Slight Change

One thing that I've noticed is that when I don't have time to blog because I'm working 16 hour days (pretty much the past month), I do have time to send tweets because I don't have to flesh out the thought. As such, I've got a Twitter gadget over on the side now that will give you that feed as well. Enjoy!

Some of the Reasons I Love Tokyo

While not my video, it's hisashiburi (as the Japanese say).

Hitler is an OU Fan

While there are a lot of these Hitler raging parodies out there, here's one I saw over at the Provonian and thought I'd pass along. Good stuff for the Cougar faithful out there. Was this win as big as Miami in 1990? Hard to say, but I just hope we don't blow it against somebody a la our Oregon game just a few weeks later.

German Advertising

You've gotta love Kinderkreis:

Having a British Baby: One Mother's Story

I know that this is terrible form, but Ryan will be okay with it. He and his wife moved to the UK a while back and you can read his thoughts back at the original post. His wife's comments were copied and pasted from her blog, so we're now 3 removed. Nevertheless, here's what the future could look like in the US. Maybe not, but see what you think:

Often when I heard hard luck cases or anecdotal experience I chalked it up as just that. I even wrote on this blog in the past about some of my colleagues negative experiences. Rather than recount my own views of the birth, I thought I'd just share with you what my wife posted on her blog. Sorry, but it is going to be long.

- At prenatal checks they never weigh you. I had to request to check my weight a couple times just because I was curious. So I don't even know how much weight I put on this pregnancy!

- Most women never see an OB/GYN - you are seen by the community midwives for all your checkups. You would only have an OB if you are an at-risk pregnancy or would be having a scheduled c-section.

- They don't check dilation/effacement until you are in active labor; leaving you with no clue when the baby may come!

- The prenatal checkup schedule is much less frequent than in the US. Even at the end of pregnancy you only see the midwife every-other week.

- When I had my glucose tolerance test they have you buy your own "gatorade" and bring it to the lab to drink for the test.

- They asked me if I'd like to have a home birth, and they're actually pretty common here. I said "NO" - I'd much rather have all the equipment and help that a hospital has...oh, and I don't want to have to buy a new bed after delivering the baby in it!

- I don't think I saw any computers in the hospital while I was there. I am so used to seeing a computer with monitors in every labor room, plus several at the nurses' station for charting. Everything is charted on these little blue notes that you carry around with you during your pregnancy and while you are at the hospital.

- While in labor, they don't have monitors to check the baby's heart rate or your contractions. The midwife would occasionally put a doppler on my tummy to listen to the baby's heartbeat, but nothing continuous, and as I said before, no computer read-out or printed reading.

- The doctor on the delivery unit placed my IV for my antibiotics - and totally missed the first time - badly! I still have an ugly, huge bruise. Good thing I was in labor so the pain was minor in comparison!

- The bed I was in for delivery had no pillows, the left stirrup was broken, and it took 2 midwives the better part of 5 minutes to figure out how to put the bed together. Maybe they should not use that room next time!!

- They offer Nitrous Oxide as a method of pain relief. I used some while I was being stitched up and I really think it was just oxygen. It did NOTHING! The only benefit was that you suck it out of this plastic mouthpiece, so I was able to bite on that while the doctor (same one who botched my arm!) was taking his sweet time with the stitching - oh, and not numbing me up properly. He kept saying "This would be a lot better if you had an epidural" - um yeah! You're telling me!! As you can see, I was not impressed with this doctor...maybe it's a good thing I didn't get an epidural...if he was administering it I may be paralyzed!

- My midwife Tina was amazing. She was so kind and really helped me to calm down while experiencing my very quick, unexpected, natural delivery. There was no "team" of doctors and nurses in the room when Ellie was born like in the US - just Tina and Ryan. It's a good thing Ryan wanted to cut the umbilical cord, because if he didn't do it I don't think there would have been enough hands to manage it all!

- They don't give you a hospital gown! You are told to "bring your own clothes to deliver in". Minutes before Ellie was born I finally took my pants off and my new baby was placed on the very shirt I wore into the hospital. Afterwards you just wear your own clothes or a nightgown. I'm a pj pants girl, so I had to go out and buy a nightgown especially for the occasion.

- I wasn't stitched up after the delivery for what seemed like a very long time (long enough to call both our families) - I was telling the midwives that it must not be too bad a tear or I would be losing a lot of blood!

- Babies aren't measured for length. I asked why and was told that "length doesn't matter" so they don't do it. Everything has to be very cost-effective in a national healthcare setting; length doesn't have any particular health implications, so they don't check it.

- You can leave the hospital any time you want after delivery (as long as everything checks out okay). I had a roommate (yes, a roommate - more of that to come) who delivered a baby at 4am and was gone before noon.

- There is no baby nursery, which means they don't bathe the baby after the birth, and don't keep them in there while you sleep. You have to keep your baby with you 24/7 - if you go into the bathroom you just wheel your baby along with you.

- They don't give you any diapers, wipes, onesies, or pads in the hospital - bring your own!

- I was lucky to snag 1 of 2 private rooms in the "mother/baby" unit (someone tipped us off beforehand that we could at least try and ask for one), but sadly was moved that first night because someone needed the room more. My new room was a big room that can hold SIX moms and their babies, only divided by curtains, with the bathroom down the hall. Luckily, there was no one else in there when I first came in, and at most there were 3 of us - but still slightly uncomfortable nonetheless. No privacy, and I felt badly when Ellie would cry knowing that she was probably waking up someone else's baby. Utah Valley hospital is like a hotel compared to the hospital here!

- When you come home from the hospital, midwives come to your house to check up on you and the baby 1 day, 5 days, and 10 days later. They see how everything is going, how you are healing, weigh the baby, and answer any questions. I LOVE this! It's very reassuring to be able to ask questions and make sure you are doing things right; I think I question myself more this time around because I'm always comparing the 2 kids.

Planned Obsolecense

One of my passions is photography, and as such I go to a few sites to get information on how I can improve.  My favorite is Scott Kelby's site.  He had a contest recently where people could submit their best sports shots and get a chance to shoot on the sidelines of a Florida State Seminoles football game with one of his colleagues.  The winner won, life was good, and then professional photographers decided that having him on the sidelines was wrong.  My question is why the outcry (and there has been a lot...check out some of the posts here and here), anger, and vitriol slung at the contest winner and sponsors.  They did something nice for somebody, regardless of the reason and all you can do is denigrate them and what they do to make you feel better.  I wish that they had been more constructive with their criticisms, because they might have had valid points.  The problem here is that they've walked into a gunfight with a knife.  Kelby's stuff is far more widely read than this group of photographers are (although perhaps they're more seen) and as a result, he can level them in one blog post and that makes them look like a bunch of whiny, spoiled dinosaurs who are trying to protect their turf rather than innovate.  You could call that breed of sports photographers GM - instead of innovating against Toyota, they circled the wagons and didn't listen to what people were saying.  They went from over 70% market share to under 30% in 40 years and if these photographers don't watch out, they'll do the same.  If they want to be replaced by amateurs with D90s, all they have to do is keep their heads in the sand instead of innovate.

Been A While

It's been a while since I've posted. Allow me to list some excuses:

I was captured by Jack Bauer
I'm cold and there were wolves after me
Lazy
Busy
Busily lazy

I could go on, but won't. I do have a big health care post that I'd like to get up sometime soon, but it's a complicated issue, and thus a complicated post.

Spoilers Gone Wild XXI

Here's a CRX with a touring wing that looks more at home on a Boeing 747 than on the CRX this guy was trying to pimp out.

Travels to the Land of Obama

I say the land of Obama because Hawaii has claimed him as only Illinois should.  Nevertheless, I went with the family and we had a smashing time.  The kids were great, which furthers my hypothesis from earlier trips with them that kids are resilient travelers.  A 6 hour flight and 4 hour time change?  No problem!  An overnight flight?  That's easy!  It's shockingly amazing.  At any rate, on to some photos

My son is imprisoned on our lanai.  He wanted to go to the beach until he actually saw the ocean.  Then he wanted nothing to do with it.

 

My son thought pineapples weren't people, or something like that.

Who'd have guessed they would have a Japanese temple on Oahu?  They do, and it's got koi fish and everything.  It's kind of like Tokyo Disneyland, only without the rides and mice.

My daughter at the temple.  She loved playing around here for a bit.

My ever determined son.  I think this is the only picture where I got his whole face because he's usually hauling along ahead of everyone else.

The kids at the aquarium.  I've found that kids are great photography subjects, as long as you are really quick on your shutter button.

The Speed of Trust

I've been reading Stephen M R Covey's book The Speed of Trust recently, and the one thing you need to know from it is that if you operate your business or your life without trust, you're paying a lot more than if you had trust.  Obviously, it's about 300 pages more than that, but that's the really, really small capsule.
When thinking about the astronomical costs in 2 key areas, this becomes plainly obvious.  First and worst is government.  We've heard of the expensive hammers and everything else, but if there's one area where we could really use trust, it's in the government.  Let's face it, every single regulation and law comes back to somebody not trusting somebody else.  We spend trillions of dollars in every area of government because of it, and it's only gotten worse over time.  For example, the B-29 bomber cost $7.3 million per unit in today's dollars ($600K in 1944), whereas the F-22 fighter costs $143 million per aircraft today.  I realize that there's a lot more technology that goes into the F-22 than went into the B-29, but the relative technological innovation in each is not nearly as much.  As a result, you could argue that we could be paying $100 million in trust penalty.  This takes the form of all the regulations that Lockheed had to follow on the project, combined with the constantly changing project requirements, number of aircraft ordered, and so on.  If all of that was stripped away and a) the government trusted Lockheed to deliver a product at a reasonable cost that would do everything they wanted and b) Lockheed trusted the government to not try and change the terms once they started business (and thus pad things up front to ensure they don't lose their shirts), think of what that would do in just that one area.  We're ordering 240 or so F-22s, so that's $2 billion in actual savings there.  If that went across the entire government, I'd guess that the $1 trillion deficit we're facing could be replaced with an actual balanced budget.
Another area where this is obvious is in healthcare.  The entire system is set up without trust - malpractice insurance, extra tests, denial staff, and so on.  Meanwhile, our healthcare costs are exploding and it seems like there's nothing we can do to stop it.  If we started by extending just a little trust that the doctors and medical professionals actually care about how they are doing and aren't just out to get us and our money, perhaps we could start changing the tone.  While cutting off the wrong limb is really, really a bad mistake, I tend to think that the doctor didn't try to do it - not that it makes things any better, and some compensation would be in order, but certainly not something that punishes them so severely that their malpractice insurance skyrockets and runs him out of business or causes everyone else to pay more.

Department of Obvious

I got this bag of peanuts on a recent flight and my wife pointed out the list of ingredients and the allergy notice.  You can see that there are peanuts and salt in this bag, but what I'll bet you couldn't see from the fact that this bag is a bag of peanuts...they are "produced in a facility that processes peanuts..."  Wow, that's incredibly helpful there.

Brush with Greatness

While I wasn't namechecked by Bill Simmons, I got mentioned in yesterday's BS Report with a question on Twitter to Simmons' friend Jack-O.  It was at the 46:52 mark in the podcast about Joba Chamberlain looking like Chien Ming-Wang.  I don't know quite what to think, other than that's the first time I've had a question answered in such a large forum.  On one hand, it's not a big deal because it's kind of like meeting a Senator or something.  Ultimately, Simmons is just a regular guy who is very talented at writing and is, dare I say, this generation's Peter Gammons or Rick Reilly.  Nevertheless, it's kind of cool to have your comment be noticed among the many, many comments that they get.  Take a listen, see what they think, and add your thoughts, if you're so inclined!

The Jazz, Millsap, and You

I've been following the ongoing Utah Jazz salary cap dilemma for a while now, and it's a wild and crazy soap opera.  Here we have Boozer, Memo, Harpring & Korver with expiring contracts, Millsap looking for a boatload of money, and AK with a near-untradeable contract.  What's an owner to do?  First, let's look at the facts:
Fact: Boozer is a better player than Millsap.  That's not to say that he puts as much effort into his game, especially on the defensive end, but the point remains that he is an all star. 
Fact: AK's contract was an act of sheer stupidity that didn't seem like it at the time.  AK seemed to be the future of the franchise, and locking him up made sense.  At the same time, once we signed Boozer and Okur, we should have looked at trading AK.  Now it's impossible because he's not nearly as valuable as he was, but Boozer came in to essentially take AK's position. 
Fact: Millsap wants too much money.  While Anderson Varejao just got way too much tossed at him by Cleveland yesterday, I can't imagine paying that to Millsap.  Yes, he's a hard worker.  Yes, he's a fan favorite.  At the same time, will he ever be a perennial all star?  I don't know that he will.  He's a good piece for a contending team, but he's never going to be the go-to guy a la Karl Malone.
Fact: Harpring's contract is an albatross.  I like Harpring.  He's tough, he's another workmanlike player, but at $6 million this year for the condition he's in, he's not worth it.  His expiring deal might be a valuable chip in a trade though.
Faced with these facts, I think we ought to do a couple of things.  One, if Millsap does head for Portland for the rumored price (5 years/$50 million or so), we let him go.  He's just not worth that amount of money, especially when he'd still be a bench player behind LaMarcus Alldridge in Portland.  If he's got a reasonable salary (around 5 years/$35 million), we match.  Then we work a trade like what Bill Simmons proposed on twitter...a 4-way with Utah, Detroit, LA Clippers, and Dallas where we get Josh Howard for Boozer and parts.  If we could send AK out for an expiring contract, maybe we do that too.  If we could trade Harpring's $6 million into an MLE style player as well, I would love to see that.  I think a little of this, a little of that, and we could end up with a very good team next year.  Again though, the last thing I would do is bring back Millsap as a bench guy.  Ultimately, that's not what he wants, his protestations to the contrary.

Spoilers Gone Wild XX

Zuke at Stolen Droids came across this the other day but wasn't able to get a picture.  He did send me a link to a stock photo of it though, so I'm putting it up.  I think this is the most extraneous and useless spoiler yet.  While the others didn't do much of anything, at least they didn't help to cripple the functionality of your vehicle.  This, on the other hand, helps make your truck bed be at least 50% more annoying to get something in to, if not 50% less useful overall.

Bailout for Construction

If the interpretation that Adam over at Time To Keep Score has of the cap and trade bill is accurate (and to be honest, I can totally see that happening), the market for secondary homes could well dry up.  In order to sell a home, especially older homes, you might have to get it up to a certain level or pay huge fines for being such an eco-unfriendly consumer.  Imagine what a boon this is to the HVAC industry as they would suddenly have a whole host of people trying to trade out their heating and air conditioning for models that are officially "good for the environment."  Add the additional taxes (either via an outright tax or through increased costs of goods to cover companies' costs) we'd certainly have to pay in order to cover the bill that the government would send out for this, and we can expect to have less money a year from this bill's passage than we do now. 
While I think about that, why do we have to buy these credits from the government?  Since when did they take over ownership of our lungs, or the air over the US, or whatever this is supposed to protect?

Why We Should Let Millsap Go

I really like Paul Millsap...I really, really like Millsap.  He's a solid player, he's an incredible worker, and he has a great nose for the ball.  At the same time, with the reports all saying that his agent is looking for David Lee money (approximately $50 million for 5 years), I'm all for saying goodbye to him.  That is a contract that is a mistake on so many levels.  AK-47's contract would look downright livable in comparison (okay, that's inaccurate...his contract is an albatross that I would love to get rid of, even if we ship him and the 2010 #1 from the Knicks to the Cavs for Shaq).  The bottom line is that there was some level of tension once Boozer and Millsap were back and healthy that I think negatively impacted the team over the home stretch.  It shouldn't have, but there was definitely a level of Alpha-dogism that went into our collapse.  You aren't going to pay someone that kind of money to sit on your bench.  I know he's a great worker, but even if he wasn't just sitting on the bench splitting time with Booze, I still couldn't pay that.  I think he's a bargain for mid-level exception money, but when he's looking for superstar level money (especially with half the league looking for any way to save money), he's extremely overpriced.  The Pistons or the Grizzlies might take a chance on him, and they might make a great choice.  At the same time, a lot of people thought the same thing about Andrei Kirelinko a few years ago and now he's one of the most untradable people in the NBA who aren't on the Houston Rockets.

Tales from IT

I can always tell when Microsoft releases a patch that restarts computers because I get a slew of calls about people's computers not working.  This morning, for instance, I got one from someone who said that.  I asked her if her power was on.  She said she didn't know, so I asked her to push the power button on her tower.  She told me that she kept pushing it and it just went from black to orange but wouldn't turn on.  It was at that moment I knew that she wasn't pushing the power button on her tower like she said she was...instead, she was pushing the power button on her monitor.  Suffice it to say, once she pushed the right power button, it turned right on.

While we're at it, a lot of people complained they weren't getting email.  Upon closer examination, it's because the person they weren't getting email from wasn't sending them email.  So that's 15 complaints resolved in one fell swoop.

Here's Your Plate III

Take a look at this license plate and see if you can tell me what it's supposed to be.  If you can't see, it's BMR4KER.  My first thought was "Bum raker?  What's a bum raker?"  It could be "Bimmer for Ker" maybe if the e is given an "a" sound, that might work, as long as the owner is someone like Kerry.

Spoilers Gone Wild XIX

 

Here we have an early-90s Honda Prelude with a wicked double spoiler.  Unfortunately the awesomeness of the spoiler is not commensurate with the awesomeness of the car.

Medicall

I propose that new proposed universal health care that the US is going to try to adopt should be called Medicall because we'll all be getting it.  Besides that random point though is that Medicall doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  "By spending this money, we're going to be saving money!"  I suppose that if you buy a couple of candy bars now, you won't have to buy a cheeseburger in an hour, but that doesn't mean you'll be saving it.  With the unfunded Medicare benefit currently projecting at around $50 trillion, adding a lot of people to the rolls seems like the opposite of what we should be doing.  Dan Henninger had a great article about it in today's WSJ:

Whatever Medicaid's merits, this federal health-care program more than any other factor has put California and New York on the brink of fiscal catastrophe. I'd even call it scary.
Spending on health and welfare, largely under Medicaid, makes up one-third of California's budget of some $100 billion. In New York Gov. David Paterson's budget message, he notes that "New York spends more per capital ($2,283) on Medicaid than any other state in the country."
After 45 years, the health-care reform called Medicaid has crushed state budgets. A study by the National Governors Association said a decade ago that because of "new requirements" imposed by federal law -- meaning Congress -- "Medicaid has evolved into a program whose size, cost and significance are far beyond the original vision of its creators."

That being said, it does look like we're stepping back from it a little bit, but let's face it: this is no solution.  Until we get people to be more responsible for their own health, either through moving everybody's insurance to Geico (i.e. auto-insurance style where you pay higher and do it individually) or through a complete revamp of the whole third-party payer system, we're never going to start saving money on medical expenses.