Friday

Cold and rainy in the QCA today.  Glad to see Friday.

There was a near tragedy across the street early this AM.  When I woke up for my standard middle-of-the-night bathroom break around 0200, I heard the steady drone of a heavy-equipment engine.  I walked to my front room, and out the window, I saw on the street several fire trucks (I later counted 7) engaged in some serious work on the house directly across from me!  I was really stunned as I hadn't heard a siren or any loud commotion.

Turns out that a fire had broken out in the second story of the house, a car passing by had called the cops, and the fire department was dispatched...arriving to waken the family!  The fire had taken hold at the back of the house, and could have trapped the three kids in the upstairs bedrooms if the firemen hadn't arrived when they did.  The owner is the neighbor with the snow thrower on his riding mower who did my driveway several times last Winter.

As I was leaving for work early this AM, the owner happened to be stopping at his next door neighbor's for something and I was able to chat with him briefly.  He said that they aren't sure of the cause, but probably an electrical short in the attic.  Everyone got out with no problem.  But he didn't mention smoke alarms...which means...GO REPLACE THE BATTERIES IN YOUR SMOKE ALARMS!!!

That's one of those life things that just hits too close to home to ignore.  In this case, literally too close to home.

If you didn't see it on my Twitter feed yesterday, my decision to take a work-out bike ride after lunch turned out to be one of those, "Maybe not the best choice" events.  Conditions really weren't that bad as I started out, but that lasted only about 15 minutes.  First rain.  Then cold rain.  Then hail.  Yeah.  One of those rides that disincentivizes you for future foul weather adventures.  I actually had to stop under a bridge for a while to get out of the hail barrage. 

(It is worth noting that the only other person I saw on the bike path during this rain/hail storm was our 80-year-old first cousin Fran.  It was too lousy out to chat, but I did tell him that you would think that a couple of old farm boys from Wapello County would be smart enough to get out of this kind of weather.  Extremely slow learners are us.)

On the brighter side of news, I actually had a good experience talking with a customer service rep with Medicare yesterday.  Among those facts: 1) I really had a low expectation of getting an answer to my question, 2) I knew I would be initially getting a useless auto voice system, 3) As a new user, I figured my situation had no stock answer, and 4) I had doubts whether I would like the ultimate resolution of my billing on a pure economic basis.

My initial fears were prophetic.  The auto voice system is predictably annoying, and the front-line rep was just reading from her standard manual. But that rep was smart enough to put me through to a more-experienced person, and that guy saw the inconsistency in my billing statements.  It took a few minutes to figure out how the system had worked the math, but given the coverage period and the table-rates, the total billed appears to be the right number.  If the next bill then adjusts to a recurring number that has no further adjustments, I'll be satisfied.

Long story short, there are base rates that are adjusted upward if your income gets to a certain amount on the prior year tax returns.  So I pay more than a lower income earner.  I don't mind that. 

Let's give 4 the recognition of Daughter of the Day.  She's now on her new schedule which makes today her "Sunday".  She says that she's still adjusting to the change where she now has Thursday and Friday off rather than Monday and Tuesday.  Heck.  I have trouble figuring out my days too.  I've been off one day all week this week.  Was Monday that bad?  Whatever.  You are a star, Kiddo!

I'm on the road again this weekend.  Phoenix/Scottsdale for client meetings.  Back Tuesday.  I'll be posting from the road. 

Make it a Good Friday in your neighborhood.

BCOT