I suppose it's only fitting that I should break promises made here, since I seem to do it all the time in real life.
I suppose it's only fitting that I should break promises made here, since I seem to do it all the time in real life.
Turns out there's a particular class of antibiotics that can be extremely hazardous to your health. My wife and I learned this the hard way this past week. It was much, much harder on her than it was on me though - she's the one whose health was affected - I was just consumed with worry. The class of drugs is fluoroquinolone antibiotics. The particular one that my wife was on is called Avelox. They're very powerful at killing bacteria, which is what you want an antibiotic to do. But, according to what I've read about them during the past week, they're also apparently extremely harsh on the healthy parts of your body, and can cause serious damage to your body, sometimes life-long damage. I'm working on a more detailed post that describes exactly what my wife went through, as well as some of the info that I've read about these drugs. Hope to have that up in the next day or two.
This is bad news, in my corner of the world. One of my top two favorite XM channels is slated for removal when the merger goes through. The two channels that I listen to the most are XM 82, The System and XM 175, MLB Home Plate. On July 24, 2007, XM and Sirius filed their planned post-merger programming lineup (PDF) with the FCC. One of the XM channels that is absent from this lineup is XM82, The System. I e-mailed Jon Zellner (Senior Vice President/Music Programming of XM) to ask him about this, and register my complaint about the proposed lineup. He confirmed that the proposed lineup was correct insofar as it excluded XM82. There are other reasons why I was hoping this merger would be denied, but that is by far the biggest reason. It's possible that the FCC could still deny the merger, but with the DOJ approving the merger it is very unlikely that the FCC will deny it.The Justice Department on Monday approved Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.'s proposed $5 billion buyout of rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., saying the deal was unlikely to hurt competition or consumers.
The deal was approved without conditions despite opposition from consumer groups and an intense lobbying campaign by the land-based radio industry.
The combination still requires approval from the Federal Communications Commission, which prohibited a merger when it granted satellite radio operating licenses in 1997.
Barack Obama / Jeremiah Wright
I have been aware of the recent controversy surrounding Barack Obama and his former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. I had not paid any attention to it until today. I had not watched any of the Jeremiah Wright videos or read any of his comments that were causing such an uproar. In other words, I had no idea what the controversy was about. I didn't watch Obama's speech about race the other day, nor did I read the transcript. The one thing I had done prior to today was read a few articles yesterday; articles that were about people's reactions to Obama's speech.
Today I pulled up a couple of articles that talked about Jeremiah Wright's comments, and watched a few video clips on YouTube. After that, I watched Obama's speech in its entirety. Finally, I read a few more articles about people's reactions to the speech.
1) I thought the speech was excellent.
2) I'm disgusted with the level of outrage at Wright's comments.
3) I'm disappointed at the way people have responded/are responding to Obama's speech. I don't have time to go into detail right now, but I'm particularly disappointed at the reactions of white Americans, or at least those that are being reported by the mainstream media. (FYI: I am a 27-year old white male.)
Iraq war; five-year anniversary
"Anniversary" is typically thought of as a positive word. Calling this an anniversary is technically correct, but it feels very wrong. This is not positive.
My oft-promised post about the Iraq war will have to wait a little longer. After getting myself up to speed on the Wright/Obama controversy, I've decided that I need to write about this first. I think I have a somewhat unique perspective on it, as a white male married to a woman of mixed descent. I don't know if anybody will read what I have to say, or even care what I have to say, but I feel compelled to write about it anyway.
Idiopathic hypersomnia/narcolepsy
I've been feeling very discouraged/depressed lately, because my idiopathic hypersomnia has been getting worse (or the meds have been helping less) and I've been wrestling with severe tiredness much more frequently. It's hard to stay positive when you're this tired all the time. Anyway, the past couple of days I've been trying to find positives about this. It hasn't been easy, but I think I've found a couple. More on this at a later time.
Fahrenheit 451
I've been reading Fahrenheit 451 the last few nights, a few pages at at time. I have to fight myself to put the book down and go to bed. I would have stayed up all night and read it in one sitting, had I been able to stay awake and not had to get up early for work the next day. It is an incredible book, and I highly recommend it. I'll probably be talking about it more in the coming days.
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Tags: Barack Obama, depression, government, idiopathic hypersomnia, Iraq, Jeremiah Wright, narcolepsy, reading
Tags: Barack Obama, depression, government, idiopathic hypersomnia, Iraq, Jeremiah Wright, narcolepsy, reading
President Bush declared today that the United States is on the cusp of victory in the five-year-old war in Iraq, arguing that the recent troop buildup has reduced violence there and "opened the door to a major strategic victory in the war on terror."Full text of the President's speech is available at WhiteHouse.gov.
I haven't had time yet to read through the entire speech, but I will be reading it at some point before the day is over. I'll probably use it as a springboard for my promised-but-not-yet-delivered personal thoughts about the Iraq war as it stands today. I'll try to have them up within the next 24 hours.
Follow a group of friends as they try to survive their 20's! Tune in to Bravo and check your local listings for more details.Is this what our society has come to? Surviving your 20's is something that requires effort? Where was I when this news was passed down? I'm three-quarters of the way through my 20's; I've survived this far without any substantial effort (the effects of my narcolepsy/idiopathic hypersomnia don't count for this discussion). I haven't exactly thrived during these years, but I most definitely have survived.
Granted, I have lived and do live in a world that is presumably rather different from that of the typical person in their 20's. I'm not extremely social, I don't go to parties all the time, I don't get drunk all the time, I don't do drugs; my life mostly consists of being at work, being at home, and being in the car between work and home. Yes, it's a pretty boring life. And no, I'm not saying that most people in their 20's are always hanging out at parties, getting drunk, doing drugs, etc. Most probably don't do all of those things, but it's the only type of lifestyle I can think of to explain the "try to survive their 20's" line.
I know nothing about this quarterlife show. I hadn't even heard of it prior to seeing this in the Pepsi Xtras e-mail. I have no idea what the show is about, but if it's setup in such a way as to suggest that the characters in the show have to try to survive their 20's, then I'm fairly certain I will have no interest in watching it. (Not that I would watch it even if I was interested; I watch TV way too little to actually watch all of the shows that interest me. That's beside the point though.)
On a side note: another reason I wouldn't watch the show is because it's "quarterlife".
1) quarterlife is not a word.
2) If you insist on naming a show with a made-up word, fine. Could you at least use proper capitalization? It's a proper noun. Capitalize it. Quarterlife. There. See, that wasn't hard.
On Monday, March 17, 2008, the Georgia Supreme Court decided 4-3 to deny a new trial for Troy Anthony Davis, despite significant concerns regarding his innocence. Today's stunning decision by the Georgia Supreme Court to let Mr. Davis' death sentence stand means that the state of Georgia might soon execute a man who well may be innocent. Please take action today by calling on the Georgia Board of Pardon and Paroles to commute the death sentence for Troy Anthony Davis.
Learn more about Troy Davis and send a letter to the Georgia State Board of Pardons & Paroles at www.amnestyusa.org/troydavis.
The first thing I noticed was how incredibly small it was. The last time I was in a library that small was when I was a child or teenager - more than ten years ago. The second thing I noticed was that they have a sizable audio book collection. Thirdly, while meandering through the fiction section my eyes cames to rest on the book Catch-22, by Joseph Heller. This wouldn't have been significant, except that Catch-22 is a book I've been wanting to read for several years, and my meager efforts to locate a copy had been unsuccessful. (Probably because the only place I'd tried to obtain a copy is at the college library, whose lone copy was subsequently classified as "Lost" when I reported that I was unable to locate it on the shelves, and my later ILL request apparently vanished into thin air as I never received a response to it.) I don't have a current public library card, but the city library partners with the college library in that they accept current student ID cards as library cards in the same way that the college library does. I decided to see if they would also accept my alumni college library card as well. They did not.
This led to me requesting a new library card from them. The application process was quick and relatively painless. During the course of my interaction with the librarian, she inquired what my major had been, as I had previously told her I had graduated from the college the year before. I told her my major had been Computer Information Systems, and her response was wholly insignificant.
After she handed me my new library card and inquired if I had any questions (I did not), she handed me a copy of some of the library's policies, and then shared one piece of data about the library with me - namely, that they have a decently-sized video and DVD collection, and it's "different stuff than what is at the video store." I found that statement to be mildly curious, but thanked her for this information and returned to the shelves to retrieve the book that I wanted to check out. I didn't really think any more about this part of the conversation until I was in my car driving home a few minutes later.
As I thought about her words some more, they became even more curious. "Does she offer that information to all new library card holders?", I wondered. "Is their video collection a bragging point of the library? If so, what does that say about the popularity of reading in today's society? Nothing very positive; that's for sure." But then I recalled her query about my major, and started to wonder if those words were based on some assumptions she had made about me based on my age and major. I'm not typical college-age, but I'm still relatively young at age 27. Did she perhaps assume that most young computer nerds have no interest in books, but have a huge interest in movies?
I'll probably never know her reasons for offering that lone piece of information about the library, because I'm not the type to seek her out and ask her at some later date (although the idea has certainly crossed my mind). Regardless of what her exact reasons were, though, I still find her words to be rather discouraging and depressing. There's nothing wrong with a library having a good video collection, and nothing wrong with being proud of a good video collection. But shouldn't the video collection play second fiddle to the book collection? I mean, it is a library, is it not? Isn't there some aspect of their book collection that she could be proud of? Is she in fact more proud of their book collection, but she's resorted to only telling people about the video collection because that seems to be primarily what the majority of patrons are interested in? Or perhaps it's only young patrons that she offers this information to, since they specifically show little interest in books? At any rate, I still think it is sad.
You could argue that I'm overthinking such a tiny portion of our brief conversation, and you'd probably be right. But, it bothered me enough to occupy my thoughts on the drive home and then subsequently a few more times throughout the rest of this weekend. So, I decided if it was consuming my thoughts that much I might as well write about it.
The worst part of the story? Upon arriving home I realized that Catch-22 is a book I have read in the past few years, and it is not the book that I had been trying to locate for the last few years. I had gotten it confused with Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, the actual book that I had been wanting to read for several years. Explaining how and why I got the books confused is more than what I want to delve into right now, but the good news is that today I discovered that the college library apparently eventually located their copy of this book, and I picked it up tonight after they re-opened their doors.
More details later when I have more time.
How do you find the words to explain something when all your brain and body want to do is sleep?
Perhaps more importantly, how do you explain what it feels like to never, ever be fully awake?
How do you explain why it takes ten minutes to write a post so short that it should have only taken one minute?
The Washington Post reports that Washington, D.C. police will soon be going door-to-door in certain areas of the city, requesting permission from residents to search their home for guns and drugs. In return for consenting to the search, people will be given amnesty for any illegal guns or drugs that turn up during the search.
The program is called the Safe Homes Initiative, and is targeted at areas of the city hit hard by violence.
Under the deal, police target areas hit by violence and seek adults who let them search their homes for guns, with no risk of arrest. The offer also applies to drugs that turn up during the searches, police said.
...
Residents who agree to the searches will be asked to sign consent forms. If guns are found, they will be tested to determine whether they were used in crimes. If the results are positive, police will launch investigations, which could lead to charges.
I applaud the police department's desire to reduce gun violence; that is certainly a worthy goal. However, I believe that this plan is a very bad idea. This is yet another step on the slippery road to losing all of our freedoms.
First and foremost, there's the not-so-small matter of the Bill of Rights.
Amendment IVThe searches carried out under the Safe Homes Initiative will be warrant-less searches. I would also argue that they are unreasonable. Why are they unreasonable? Because a person's right to the privacy of their home trumps the government's desire to locate and confiscate illegal items. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America is one of the basic building blocks that this country is built upon, and this program tosses it right out the window and then tramples all over it.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
"But wait," you say, "the searches are optional - a person can refuse the police's request." Well, yes, they can. But who's to say that the police won't make note of those houses refusing their requests, and then use that list at a later date to keep a closer eye on certain people or houses, or otherwise cause adverse affects on the people that refused the searches. "Give me a break; the police wouldn't do that!" We'd like to think that. But we have no way of knowing. In case you hadn't noticed, corruption isn't exactly unheard of in government offices and police departments these days.
And then what about all of the people who do consent to the searches? Don't you think it is likely that some people will feel pressured or coerced into giving their consent? Sad as it may be, not everyone has the gumption to deny a police request that they want to deny. And there are probably some people that won't even realize that they have the right to deny the search.
Frankly, this plan is an insult to the citizens of Washington, D.C., and I wish they would protest this plan in outrage, and band together to deny every single search request. I read somewhere - possibly in the above-linked Washington Post article, possibly elsewhere - that this plan is aimed at parents who suspect their children may possess guns or drugs. Well, how does this idea sound? If you suspect your kids are in possession of guns or drugs - search your house yourself. Don't let the police in to do it for you. If you find guns or drugs in your house and don't know what to do at that point, then call the police at that point if you feel comfortable with reporting it to them - but make sure you understand the potential ramifications before making the call.
It all boils down to this: the police should not be searching your home - EVER - without a warrant. And they shouldn't be asking to search your home without a warrant either.
Ok, let's cut to the chase. This is the last Iraq-war-related pre-war post from my old blog. I posted it on 17 Mar 2003, two days before the United States of America invaded Iraq. I was 22 years old at the time, and not too long prior to this I had a naïve and hopeful outlook on life. That naiveness was quickly being replaced with great cynicism and pessimism. The buildup to the Iraq war was far from the only reason for the drastic change in my outlook, but it was certainly a significant part of the overall reason. Anyway, enough intro, here's the post.
You can probably tell by now that I was very strongly against the Iraq war. If you're interested at all in what I think about it now, check back in a few days. At least some of my current thoughts about it will be up within a week, at most.War is imminent. Others have been saying it for quite some time now – days, weeks, even months. Time has passed and it has not happened. War has not yet begun in earnest. For the first time since this whole mess began I can now honestly say that I believe we are on the brink of war with Iraq.
War. How a single three-letter word can invoke so many emotions, fears, hopes, and ideas is beyond me. Yet, it does. A complete and thorough understanding of what war is, does, could be, will be, and should be is beyond even the best of us. We all strive, each in our own way and to varying degrees, to arrive at an understanding of what war means to us as an individual and as part of a larger circle, that circle usually being family. For some this may be nothing more than watching the nightly news and believing whatever it is that they may be reporting and the potential consequences that they also report. For others, in addition to watching the mainstream media, this may also mean reaching out across the globe to all parts of the world and people from all walks of life to obtain information, then struggling to somehow iron out the inconsistencies that are sure to arise, questioning the information that comes from many sources along with the motives for reporting it, and eventually deciding what has enough substance to believe and what should be discarded. For some who take the latter route, it is bound to challenge the very core of their beliefs and ideals. This, in turn, will cause minor changes or even fundamental changes in the beliefs of an even smaller set of people. Then, of course, there is the vast majority who take a path somewhere in between the two extremes listed above.
Is there any one approach that is the right approach? Perhaps not. The issue of right and wrong in this case is a highly subjective issue dependent on the individual involved. Although I do personally believe that an investigation and review of any issue that ends up challenging your beliefs has a lot going for it. Unfortunately, the realities of life mean that we cannot take that route for all issues, most issues, or for some, any issues at all.
Why am I saying all of this? What is the point? I don’t really know. I guess I just wanted to jot down some of my thoughts as our nation stands on this precipice. That, and share them with others just in case anyone happens to be interested in them.
Perhaps a person’s views of a war are dependent on the level of research they do into the matter. Or perhaps they are totally irrelevant, having no consequence whatsoever on the other. I suspect that the answer lies somewhere in between.As we stand here poised to strike, a torrential flood of emotions is pouring forth from my inner depths, some of them justified, some perhaps not.
Anger. Anger that my government is about to preemptively attack another country. Anger that my government did not, judging from the available signs, seriously consider the legitimate, viable alternatives that were present. Anger that my government’s actions are spawning many more terrorist recruits than normal. Anger that my government’s actions are alienating us from the rest of the world and destroying an important international system that we ourselves have helped to build. Anger at the dictator who could have helped prevent this but did not.
Fear. I must profess to feeling a small amount of fear in regards to what may happen as a direct or indirect result of war. Our civil liberties have already been trampled upon and I fear that it will only grow worse. Fear that Hussein, al Qaida, North Korea, or some other country or group will unleash an attack – conventional or otherwise – against us. Perhaps most of all, fear of the unknown.
Joy. Joy for the oppressed Iraqi people who will no longer live under an oppressive regime – if all goes according to plan. Joy for the Iraqi’s imprisoned and tortured who will be freed – if we find them.
Pain and hurt. Pain for the innocent people that are sure to die as a result of our actions, whether directly or indirectly. Pain for our soldiers who will suffer physically, mentally, and emotionally because of this war. Hurt because I, in many ways, feel betrayed by a country that I love.
Hope. Hope for a better future for all involved.
Faith. Faith that somehow, someway, God will work through all of this and the end result – if there ever is one – will somehow be a good one.
But even more so than all the others, I feel a great sense of sadness. Sadness that we are actually doing this. Sadness that I am powerless to do anything about it. Sadness because of all of the innocent people who will die. Sadness for those whose lives will be negatively affected in a very profound way because of this. Sadness because I was naïve enough to expect more from my country and I was let down. Sadness for all those who are still naïve about what happens “behind the scenes” because most will eventually find out and then wish they never had. Sadness and an occasional wish to be able to return to that naïve state. I have forgotten what it is like. It must be nice. I can’t go back though, even if I want to (which I don’t).
Just heard the news. 48 hours for Hussein to leave the country. It will not happen. We’ll be at war within the next week. I find it doubtful that we’ll attack as soon as the 48 hours is up. I think we’ll wait a little bit to make him wonder when it will happen. But it will happen within days.
I have never disputed the point that Saddam Hussein is a dangerous man with dangerous weapons. Never. I once disputed the possibility of him having WMDs, but not for all that long and I still acknowledged that he had dangerous weapons. I have never once said that it would be a good thing for him to stay in power. It isn’t.
Too many people apparently see this situation as good choice vs. bad choice. That’s not what it is. This is a bad choice vs. bad choice situation. We’re dealing with two – or more – evils here and ideally we would choose the lesser of those two evils.
A war against Iraq will – most likely – succeed in removing Saddam Hussein from power assuming that is our objective, which we have been told it is. That is all fine and good. We remove Saddam Hussein from power, the evil dictator is no more, and – voilà – suddenly everything in Iraq and the rest of the world is fine and good. Uh-uh. It doesn’t work that way. If it did then I would support the war against Iraq. Do some digging into what the other, rarely-mentioned consequences are of this war and you’ll see what I mean.
I’m starting to just reiterate many of the things I’ve said in the past so I’ll stop now.
My biggest question now is no longer “Is war preventable?”, but instead “What is my place in all of this?” now that war is going to start.
I've accepted that I have narcolepsy (or idiopathic hypersomnia, whichever it may be); that's not the problem. The problem is that I think I can take my drugs every day and then live like nothing was wrong with me - which roughly translates into typically not getting enough sleep for a normal person, let alone a person with narcolepsy. I'll routinely go to bed at midnight or later - lately it's been later more often that not - then get up at 6 or 6:30 in the morning. I'm averaging probably around 5 or 5.5 hours of sleep per night. I really feel like it's been catching up to me lately.
I take two different medications to keep me awake enough to work, drive, etc. One is generic Ritalin; the other is essentially the same thing but in an extended release version. Since I started taking these particular medications my prescriptions have been to take 3 of each per day - spread throughout the day, not all at once. For quite some time I didn't take the full dose of both drugs each day. Many days I could get by on just 2 of each pill. Some days I would need 2 of one and 3 of the other. Fairly recently I got to where I had to take all 3 of each pill to make it through the day/evening. Very recently there have been days where I've had to exceed my dosage - 4 pills of one drug, 3 of the other - if not 4 of both.
I know that these medications are of the type that your body grows accustomed to over time, meaning that the effects of a particular dosage will diminish over time as your body gets used to it. I've known that for a long time, and it worries me when I allow myself to think about the long-term effects of that. I think it's possible that this effect might be partially responsible for the increased dosage I've had to take recently. But I don't believe it's fully responsible. The increase in dosage required seems a little too sudden for that to be the only explanation.
Then there's the aspect of the side-effects of these medications. More on that in later posts, but let's just say that feeling somewhat awake comes with a price. So taking a higher dosage of the drugs in one day also increases the negative side effects. Great fun.
So why do I keep running on too little sleep? Because I'm in denial about the fact that, even with my medications, I still need to adjust my living habits. Instead of being a responsible adult and taking myself to bed when I need to, I'll convince myself that it's okay to stay up for awhile longer - even if there's nothing important that I have to do. Some nights recently this has resulted in me attempting to use the computer when I'm minimally awake, wobbling in and out of sleep, and feeling like I've been drugged, only to wake up some time later slumped over the keyboard having accomplished absolutely nothing on the computer.
I like to think that I'm a mature adult, but inside I know I'm far from it. From matters like these, to other areas of my life where I am significantly lacking in responsibility, to the problems in my marriage, and so much more - I'm a poor excuse for a mature, responsible adult.
Admitting that you have a problem is half the battle, or so they say. Or is it 3/4 of the battle? I don't know. Whatever it is, it doesn't apply to me. I know what most of my problems are. That's the easy part for me. The hard part is actually motivating myself to follow through on changing what I need to change to resolve those problems.
I'm hoping that forcing myself to talk about some of these problems here, even if nobody but myself reads this, will help me in motivating myself to fix them. Life is too short to keep dealing with the same problems all the time.
The following post is from January 28, 2003. I don't believe any introduction is necessary to this post, so let's get right to it.
Up until recently my opposition to attacking Iraq was based mainly on the one point that we have been shown no proof that Saddam Hussein has the weapons we've been told he has. We're being spoon-fed exactly what the administration wants us to believe, and most of us have been believing it. Until just recently, I had not confronted the idea that he may very possibly have those weapons, and how would I feel if I were shown conclusive proof that he had them?
This possibility really blurs the lines between what I previously saw as the right side and the wrong side. One characteristic of myself that I always take pride in, is that I am always able to see both sides of an issue, and understand why someone is taking the stance that you do. I may not agree with that stance, but I can understand why they are taking it and why they believe it is the right stance. With the situation on Iraq, I can completely understand both sides of the issue - I thoroughly understand why most of the pro-war people hold that position - but I, nonetheless, have taken a specific side of that issue decided that I believe it to be the right side in my mind.
When I view the issue from a new light - knowing (hypothetically) that Saddam Hussein has many evil, despicable, hellish weapons in his possession, and that he will use them against us (also hypothetically) - the moral difference between the "right" stance that I hold and the "wrong" stance that many others hold narrows to a miniscule size. A preemptive strike against Iraq has a very real chance of suceeding in preventing Saddam Hussein from launching some sort of attack against our people. I cannot deny that. If that's the only point I'm going to consider then it becomes quite clear that we should, nay, we must, attack Iraq.
However, the realities of life dictate that there can never be just one main point to an issue. Never. Iraq and its puported weapons are no exception. We must also consider the following points:
- The Middle East is a highly volatile region and there is a very high posibility of a preemptive strike on one of its nations igniting a spark in the entire region that will quickly turn into a hellish multi-nation conflict. Is that really what we want?
- The U.S. has a proven history of not caring about civilians on the other side of the war. We say we care about them, but our actions prove otherwise. We can safely assume - we have to assume - that any strike against Iraq, preemptive or not, will directly kill thousands, if not more, of Iraqi civilians. We also have to assume that hundreds of thousands more will be indirectly killed or maimed by our actions. That's a horrendous price to pay just to get rid of the possibility that Saddam Hussein will attack us.
- A preemptive strike against Iraq will send a message to every other nation in the world that if your ideas and policies tell you that you have sufficient reason to attack another nation, then by all means go ahead and do so. We will not have a proverbial leg to stand on if some other nation follows our move and we subsequently condemn then. This is a completely different can of worms we're talking about here.
- There are many other highly consequential possibilities that need to be considered, none of which I have time to elaborate on right now. The three above should give some inkling of what might happen if we preemptively strike Iraq.
If I did know positively that Saddam Hussein and Iraq had possession of weapons of mass destruction, I still could not, in good conscience, support a preemptive strike against Iraq. I can't, and I won't. And no, I am not going to apologize for that view. Call me what you will, but I hold to my beliefs.
Q: What does "Anemic Slime Stew" mean?
A: Absolutely nothing.
Q: Then why is it your blog title?
A: One thing that I am utterly deficient in is creativity in naming things. When I started the first version of this blog some years ago I wrestled with trying to find a title for way too long. I finally gave up on thinking of one myself, and turned to Microsoft Word to help me. I typed in three blocks of jumbled characters, then looked at Word's spell-check suggestions for fixing each block. A couple didn't have any spell-check suggestions at first; I modified each block of characters until I got some spell-check suggestions, then further changed each block a few more times until I got a decent spell-check word from each block that I thought would combine together into a usable blog title. The end result was "Anemic Slime Stew". I then decided to adopt "Anemic" as my moniker for this blog, since I didn't care to publish my real name.
So there you have it. The title, while rather odd, means absolutely nothing, and exists because of my lack of creativity.
Her doctor has her on Zyrtec-D, a prescription allergy medication that includes a decongestant to help with nasal congestion caused by allergies. She's been taking it since mid-2006, at least - possibly longer, but that's as far back as our prescription records are available online. We've been with the same prescription insurance company (Caremark) the entire time she's been taking Zyrtec-D. Our prescription coverage copay for a month's supply of Zyrtec-D was $21.46 at a retail pharmacy. If you choose to utilize our insurance company's mail-order pharmacy then you can get a 3-month supply of your prescription for the cost of a 2-month supply at a retail pharmacy. So we were looking at paying roughly $172 for her Zyrtec-D for the entire year. Calculating the estimated costs for the year is fairly significant when it directly factors into how much you contribute to your Flexible Spending Account for the year, since you have to set your FSA election before the year starts and cannot change it once it is set.
We had been getting all of our prescriptions locally at a retail pharmacy. This year we decided to switch most of them to the mail-order pharmacy to save money. My wife's Zyrtec-D was one of the prescriptions that I tried to switch to mail-order in January. A little more than a week after I mailed in the prescriptions, we received an envelope in the mail from the mail-order pharmacy. I opened it to - surprise! - a letter informing me that Zyrtec was now an OTC drug and no longer available by prescription. There was also a coupon of some sort that I saved somewhere, not really expecting it to ever be useful.
My wife still had one or two refills left on her Zyrtec-D prescription at our local pharmacy, so at that point I just requested a refill from them, curious to see if it would go through. Somewhat surprisingly to me, the pharmacy did fill it and the insurance covered it at the usual rate. When I queried the pharmacist about Zyrtec switching to OTC, she informed that Zyrtec-D was indeed available OTC now, but said to continue trying to fill it via prescription in the future since our insurance wasn't fighting paying for it (yet). I didn't think much more about it until today.
I did a little bit of research today and discovered two key facts:
1) The manufacturer of the prescription version of Zyrtec-D has stopped producing it. Thus, the supply of prescription Zyrtec-D is limited and will likely be exhausted before too long.
2) The cost for the OTC version of Zyrtec-D is $19.99 for 24 pills. Each pill is a 12-hour pill, so 24 pills will last for just 12 days.
So we've suddenly gone from paying $21.46 for a 1-month supply to paying $19.99 for a 12-day supply. Factor in the mail-order pharmacy price that we had planned on getting, and it's a $14.31/30 days to $19.99/12 days difference. In other words, our yearly costs for Zyrtec-D just skyrocketed from the $172 that we had planned on up to $608. That's a significant jump, and it threw a huge monkey wrench into our FSA plans that were already in massive disarray from some other unexpected medical expenses early in the year.
This bothers me on two different levels. The first is all of the advertisements and news stories that talk about how consumers will save money because Zyrtec is switching to OTC. Just about every ad and news story that I have read about the switch likes to trumpet the fact that this is a big win for consumers because 1) they will save money on Zyrtec, and 2) Zyrtec will be easier to buy. Lost in all the hubbub is the fact that people with insurance that covered Zyrtec with a modest copay are probably not saving much money, and in many cases are actually losing money on the deal - sometimes substantial amounts. Ads/stories that tell me I'm going to save money really rub me the wrong way when in reality my costs more than tripled.
The other aspect that bothers me is that our insurance company did not notify us of this change until late January when we tried to order Zyrtec-D from their mail-order pharmacy. Were they obligated to inform us earlier? No, certainly not. But they knew about this change months in advance, and their records clearly reflect that my wife has been taking Zyrtec-D very consistently for more than a year and they've been paying for most of the cost. Couldn't they have informed us of this back in October or November? "Hey, we know you've been taking Zyrtec-D consistently for more than a year, and we thought you'd want to know that in a couple of months you'll only be able to get it OTC and we won't be covering the costs any more. We don't know what the OTC costs will be exactly, but it's safe to assume they will be higher than your current prescription copay. You might want to plan accordingly for the coming year." I still would have been very unhappy with the switch, but at least I would have been able to plan accordingly when figuring out our medical expenses for this year.
You could make the argument that as consumers we should have been more aware of the news about our prescriptions, and on some level you'd be right. As I said previously, I don't feel that our insurance company was obligated to warn us about this. I don't think it was necessarily their responsibility to give us advance warning, but as a company that likes to pride itself on customer satisfaction I would have thought they would have given advance warning to their customers that would be seeing a price increase once they stopped covering the prescription version.
I'm happy for all of the people that now have easier and supposedly cheaper access to regular Zyrtec. Really, I am. But no matter how hard I try I can't shake the feeling that we got royally screwed in this process.
I found some pretty decent instructions online for how to replace this part. It didn't sound too difficult, but it sounded like it could take awhile so I wanted to make sure I would have a full day to work on it before attempting it. I ran into some problems right away, because the first step is to remove the entire outer cabinet of the machine, and I discovered that two of the screws holding on the cabinet were very rusty and the heads stripped down to nothing almost immediately. Unable to take the cabinet off, I resorted to removing just the top of the machine, and lifting the entire tub assembly out of the washer from the top. It was a bit of a pain, but I managed it. I replaced the snubber ring, got the tub assembly back in the washer, and ran into a problem that I have yet to solve. Now that the tub is sitting higher where it belongs, the balancing springs have to be stretched even farther to reconnect them. The one in front - where I was able to get the front of the cabinet off - I can do because I can tilt the tub far enough towards me to decrease the distance that the spring has to be stretched. The other 5 springs are giving me fits, though. First, because the back and sides of the cabinet are still on I can't lean the tub towards those springs nearly as far as I can lean it towards the front spring. And second, I can't reach those springs well enough to both grip them firmly with pliers and also have enough leverage to stretch them far enough to connect them - again, because the walls of the cabinet are in the way.
I'm still trying to figure out how to solve this. I'm going to have to either get the cabinet off somehow, or figure out some way to stretch the springs and lock them into the greatly stretched position before putting them in the machine, then just connect them and release the lock once they're connected. The only way I can think of getting the cabinet off is to drill out the two stripped screws. Problem is I've never had any luck drilling out stripped screws - probably due, at least in part, to the fact that I don't really know what I'm doing. I like the idea of having the springs stretched and locked outside of the machine, but I can't figure out how to get them stretched far enough and then temporarily locked in that position.
I've been taking some pictures, and will post full instructions and pictures once I get everything put back together and working, in case anyone else doing this type of replacement in the future will find them helpful.
Almost two months went by before I mentioned Iraq again in one of my posts. I remember paying some attention to what was going on during that time, but I don't think I had fully involved myself in what was going on just yet. I think the time of this post was right around the time when I really started paying full attention. This post was just to comment about something that was said at a White House press conference, but my comments indicate that I was strongly leaning towards opposing the war at that time - somewhat significant considering the tone of my post two months ago. (Also, my cynical side comes through loud and clear in this post.)
"The White House said Thursday it possesses solid evidence that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction...White House spokesman Ari Fleischer declined to say what evidence the administration has...'The president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it,' Fleischer said." Read the full story here. (link no longer valid)
Actually, yes, the president and secretary of defense would "assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true" because they know that the American people are by and large ignorant, naive, stupid people who will believe anything their government tells them. Duh.
Maybe Iraq has weapons of mass destruction; maybe they don't. But I don't buy the bull**** the government keeps feeding us. If you have evidence, show us. Otherwise, keep your trap shut.
Oh, and by the way, if I understand all this correctly...Bush keeps accusing Iraq and Hussein of violating the U.N. resolutions. If I understand it right, Bush cannot go to war with Iraq unless the U.N. first passes another resolution authorizing it. If he goes to war without a new resolution then Bush is in violation of the U.N. resolution also. Correct? It won't stop him. I just found that semi-interesting for some reason.
This is the first post I ever made about Iraq. I posted this on 8 Oct 2002, two days before the United States House of Representatives passed resolution H.J.RES.114, "To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq." My attitude at the time of this post was that I understood both sides of the Iraq war argument, but I wasn't ready to personally take one side or the other. It didn't take very long for that to change.
So we've got this whole Iraq mess on our hands now. I personally don't know what to make of it. I'm on both sides of the argument, if that's possible. One thing I know for sure though - I'm glad I'm not in the shoes of someone who actually has decisions to make in this area. What an awesome responsibility. Not awesome-cool; awesome-heavy, huge, great, mind-boggling.
I understand to some extent the argument that Hussein is in possession of, or creating, these insane weapons. He's pretty screwed-up himself and I think there's a legitimate possibility of him using them against us. Because of that I can understand the logic that says we should take him out before he has a chance to do anything to us.
However, I also understand the other argument. I don't know if we have any proof that he has all these weapons. I haven't heard of or seen any. That's not to say that our government doesn't have the proof; but if they do they're not showing it to us. Well, if we don't have proof then essentially we'd be attacking another country because we don't like them and we think they might attack us. I don't want to even think about the can of worms that will open up. We'd no longer have a leg to stand on when we condemn other countries for attacking people. We'd be guilty of it ourselves.
There's also the issue of the humanitarian situation. If we follow through and attack Iraq it will throw the whole region into turmoil. Will we follow through and provide humanitarian aid to these people, or will we just stand by and let them be uprooted from their homes and die? We started helping out in Afghanistan after the war there. Here's what's happening now. (link no longer valid - was a link to an MSNBC article talking about the conditions in Afghanistan at the time)
I just don't know. I won't be surprised if I wake up some morning and find out that half the country of Iraq is gone. Everyone keeps throwing around these "plans" for how we're going to do this, and when it's going to happen. They're not stupid. You don't throw out plans for a war and then actually follow them. That's insane! Things are not going to go the way we're being told. Watch and see.
Before I wiped out this blog to start anew, I saved a complete backup of all of my old posts. Just a little while ago, while in one of the aforementioned blue moods, I decided to skim through some of my old posts. Why? Well, I was under the misguided impression that reading my posts from a time when I was posting regularly and had at least a handful of readers might help cheer me up a little bit.
If only it had. Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect. Reading some of my old posts depressed me even more, especially the ones that talked about my personal life. They were depressing posts, for the most part, and reading them now made them even more depressing as I realized that most of the problems I was struggling with in my life at that time are still very much present and alive in my life today. You'd think that in 4 or 5 years time I'd be able to do some self-improvement and resolve some of those issues. You'd think that, but you'd be wrong. I really need to get my act together.
Edit: Iraq has been on my mind again quite a bit lately. I'm going to try to transfer some of my thoughts to the screen over the next couple of days and post them here. In the meantime, I will be reposting some of my posts about Iraq from the old blog, to form a background to the new posts that will be here in the next few days.
The original Slime Stew contained a lot of posts about the situation leading up to the Iraq War and my thoughts about everything that was going on, thoughts about issues I was experiencing in my life at that time, and random other stuff. Many of the posts were of a serious nature, talking about my thoughts on current events and so forth. (At least that's what I remember now - I might not be remembering everything correctly though.)
I don't know what I'm going to do with the reincarnated version of the Slime Stew just yet. I'd like to return it to its old self, with most of the posts being about more than just "this is what's going on in my life today." That stuff can get boring pretty quickly, if you ask me. I'm not going to promise anything though. I don't even know if I'll stay interested in this long enough to post on a semi-regular basis, let alone create thoughtful, in-depth posts. I hope I will.
Want to keep tabs on what's happening in Spring Training, but can't make it down to Florida to visit in person? These links will help:
MotownSports.com - Spring Training 2008 in photos and thoughts
Lakeland Flying Tigers Blog
Roger DeWitt's Flickr page
These past few weeks it has seemed like spring would never arrive, with all of the crazy winter weather we've been experiencing here in Michigan. Winter seemed to stretch out into the future indefinitely with no end in site. Knowing that the Tigers are now in Spring Training and seeing pictures of them working out in warm and sunny Florida is like a shot in the arm. In some crazy way, it's proof that spring will be here eventually. Winter no longer stretches out into the distance - the end is in sight!
Important dates:
First Spring Training game - February 26, an exhibition game against Florida Southern College.
First opportunity to watch the Tigers on TV - March 17 @ Cincinatti, on FSND
First opportunity to hear the Tigers on the radio - February 25 vs Mets on WXYT 1270 and some affiliates
Full Detroit Tigers TV/radio broadcast schedule
I went downstairs, immediately noticed how chilly it was inside, got the coffee started, and turned on the TV to The Weather Channel. They quickly dispelled any doubts I still had about the temperature outside. Air temperature of -17 degrees. Thankfully the winds had stopped, at least, so there was no lower windchill to worry about. Our poor furnace couldn't keep up with the arctic temperatures. We had it turned all the way up all night long, and the temperature on our main floor when I got up was around 65 degrees. I turned the oven on and opened the oven door for awhile to help get the place warmed up a little bit. Unorthodox, perhaps, but it certainly helped!
Almost two hours later as I was getting ready for work I checked the temperature again. -18 degrees! What?! It's going in the wrong direction!!!
The temperature did eventually start to slowly climb, but you couldn't really tell without a thermometer.
That was definitely the coldest temperature I remember ever experiencing. I've been in windchills that low before on occasion, but not actual air temperatures. Suffice it to say that I'm now more convinced than ever that Alaska is not a place I ever want to call home.
On February 7, 2008, the House and the Senate agreed on a version of the economic stimulus bill, and the President has said he will sign it next week. The bill is H.R.5140, the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008.
The bill establishes "recovery rebates" for individuals, to be sent to people in advance via check. These so-called rebates are established as refundable tax credits. (A refundable tax credit is a credit that can result in you receiving money from the government that you never paid them. The Earned Income Credit is a refundable credit. A non-refundable tax credit can only reduce your tax liability to zero; in other words, it only affects money that you already paid/owe the government. The Child Tax Credit is a non-refundable credit.)
Eligible individuals receive a basic credit that is the greater of the following 2 amounts:
-Their net income tax liability for 2008, up to $600.
-$300, if the individual has at least $3,000 in earned income.
(amounts are doubled for joint returns)
If your adjusted gross income (AGI) is greater than $75,000 (double for joint filers), then the amount of your credit will be reduced by 5% of the amount of your income over the limit. So if you're a single filer making $80,000 your basic credit will be reduced by $250 (($80,000 - $75,000) * 0.05 = 250).
Individuals who are eligible for any amount of the basic credit are also eligible for the qualifying child credit. This is a $300 credit for each qualifying child. The definition of a qualifying child is the same as for the child tax credit. (Again, this is based on 2007 tax returns.)
The rebates are structured around a tax cut. Yes, a tax cut. This isn't stated anywhere in the actual text of bill, but it is stated in the following locations:
-A Fact Sheet from the White House
In 2008, taxes would be cut from 10 percent to zero percent on the first $6,000 dollars of taxable income for individual taxpayers and the first $12,000 of taxable income for couples.-The Congressional Record for the House of Representatives, January 29, 2008
Quote from the Honorable Spencer BachusThe tax element of this package has been called a rebate, but in essence, it's a tax cut, a tax cut for millions of low- and middle-income Americans, those who need it the most, those with a moderate income. link
Words from the Honorable Rahm EmanuelI enthusiastically support the middle class of this country, and we are doing it in this bill. Thirty-seven million Americans who were left out of the 2001 and 2003 tax cut will get close to $28 billion of this tax cut. I enthusiastically support that type of economic prosperity. link
If I'm understanding all of this correctly, then here is what is happening:Words from the Honorable Ron PaulAnother disturbing feature of H.R. 5140 is that, instead of taking the fiscally responsible course and pairing the tax cuts with spending cuts, this bill simply adds to the national deficit. Madam Speaker, unless Congress acts soon to reign in its excessive spending the American people will face confiscatory tax rates or skyrocketing inflation. link
-The government cuts a specific section of taxes for the current tax year.
-This means that many people will have a smaller tax liability when they file taxes next year (for the 2007 tax year).
-If you know that people are going to owe less money in taxes, what is the logical solution? Decrease the amount of money that you withhold from their paychecks, right? Wrong. Send them the extra money that they will be receiving in their tax refund next year. But wait! They haven't actually paid this money yet. Oh...hmm...well, we'll just keep taking the same amount out of their paychecks, and it'll all add up by the end of the year.
The checks are an advance on next year's refunds, and most, if not all of the money, will be deducted from taxpayers' refunds in 12 months' time. CNN articleIf the amount of your rebate is greater than the decrease in your tax liability because of the temporary tax cut, you won't be required to repay that rebate.
These advance payments will be based on 2007 tax returns, and will start being sent out in May. If you file your return late, or file an extension, you'll probably receive your payment later than most people.The Joint Committee on TaxationTaxpayers will reconcile the amount of the credit with the payment they receive in the following manner. They would complete a worksheet calculating the amount of the credit based on their 2008 tax return. They would then subtract from the credit the amount of the payment they received. For many taxpayers, these two amounts would be the same. If, however, the result is a positive number (because, for example, the taxpayer paid no tax in 2007 but is paying tax in 2008), the taxpayer may claim that amount as a credit against 2008 tax liability. If, however, the result is negative (because, for example, the taxpayer paid tax in 2007 but owes no tax for 2008), the taxpayer is not required to repay that amount to the Treasury. Otherwise, the checks have no effect on tax returns filed in 2009; the amount is not includible in gross income and it does not otherwise reduce the amount of withholding. link
MarketWatch articleThe rebates would be based on taxpayers' 2007 tax returns. Those who file extensions or file late would likely receive their checks later than regular filers, a U.S. Treasury spokesman said last week. The checks will be sent out automatically; taxpayers don't need to apply. link
Regarding the question of whether this is "free money", I guess that depends on the specifics of your individual situation. If your net tax liability for this year is less than the amount of the rebate that you receive, then I guess the difference between the two amounts would be free money, because you'll have received money that was never yours to begin with. But if your net tax liability is more than your rebate, then your rebate isn't free money - it's just an advance refund of money you'll be sending to the government for the rest of the year.
(To the best of my knowledge, all of the above information is correct. However, it's always possible that I'm misinterpreting something somewhere, so believe everything at your own risk!)
Update: I originally typed and posted this before the IRS had a decent Q&A page about these stimulus payments. They have since posted a FAQ page, and I would encourage you to check it out as well.
Because my medications are considered controlled substances, they cannot be called into the pharmacy; they have to be written on a paper slip and then mailed to the pharmacy. I obtained the written prescriptions from my doctor's office, filled out the necessary forms for the Caremark pharmacy, and sent the prescriptions and order off to Caremark. After receiving the prescription slips from my doctor's office, I waited too long to send the order to Caremark. By the time I sent the order I was getting very close to running out of my existing supply. Caremark's website says that customers can expect to receive their order 10 to 14 days from the date Caremark receives the order. I sent the order via USPS Priority Mail on January 14, so they had to have received it on January 16.
Late in the afternoon of January 18, their website was still not showing my order in my account section. I called them to inquire about it. They were rather unhelpful, although they did offer to call my doctor's office to obtain the prescriptions over the phone - that effort quickly fizzled into thin air once they realized my medications are controlled substances. They had no answer to my question of why my order wasn't yet showing in their system if they had received it 2 days prior. Towards the end of the phone call I finally directly asked them, "How long does it take for an order to show up in your system once you receive it?" They answered that it sometimes takes a couple of days. Well that would have been nice to know 20 minutes ago when I first asked why my order wasn't showing up in your system!
When I filled out the prescription order form I selected the 2-day expedited shipping option, since I knew I would be running out of my current supply very quickly. I figured if 10 to 14 days was the normal delivery timeframe, then 2-day shipping would surely bring the timeframe down to 8 to 12 days, if not better. They eventually shipped my order on January 26 - 10 days after they received it. Since it was a weekend, the 2-day shipping actually resulted in a delivery date of January 29 - 13 days after they received my order. So much for trying to get the order quicker by paying extra for faster shipping.
Anyway, that brings me to the FedEx part of the story. The tracking page for the shipment showed that a signature would be required. It was scheduled to be delivered at my home on January 29. Unfortunately, nobody would be home to sign for the package. I would be at work, and my wife and son would both be at school. On the morning of the 28th, I noticed that the package was at a local Kentwood facility, just minutes away from where I work. I decided to call them and see if there was any way I could possibly just pick up my package from the FedEx facility. I wasn't really expecting this to be an option, but I was getting desperate and I decided it wouldn't hurt to at least ask.
I called their toll-free number, selected the appropriate options to get routed to a representative, and my call was answered after less than 1 minute on hold. (Pleasant surprise!) I briefly explained the situation regarding my package, that it required a signature for delivery, wasn't scheduled for delivery until the following day, but that it was waiting at a nearby facility.
"...so I was wondering if there's any way I could..."
The representative interrupted me with, "just pick up your package from the facility?"
"Well, yes!"
"I don't see why not. Let me check and see if the package is off the truck and available to be picked up."
Come to find out, the package wouldn't be available for pickup at all that day, but it would be the following day (the scheduled delivery date) if I wanted to pick it up then. I confirmed that I wanted to do that. She proceeded to put a note in the system instructing that the package was not to be put on a truck for delivery, but held at the facility for pickup. Then she asked for my phone number so they could contact me if there were any issues, confirmed the address of the local facility, and gave me their hours.
At this point I'm feeling very positive about FedEx. I was expecting my request to be denied. Instead, it was not only granted, but also anticipated, and processed in a prompt, smooth, friendly manner.
The following morning my cell phone rang as I was getting into my car to leave for work. It was an automated call from FedEx. "Is this [my name]?" "Yes." "You have a package waiting for you at [this facility]. You may pick it up anytime during normal business hours, which are 9am - 8pm. Please bring a government-issued picture ID with you."
Well, I certainly wasn't expecting that! That was a very helpful call! (Ok, so it wasn't all that helpful because I already knew all of that info, but I still thought it was a rather impressive feature. It would have been extremely helpful had I not already had all of the information about the shipment.)
I stopped by the FedEx facility later that afternoon to pick up my package. That also went very smoothly. The lady staffing the counter was very cheerful and friendly, and she retrieved my package within a minute or two.
This was quite a different experience then my previous FedEx experience with their SmartPost shipping option. This experience left me feeling very satisfied and impressed with FedEx' customer service and their willingness to allow customer's to intercept their packages at a FedEx facility. Huge kudos to FedEx for this one!
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Jesse
Tags: Caremark, customer service, FedEx, idiopathic hypersomnia, insurance, narcolepsy, prescriptions
Tags: Caremark, customer service, FedEx, idiopathic hypersomnia, insurance, narcolepsy, prescriptions
SmartPost - the shipping service's actual name - has a tracking website, somewhat similar to FedEx's regular tracking website. Upon being notified by RepairClinic.com that my order had shipped, I checked the tracking information and saw that the only entry listed was "Carrier Notification Made". Several days went by, and this was still the only entry listed. I then assumed that due to the cost-savings nature of this shipping option, the tracking entries would be few and far between. Several more days went by - no package - no additional tracking entries. A couple of quick web searches yielded the information that SmartPost shipments could take up to 7 to 10 business days to arrive. I wasn't happy to read this, but I figured my package must have fallen into that lengthy time frame.
On the Saturday following the 9th business day since the package had supposedly shipped, I tried calling SmartPost customer service. No luck; they're closed on the weekend. Then I called RepairClinic.com to see if they had any way of checking if the package had ever actually left their facilities. The woman who answered my call was very helpful, and after putting me on hold for a couple of minutes to look into the matter she returned and, in a slightly perplexed voice, said, "It looks like your package was delivered to another customer."
I responded with a perplexed, drawn-out, "Ohhhhh-Kaaaayyyy???"
She proceed to inform me that she would send out a replacement shipment on Monday via FedEx Overnight, and gave me the replacement order number.
The replacement shipment was actually sent via FedEx Ground, but the results were the same because it arrived the following day, on Tuesday.
From reading more about SmartPost tracking online, it sounds like there are supposed to be additional tracking entries throughout the process, not just the initial "Carrier Notification Made" entry. I'm not sure what happened with the original shipment - if FedEx incorrectly routed it during their stage of the process, or if they handed it off to the USPS and they delivered it to the wrong address, or what the problem was.
At any rate, the experience left me with a rather poor opinion of FedEx Economy/SmartPost, and I will avoid this option in the future whenever possible.
RepairClinic.com was very helpful and I have no complaints with how they handled the situation. I only wish I had called them at least several days earlier, instead of waiting as long as I did!
I was thrilled to read this news. Granderson is a very talented young player and it's exciting to watch him play. His baseball skills have flaws, to be sure - his high strikeout rate being the most worrisome - but the things he does well on the field far outweigh the things that he struggles with.
He has an excellent work ethic, so I'm confident that he will continue to improve in those areas that need improvement. I'm looking forward to watching him play for the Tigers in the years ahead!
Time will tell if I can stay interested in this enough to post on a semi-regular basis. I hope I can.
