Brian @ Wongside

One of the principles my dad impressed on me from about high school through college was the importance of having a job that provided health insurance. He always said that landing in the doctor’s office, or the emergency room without health insurance could be disastrous for my finances. He wasn’t kidding either.

My bout with pneumonia for the last few weeks landed me in the ER on the morning of New Year’s Eve. I was in there less than 2 hours. (We arrived at 4:00 am, and I was out around 5:50 am.) Total bill?

$1,9243.85

Yup, you read that right, those two hours cost nearly a thousand dollars each. Here’s their itemized list:

I can’t even imagine having to pay that out of pocket. I mean, think of all the things we could pay for with that much money. That’s more than a month’s worth of rent. That’s more than a Canon EOS 7D ($1699.00). It’s more than my next lens, the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM ($1699.95). Heck, for some people, that’s even a used car.

All that to say my dad was right. Having health insurance is super important.

So what was our final cost for that visit with insurance?

$50

Yup, praise God for health insurance!

I think we’re about to get dumped on here in California.

Here’s the official word from The National Weather Service:

Issued by The National Weather Service
San Francisco/Monterey, CA
2:15 pm PST, Thu., Jan. 14, 2010

… A VERY WET AND WINDY WEEK AHEAD FOR CALIFORNIA STILL ON TRACK…

THE LATEST FORECAST MODELS CONTINUE TO DEPICT A SERIES OF STORMS WILL MOVE IN FROM THE PACIFIC AND IMPACT CALIFORNIA NEXT WEEK.

AFTER A BRIEF DRY SPELL THE STORM DOOR WILL START TO OPEN WITH A WEAK FRONT BRINGING LIGHT SHOWERS TO THE AREA ON SATURDAY.

THE FIRST OF THE MORE SIGNIFICANT SYSTEMS IS FORECAST TO SPREAD RAIN INTO OUR AREA STARTING LATE ON SUNDAY AND CONTINUING THROUGH MONDAY AFTERNOON. THIS SYSTEM COULD PRODUCE UP TO 3 INCHES OF NEW RAINFALL FOR THE HIGHER ELEVATIONS AND 1-2 INCHES FOR THE VALLEYS.

AFTER A BRIEF BREAK ON MONDAY NIGHT THE NEXT IN THE SERIES IS EXPECTED TO SPREAD MORE RAIN INTO OUR AREA THROUGHOUT THE DAY TUESDAY AND INTO TUESDAY EVENING. AN ADDITIONAL 2-4 INCHES OF RAINFALL IS POSSIBLE ACROSS THE HIGHER ELEVATIONS WITH 1-2 INCHES FOR THE VALLEYS.

A SECOND BREAK IS EXPECTED TUESDAY NIGHT INTO WEDNESDAY MORNING BEFORE THE NEXT AND MOST POWERFUL SYSTEM OF THE WEEK APPROACHES DURING THE DAY WEDNESDAY. THIS SYSTEM COULD LINGER WEILL INTO THURSDAY. TOTALS FOR THIS SYSTEM COULD REACH 3-5 INCHES OR MORE FOR THE HIGHER ELEVATIONS AND 1-3 FOR THE VALLEYS. AS THE FRONT MOVES THROUGH SHOWERS COULD PERSIST WELL INTO FRIDAY. ALSO OF NOTE… A VERY POWERFUL JET STREAM IS FORECAST TO BE OVER CALIFORNIA BY THE MIDDLE OF THE WEEK WHILE A DEEP SURFACE LOW IS POSITIONED OFF THE WASHINGTON COAST. THIS HAS THE POTENTIAL TO PRODUCE VERY STRONG WINDS AND HIGH WIND WARNINGS MAY BE NEEDED.

BY THE END OF THE WEEK AHEAD… TOTAL RAINFALL COULD REACH 10-15 INCHES AT THE HIGHER ELEVATIONS AND THE POTENTIAL FOR UP TO 20 INCHES IN THE WETTEST LOCATIONS. IN THE VALLEYS… 4-8 INCHES.

ANYONE WITH TRAVEL REQUIREMENTS NEXT WEEK SHOULD TAKE THESE STORMS INTO CONSIDERATION AND BE PREPARED FOR POTENTIAL DANGEROUS ROAD CONDITIONS… INCLUDING SNOW POTENTIAL FOR ELEVATIONS ABOVE 5000 FEET.

MARINERS AND THOSE AT LOCAL BEACHES ARE ALSO ADVISED TO CONSIDER THE POTENTIAL FOR DANGEROUS OCEAN AND COASTAL CONDITIONS MOST OF THE WEEK DUE TO LARGE NORTHWESTERLY SWELLS THAT WILL COMBINE WITH THE STRONG WINDS OVER THE WATER.

(Bold emphasis mine. All caps courtesy of NWS.)

I love that paragraph in bold above. 10-15 inches at elevation, with up to 20 inches in some places. 4-8 inches elsewhere. Sheesh. That’s a lot of rain. Whoever was worried about Global Warming and drought in California need not worry any more.

Quick, where’s my Ark?

My brother-in-law, Jeremy, took me out for a spin on the driving range this afternoon. I’d never hit a golf ball before (except for mini golf, which doesn’t count), so it was a completely new experience for me. It was a lot of fun, but it’s really hard to do. I think the best part about it was that when you do it right, it’s completely effortless; swinging the club and hitting the ball is like slicing a hot knife through butter.

I did a lot better than I expected. I’d say over half of the balls I hit made it into the air, and a significant percentage of those hit pretty close to the 100 yard mark.

I’d post pictures, but I was a dork and left my camera at Jeremy’s house. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I actually took any photos. We took a fair amount of video, but I don’t recall taking any photos. Oh well. It certainly was fun.

Thanks Jeremy!

I received the following e-mail  from my dad this week.  My dad forwarded it from a friend. (The names have been hidden to protect the guilty.)

I have no idea who Brian and Charlotte are. Just don’t tell Charlene, or I’m dead meat. *wink*

Play the classic game pong with your browser window…literally:
http://stewdio.org/pong/

HT: Andrew Wu

CrunchGear has a brief reminder about GPS security.  It’s a widely applicable reminder, but especially so during the holidays as it gets darker earlier (easier to commit crimes in the dark), and people are out buying GPS units for their friends and family.

Basically, the gist of it is that if you program your GPS with your home address and keep your garage door opener in your car, it presents thieves with the perfect set of tools to rob you.

Their recommended workaround is that you program your “Home” location as somewhere near your home, but sufficiently far away that a thief wouldn’t be able to open your garage door from there, e.g., the McDonald’s or gas station around the corner from your house.

Sounds like good advice to me.  Let the user beware…

Charlene and I went to see The Blind Side on Saturday. This post is on my thoughts about the movie. I hate to over-inflate other people’s expectations by incessantly extolling the virtues of any given movie, so unless you’ve already seen the movie this should suffice: You should go see it.

Otherwise, click to read more.

Read more…

I can’t believe it’s already been two weeks since my last post. The days just seem to fly by. I can hardly believe Charlene and I have been married 236 days–nearly 8 months.

But here’s what’s been running through my mind the past few weeks. It’s a random stream of consciousness, so proceed at your own peril.

Read more…

I was rummaging through some old e-mails when I came across this picture. It’s been over a year since the picture was taken, and I thought it was appropriate to post. So here’s the story.

It was my first week at PrimitiveLogic. They threw me right into the fire, and off to Workday Training. Workday was founded by Dave Duffield, former CEO, Chairman, and Founder of PeopleSoft which was acquired by Oracle a few years ago.

One day, as I was crossing the street from my car to the office, I came upon an older gentleman carrying a paper bag.

“Are you Dave Duffield?” I asked.

“Yes, I am.” He responded.

I was stunned. I introduced myself, told him I working for a partner consultant, Primitive Logic, and that I was in the office for Integration Fundamentals training.

We talked as we hopped into the elevator. I asked him what was in the bag, and he said that they were bagels he had found on sale. He had to go a few floors further than me, but as I was stepping off the elevator, he spoke up.

“Here, why don’t you take these bagels to your class?” he said as he offered me some of the bagels from his bag.

“Thanks.” I replied with a bit of hesitation.

As I got off the elevator, it hit me: I was just given bagels by one of the richest people in America. In fact, he’s #347 on the Forbes 400, coming in with just about $1.1 billion.

In any case, the wealth doesn’t seem to have gone to his head. He’s a super down-to-earth kind of guy. And heck, he gave me bagels!

Dave, the pleasure was all mine.

I’ve pretty much fallen off the map, and I’ll be there for the next week or so. I’ve got a fairly large, immovable deadline at work that I’ve been fighting to accomplish for the last few weeks.

That combined with the fact that I’ve been trying to juggle 3 projects at once, and I’ve just been out of it. It’s been so bad I actually had to work 6 hours on a weekend for the first time since I left Accenture. Please forgive me. I’m hoping to get back into posting again in a week or so. Please don’t give up on me.

In the meantime checkout Andy and Jay’s blogs again. They’ve got some good stuff up there.