Pondering the world

about to possibly be uninsured

I was going to post some nice photos of our spring flowers today, but instead, today's post is brought to you by the Great American Insurance Rip-off.

We received the annual notice of premiums from our health insurance provider today, and this year our insurance premiums are going up ANOTHER 21%!  That's an increase over the 25% increase last year and the big increase the year before that.  In three years it's gone up 80%.

And this is not even good insurance.  It's pretty crappy, with things not covered, high deductibles and high co-pays. 

You've heard about poor people and the elderly having to make choices between paying for prescriptions or paying the rent, paying utilities or buying food.  Most of our friends are small business owners, and we're starting to hear choices like having only catastrophic health insurance or even not having any insurance at all.  Today we had to make the choice (once we opened the dang premium notice) between advertising and health insurance.  Guess what the choice was?

It must be spring

The fountain is working. 

You know how it's winter, cold, dreary, everything looks dead, and then suddenly one day it's spring?  That was today.  I spent most of the day out in the yard clipping back dead stuff, cleaning up leaves, raking, and all that.  I cleaned out the fountain and it's working again.  I have crocuses, daffodils and hyacinths blooming (photos tomorrow)--they were blooming right through the dead leaves--and the birds are going crazy.

The guests just see it as a pretty fountain, but mostly it's a nice big bathtub for the pigeons.  Nevertheless, the fountain is working again, so it must be spring.

I added a bunch of my favorite blogs

to my sidebar over there ---->   Last year I had all the blogs I was reading listed, but some of them got kind of wanky (i.e., bad language, obvious obsession with sex, in a deep funk, or just plain nasty).  So I took practically all of them off.  What if my loyal readers read them and got offended?

I'm a more mature blogger now.  First off, I don't read those blogs any more myself, so it was no great loss to take them off my sidebar.  Then I listed a whole bunch of blogs that I read regularly.  That being said, I also reckon that you, my three loyal readers, being big boys and girls, can figure it out for yourselves:  if you don't like something, don't read it.  And don't blame me for what they write.  I'm not about to censor anyone.  It's a free country.  So far.

It's sort of like watching TV--if you don't like what's on, change the channel or turn it off.  I have a bit of an issue with those who would change the entire programming because they personally find certain shows objectionable.  To which I say, "get a life."

So, have at it.  Read away.  Laugh, cry, be amused, get mad, whatever.

I am now officially stepping off the soapbox and going to bed.

Recurring dreams

I have the same three or four dreams all the time.

I'm drowning.  I'm not a good swimmer at all, so I continue to have this dream about drowning.  Funny how this dream occurs more often as I get older.  I have some sleep apnea problems, so it probably has something to do with waking up after having been holding my breath while I sleep.  Breathe, stupid.

I have no clothes. It always starts with me being somewhere and suddenly becoming aware that I have few or no clothes on. People around me don't seem to notice it, but I know that any second they'll see that I'm naked or only have underwear on. Then the race is on as I desperately try to find something to put on before they notice. I read somewhere years ago that this is an "insecurity dream."

the driving dream. I'm in a car driving and suddenly realize that I was supposed to be at work several hours ago and I have no idea where I am. I want to call to say I'll be there as soon as I can, but I have no idea when that will be because I don't know how far away I am or how to get back.  Another "insecurity" dream.  I think there's a theme here.

rear-ending someone. I'm driving behind someone very slowly and need to stop. Either I can't reach the brake or my foot slips off. I can see it coming and I have plenty of time to stop, if I could only reach that brake pedal...  This one is a "lack of control" dream.

What do you dream about?

Part II: It takes a village...

... to run a project.

The other day I was thinking about the vast difference in occupations between innkeeping and being a scientist on the Archimedes Palimpsest project.  The stretch between the two boggles the mind.  On a daily basis I deal with the most elemental aspects of life--keeping people fed and sheltered in a clean and comfortable environment.  The scientists are recovering a priceless piece of history and science and preserving it for all mankind.

How can I reconcile the two?  There are those who put themselves at a higher status within humanity by virtue of their profession or occupation--a doctor is more important than a gas station attendant, for example.  An attorney's job is more highly prized than that of a short-order cook.  And yet...  watch what happens when the doctor has to go to the hospital and is about to run out of gas.  He sure is glad the gas station attendant showed up for work that day.

In our highly evolved and complex society, every job is important.  An occupation is only demeaning if you allow it to be and don't take pride in your work.

It takes a village. 

weird chocolates

A friend recently posted about some very different chocolates for Valentine's Day, like an anatomically correct heart.  Pushindaisies.com is a website with lots of funky, fun and morbid items for baby boomers.

It made me think of the Candy Lady here in Old Town, who has a selection of anatomically correct erotic chocolates.  You have to be 18 or over to go in that room.  People who have been here a while remember when she was actually hauled off to jail about 20 years ago for selling them.  They had a big article in the paper, and from then on her business skyrocketed.  Not quite the result they had hoped for by taking her to jail.  As celebrities say, negative publicity is better than none.

the "what are you reading?" meme

Well, aren’t I lucky? I got tagged by Pirate Dog PDX for this. Fortunately, it’s not one of those long things that takes six hours to type where I have to tell my favorite flavor of ice cream and all sorts of other stuff that you don’t really care about.

I have to admit that I didn’t even realize the tag at first. It’s only 8:30 p.m. and I was just about dozing over the keyboard. I didn’t get to sleep until around 2:30 this morning—long story that you may or may not hear about in another post. And when I read the names of tagged bloggers, I said, “whuh….? Oh, wait, that’s me.”

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

Here’s where I get to appear really brainy. I’m reading The Archimedes Codex by Reviel Netz and William Noel which tells the story of the Archimedes Palimpsest I talked about in this post.

"Once the codex was in pieces, the bifolios were scrubbed with some kind of natural acid. There are no Greek texts telling us how this was done, but Theophilus, writing On Various Arts in Western Europe in the twelfth century, suggests that by using orange juice and a sponge it is quite easy to erase the letters perfectly. There is no doubt that some kind of acidic mixture was used, but the operation on the Palimpsest was much more severe than the one prescribed by Theophilus."

There. Aren’t you just dying to find out the rest? You’ll just have to buy the book and read it for yourself. Please do so, and support the authors and this wonderful project.  And you know what?  So far it's very interesting and a fairly easy read.

And now I get to tag five people.  I'd love to know what kind of books they're reading.  Of course, I just realized that I may tag them here (because I read their blogs), but how do I know they read mine?  I guess I don't, do I?  At any rate, let's hear from Nowhere, IL, Complainaway, Going Like Sixty, Amputeehee, and Keeping You in Stitches.

 

enough with the saguaro, already!

Tuesday was apparently western movie day on TCM and I saw not one, but TWO movies that were supposedly set in Texas and showed saguaro cactus.  Add to that a car commercial that showed a "visit Santa Fe" brochure on the seat with a picture of a saguaro on the front.

Enough already!

I realize that Hollywood, especially in the older movies, wasn't too particular about getting the details right.  "Well, if it looks like the southwest, it will be all right."  But the car commercial?  They should know better.

One of the biggest bonehead moves we've ever seen made the front page of the paper a couple of years ago.  When the marketing company hired to design the poster came up with the official Balloon Fiesta poster--and they didn't hire a New Mexico marketing company, for some reason--it had a big ol' saguaro cactus on it.  The outcry about that could be heard from here to New York!  Those posters were recalled and new ones made fairly quickly.

Now, YOU know where saguaro cactus grows, don't you? 

the bowlers are here!

The United States Bowling Congress (USBC) Open is being held in Albuquerque this year!  People had told me about what a huge event this was back in 2000.  It's so big that only a handful of cities can accommodate it.  There's a permanent venue in Reno with 70 lanes, and they hold it there every three years.  It rotates among several other cities the other years.

I was fortunate enough to get a tour of the venue when they were still in construction phase and hear some of the amazing statistics.  They built 48 state-of-the-art lanes in the main hall with an additional 12 lanes in another location nearby for special tournaments and events.  They install all new equipment, and their mechanics are so good that the machines are tuned better at the end of 9000 games than they were when delivered from the manufacturer.  The USBC actually moves their headquarters offices to the Convention Center for the duration, so they set up an entire office complex there.  They talked about the number of miles of Cat5 wire that they run, the number of computers they set up, file cabinets, etc.  I can't remember all of those figures.  They built an entirely new concession and dining area, as well as spectator stands.  The amount of lumber they used was the equivalent of five three-bedroom homes.  The lanes are so perfect that the variance in level between one end of a lane and the other is less than the thickness of a single playing card.

A real plus this year is that the Convention Center is open and free to the public for people to go and watch.  It's a lot of fun, and I can see myself hanging out there once in a while.  Their concession stand will also probably sell a lot more if there's no admission fee.

And if you can't attend in person, you can watch it on the webcam.   It's not streaming video but still shots, and the image updates every 9 seconds, and you can choose the camera and give it some direction.  You can even capture a shot of the frame, which is what this is--Steve and me talking with Pat Ward on Wednesday night.

So if you happen to have one of the sports channels and catch the USBC Open, Albuquerque is where it's at!

the Archimedes Palimpsest--what is it?

Our normal routine includes housekeeping, laundry, maintenance, marketing, business networking and meetings, and all that.  But every once in a while we're exposed to something quite extraordinary.

We recently hosted five scientists from the Archimedes Palimpsest project.  I feel a series coming on as I think about this remarkable endeavor.  It is so complex and involved and incredibly interesting that it takes a bit to talk about it, so here goes:

First, you need to know what a "palimpsest" is.  It's not a word that just rolls off the tongue, and it's not in the average person's vocabulary.  Wikipedia has a great definition and some additional applications for the concept, so you really ought to go read it.  Who knows?  Maybe we can start a movement and bring the word back into the modern vernacular.

Quite common in medieval times and earlier, palimpsest was the process of scraping text off a manuscript and reusing the parchment.  Remember that paper was a rare and valuable commodity until relatively recent times.

Each aspect of this project is quite fascinating in its own right.  But the most exciting part is that under this medieval prayer book was a copy of the writings of the father of modern science himself--Archimedes.

Stay tuned for Part II of this occasional series.