Back to Work, Slacker

Back from a hiatus of full-time work weeks and kid time. Right now, it's band before school and sports after school for them, and with my school schedule, I know we won't see eachother much during the week. So I decided to spend the last 3 weeks of of my summer vacation free time to spend with the kids and the Hermit, because I knew my school schedule would make everything even more crazier. Is that a word?

I did successfully get the Hermit to go to Tapper's wedding (which was gorgeous), and then go to a high school football game afterward last weekend. He was kind of in the doghouse, though after making a big deal about traveling to his sister's wedding next spring. Hopefully, he's turned a new leaf over in the socializing world and will stay with us. Okay, so it's not that bad, but the neighbor and I like to give him crap.

I started my Junior year at Western yesterday, only to learn I won't get an A in Ecology. I know, right? Amy with a B in a BioScience? I was so proud of my 4.0's but the professor said he rarely gives A's and I'm not willing to sacrifice all my relationships in my life to maintain a high GPA.

I'm still not sure if night school is the right course of action. I'm going to finish this year at the WWU Everett Extension, but I think I'm going to transfer to main campus in Bellingham next year. The driving time is just 30 minutes more, but I won't be getting home between 9-10 at night after leaving my house at 8 am. I think morning classes and closing at the pharmacy would be better suited for this morning person. I've never really been a night owl. I like my sleep, and I love to get up early and seize the day.

Field work this quarter will be interesting. I'll be closing the store Friday nights, and then getting up SUPER early on Saturdays to catch the 7am ferry in Edmonds. Our site is all the way up near Sequim, and I have to return that night so I can work on Sunday. We have to decide what we're going to study, how we're going to collect data, and then present our conclusions to all 4 Huxley campuses. I'm so used to my science teachers giving us very detailed labs, so this will be really fun.

You can look forward to some controversial posts this quarter, too. I have to write over 20 papers between my two law classes about environmental issues. Next week we begin with Seattle's plastic bag controversy. That's right Greg Nickels prepare for a verbal Smack Down. You've gone about things the WRONG way, but that's what happens when you try to go Green without the help of experts.

Insurance Reform not Healthcare Reform

How much do you pay for your total healthcare? I've been asking that question to many of our customers, curious if the average American cost I researched for my Economics 201 class was true. Instead of getting numbers, I have been getting sad stories, and scary questions, so I feel it's time to expose my opinion, I've been carefully keeping to myself lately.

I have opinions for and against the nationalized system, and I'm not naive enough to believe that the insurance corporations are not writing this bill via the leftwing in Congress. Growing up near D.C., and having an uncle who was an Economic Lawyer for the Congressional Ways and Means Committee, I learned at an early age that both sides are bought and paid for by corporations. This is why I am a registered Independent.

My dad, a retired pharmacist, has long believed we needed a nationalized healthcare system for decades. I know of many physicians who believe the same, but the problem to change over to this system breaks down to Economics. The biggest question of all should be how do you reimburse all the doctors, pharmacists, nurses, etc. for their HUGE student loans when the government knocks down their reimbursement for services?

First of all, let me get it into the open that I cannot stand the outright lies the rightwing has been scaring people with. If a national healthcare system is socialist and illegal, then we must do away with Medicare. Medicare is simply socialized medicine for retired Americans. Medicare does not pay for everything, like the rightwing likes to claim, and is not deducted from retired Americans' SSI checks. The myth that seniors have paid for Medicare is another falsehood created to make Americans believe that Medicare is not a socialized healthcare system, the deduction from your paycheck goes strictly to Social Security, and Medicare is not deducted from your Social Security.

See, what's going on is that the right wing politicians know that they cannot let the public know that Medicare is a socialist system, because their arguement against a total system would be void. They cannot get rid of Medicare, because they would have the AARP and all of their constituents that hastily had to move in their elderly parents rioting at their doors. But the spin that even Obama's watered down plan is Nazi-esc brings us to the next big question - What is more Nazi, taking care of all the sick and elderly people, or leaving them to die uninsured in their homes?

And if there is an outbreak of a serious disease, what will we do about the people with insurance that do not go to the hospital or doctor because they can't afford their copays? What about all the kids who don't even get well child check-ups, because their parents can't afford the after-insurance bill, but make too much to qualify for the Children's Healthcare Insurance Program?

Which leads me to my next big question - why healthcare reform? If we can't all agree on how it is done, then why not insurance reform? I'm not just refering to health insurance, but home, car and life insurance as well. Does your state require that you have car insurance? Ours does. Does your bank require you have homeowners insurance with your mortgage? Ours does. So if it is all required by law and policy, tell me why they should have unlimited profits.

Insurance was non-profit for decades until it was deregulated little by little through the 70's and 80's. So what are the figures? Let's go to my FAVORITE Economic resource, Executive Paywatch. The CEO of Medco (a pharmaceutical third party payor), David B. Snow made $14 million the last 2 years, while the CEO of Aetna (a health insurer) made $18 million. The CEO of State Farm made $13.66 million last year, and the CEO of MetLife made $22.4 million last year. Anyone else feeling had?

The next problem that needs to be nailed down is the aggressive marketing by Pharmaceutical companies. Whatever happened to doctors deciding you had a condition, and not you? The government banned cigarrette commercials in the 70's and should do the same for pharmaceutical companies. Many cholesterol drugs cause liver damage, but yet most of them are advertised on t.v. How is that not dangerous marketing? Doctors are not allowed to tell their patients they are fat and need to go on a low-fat diet, but are pressured by their patients to give them Lipitor. You can get a coupon for Ambien in Reader's Digest that has all the insurance processing information for a free 7 day supply. If someone forged a prescription and took it to an understaffed Rite Aid, they would get free drugs, and most likely not get caught. Scary?

Let's talk about their CEO's compensation - the CEO of Merck & Co. made $25 million last year, the CEO of Bristol-Meyers Squibb made $24 million, and the CEO of Mylan (a strictly generics producer) made $13 million. I know my doctor didn't even make close to that, and our pharmacists - pocket change compared to these market drug pushers. There are so many things that need fixed in our healthcare system, a hastily passed bill this fall will not even begin to fix. So I have written my Congressmen/women to tell them to stop the easyspeak, and get down to the real healthcare problem.

We paid over $11,000 in insurance premiums (which my employer pays 2/3), copays and your-share/non-covered services last year. How much did you pay?

Crystals, Thundereggs, Fossils and More North Cascade Adventures

It seems that everytime I start feeling really good, my body throws a wrench in the wheel. I had just gotten back into my running routine when two weeks ago I passed a large kidney stone. A C.T. scan later showed six more in my kidneys which are causing me A LOT of back pain and nausea. The doctor thought I should stay home and wait it out, but that's just not me.

I've been working full time through the pain, and going on walks when I feel good. Last week, I took out some aggression on rocks and geodes as we went rockhounding at Walker Valley in Skagit County. We tried to hike up to a ridge, but between the Youngest's asthma and my back pain, we only made it a mile, then turned around. Next we went to the DNR gravel pit where we sledged, dug, and hammered rocks for hours looking for crystals.

Tay found the best thunderegg, the Hermit found some great smaller intact thundereggs, and I found some jadite, very small thundereggs, a large deposit of sulphur (yuck), and of course fossils. If you ever want to find fossils, just bring me with you. I think I have an internal radar for fossils as I have found them on every rockhounding trip, no matter what we're searching for.

Anyway, here are some great pictures of our trip and our finds...

Sitting in a hole breaking rocks

Still sitting in a hole breaking rocks

Small Geodes

Large Geodes

No kids?! No Fun.

This was supposed to be a weekend of adventure, that turned into a weekend of sleep. The kids were all scheduled to be at their other BioParent's houses, and it is gold panning season in our local streams. We had planned an over-night trip onto FR 49 to pan the mountain streams. Instead, I had a painful day at work on Friday, that turned into true trauma Friday night.

I had all the symptoms of a kidney stone all day at work, but I really didn't know how much pain I was in for, or I would have driven straight to the ER after work instead of suffering it out med-free at home. But I got through it with yoga breathing mixed with blubbery crying, only to find out on Saturday with a CT scan that there are at least 5 more. In our "greatest healthcare system in the world" it is going to be 2 weeks before I can see a urologist.

In the meantime, I just have to deal with the unrelenting back pain and wait. I've decided to work anyway, because it can be up to 3 weeks before they all make their way through my system, and in the meantime will get some bloodwork done to see if there's an underlying cause. I really think it's because we don't take enough time to drink or take a break in the pharmacy, but we'll see.

So with this downtime, here are some pictures from the last 3 weeks...

Blueberries on the vine

More Blueberries from the backyard

My tomato/cucumber pot

My herb pot - sage, thyme, cilantro and grape tomatoes

It is supposed to be sunny on Sunday, so I'll take some updated pictures.

Weeks of Adventure

It has been difficult to post lately due to both computer and time issues. I need to take a day to clean up my hard-drive, but who wants to do that when it's warm and sunny outside? I wanted to post a blog about our Sloan Creek picnic and adventure up FR 49, but the blog was blah without the pictures my computer just couldn't upload.

My sister came to visit us from Maryland a week ago, and I kicked her butt on the Boulder Creek hike, and spent a day on the Pilchuck River with our mom and step-dad. But once again, the computer wouldn't cooperate when it came time to upload the pictures. In fact, today is the first day this week I've had to sit down and start my day slowly. The kids were in the SnoCo Parks Totally Tech camp last week, but the north Everett shuttle was canceled, so we've been driving to McCollum Park in Mill Creek every day this week. They made some cool animated movies and wrote a couple of video games (along with swimming and kayaking).

On Wednesday, we drove up Segelsen Ridge behind us (behind Mt. Higgins), determined to find Higgins Creek. On our way up, I spotted a wild fire on the Southeast ridge of Mt. Higgins and called it in. We've had 4 lightning storms in the last week, and on Thursday had 11 fires in the Darrington area. The fires on Higgins and Jumbo are out, but Gold Mountain and Whitehorse Ridge are still burning, and I'm not sure where the other fires are located.

We found really large fossils at a shale slide on Segelsen Ridge that day, and stopped within a mile of the crystal site we were headed for. The Hermit didn't trust my map skills and didn't want to go down the Forest Road I told him to turn on, so we ended up picking through some dry creekbeds and finding some sparkly sandstone rocks. When we got home, I showed him my map and compared it to his gemstone map, and he was really bummed he didn't listen to me.

So today, I have to go back up the scary road and this time go all the way to Higgins Creek. Actually there are some spectacular views of the river valley and the surrounding peaks, including Whitehorse, and the road is only scary on Segelsen Pass, but scary it is! I have no problem with heights when I'm walking or biking, but on a horse or in a car, it really freaks me out. Lake Cavanaugh Road has nothing on these cliffs. I felt like I was on the Highway of Death in Peru, okay maybe not that bad, but let's just say I had some anxiety issues.

So I'm going to attempt to upload a few pictures for you, and we'll see how it goes:

Mt. Higgins fire 7/29/09

Top of Round Mountain taken from Segelsen Ridge

View of Whitehorse from Segelsen Ridge

What do you know? It worked! I will post pics of the rest of our adventures later.

Restless Life Goes On

I cannot believe how tired I am today. Lately, it seems that work is wiping me out. Nothing too drastic has changed at work, but everyone else seems to have stuff going on, and I've been left by myself several times in the last weeks to run the show. Ten years ago, that was no problem, but now, my knee and my back are screaming for me to take it easy. It's to the point now where I can't keep up with my housework, because I'm recovering from work. I feel too young to feel like this, but I don't even feel like exercising anymore, because I'm absolutely wiped out. Hmmm...what's up with that?!

I did finally finish my urban garden on Sunday, which gives me encouragement for the future career. I will load pictures later, when everything grows a little larger. Due to a mapping error by our house builder, we have to move the old garden to another part of the yard, so it doesn't affect our drain field anymore (I know, gross). But before I can do that, the Hermit needs to remove about 10 stumps, and that won't happen until next February, as long as there's not feet of snow like this past winter. We were planning on moving it this year, but Mamma Nature had other plans, so I had to improvise.

I've got several large pots going, a couple of planters, and 3 beefsteak tomatoes in their own pots. Of course, there's not peas or corn this year, but all of the fruits that we planted 6 years ago, have finally grown large enough for big harvests, so to me, that makes up for a lack of a plot. I've been having a great time making jam and syrup from my strawberries, gorged on tons of cherries, just harvested some raspberries for ?? this week, and in a few weeks we'll have thousands of blueberries. The blueberries will be our largest harvest this year, but I think I will still miss my corn and sunflowers. Pictures soon, I promise.

Jesus Says Pollute? Really?!

Once upon a time, a young Italian navigator was forced to go to the Inquisition Queen and King in Spain for funding to prove the Earth was round, because he was ostracized from Italy by the Catholic Church. Does this story sound familiar? Since I start my Junior Year in September, and I am down to zero reading material, I've decided to really concentrate on reading Climate Change and Green Engineering articles and studies. Boring, I know, but it must be done.

What do these two things have to do with eachother? Well, I am saddened by the comments on some of these online articles from "Christians" who have been convinced that Climate Change is nothing but a ploy to give liberals money. Despite 99.9% of all scientists and science studies showing that Climate Change is natural, but being exponentially increased by human activities, they call it "junk science." They proudly boast at how they purposely waste fuel, paper and other resources and they actually think it's funny.

The church seems to have cyclic activities in Science - healthily promoting it some centuries, and lying and killing to dispose of it in others. Some of the greatest Biologic findings were from monks like Mendel, and healthcare and sanitization were spurred into modernization from church organizations like the Red Cross. But, I'm afraid we are stuck in an era of church hindering Science once again.

The modern church preaches against condoms and birth control, and yet we have an AIDS epidemic and famines in over-populated third world nations where the churches control information through their missionaries. As things warm up and dry up, these famines will become worse, and increase in size. The Pacific front of WWII was basically fought over oil, and some say the Middle East wars were too. What will humans resort to when fighting over water?

Are these "Christians" really that selfish that they are willing to risk the quality of life of their children and grandchildren, so they don't have to change a thing? Perhaps they are just ignorant to the facts. I guarantee that if Jesus was on Earth today he would not be saying, "pump the oil at all costs and drive, drive, drive. Rape the Earth and pillage the rest of the resources while you're at it, and reclassify the toxic waste as toxic fill so you can pollute as much as you want." Really, is that what people think Jesus would do, or would he be appalled by the way humans have treated the only Earth they have?

I'm not sure what happens to us after we die, but I'm sure that I don't want to leave a toxic planet for future generations. I have found some churches that are preaching climate change, but they are few and far between, and they certainly are not standing up to their bully-pulpit brethren. Nor are they getting the publicity they deserve. One only has to look to the ice cores taken from the poles to see how the atmosphere changes the climate - what have you pumped into it today?