Wired Sage

The world has officially come to an end.  The seas have turned blood red, the sky is on fire, and I hear the hoofs of the four horsemen approaching.  I joined Facebook today.

I have always felt that Facebook has it’s place for those who are not gifted with mad-uber-tech and zen-computer-fu skillz.  I never felt a need to join Facebook because I figured that if you knew me, you knew this is my web site (it’s on the bottom of all of my personal emails — just a click away) and you had all my contact information… if  you wanted to talk you just had to send me an email, video chat with me (skype, AOL or Yahoo!), or just use the phone — I’m in the book.  And here, on my own personal domain, in my own little electronic kingdom, I control my privacy completely.  If you don’t know me, my personal information on this site is pretty sparse and I feel confident that you’re not using this site as a resource to stalk me or my family.

Over the years I’ve gotten many friend requests for Facebook and for one reason or another I didn’t join.  Reasons included requests sent to my work email address, personal privacy issues, my impression that Facebook was just another re-branded version of MySpace, and Facebooks own EULA.  My content, whether you find it to be inane drivel or not, is mine and I will not grant license to any company or organization to use it as their own.  Ever!  The only thing left that we can honestly claim as our own is what we think, feel and say.  There’s no way I’m giving that up to a corporation.  Then again, I’m jaded.  I’ve seen people lose their reputations on-line.  I’ve seen people lose their jobs on-line.  I’ve seen people lose their identities on-line.  I’ve seen people lose their life savings on-line.  I’ve seen people lose their children on-line.  The Internet is a lot like New Jersey, it’s got it’s really nice parts, and it’s got drawbacks, and it’s got it’s really bad parts… except the bad parts of the Internet are way worse than Newark ever was.

So, now that you know my true, honest feelings about Facebook, I’m sure you are wondering, “Why the hell did you sign up?” Well, my brother came over for Christmas and, as a Facebook addict, he had to get on my iMac to tag someone’s wall.  I gave him the bah-humbug-facebook-shpil and he said, “Naw! You gatta look here… check this out.” So he gave me the tour.  Everything I’ve seen before except one thing.  One thing made me say, “Crap!  I have to join Facebook now!”

My 89 year old Aunt was on Facebook!

So, I read the EULA again, and three sections of it turned my stomach.  But, my 89 year old Aunt Edna on Facebook outweighed the drawbacks enough to make me join.  So I’ve joined, but there is no way I’m uploading any content of any considerable value to their site.  If you desire anything of substance from me, if you want to read anything other than a “LOL! you goof!” or a “Yeah, we need to grab a beer this weekend.” you’ll have to read it here.  Where, for whatever it’s worth, I own it.  It’s mine, all mine.

With that said, Facebook gets a minimum amount of personal information about me.  If you know me and friend me on Facebook, you’ll always have a quick, easy link to this website and you’ll always have a link to my photo gallery.

Well, that all happened.  It’s all true.  But there was something else.  Aunt Edna was the #1 reason I joined Facebook.  But there was one more thing that tipped the scales in favor of signing up at Facebook — Google Wave.  Google Wave integrates with Facebook.  So I don’t actually have to login to Facebook to participate in the conversations there.  I can do it all remotely, from Google Wave.  That to me is just cool.  I’ve grown to be a google fanboy of sorts, and anything that makes me use Google Wave more, can’t be a bad thing.

Google Wave might actually get me to sign up for Twitter too…

You know how the country song goes.

“I lost my job, my truck broke down, my best friend kicked my dog and my wife is sleeping with a clown…”

Well, my life took a country song turn a few weeks ago. It started with a phone call Monday afternoon from my Step Mother in NJ. My dad was in ICU. He was bleeding internally and it wasn’t stopping. I was point at work, the go-to guy for anything that goes wrong. I quickly informed my manager of my family emergency and worked with him to cover my obligations for the week. I packed and was on the road at 7:00 p.m.

I love driving, which is why I feel the need to remind myself about the details of the drive. I drove up Interstate 85 to Petersburg VA. On the way, I had a few work phone calls and a text or two with my boss. I picked up Interstate 95 north in Petersburg. I had planned to run straight up 95, but my GPS and several dozen road signs said there was evening road work with delays of more than an hour. So I got off Interstate 95 for a pit-stop at Virgina State Road 207. I grabbed a quick bite to eat at Subway. I decided to follow 207 north which took me over to U.S. Highway 301 north which I followed until I hit Maryland State Road 3 north. Which lead me, with the help of my GPS, to Interstate 97 north, then to Interstate 895 and finally back to Interstate 95 north. Circumventing Washington DC and the night time construction completely. It was a good ride. I made it to New Jersey in good time and had almost no traffic to deal with. I love night driving. I arrived on my parents farm around 5:00 a.m. I pulled up behind the main barn, cracked my windows, reclined my seat, and fell immediately asleep.

I slept for four hours. I woke at 9:00 a.m., drove up to the farmhouse and visited with my family for a while. It drives my step mother completely nuts when I sleep in my car on the farm. “Why don’t you come in? You can sleep in the guest room upstairs,” she says. And every time I try to delicately explain that I can’t breathe in the house with the dogs, dust and chain smoking that goes on in there. But I really do it because I like getting on her nerves. I do really like the attention, and I’m OK admitting it.

I hung out till visiting hours started at the hospital. I added some Old Spice to my growing ripeness, threw on a clean T-shirt, and went to visit my Dad with my Step-Brother. I planned to visit till around hotel check-in time. I was really looking forward to a shower — 14 hours in a car made me pretty funky. After cleaning up I planned to visit my dad again in the evening.

I might have been with my Dad maybe an hour when I got a work call. I knew something was up right away when my co-worker asked me to take a walk and leave my Dad’s room. So, I walked out into the hallway where he proceeded to ask me if I was sitting down. In my patented form of indignation I replied, “No, I’m not sitting down, you just told me to take a walk! What’s up?” I was a little annoyed to be bothered while I was in the ICU. He then asked me, “Do you want the long version or the short version?” To which I replied, “Spit it out! What are you talking about?”

He then proceeded to tell me that our manager, who had just helped me coordinate work and enabled me to get up to see my father, was dead. Fatal. Mort. Fin.

For respect for his memory, and his family, I’m not going to discuss it further here, aside from how difficult it was to deal with on top of my already stressful week.

I visited with my father some more, then went to McDonald’s with my brother, grabbed a sandwich and used the AT&T wireless network there to procure a hotel room for the week. I booked a room on priceline.com for $58 per night through that coming Friday. I dropped my brother off at the farm and checked into my hotel. After I got settled in, I grabbed a very needed shower, rested a while, and went back to see my Dad.

Visiting hours for ICU were an hour earlier than the rest of the Hospital and I got a little irate at the staff, having driven several hundred miles, I felt they should cut me some slack, which they did, after waiting a half hour to get back onto the floor.

And here I have to stop and make a confession. I’ve been running back and forth visiting my Father for weeks. I started this story two months ago, and in the chaos of family crisis, work crisis, economic crisis, pandemic crisis, etc., ad nauseum… I neglected my on-line story and sadly don’t remember all of the quaint happenings to continue telling the story in such rich detail. The detail was mostly for me. After reading what I wrote, I can now separate my trips and tell what happened when I was first up there and what happened on subsequent visits. But let me finish this story in a less descriptive and more succinct manner.

“My Father was 700 miles away in Intensive Care, my boss took his life while I drove all night, and while I was away, my ‘little friend & canine companion’ had to be put to sleep by my wife.”

It was sad that I wasn’t there to say my final good-bye to Salvadore Doggie. We knew Sal was old and in failing health. And he and I had gotten to spend a lot of quality time together since I started working from home more frequently. I really wish I could have been by his side at the end. But, faced with the choice of seeing my father, I could have done nothing differently. I have many fond memories of my little buddy and many fantastic photos of Salvadore Doggie. He’ll be missed, but he will never be forgotten.

My father was diagnosed with MDS. He’s had a really rough two months. He’s lucky to still be alive. I shocked that I knew about this disease, and there was such a miraculous treatment, from watching NOVA on PBS. Dad stayed in the hospital about five weeks, in two separate visits, and is finally getting treated.

Not finishing this story was weighing on me. I’m glad I finally got it posted.

Dog bite!

While I was vacationing in New Jersey I was bitten by a dog.  Actually, first the dog went to bite me but wasn’t fast enough.  Then, I choked him with his collar and made him stand on his hind legs to breath.  When he calmed down and stopped acting like a wild animal I let him down at which time he immediately resumed acting like a wild animal and finally succeeded in bitting me.

I had a very large puncture in my arm which bled profusely.  I decided I needed to go to the Emergency Room.

My Hospital Experience

I had a tetanus shot a few months before during my annual physical.  I also knew the dog was healthy.  So, my the biggest problem I faced was an infection from the bite.  So, before going to the Emergency Room I cleaned my wound and then drove myself to the Hospital.

My father and I drove to the Robert Wood Johnson Memorial Hospital at Hamilton.  I checked in and waited patiently in the reception area.  I was given two pieces of sterile gauze for the bleeding and while I sat waiting I used the sanitary hand foam on the wall to further clean and disinfect my wound.  Within fifteen (15) minutes we were lead back into the treatment area of the Emergency Room.  There we waited approximately forty five (45) minutes until someone trained to practice medicine saw me.  While waiting, I had to go to the bathroom.  After going to the bathroom I washed my hands and the puncture wound on my arm with hot soapy water and foam hand sanitizer.  When I got back to the treatment area where I had been waiting, I disposed of all my bloody towels and gauze in the red bio-hazard garbage can and took another piece of gauze to keep pressed against my wound.  My father informed me I had missed John, the Medical Technician.  I said, “They’ll be back.  They’ll need this room eventually.”

In a few minutes John came back, looked at my wound and was surprised at how clean it was.  He took my vital signs, blood pressure, oxygen, pulse and temperature.  Then we waited some more for the Doctor to come in.  It’s important to note that the Doctor put gloves on his hands, but he never touched me.  He asked me about tetanus and rabies, and I explained that I was only worried about infection.  I came because the wound was large enough I thought it needed to be stitched closed.  He advised me that it was an infection risk if it were closed and I’d just have to live with a scar there. I asked about shaving my arm to keep the hair out of the wound and I was told that was not necessary.

World class health care?

The Medical Technician, John, squirted some triple antibiotic on the wound and slapped a large band-aid on my hairy arm. I picked up a prescription for some antibiotics and was asked how I was going to pay for my visit.  My insurance has a $50 co-pay.  So I gladly put that on a credit card and went to the nearest drug store to fill my prescription.

Not counting the antibiotic that were prescribed (2 pills per day for 7 days) the actual emergency room treatment I received lasted all of two hours.  In two hours the large band-aid I had been given by John had filled up with blood and was leaking.  I had to remove the band-aid, along with a large portion of arm hair that stuck to it, to redress the wound.  At this time I shaved my own arm.  Three band-aids a day is enough reason to look slightly silly by having a bare patch around an extra large band-aid.  Plus, hair trapped in a wound is just plain unsanitary.

The bill…

Today I checked my health care account and I was shocked.  Just to remind you, my medical treatment consisted of being ignored for more than an hour and a half, having my vital signs taken, speaking to a Doctor for all of five minutes about the injury, three pieces of sterile gauze, a smidgen of neosporin, a large band-aid and a prescription for amoxicillin.  The Emergency Room charged my Health Care company $1004.46!  My Health Insurance agreed to pay them $465.00 to which the hospital agreed.  $373.50 of that cost is covered by my plan.  So I’m personally responsible for $91.50.  $91.50 for three pieces of gauze, neosporin, a large band-aid, and an antibiotic prescription!  In my opinion the services rendered were barely worth my $50 deductible!

The solution — Fast Food Medicine

I would have rather walked up to a counter like in any fast food chain to be greeted with a cheerful hello and a list of services and prices up front.  The Doctor’s hourly rate is $300 per hour, PA’s and RN’s are $150 per hour and Medical Technicians are $75 per hour, but that’s only the actual time they spend in the treatment room with you. A Doctor’s time comes to $5 per minute.  Prescriptions have an additional $20 fee — seems fair.  There’s a $20 fee for incidentals used, gloves, gauze, band-aids, etc.  Sure, sure, sure.  My total would have been less than $90. If medical services were priced like this I wouldn’t have a co-pay on my insurance.

I’d love to see the itemized breakdown by the hospital to justify a bill of $1004.46, which I think is just completely absurd.

My wife, mother-in-law, and children took a ten day vacation and flew to Washington state to visit my kids’ great-grandparents, my wife’s grandparents, and my mother-in-law’s parents, Art and Betty — and all the other super-fantastic Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Brothers, Sister-in-laws, second Cousins, etc., etc.

With my fear of flying, and the convenient excuses of work, mergers, corporate red tape, limited time away from work, etc., I weaseled out of the trip. Actually, the flying part really did me in — if I never fly commercially again, it’ll be too soon. I do want to go visit my wife’s family in Washington State, I’ll just have to take four weeks off and make it a road trip. Although, if I go across country for a trip like that I’d want to do it in style, like alone on a chromed out Harley Fatboy, with a leather holster for my shotgun and maybe a few more mean looking tattoos… But, I digress.

I dropped my family off at the airport, rushed home, and completely emptied out my office. Everything. Books off the shelves on the walls, all the furniture, the piles of papers on the floor… everything! I tore the wallpaper from the wall. I painted the walls. I ripped out the carpet. I purchased and put down a floating laminate flooring system that looks like a hard wood floor. I hung more shelving. I purchased a corporation sized, industrial filing cabinet. And I hung thermal drapes and shades in the newly renovated office.

I destroyed and recycled several hundred pounds of papers. I know the recycle guy wanted to hurt me. My recycle bins weighed at least 150 lbs each on two separate recycle days. I watched him curse me from the security behind my dinning room blinds.

I also organized the garage and fixed the master bathroom toilet paper holder — that’s really the important fix I made all week, it was all floppy and falling off the wall prior to being fixed. Definitely the repair I was most happy with.

But back to my office, this story is about my office. The clutter was so bad, I couldn’t take a before photo. Or maybe I was too embarrassed to take a before photo? Or maybe I had to clear out half the room to be able to get in to take a photo? Or I had to clean the room to find my camera to take a photo? Which excuse is more believable? Would you believe I was just so excited to start the project that I forgot to take photos until I needed my first break?

I do have a few old photos that might suffice as before shots.

Notice the stack of crap on the floor.

Well, it doesn’t look that bad because I tried to manage the image by framing it so it didn’t look too bad. It was after all, a photo of my dog. Not a photo of how messy my room was. Trust me, it was messy. There was a goat path through the room.

I’m not sure what the next photo was about. It might have been a misfire, hitting the shutter release on accident, but it does show the floor under my desk.

The sleeping bag under the desk doubled as a foot rest.

The official photographic record of the project can be found here. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise to Leslie. And to her family’s credit, they kept a fantastic secret. They would all make an excellent spy network. She commentted, “How did this go from being the worst room in the house to the best room in the house?” She also loves the fact that we no longer refer to my office as “the pit of hell”.

Special thanks to Bryan, who helped me with much of the renovations. It would have been a failed, nightmare without his help.

Here’s the finished product.

The Finished Product

Now I wonder if my wife will leave on vacation without me more often, or if I will never be left unsupervised again?

Here’s Part B of my parents Wedding Video from 1960 — the honeymoon. Don’t worry, it’s rated ‘B’ for boring.

A turbo-prop airplane ride to Florida. Lots of boring clouds. Swimming pool at the hotel in South Florida — check out that bathing cap on my Mom, huh? She was a hottie. A day at the races — horse racing, of course. And a cruse down a palm lined road. It might be boring to you, but this is vintage home movie gold to me.