December 2008

Barter System.

In today’s faltering worldwide economy I can’t help but pay attention to what is going on financially all around me. Not only do I like to spend money these days but I also like to see how money is spent and what can be done to make the experience a little less harrowing for all involved.

We are all familiar with the good ol’ American way of purchasing a car from your friendly car dealer. You browse the car lot and look at the various offerings while a snappy dressed salesman tries not to notice you from a nearby window and then decides to take a walk. Said walk spirals in closer and closer faster than the starting line of the Boston Marathon and suddenly you have a car salesman as your best friend who is offering to recline the bucket seats in a non-suggestive manner. Once you make up your mind on which auto you’d like to purchase, you then find out that none of the numbers on the price sticker are applicable, but instead you must dicker your way down with the salesman to a good price, after he leaves his office several times to make motions and whisper sweet nothings into some manager’s ear.

I’m discovering the same thing applies to the medical arena these days. During my last physical (and I underscore the word last for various reasons) with Dr. Lance, I resisted his suggestion that I take Norvasc for my slightly high blood pressure, as Norvasc has a history of (and gave me) this cough I couldn’t shake. Dr. Lance’s ears perked up at the word “cough” and faster than you can say “Fire all phasers, Mr. Chekov” I was in for a chest x-ray. This experience cost somewhere between four and 634 American dollars.

The bill arrived a few days ago. The hospital charged $181 for two views (one smiling, one frowning). Some HMO contractual person took off $68.78 even though I don’t have an HMO. Naturally my chest is taxable so I had a NYS Assessment Surcharge of $10 added on.  My bill then came to $122.26 but that’s only if I decide not to pay it, for if I pay the bill I only have to pay $97.81. That last amount was only determined after I called Theresa at the hospital billing office (not to be judgmental but she really sounded like an Irving or Stanley). Theresa banged on the keys and made an ancient sounding teletype machine spit out paper (I could hear the ripping sound) and she came up with the magic number as long as I pay it within 16 days. I needed to put her name on the bill so we all know it was legit.

Now, factor in the fact that I have a deductible on my health insurance now and nary a scratch on any of my fenders, I don’t know why I’m only paying Theresa’s amount when I think I should be paying some other amount. And since when do we have deductible rates on health insurance? Can’t I just skip the glass coverage?

With all these numbers being flung about in just about every aspect of our lives these days it’s a small wonder that the economy is such a mess.

Clear Skin.

So I just got back from my dermatologist appointment. My regular physician was concerned about the spots on my skin so he wanted me to see the skin doctor. After an eight week wait I was in and met with her for the first time. She checked my skin in less than three minutes.

I have freckles. That’s what redheads do. We have freckles.

I have also had this little irritation/rash thing on my forehead and the bridge of my nose for awhile. My regular doctor had prescribed some steroid cream that irritated the hell out of my eyes. The dermatologist looked it over and determined that the steroid cream is not a good idea and told me what the problem really is: I have have dandruff.

I am a bald man with dandruff. And not only that, I have dandruff on my forehead and the bridge of my nose. Putting oils, lotions, etc. on my skin is aggravating the condition so she gave me some magic formula that is gentle on the skin to treat the condition. I have a follow up appointment in six weeks.

She also looked over every inch of freckles on my body (and I have a lot of them, even in places you wouldn’t expect them) and there is no concern whatsoever with any of my spots. I’m clear of skin cancer from top to bottom.

I’m just a bald Irishman with dandruff on my forehead.

Tranquility.

I have discovered a way to calm myself down when I get stressed at work. Yes, I am still plugging away at the binaural beats experiment that I mentioned last week but occasionally at work I need an image for me to focus on so that I can re-center myself.

Naked photos of my favorite guys would do wonders but would probably not be appropriate for work.

Instead I have a photograph of a sunset as my desktop background. I recently discovered this particular photo and I found very quickly that it helps me find an inner peace. In this photo the landscape is simple. There are a few scraggly mountains with a plain off in the distance. It all seems so natural and untouched, just as nature intended. There’s no one around, instilling a quiet in the photo. The sky even seems quiet as it is filled with muted hues of blue and red. The sun sets off in the distance, gently falling below the horizon, with the promise that it’ll return the next day.

The special thing about this sunset is where it was photographed, for the photo I focus on is a photograph of a Martian sunset, and I find it amazingly beautiful.

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A larger version of the photograph is available here.

‘Tis The Reason.

In this season of “goodwill toward men”, the same season that has been highlighted by the fatal trampling of a man trying to do his job at a Black Friday sale, all in the interest of purchasing a deeply discounted gift to give another in remembrance of someone else’s birthday that most likely took place in the spring or fall, I would like to address a misconception about my religious beliefs.

There are some that believe that because I am not afraid to question some of the idiocy that people spout all in the name of religion that I therefore do not believe in some sort of higher power. This is not true. To think that human beings are the most evolved and highest power in the Universe is not only naive but greatly insulting to whomever designed this whole master plan. I do not believe that there is a White Man with flowing robes and a beard sitting up in the sky somewhere ready to damn his creations to eternal damnation because they have made errors during this whole learning process called life. I do not believe that there is a whole “pick and choose” process of who gets into paradise and who doesn’t. I do not believe that any man that was granted and therefore wielded such awesome power would have such failings as hate, bigotry and revenge.

These are human emotions, dahling.

I am a reincarnationist. I believe that we come back to learn more and more about this whole human experience. In between human lives we get to hang out on “the other side” for a while, discuss, study and reflect as to what we learned during out last life and then go back and try again. I also believe that there is a higher power that we can only strive to comprehend. This higher power isn’t “male” or “female” but the some of both. This higher power is constructed of love and is all encompassing. It can be seen all around us, in nature, in each others. Some choose to tuck it away but it’s there.

Many organised religions do their best to scare their followers so that they’ll just keep following them. Such organisations are nothing more than a grand attempt at controlling the masses. Those that are controlled fear what lies beyond that control and that’s why they do their best to keep the “free-thinkers” down. They are afraid of those that step outside the box and actually take time to think for themselves.

Do I consider myself an atheist? I do not, but I consider my beliefs to be “spiritual”, not “religious”. My primary belief is that we were designed to think, and thinking is what we should do.

There is a bit of an uproar over an atheist display in the state of Washington. While I fully support this display, simply because I believe anyone should be able to speak their mind, I really like the simple message that they are sharing with the world.

“Just be good for goodness’ sake.”

Community.

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So last night Earl and I hosted “Bear Night” at the local bar. We do this every couple of months in an effort to bring out the less than typical gay men out of the wood work and give them the opportunity to meet guys like themselves.

The festivities were quite enjoyable last night though it wasn’t quite as busy as the night we hosted in October. We still had around 100 pass through the door. Earl made some meatballs and other nibbles for the buffet. Our friend Marc, the owner of the bar, hired a DJ from out of town to mix it up a little bit. This surprises some with me being a DJ and all, but I’d rather be a host than DJ on these particular nights. While I love spinning the tunes (and can’t ever seem to stop wanting to do it), the DJ booth tends to isolate me from the rest of the crowd and I like to mingle with the natives when the opportunity arises.

The crowd was curiously mixed last night but still quite enjoyable. The only crisis was that a lesbian had become over zealous with her pool stick and sent the cue ball flying down the nearby basement stairs, where no one could then find the cue ball so we had to shut down the pool table.

We are planning another night in a couple of months.

Goofing Around.

I decided to goof around with Photo Booth during my lunch hour. I guess I was feeling feisty.

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And The Beat Goes On.

Browsing through the “App Store” on my iPhone the other night I noticed an application called “mindWave”. This particular program is designed to help the listener with meditation techniques through the use of sounds, a sort of shortcut into a transcendental state. Think of it as Zen with a technological twist.

The mindWave program, along with many other products out there, use a technique called binaural beats. Using a pair of headphones and stereo sound, certain brainwaves are triggered by the difference in frequencies in the sound that is being played by the program. The tones are masked in pink noise so that you don’t go mad from listening to something akin to the old Emergency Broadcast System two-tone warning sound. This Wikipedia article explains the theory much better than I ever could. The mindWave program uses different frequencies to start up different types of brain waves depending on what you’re trying to achieve: deep sleep, mental clarity, focus, energising, etc.

I tried the program yesterday morning and found myself to be a little more energised than usual for the early shift at work. Granted, this could be just a placebo effect but nevertheless, I felt good yesterday. Last night I tried the “get ready for sleep” tones and found that I slept right through the night until the alarm went off. I haven’t done that in a few weeks. Again, it could be a placebo effect but I must admit that I feel well rested today.

Similar more elaborate and expensive programs have much more to offer in the types of binaural beats produced and what it can do for the human mind. Some caution that because of the meditation-like qualities from this practice, one can find old ill feelings surfacing as the mind rediscovers this negativity and tries to purge it. The same thing happens during traditional meditation. I must admit that I am finding myself a little cranky today and I’m curious as to if this is the reason why. It could be that I’m just in a cranky mood. I have a few demons in my closet that could use a good exorcism, though so maybe some of those cobwebs are getting cleaned out from parts of my brain that I haven’t visited in a while.

Suffice it to say that I am very interested with this technological twist on meditation. While I have no intention (nor the funds) to invest in some elaborate program, my little mindWave iPhone app is quite intriguing.

I look forward to continuing the experiment.

I Left Our GPS in New Jersey.

So Earl and I spent last weekend in the oceanside town of Asbury Park, New Jersey. We were there for “Santa Saturday”, a day of leathermen and bears raising money for people living with AIDS and the aging. It was a good time, about 1000 people attended the event and we saw several familiar faces from Hillside Campground.

I had never been to Asbury Park before. Even though it was the end of November the ocean was still beautiful. There was little life along the boardwalk but we enjoyed the experience anyway. We stopped at the Paramount Theatre where we saw an a cappella choral group perform, they were magnificent and reminded me of my days in high school and college when I was in various a cappella choruses.

We stayed at the Berkeley Hotel, which is a beautiful hotel with affordable rooms. However, when we went to get into the Jeep to go out Saturday night we found the entire contents of the Jeep stacked on the driver’s seat and the GPS missing from the glove compartment. We had noticed a large number of cop cars earlier; apparently they knew what had happened or was going to happen. So we are out a GPS unit. As Earl said, “it was time to upgrade anyway.” The ones with the sticky fingers climbed in through one of the back windows of the soft top, it’s pretty easy to get into a Jeep. At least they didn’t smash the real windows or anything.

All in all it was a good weekend and a good chance for us to get away from the craziness of our schedules.

World AIDS Day.

Today is World AIDS Day.

Since I came out during the relatively early days of this epidemic (the “AIDS scare” as it was called back then) I have lived with the existence of this disease all of my adult life. I have watched people that I love die of the disease. There are people that I love that are HIV+.

Back in 1986 I must have been a very naive boy, because I really thought they would have a cure by now. I really wish they would prove me right.