Valentine's Day

My wife liked the star that I had dedicated to her. She took the certificate and other stuff in the envelope to work and showed it to some of her co-workers. They seemed to think it was pretty cool too.

I did have to print out my own certificate to replace the incorrectly dated one as I'm still waiting for the replacement. My wife said she wouldn't have known the difference if I hadn't mentioned that it was still coming.

As I mentioned before, we don't usually do anything special for Valentine's Day. My wife did get me a card and some heart chocolates though.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Lights out

Just as we were all getting ready this morning, the power went out. Not just a brief flicker. Completely off.

No more clock radio news. No more bedroom light helping me to find a matching pair of socks.

The phone rang. My wife answered and spoke with her Mother, who lives a few doors away, confirming that they too had no power.

Thankfully, the coffee was already made and still hot. I'd have to grab something to eat later from TimmyHo's when we made our morning Timmy's coffee stop while driving my wife to work.

My PC and my server box were still running. Both are on a UPS, but shutdown down about 20 minutes later, after the electricity gods decided not to fix what was broken.

I sure hope we have power when I get home later this evening. I'm not really keen freezing my ass off at home.

Btw, in case you're wondering, I did manage to find a matching pair of socks.

Got my glasses... FINALLY

My wife called LensCrafters today to find out of my glasses were ready. Surprise -- they were. She asked if I would receive any kind of discount for the inconvenience of waiting so long. The manager asked her what she had in mind. So my wife asked if they had any specials on right now that they didn't have when we originally went in. She said they did. A coupon online that I could print out to get 50% of the lenses. She said if I brought that in, they would honour it.

Sweet. Or so I thought.

As it turned out, the coupon cannot be used with other specials. Like the 20% discount I got because it'll be going through my health insurance. So I was left with a puzzle. 50% off $130 lenses, or 20% off the total cost (frames were around $145). In the end, I saved a whopping $9.01 cent over what I paid using the 20% off total cost.

I guess the important thing is that I finally have reading glasses again. No more struggling to read the newspaper in the morning.

Patients say private medical files 'held hostage'

My family and I were in this exact same situation last year, with the same company -- Green and McQueen. They wanted $450 for ours so we never did get them.

Here's another link that may be of interest. Several people filed a complain with the Govt.

A co-worker recently went through the same situation, again, dealing with the same storage company.

My best advice is to ask your family doctor for copies whenever something significant occurs with your health. They may charge you a "reasonable fee", but at least you won't be charged a fortune to get copies from storage.

Keep in mind that I do NOT blame Green and McQueen for this. They are simply a company that provides storage services for medical records. (Although their fees are rather suspect) It's the Doctor and/or the medical board's fault. There should be something in place that provides patients with sufficient advance notice that the practice is closing so that they can obtain copies from the doctor for a true 'reasonable fee'. If the patient chooses not to ask for copies at that time, then fine -- charge them more for copies from storage.

Blame global warming?

Hello?

Do you think that, perhaps, the marijuana might have had something to do with it?

Man accused of riding nude on ski lift; also charged with marijuana possession

I found a name!

Katzenjammer.

That will be the name of my blog. I don't really know why, other than the fact that it's fun to say. I found it as one of the old "word of the day" words over at Merriam-Webster Online.

If Peter Griffin had a sex change

A friend sent me this picture. If you're familiar with the TV show, Family Guy, then you'll get this. Even if you're not, it might make you says "WTF?". Click the pic on the right for a bigger view.

Seriously, is that a guy or a girl?