Healthcare Reform

Right now one of the biggest debates that is facing our nation is what to do about Healthcare. While I do not know what the correct answer is, I do know that something must be done.

Many of my friends and colleges have started to share insurance nightmares. Issues that they are facing, dealing with when it comes to insurance companies. I felt that I had to voice the following story.

Several years ago my aunt woke up early in the morning not feeling very well. She woke up my uncle, who after taking one look at her realized something was very wrong. My uncle called 911 and the firemen and paramedics came. After the paramedics evaluated my aunt they decided she needed to get to the hospital ASAP and called for an ambulance.

Soon after getting to the hospital, the Dr's felt my aunt my be having a heart attack and called a cardiologist in. As the cardiologist was tending to my aunt, she suffered a massive heart attack and passed away.

While this is a tragic story our family was comforted by the level of care that was received at every step of the process. From the firemen all the way to cardiologist.

You are probably wondering how this story could get worse or what the twist is. Several weeks after my aunt passed away, my uncle received a letter from the insurance company saying they had reviewed the case and they felt he overreacted, and that an ambulance was not necessary and that they would not cover the expense.

Err What? Over reacted? Ambulance not necessary? In case you missed the end of the story, which the insurance company obviously did. She died! How could it be more serious?

Obviously my uncle was in no shape to deal with the issue, and his son stepped in. After many phone calls to the insurance company, while grieving for the loss of his mother, my cousin finally snapped and told the insurance company he was not dealing with them anymore, that he was turning it over to his attorney, because he could not possibly imagine how the insurance companies position of "not serious" could hold any water since she died. Once this threat was made, someone called back from the insurance company and of course agreed to cover the ambulance.

As I started this post, I don't have the answer to the insurance crisis facing our country. All I do know is that something must be changed. Stories like this, which I first took truly as an administrative blunder, seem to be all to common and are anything but administrative mistakes, but truly the insurance companies standard operating procedure.

Nepresso, UPS and Fire

This was just one of those weird stories that could not go by without commentary.

Those of you who know me know we are avid Nespresso drinkers. My mother in law was in town for a visit and there is no other way to describe it but that it looked like locust had been through the capsules. She drank us dry. No worries Nespresso has a wonderful website where it is very easy to order more coffee.

This morning I was at the gym. There was a piece on the news about a fire at the UPS processing facility. The news interviewed the fire chief and he said that the sprinkler system had pretty much taken care of the fire before they got there. Didn't really think much about it.

As the day went on it dawned on me that my Nespresso delivery most likely would have been at a warehouse last night getting prepped for today's delivery. I instantly had visions of my Nespresso box being covered in foam and water. I went to the UPS site to track my shipment and it says "EMERGENCY CONDITIONS BEYOND UPS' CONTROL". Well at this point who knows when I am going to get the package and quite frankly since we are talking an edible product here, not sure I really would want it anyways.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

I called the Nespresso club. Their customer service is always amazing and this time was no exception. I told the women who answered what happened and she said she should take care of everything. She reprocessed my order, upgrading my shipping to overnight and sent it with a different carrier to make sure it did not get caught at the damaged facility. She also said that they would take care of filing all the claims with UPS and and not to worry about a thing.

It is amazing how great Nespresso's customer service is. Now only time will tell what happens with the UPS.

Hello MiFi

I spend a lot of time on the road. While bandwidth is almost pervasive these days it is not always free and yes there are even times you can't find it. I have had various WWAN cards since they where first offered by Sprint many years ago. My most recent incarnation was a PCI Express card. This has worked great with my MacBook Pro.

There have been some downsides to the card. Sometimes I wish I could use it with other devices. Not all notebooks have PCI Express slots. And yes there are other devices that can use WiFI that don't have a slot at all. Apple also recently released their new line of notebooks and the PCI Express slot is gone. Writing on the wall?

My connection at Sprint (yes I have one, no I won't share the deets) asked if I wanted to trade in my WWAN card for a new MiFi. Umm let me think about that for about 1 second.

My MiFi arrived about a week ago. I waited to post this so I could kick the tires a bit. Everything that I had hoped the device to be it is! The first wonderful surprise I got with the MiFi was the activation. The box came with one of those stop read me first pages. It said don't call but go to an activation URL. Very skeptically I went to the URL. I was surprised (shocked) at how easily the website worked. Simply provided my login, picked the device I wanted to upgrade from and bam it told me it was activated. The whole process took less than 5 minutes.

The MiFi acts like any another broadband router. Connects to the Sprint network on side and broadcasts WiFi on the other. The MiFi is configured through a simple web interface very similar to any other home router. You can choose your security connection, mine went to WPA2, and you can chose how many people can connect. I sent mine to the max which is 5.

My first tests with the MiFi have been wonderful. I have connected several notebooks and yes even my iPhone to the MiFi. This makes for a very interesting use case. My old 2.5 iPhone can now have faster bandwidth than the new 3GS!

I was also a bit surprised as to how small the MiFi was. Below is a pic next to my iPhone for a size comparison.

And yes this was posted from my Mifi!

iPhone 3.0

Apple released its much anticipated iPhone OS updated today. We have 3 devices in our house. An original 2.5 iPhone a 3G iPhone and an iPod touch.

I started with the 2.5. Update went flawlessly.

Next I moved onto the 3G. Got the error message below.

I did not find anything readily on Google. I gave Apple support a call and their phone systems tells you to go to the web to open up a ticket and then disconnects you. At first I was a bit perturbed but hey it is a busy day so I gave it a shot. The website very easily allowed me to open a ticket and even set a time slot when a rep would call me back which is about an hour and half after I opened the ticket.

Through twitter it seems like the iTune servers are crushed and everyone says to keep trying. I did just that and my 3G phone finally activated.

Next onto the iTouch. iTunes detected I need an OS upgrade took me to the store to buy it and then the following error.

This error is much more friendly then the one above. After several retries I got through and got the touch updated.

Apple did call at the alloted time. It was an automated system that said 1 to talk to a person or 2 to reschedule. I was waiting for 3 cancel the request. Which never came and the automated system jumped into a sorry we missed you and will try you again later. Apple did send me an email saying they missed me, with a link back to the website where I could cancel the call.

Bottom line Apple is not keeping up with the demand for today so either by patient and wait a bit or keep slamming them hoping you get in!

AdSense

I decided to start this here blog using Google's technologies. In the control panel they give you the ability to add AdSense ads to your site. I decided I would give it a shot. Trust me I am not expecting to make millions, but figured maybe a few bucks to buy some new toys to tinker with. While I do love tinkering with things, I don't like dealing with broken systems from other people.

Having never used AdSense before I clicked on the nice link in the blogger website to set up an account. I got the friendly message that my account has been disabled. Umm how can an account I have never set up be disabled? The disabled page leads to this stern page about all the bad things that one could have done to have their account disabled and an on-line petition form to protest.

Guess I will fill out the form and see what happens. Also starting to think, maybe I should have gotten a WordPress site...

Renaissance Engineer

During the Renaissance Period men often pursued the study of many different disciplines. Wikipedia officially defines Renaissance Men as Polymath -

Thus the gifted men of the Renaissance sought to develop skills in all areas of knowledge, in physical development, in social accomplishments and in the arts.

People often ask one what are your hobbies? I used to think I really did not have any. Then it dawned on me. I do have one. I love to dabble with technologies. When I read about something new, I love to research, work on and often build and replicate the technologies myself. This can be anything from redesigning the irrigation system for our garden, to learning new operating systems and the powers they with hold.

This blog will serve to document my escapades. Some may find it trite, but a am sure quite a few will find the escapades interesting or at least amusing.