Some Blog Site

I had a postage-paid package to mail. Everything was ready, I just had to drop it in the drop box. But when I got to the drop box, I saw a warning that anything over 13 ounces must be taken in person to the clerk and must not be put into the drop box. Something about heightened security concerns…

So instead of just dropping off the box, I now have to go into the post office. Normally, I drop off mail on my way to work, which is well before the post office opens. Change of plans – I will stop by the post office on the way home from work.

Usually when I go to this post office, there is a long line. They have the equivalent of a postal ATM (a machine that dispenses stamps instead of cash), but last time I needed that it had 3 people in its line. So I did not have very high hopes to begin.

But it was 3:50 pm on a Thursday, so I didn’t expect that many people in line. Aren’t these people supposed to be at work? Maybe they’re wondering the same thing about me…

There are a handful of people in line already, with 2 people being served at the 2 open register/counter thingies. I am about the 6th person in line. At 4:00, 10 minutes after I got there, I was the 5th person in line. The one postal employee finally finished helping the one guy who had been at the counter the whole time, apparently with a complex postal problem.

Okay, now the line can start moving.

Nope, it’s 4:00 and that is apparently the end of his shift. So he leaves the counter and goes through the back hallway, leaving one postal employee to handle the now 10 or 11 of us in line.

The guy ahead of me remarks that there are 6 counters available for use, but only one person working. I agree, why waste all that space? Maybe they’re keeping it for the Christmas rush.

The worker guy comes back to the counter! Maybe he just needed a little break. Nope, he grabs some keys and leaves us again. The guy behind me keeps cursing and mumbling.

The worker guy comes back again. This time he opens and closes a drawer before leaving. The guy ahead of me comments that “he’s just teasing us now.”

At 4:05, a replacement worker opens up the counter that the worker guy had vacated. Okay, the next shift is here. The line starts moving – far counter takes the next customer, near counter, far counter, now it’s my turn. The mumbling cursing guy behind me makes sure I know that it’s my turn to go to the counter.

I tell the clerk lady that I’m not sure how much this thing weighs and the mailbox said to bring it in person. She takes the package and says “No, it’s fine” without even weighing it.

I’m leaving the counter about 10 seconds after I arrived there, but I’m leaving the post office about 20 minutes after I arrived there. The post office has a nice big sign out front that says something like “Open later to serve you better”. I don’t want better service later – I want better service now. But now I know why they say that – they need to stay open later to accommodate all the customers still waiting in line when they close.

A good meal plan is to eat as many different colors as you can. This would normally be something like blueberries, oranges, corn, broccoli, cauliflower, beef, strawberries, jellyfish, etc. The more different colors you eat, the more different nutrients you get.

I put that strategy into action today for lunch – I packed M&Ms.

I was wandering around some blogs the other day and discovered that I was lost. I had been reading my sister’s blog and followed a link to MckMama’s blog. I had participated in one of MckMama’s Not Me Monday events, and so I was looking at the other participants. Well, not them, but their screen names.  I noticed that they were all female. I felt very out-of-place.

Ah-ha. I saw a guy among the women at MckBlog. “Lazy Phil” it was. So I clicked on the link and it took me to the blog of the “Lazy Philosopher“. Entertaining, but that philosopher happened to be female. I couldn’t find any sort of biography on Lazy Phil, but since Lazy Phil attends a Ladies’ Bible Study, I am assuming she is female.

I saw that a lot of these blogs belonged to a group/website at blogher.com. I wondered “Maybe there’s a bloghim.com too.” Of course the domain is taken, but it is just a landing page that has ads and is of no use to anyone. It’s a shame all the good names are taken and not put to good use. That’s why I have someblogsite.com – the dozens of other names I tried were taken.

Then I followed a link from my sister’s blog to BooMama’s blog. I flipped through and saw a recap of American Idol and there were some other blogs that linked to that post. I saw one belonging to “Scott”, so I followed that one because, having learned from “Phil”, I could not think of any other word whose abbreviation is “Scott”.

It was like being a kid when your parents had company over for dinner, and you are sitting there while they make polite conversation but you’re wondering “Where’s the stuff that I like?” And you’re wearing nice clothes, not your comfortable clothes. It was like someone had come into the room and told you that all the other kids are having fun in the other room and you should go there. Note to self: get a better analogy, one that doesn’t equate women with adults and men with kids.  That tired sitcom formula of man-bad/woman-good needs to end.  Not that this analogy does that explicitly, but someone could incorrectly infer that.  Mine’s just an out-of-placey analogy that doesn’t also involve males and females.

Honey, I Fed The Kids was different, refreshingly so, from those female blogs. That’s blogs by females, not female blogs. I think blogs themselves are neutral. Like Christian blogs. No, the blogs are not going to heaven, so they’re not Christian blogs (thanks Justin). But they are blogs by Christians.

If you’ve watched American Idol this season, then you’ll appreciate this post by Scott. If you’ve ever watched the Muppets, and are aware of the American Idol judges, then you’ll appreciate this post by Scott’s wife.  And I followed a comment from Scott’s blog to the Big Doofus blog, and it was equally entertaining.

There’s really not much of a point to this post, so thanks for reading to the end.

“but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him.”
– Acts 10:35

Here are some more conversations that the children had recently:

Spelling Lesson

The 5-year-old like to read, and if he encounters a word he doesn’t know, he spells it for us and asks us what that spells. The 3-year-old wants to be like his brother, so even though he is not reading anything, he will starts spelling whatever letters come to mind and ask what that spells.

One evening at dinner, I heard “What does S-O-I-S-A spell?”

He was just making up letters as he went along. Normally I oblige and try to pronounce whatever he spells, but this time I just replied “I don’t know”

To which the 3-year-old responded, to his brother, “That word is too hard for him.”

Boys-Only

3-year-old, acting playfully distraught: “Ahhh! I said a girl word! Ahhh! Ahhh!“, accompanied by great arm-waving.

Their mother, after exchanging quizzical looks with me: “What’s a girl word?”

5-year-old, helping us understand his perspective: “He said ‘Beautiful’.”

This post is for all of you who were wondering how much it costs to have a baby these days. And if you weren’t wondering, maybe you are now. And “have a baby” does not mean raise or care for a baby – it means “deliver in a hospital”. And this does not include C-section, which would cost significantly more.

My wife gave birth on February 27th. Our insurance company has notified us of the claims entered, but we have not yet received any hospital bills.  If they can wait 3 months to send the bills, does that mean I can wait 3 months to pay them?

We have an HSA plan, so the way our insurance works is that all claims go to the insurance company. The insurance decides how much the hospital can actually charge (based on whatever deals they had worked out ahead of time for being in the network), and then the hospital sends the revised bill to me. I have a medical checking account and I write a check to the hospital (or doctor or whoever is charging me for medical services). The insurance company does not pay any money unless I go over a certain limit for the year. By the way, having a baby will put you way over the limit right away.

According to the claims, it costs $14,500 to have a baby (staying in the hospital Friday night, Saturday night, and leaving Sunday afternoon). That’s not what it costs me, and that’s not what it costs the insurance company. That’s what it would cost someone without insurance who just paid whatever the doctors and hospital charged.

Here’s the breakdown:

• wife’s hospital stay: $8,000
• wife’s doctor: $3,000
• anesthesiologist: $1,000
• baby’s hospital stay: $2,500
• circumcision: $255

The epidural cost $1,000, but after going through insurance, it cost only $500.  Believe me, that’s money well spent.  And if you don’t believe me, ask my wife.

I got to sleep at the hospital for no charge! So what if it was just a couch? And I got all the free water I could drink. And free wireless access in the room. All that free stuff, for only $14,500!

Due to the extra charge for circumcision, it is more expensive to give birth to a boy, but I think a boy costs less in the long run.

“Let your father and your mother be glad,And let her rejoice who gave birth to you.”
– Proverbs 23:25

One of the great things about having kids, and having your parents still in the house in which you grew up, is that you get to relive the experiences you had growing up. Preferably they would be only the good experiences, the ones you want to relive.

This past Saturday, my brother had his kids and my kids down by my parents’ pond. He found a garter snake and pointed it out to the children. It was about a foot and a half long, maybe two feet.

I have many memories of chasing and catching garter snakes during springs and summers. I thought I would try to relive my glory days of snake catching. Those days must have been 20-25 years ago. So my brother and I chased it through the grass. The snake must not have had anywhere to go, because he didn’t hide very well and didn’t go very far. I grabbed for him a few times, but my skills were a little rusty. I missed those few times, always hitting just where the tail had just been.

I decided that I needed to aim closer to his head, leading a little bit so that I wouldn’t miss again. But I also wanted both hands free so that I could quickly grab his head once I caught his body. That’s the easiest way to avoid being bitten. I was carrying the infant in one arm, so I handed him over to my brother so that I could have both arms free to catch the snake. Surprisingly, I caught the snake on the next attempt.

It is a lot easier chasing snakes without having to worry about dropping a 2-month-old child.

I held the snake just behind his head. Sure enough, he started twisting his head around, with his mouth open and fangs bared. He tried that only twice and then realized it was futile. But he also was writhing his body. You want to hold the flailing body away from you, at arm’s length, because the snake will usually start emptying his digestive system. And you don’t want that to get all over you.

We took the snake over to the other children, and they were interested for a little bit. They touched it, but no one wanted to hold it. Then it was dinner time, so I let the snake go back in the grass. I assume there’s no license required for catch-and-release for snakes.

“Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish; he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he?”
– Luke 11:11

Or is the plural of hoodlum hoodla?

Anyway, Saturday morning, when I left for the store, I didn’t notice anything wrong at the end of the driveway. Slightly later Saturday morning, when I returned from the store, I noticed right away that the mailbox was missing.

It was a white mailbox, so it was rather noticeable. I doubt that it was there when I left that morning, because it is across the road from the end of the driveway. As you drive down our 300-foot-long driveway, you are facing the mailbox the entire time.

But just before I turned back onto our driveway, I noticed it was conspicuously missing. I got out of the minivan and looked around. I expected to see it damaged, lying nearby. But there was no sign of it anywhere.

People have hit the mailbox before and broken it. Our driveway is the first one off a major road, so people who missed something often use our driveway to turn around. (Because of that, whenever I miss my turn and need to turn around, I use the second or third driveway, not the first.) When those people hit the mailbox, at least they leave it alone – either on the ground next to the mailbox post or dangling from it.

Since there was no sign of the mailbox, and since it was only an hour or two until the mail was supposed to arrive, I figured I needed to put a replacement mailbox up immediately.

All you thrower-awayers out there, especially those who have tried to convince me that I shouldn’t save everything: take note. I did not need to go buy a new mailbox because I still had my old one in the garage. I had replaced the mailbox a few years ago because the number stickers were peeling and the paint was wearing away. When I installed the new mailbox, I did not throw away the old one, even though there was ostensibly no use for it any more. I just put it in my garage because it was still functional. And when I had need for a mailbox, it was right there for me.

This incident has furthered my resolve that yes, I really do need to save that, whatever that may be that I feel like saving. If anyone asks me why I am saving something, my answer will be that I might need it someday. And you never know when that will be (although it usually works out to be just after you throw it away).

I re-installed the old mailbox and went back inside the house to do other things. Later that day, I glanced down the driveway and noticed something white at the end of our driveway. Someone had found our mailbox and placed it on our yard. Or maybe the hooligan who took it had a change of heart and returned it. It was rather undamaged for being torn or knocked from the post. The plastic newspaper box that was still on its post (right next to the mailbox post) was severely bent, so I know that some traumatic event happened there.

Now I am back to two functioning mailboxes. I have the old mailbox collecting mail and the newer, nicer mailbox collecting dust. Maybe I’ll wait for something to happen to the old mailbox and switch them then.