Friday

My extended work days resulting from this October 15th deadline business has accelerated the depression-inducing condition of going to work in the dark in the morning, and going home from work in the dark in the evening.  Usually, this absence of daylight for my free time is a later-in-October situation.  Maybe I need to do my own selective government shutdown scheduling.  The IRS would understand, right?

(Blogger is messing with me again this AM.  If you see a partial-publishing, its just an effort to not lose content that I've entered, but that the system isn't "saving".  Not sure if its Blogger or my spam-filters on this desktop.  Technology.)

Tough loss for the 'Clones in Ames last night.  I didn't see a lot of the game, but failing to punch in that last touchdown and settling for the field goal was the ultimate difference (ignoring the officiating).  Bummer.


My Gold's in Davenport is changing over to a YMCA location this month.  4 actually alerted me to this news a couple of days ago from her vantage point in NYC.  Why wouldn't she get the news first? I know the guy who has owned the gym for the last 10 years or so (a local stockbroker).  I don't think he ever made much money with Gold's, and he may have just got tired of making payroll. My suspicion is that he came into some money otherwise and decided to cut bait.

The Gold's building is actually leased from another investor, so my bet is that the Y will keep it open for a year or two, and then rationalize that the usage doesn't justify a location less than a couple of miles from it's primary building in Bettendorf.  This area just doesn't have the density for an adults-only facility.

Supposedly, this is the last day of the current heat wave.  High 80's today, but high 50's come Sunday. Not the worst forecast for our Twin Cities marathoners.

I did receive a letter in the mail yesterday at my home address from United Healthcare to inform me that our current health insurance program will not be offered in the 2014 renewal cycle (which, for us, is sometime in the second half of the year).  Shocking.  Of course, this is merely coincidental to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.  Because, as our President told us, "You like your current plan, you can keep it."


In this case, he can blame United Healthcare since they are the ones who made the decision to change their offerings.  But really, we all know that its the fault of the poor-sport Republicans who want to deny benefits, kill children, and close the National parks and cemeteries (including those in France). That metric is just so obvious.  Ask NBC.

My Perfect Neighbor has added mowing my lawn to his list of services.  I think that with the rain that we had here yesterday morning that he decided that mowing was not going to do any more harm to the grass...him not even cutting his own yard for almost a month.  And they know I've been working these long hours.  So when I pulled in the driveway last night, it was evident that he had taken the time to cut my yard as well as his own.   I know that it was easy work, and didn't take him all that long to do, but it certainly adds to his PN resume.

All for today.  Hope everyone gets the weekend off to a good start.  Thanks for reading.

BCOT