Video of the moment

This is the You Tube video of the moment in our office... Makes me want to play SSX: On Tour.

A refrigerator is coming

After having to call the appliance manager again yesterday, Jeni finally spoke with the store manager. The appliance manager just talked in circles and could do nothing for 28 hours. The store manager had a fridge for us in 10 minutes and should be delivered some time on Saturday. A lot of people at Sears will be hearing about this whole mess. If there is something wrong with this fridge we'll be done with Sears and going to Lowe's or Home Depot.

How to make me crabby

If you want to make me crabby, put a letter in my box at work from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that says: This patient has exceeded the maximum allowable number of treatments for the service billed.

People and health cannot be notched into a series of ICD-9 numbers and told that you have to be better in this many visits. But this is a philosophical point, not a bottom line point, and as the government tightens its Medicare budget, health will take the hit which means your parents and grandparents (and at some point you) will be denied services you know you need because an algorhythm says you should heal before they start losing money on your health.

[I have a folder on my computer of letters to CMS and I changed the icon to a hampster running on a wheel because it's how I feel.]

The refrigerator debacle

Saturday, Jeni went to the house early because the new refrigerator was to be delivered first thing. They got there after three phone calls to give them directions. When they were bringing the fridge in, the knocked it against the front door and put a big chunk in the top. To add insult to injury, we mismeasured the space (didn't see that little lip) and it didn't even fit.

So in the midst of the move, Jeni and Lisa go to Sears. Way too much to get into specifically, but suffice it to say that Jeni ended up speaking with the store manager (and Lisa's presence kept her from killing the appliance manager). She picked out another, smaller refrigerator and scheduled delivery for today. When it arrived, there were two scratches right on the front of the refrigerator door, and Jeni saw strap marks across the top, too. She returned this one, despite the efforts of the delivery guy to convince her that there were no scratches and customer service suggesting she use paint on it. (Paint a stainless steel fridge? Come on!)

Gwen, the sales associate at Sears who sold us both fridges, has been great, but she and the store manager seem like the only people who know what's going on. The independent delivery people could care less. To them this is just another heavy appliance in a box, but to us it is a fixture in our new home and an investment. Sears has one last chance with us before we start shopping around again.

Visiting Sears

We went to Sears last week and bought our refrigerator and deck furniture (some may go on the front porch)! The walk through is today at 3:00 and everything from the inspection should be done. Just a few more items to put in boxes. Pray for a dry Saturday. (Our last three moves, December leaving Virginia, April in Iowa, and February leaving Iowa, we had snow ... no chance of that this time!)

Mystery beast

A mysterious creature was struck by a car in Maine. It will probably end up being a wolf-dog hybrid, but certainly looks like something from a Stephen King novel (ironically, in Maine).

We've gone paper

With just a week before closing, we are at the paper plate stage of packing. The final dishes are being washed and prepared for packing. Jeni has done an amazing job packing everything up... This is really going to happen!

Bluecoats video

This is a 10-second clip of the Bluecoats show in Charlotte just to give you a brief (ok, very brief) idea of what when on. If you watch, you will see a vertical line come in from the bottom that merges with the horizontal line of marchers ... Kelly is the second to last person in that vertical line. Meant to post this earlier but lost track of time. They finished fourth nationally, which is very good.

Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do?

Back when we got our first computer in the mid-90s in Bluefield we had dial-up (but didn't everybody). There was a Star Wars spoof called TROOPS based on the popular COPS TV show. With dial-up, actually downloading and watching these short films took forever. The 10-minute film had been broken into shorter pieces for easier downloading, and I had seen the first two clips. Monday, I watched Obi-Wan Goes To Buy A Car and saw TROOPS on You Tube. I finally got to watch the entire thing and it's great. I never realized that it was based around the events between Luke leaving to find Obi-Wan and Luke returning to Tatooine to find his aunt and uncle dead. Definitely worth the 10 minutes to watch it.

Baby names

The Baby Name Wizard is a fun way to see where you names rank through the years. Jennifer was the #1 girl's name in the 1970s, Dean was #178 (the decade we were both born). I wonder if that has anything to do with how popular you were when you got older? (Maybe I should change my name to Michael -- #1 in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. OK, Richard, my first name, was 15 in the 1970s.)

Inspection results

We are happy to report that there were no deal breakers with the home inspection (no "You house was built on an old indian burial ground," or "...besides this giant sinkhole..."). Of course, with anything, there are some repairs we are going to request from them, and some projects for us, but that's the joy of home ownership, right? We're getting very excited and it feels more real every day. I think Tiff picked out her room. That leaves a room for Lisa, Nikki and Trinity.

House inspection

The house inspection is today. Tiff is in town and she'll be going along with us so she gets to check out the house with us today (and pick out her room). There shouldn't be tons wrong since the house isn't that old. I'm just eager to wander around the house a little again.

My name is Dean and I am a stalker

Yes, I guess it's true. I'm a stalker and I scare children. Let me explain...

Tuesday after work, we had a few errands to run. I was desperately overdue for a haircut (see picture of me with Kelly below) so I went to get my hair cut and dropped Jeni at Target to wander around and shop. After my haircut, I joined Jeni at Target, did a little shopping and got hungry. Well Tish and Susan (from work) were meeting some friends at Wild Wing Cafe near Target and had invited us to join them. We called and they placed our order so it would be ready about when we get there. We arrive to a bit of a party ... about 20 people dining together, beers, shots, good times. Jeni and I enjoyed some sweet tea, recognizing that someone has to get people home.

At the end of the night Jeni drives Tish's car with Tish and Susan, dropping Susan off first, then meeting me at Tish's to leave her car so we can head home. Since it didn't really make much sense for me to follow them and zig zag around I went straight to Tish's. Now, Tish has a one-car driveway and is on a busy street, so when I pull in, I pull off to the side and into the yard a bit (no biggie ... everyone does that). It's late and I know that we'll get delayed if I go in, so I just wait in the car knowing that Jeni and Tish can't be that far behind. I see one of Tish's boys peek through the blinds as I turn my lights off, but they never came out so I figure they're watching TV or wasting time and brainpower on My Space. So I pull out my Palm Pilot and start playing hearts.

Time passes. And more time. It seems like about 10 or 15 minutes has passed. My game ends and I'm about to start another one when there's a knock on the passenger window. I roll the window down and some man says, "Can I help you?"

I look and Edwin, Tish's 13-year-old son, is standing beside this guy. I say, "I'm waiting for Tish," and look at Edwin and say, "Edwin! You know what kind of car I drive."

He responds with, "Yeah, my Mom said it was you, but I wasn't sure." Then he walks around and checks the hood ornament on my car like maybe I'm not really in a Volkswagon.

Here's what happened ... the boys got freaked out when I pulled in since sometimes people (rough people) stop at the wrong house late at night waiting to pick someone up. Without their mom home, they decided to check with a neighbor. But with me parked in the front, they decided to hop their eight-foot fence, run through the neighbor's back yard, hop another fence, to the other neighbor's and knock on her back door. This, of course, freaks her out because it's 10:30 at night. So she calls her boyfriend who lives in the next neighborhood who promptly comes over. In the meantime, they call their mother who says, "Jeni's driving me home. That's Dean." But they still let the boyfriend come and confront me. I did thank the boyfriend for helping the boys out.

Ironically, as Jeni and I left the neighborhood, a police car came tearing down the street with his lights on and I asked Jeni, "Think they're coming for me?"

Magnet men

This formation was really cool. The picture doesn't do it justice. Like Dean said before the show are really good. We were both thoroughly impressed.

Dean and Kelly

Here is a picture of Kelly and Dean after the Bluecoats performance. Kelly's hair is so cute and man, look at those abs. We had such a good time at the show and spending time with Kelly afterwards. Unforturnately, we only got to spend about an hour and half with her, but it was time well spent. We are so happy that the tour is going well for her and that she excited about getting back to Miami for the fall semester.