Satyrdaze

[howeird]

Very quiet day, I slept in, warmed up a smoked turkey drumstick for lunch, went to the massage place from 2 weeks ago, got another decent massage from a Chinese lady named Fifi. I didn't ask.

The techie challenge of the day was to slurp about 1GB of music from the Sony mini-disks I'd brought with me to Thailand, and put them on the spiffy new player. Good news is the new player has a much easier to read and navigate display, bad news is it is stuck at a 1GB limit, where each mini-disk is 1GB and even at the lowest Sony compression my music takes up 5 disks. I dealt. Almost 700 tunes is more than enough to get me through one week overseas. So, one more project done.

Got email from the mother of the bride, she suggested a wedding gift, which was one of my dilemmas. I wanted to bring something which was small, but valuable. The idea is to travel light. The idea was a Thai batik, which is great because it's valuable, beautiful, and fits in a very small space in my luggage. The other possibility was his and hers sapphires, but I like the batik idea best for the wedding gift - something they can enjoy together. I'm thinking embroidery swatches for the parental units.

Watched some TV - a special on the secret life of Isaac Newton. Bottom line is he was a heretical alchemist in his spare time. Sat out on the patio and read some more All Tomorrow's Parties. Not as good as Gibson's early stuff, but good enough. The cats kept me company, sitting on the mats and the cement and the dirt, watching the world through the gap in the bottom of the wall. Noisy party across the way, they had lined up the empties on the wall (it's only 4 feet high) and it looked like 3 per person and growing.

Just spent an hour and a half looking at the Blue Cross pharmaceutical formulary to find out if my drugs are included when I have to switch providers next week. I hate to say it, but as far as drug coverage goes, it looks like I am being forced into a better plan. I hate when being a curmudgeon kicks me in the butt. Also went online to find providers and discovered that I don't have to choose a personal primary care physician as they said, if I just choose a medical group.Camino is building that new hospital up at the old Emporium site, and they seem to have a widely distributed set of clinics in my area. Three times as many as Kaiser. Harumph, butt-kicked again.

So I logged into the benefits page and signed up. And got another shock - the company's cost for me is only $151/month. The guy who showed us the rate sheet said it was $312, compared to $375 for Kaiser. Strange, because Kaiser's numbers were closer to $202 when I looked them up. And as an Old Fart, my rates are higher than average.

Looked up the Pickwick pub, and if I wake up in time I'll make the drive to join britgeekgrrl's soccer madness, at least in time for the second half. IMHO it all boils down to the last 20 seconds anyway, since they incessantly replay the previously scored goals.