkle, crinkle,crinkle, crinkle, crinkle, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, crinkle,crinkle, crinkle, crinkle,crinkle,crinkle,crinkle, crinkle, crinkle,crinkle,crinkle,crinkle, crinkle, crinkle,crinkle,crinkle,crinkle, crinkle, crinkle,crinkle,crinkle,crinkle, crinkle, crinkle,crinkle,crinkle,crinkle, crinkle, crinkle,crinkle,crinkle,crinkle, crinkle, crinkle,crinkle,crinkle,crinkle, crinkle, crinkle,crinkle,crinkle,crinkle, crinkle, crinkle,crinkle,crinkle,crinkle, crinkle, crinkle,crinkle,crinkle,crinkle, crinkle, crinkle,crinkle,crinkle,crinkle, crinkle, crinkle,crinkle,crinkle,crinkle, crinkle, crinkle,crinkle,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp,slurp, slurp.

Maxell Man

Once you push the volume above 60 ya realize you’re fighting a losing battle and the first gunshot or explosion in this movie is going to cause something that looks like the Maxell commercials or Marty McFly hitting that chord on his guitar.

So in complete frustration, ya shut the shit down. Give up.

I actually went and had my hearing checked because of shit like this. Turns out my hearing is fucking fine in fact it’s better than most men my age. The problem is that I live in a noisy environment.

And the moment, the very fucking moment you kill the shit you were trying to relax with, silence reigns again. The dogs shut the hell up, the other half looks at you like you’re a fucking madman and then has the audacity to ask why’d you turn it off?

Zen

You’re still frustrated and you say exactly what’s on your mind “Because I couldn’t fucking hear a damn thing with all the noise. Did it ever occur to you to put that shit in a bowl?”

Yeah, I’m sleeping on the couch tonight. So the fuck what?

At least it will be quiet in the living room!