Rantaholics

Maybe because I work in the medical imaging industry that I am particularly sensitive to this matter, but since I last checked I was still human, so my frustration is part and parcel of every one's else. Quite simply the quality and care of our health care practitioners and the equally evil insurance companies has gone to hell in a hand basket.
I won't even begin to elaborate how I had to get all the pre-authorizations for surgery which I knew was approved already. After making endless phone calls, and writing down details of the conversation where the insurance company stated over the phone the surgery was covered, EXCEPT (and this is the real killer) they would not give me a reference number for the call, or an email address to confirm in writing. I managed to get a fax number and faxed my entire transcript of conversations of medical coverage and requested response-mail, fax, email and my response-nothing. Then after the surgery, they still wind up billing us for the entire amount. After numerous phone calls and letters we finally have it resolved. The whole process made me so sick-yes adding insult to injury.
My latest annoyance is with a doctor who insisted I would benefit from a in-office procedure to help with my rosacea outbreaks. The doctor explained it in such a manner that there is no down time and there might be some redness. Well, it was much worse than that. Best way I can describe it, think cabbage patch doll. Very attractive look. I knew I would be red (not quite this puffy). Days later my face still resembling a cabbage patch doll look, I had to go into the office.

My doctor seemed indifferent when I mentioned I was mortified to show my face and work & had to cancel meetings and various events due to my facial condition. Hey, I know what I look like and while I am not much too look at I don't need it advertised in technicolor. After about 10 days, the swelling subsided and left with inflammed stripes on my face (think Indian war paint). Apparently this is due to bruising during the procedure and it can happen (wow I wish I know that ahead of time!) Again my doctor didn't want to see me since I arrived again at the office sporting the Indian paint look. I explained I wasn't going to pay for the balance of the treatment and had I known I would look as bad as I did, I would never agreed to it. I suggested they create a handout for patients, explaining all the possible side effects, not just the pre-printed corporate brochure stating how perfect this procedure it. That sentiment was ignored. And while this procedure was not covered by insurance, she did send me a bill for a co-pay! (which I again explained I would not pay it). So now I am left with the option to help fade the bruises (which I am paying for). Now its been 5 weeks and hoping the prescription I paid for will now fix the bruising.


There is no morale to this story, and not much of happy ending and you wanna bet I am going to get a bill from my insurance company for this? You bet I will. Ah the fun never ends. Time to play in traffic.

"Remote users cannot authenticate by using an account that has a blank password."

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/304040

I didn't know this because every where in the "real world" blank passwords are forbidden via group policy. I thought I was going to go crazy.

I'm learning to like my family less and less everyday. If my dad is being stupid my mom helps fix it. If mom loses it, then we are all FUCKED. My mother has become an angrier version of her father and would rather have a pity party then face the issues at hand.
Dad has some anger issues that he is willing to work on to be apart of my children's lives. MY mother is offended that I would suggest that dad has anger problems and has written me off as her son. At family party's she ignores me and my family, as my dad plays with my girls and has normal conversation with us.
My parents have always had the type of relationship that was quiet or screaming at each other. Not sure the reason they stay together but I'm not going to evaluate my parents marriage issues I have problems of my own.
I guess I'm wondering do I scream to get my point across or just let them go?
This is the letter I sent my parents about 2 months ago and it hasn't been spoken of since. Did I give my mom a reason to hate her son? The names have been taken out so it mite read a little weired.

The reason that we decided to even bring this to your attention was so that when we bring the girls over, you are more aware of what you do and say. Because like it or not, they will love you and look up to you and watch your every move and we always want them to see the positive and loving grandpa that they know.

I love you with all of my heart. You are my father, you raised me. You gave me everything you could and you were always there for me. I would’t be who I am today if it was not for that. I had a wonderful childhood and I had a lot of good times with you and learned a lot from you.

We are in no way suggesting that you are not capable of loving these girls or unable to spend time with them. You can always spend time with the girls when you have time. But one of the childhood memories that I have is that every single vacation was not enjoyable until we got there. Getting ready for a trip and the stress of traveling have always triggered your temper. And so did coming home. This is why we have decided that the girls will not be going on vacation with you guys alone. Knowing this is what triggers you, we cannot risk the relationship that we and the girls have with you over the stress of a trip.

It’s not that we think you would ever in a million years yell at or directly harm our girls on purpose. But witnessing any out of control anger and verbal abuse towards mom will affect them and make them scared of you. We want our kids to love you for the loving grandpa you are. They are too young to understand grown-up problems and it is our job as parents to keep them happy and always see you and everyone that we trust to be around them to be a positive light in their lives. We really don’t want there to be a time when the girls have a reason to be afraid of you because they don’t understand something that you do or say.

Another issue…that my birth father was invited to my daughters birthday party!!?!

First of all, this is a whopper of a rumor and we don’t know how it started, but I will be getting to the bottom of it. ALL invited guests can be seen on the invitation page itself. My birth father is not a part of my life or the life of my children. Why on earth would I invite him to a family party? He is not family.

We would hope that you are still planning on attending my daughters party on Saturday. It would be a shame for you to miss out on our baby’s milestone, you are her grandfather after all. It’s a step in the wrong direction to run from this. This party will be about nothing but celebrating our one year old daughter.

Now it’s my wife's turn:

I want to make sure that you know where I stand because these words come from me. First of all, no one is perfect and I KNOW that I am not perfect. I know you love your family and I appreciate the fact that you both treat me as one of your own. and I have come to love both of you very much. And if it was not for the fact that I have children, this would probably be a non-issue. I know that you and your son have put your past issues to rest because he loves you as much as any son could love his father.

Your son told you that I have been scared of you in the past when you fly off the handle, but the truth is I am not scared of you. You have not done anything to me personally and if we ever did have a confrontation over something, I am a big girl…I can handle myself. We are both adults, and could work things out as such. However, the first time I went on vacation with you guys and saw you explode on your wife for the first time, it did blow me away. It seemed so out of character from the person I had known you to be. But you also have to understand where I come from. I grew up in a house where my parents did any and all arguing behind closed doors. My father is very calm by nature and he never flew off the handle over anything. He would not yell at us and actually sent us to our room for some cool off time before we were punished or spanked. It was his nature to remain calm in chaos and think things through even when the rest of us girls were at each other’s throats. your son is a lot like that also. So this is what I am used to; this is what I know.

So you have to understand that it was quite a shock to my system when I am witnessing for the first time that you are not calm and that you can really get out of control and take it out on your wife. And to shock me further, no one but me seemed to be bothered by it or found it out of the ordinary. When I confronted your son about the incident, he said, “Oh, it’s a lot better than it used to be.” This did not make me feel better, but I realized that we came from two different worlds. I believe our first daughter was 4 or 5 months old at the time so the mama bear came out in me. I told your son that I was not used to seeing something like that and did not think any of it was justifiable, even though it was not directed at me. I also told him that it would not be acceptable for my child to have to witness something like that…and that she would not. My job was to protect her and if I, a grown woman, had that kind of shock, I could only imagine how that would affect my child.

The truth is I did not really think about it again for a long time. But then our daughters got older, and started to understand and learn about the world around her. And we had to realize that she was understanding a lot of the things around her. We knew there would come a day when we would have to make you aware of our feelings if this kind of behavior continued…which it has. We knew it would be uncomfortable and not easy. Half the reason I felt you needed to know about all of this is because I would never want your relationship with your granddaughters to be jeopardized or for them to become frightened or uncomfortable around you over something that could be handled in a better way. I also wanted you to be aware of their presence and consider them in your thinking, before you act.

Love,

us

Not so much a rant but ... well just read;

Any one who's ever worked in retail knows about "shrinkage", If you accidentally cut the merchandise with your box cutter, or something gets broken on the truck, that's a loss, it "shrinks" the bottom line. The unfortunate reality of shrinkage is that it also includes Theft/vandalism/shoplifting.

Yesterday, some one stole some Glade scented candles at a local establishment. They stole 5 boxes (3 candles each). (I know this because I found them stuffed behind the fruit snacks, 3 isles away from their home while I was working an overnight shift.) Of the three varieties of candles stolen, two of the boxes contained candles with a sent called "Pure innocence".
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While I'm on the topic of annoying shrinkage, let me tell you about a game all the cool kids are playing these days. it's called "Hide the pudding!"
Here's how you play, you go to your local big grocery store, you wander over to the dairy section.. then find the yogurt... near there you may find single serving cups of pudding. Note how they're cold, and have "Keep Refrigerated" printed on the packaging. Grab a 3 pack at random and continue to wander about the store. Eventually you'll happen upon another section, possibly near the boxed gelatin. Here you will find "snack pack" single serving pudding containers. These are shelf stable and do not need refrigeration. Put down the pudding from earlier in the game. (for extra points, stash it behind a box or something so it's not visible from more than 10 feet away) That's it, you've won! Some time around midnight, a 3rd shift worker will find your pudding and take it to the "claims" dept because it's sat at room temperature for only-God-knows-how-long, and is no longer fit for sale.

Labels: pudding irony shrinkage

So its trite. Shoot me.
I didn't want to use another word. Figured DICK was safe enough.
I have to rant on this subject, since everytime I see a news story I get pissed off all over again.
I am pissed off at so many levels and wish to explain.
1. Dog fighting is illegal and nearly all the entire US population knows this.
2. Even if you didn't know it was illegal, a prudent person would know this is a terrible, unconscionable thing to do to any animal.
3. A prudent person would know this is a horrendous act to thrust upon what we all consider is "man's best friend".
4. A prudent person would not selectively torture and execute dogs b/c there were not aggressive enough.
5. A prudent person would not have 50+ dogs with the sole purpose of holding dog fights for his equally stupid friends and himself
6. APBT's already have a bad reputation in the dog world. This type of cruelty only add to this misconception about the breed. The 50 or so pitbulls were likely "put down" since abuse and aggressiveness is all they have known. Do we put people down if they don't act agressively enough?
7. And if this shithead was actually innocent (aside from having a dog-fighting facility on his property) he would have promptly announced his innocence. Yet this is not the case.
It would seem appropriate to wish him physicial harm. And I not talking about PETA folk--just your average person who has some regard for another life form. People are outraged. For example, it would be justice for Vick to have to fight to the death. If he didn't perform he should be electrocuted, tortured and yes, killed.
I still believe if he had to volunteer in an animal shelter and/or animal hospital he might begin to see the error of his cruel ways. Maybe, maybe not. And if he doesn't, then we can electrocute him. My pitbull would love to watch that.

I have to give credit where credit is due. You Gary Vaynerchuk just might be the face of the wine revolution I’ve been looking for. You have the knowledge, you have the palate, you have the attitude and most importantly, you have the passion. A lot of shit in life you can teach, but passion just isn’t one of them. I’m beginning to like you already.

There’s a couple of things that have me invariably uneasy about enrolling in your cause however. Let’s start with this whole 100 point rating scale for wines you seem quite enamored by. Ok. So I’m cool with the scale. It’s familiar and the concept is easily understood by the masses. I happily suggest that anyone who doesn’t understand a 100 point rating system should probably not be drinking wines to begin with. But in a rating system with 100 points, how come the same ratings come up over and over and over again? There’s a 100 point spread between 0 and 100 yet so little of it is utilized. I don’t agree that on a 100 point scale an “extremely solid wine” should score a 90, while a “poor effort” and “I’ll have to give this wine a pass” still scores in the 80’s. With one hundred incremental units I’m not really sure why roughly 93% of your online ratings score within the same 13 percentile point band (80 - 93). Are you selectively picking the bottles to suite that band or is something else going on? Don’t want to let the other wine critics down (the same wine critics you bring up over and over and over again)? I don’t get it. Seriously. We don’t give a shit about the other critics. We’re looking to you to lead this revolution, not them.

So take a deep breath. Why the 100 point scale if only 13 scores get used roughly 93% of the time?

Out of 690 wines that you currently have rated, only 23 wines scored below an 80, or 3% of your total wines currently reviewed.
Out of the same 690 wines rated, only 30 wines scored higher than a 93, or 4% of your total wines currently reviewed.

That leaves us with a figure of 93% of the wine you review scoring within the same 13 point band.

Overall I like you. I like your fresh take on tastings, there’s no pretense, no pomp, none of that old snob shit. I like your level of involvement in the wine community, you’ve got some really solid knowledge and what appears to be an extremely well-rounded palate. You bring solid passion to the table obviously, and you have a much better wine show then I do, since I don’t even have one. But in the end I don’t know. You claim to bring the thunder but I suspect that’s only partly true. When you drop your sack on the table and give a truly shitty wine the 20 points that it deserves while every other wine critic is slagging 85 points, then maybe, just maybe, the real wine revolution has begun.

It scampers around the office, carrying the air of importance, when its just the smell of her cage.
(Maybe she just laid another egg). Collective group I work with has noticed she makes several distinct sounds duing a meeting. I decided to make better use of my meeting time and count these sounds coming from Chicken Little.
Granted these are not contributory remarks, only noises to remind us she is here. Noises are described as follows:
1. Oooh: denoting interest of sorts. Averages 5-10 times during hour long meeting.
2 Oh, wow: this indicates her high impression level. It is often uttered in response to such statements of: "we are going to blacktop the parking lot" or someones mentions their vacation plans.
3. Mhhmm: This is her attempt to understand the conversation going on. It has been followed up with "well, I am still new here" (its been over a year now, the comment is past its lifespan). Even if she doesn't not understand the conversation, this noise is made to indicate her level of comprehension.
4. The Horsey Laugh: this is my favorite, maybe since it occurs with great frequency. The best way to describe this is when you try to laugh, by exhaling, instead you are inhaling. Her horsey laugh is used to participate when she perceives there is something funny being said or other people are laughing.
There are occasional noises like "Yuck" or "Uh, yayah" that serve to amuse us, but are not made on a consistent basis.
I kept looking at the chicken, thinking there might be a string hanging out and I could pull it to make it talk again, but then I should count my blessings when there is silence. Silence is platinum.
It could always be worse, she could have a twin working here.