2013

In this past year Sharon and I have had to come to the realization that our sons are growing up. They now think they are more knowledgeable than we are in all subjects. We finally purchased one of those flat screen TVs this year. We can now watch TV on a large screen with our age impaired eyes. One evening when I turned it on it asked for a password for the parental controls. I did not know there was a password on the TV for parental controls and all I wanted to do was watch public television. I asked Sharon how to get past the password and get the TV to let me view channel 11 our local PBS station. She did not know the password either. That was when the remote was taken from my hands by my sons and they put in the password and allowed us to watch TV. When I asked what the password was so if it needed to be entered again I could do it, I was told “ you don’t need to know the password, Dad”. Now I understand the parental control phrase. It is not that the parents are in control. Oh, No, it means the parents are being controlled.

Matthew playing soccer.

                Micah is a junior in college this year (he reminds me of the statement about king Saul, from his shoulders up he was taller than all the people). He was adding up his bank accounts just before he went back to school and low and behold the numbers added up to less in his accounts than a year ago. How can that be when he is paying for college? I seem to have that problem every year and I have a job. Turns out he was keeping paychecks in his wallet and he was better off than he thought. I diligently searched my wallet but I found no uncashed paychecks, all I have are unpaid bills in my wallet. Somehow that seems unfair to me.

We fed the soccer team at our house before the Oskaloosa game 

They came, they ate, they left.

We had a couple of Dordt college choir members stay with us overnight after their concert in Pella one evening. I was driving home through Oskaloosa and stopped at a red light. This red light has a turn arrow for left hand turns before the light goes green. Being distracted by keeping the 2 choir members in the backseat entertained with a running monologue that I am sure they were enjoying immensely and would have begged for more if I had stopped talking I, of course went on through the intersection when the car in front of me turned left. Half way through I realized that the light was still red. You know that sinking feeling you get in the middle of an intersection when the light is red?  Oh, well, at least there were no police around. You know, I still have no idea where that cop was when I went through that red light because a couple of blocks later there were those lovely flashing lights behind me. The nice lady officer asked me if I knew why I had been stopped. I answered yes I just went through a stop light that was red. She slapped me heartily on the shoulder and said, “that’s’ the one.” License, registration, and insurance paperwork please. But she was nice and ran the paperwork, found out I was not wanted on any outstanding warrants at the moment and sent me on my way without even a warning. Got to love small towns. I kinda wonder what those choir members thought about my driving ability. They were only to eager to have Matthew drive them to meet the bus the next morning. Nah, I am sure there was no connection.

Matthew graduated from Pella Christian High.

Matthew drove from Oskaloosa to Pella the first of the year to attend Pella Christian High School. He would sometimes car pool with other students. One morning as he was riding with a friend, he had a phone call asking if he was still in the parking lot in Oskaloosa. "No", he said, "why"? Well your car is here in the parking lot with the motor running and we wondered where you were. Yea it is a good thing I was the one paying for his gas to get to and from school in Pella wasn't it? When I think of all the times I sat in a cold car waiting for my sons, too cheap to run the car and heater while I waited, I am relieved to know I have paid to heat an empty car.

Late spring evening meal on the patio.

Hopefully I have refinanced our mortgage for the last time now. I did it once more this year which after the last time when every odd thing in the world happened including getting other houses appraised instead of mine you would think I would have learned my lesson and just stayed away from mortgage companies. But no, lower interest rates beckoned with that seductive call. I dutifully sent in all the information that was requested. Then I waited, and waited, until the loan officer called and said “we have a problem”, you need to contact the IRS. Your application has been turned over to the fraud division. Oh Yeh!! Those are  the words everyone wants to hear. It seems even though I reported my salary to the IRS and they accepted tax payments, the IRS did not record a W2. The transcript showed a W2 income but the actual W2 was not recorded and on file. That of course had the auditor of the mortgage app. seeing red flags all over the place. I know if you are like me you quite often report phantom income to the IRS just to pay taxes you do not owe. I had to spend over an hour on the phone with a representative of the IRS, who assured me that although they were quite certain it was a mistake on the part of the IRS, there was nothing they could do about it. And here I thought they were a kind and caring government agency, and I know you all would agree that just the thought of the helpfulness of the IRS leaves you with warm fuzzy feelings. The bank did accept a letter from me stating what the IRS had told me and approved the mortgage. I guess the bank didn't expect much from the IRS either.

Nothing like having a cougar show up in your back yard to keep small children away.

I know I am going clear out on a limb here but I am sure I cannot be the only person in the United States who believes that our health care system might be broken. Our health insurance company who in an effort to keep health insurance costs down allows me to pay all our medical bills except for the part that they have negotiated down with the medical providers. You have most likely seen this on your health care explanations sent to you by your insurance company.

Cost of Procedure	Health network savings	Amount you are responsible for
$23,835,892.32	$23,832,153.68	$3,738.64

If you noticed a strange omission there, good for you, you can now apply for a bookkeeping job at minimum wage. Ha, Ha just kidding some bookkeepers are paid at least 100.0025% the minimum wage. For those of you who did not notice, there was no payment by your health insurance provider to the actual medical provider. All the doctor or hospital received was notification that the insurance company was aware that the bill had been padded to the amount of $23,832,153.68 and the insurance company was not going to be gouged in this manner. The fact that you are paying insurance premiums and the medical bill is of course much too complicated a thought process for what the health insurance industry kindly refers to as the “brain dead idiots that allow us to automatically withdraw funds from their bank account every month” The health insurance industry, of course, does not call its “highly valued customers” by a politically incorrect name such as the above. They use the acronym BDIs.

                Anyway the reason for the above totally unkind rant on my part is one of our encounters with the medical profession this year. Sharon had the wisdom to contract an infection during office hours at our local medical center. It was just so out of the ordinary for our family over the last 6 years that for a moment I was wondering if I had somehow slipped into a parallel universe. “Calm down everyone and put away the party balloons and cake this story isn't finished yet.”

                Sharon quickly made an appointment to see a Doctor. They of course were all busy that day but there was a nurse practitioner available. If one knows that you have an infection and all that is required is a prescription for antibiotics, anyone who can legally write a script will do. At least in the normal world one would think so.

                Well instead of writing a prescription the good NP sent Sharon to have an ultrasound to rule out a blood clot. OK seems stupid to me seeing that Sharon was on Rituxan which lowers your ability to fight infections and she had a history of getting this particular infection, which eats muscles and is quite deadly, but I can understand wanting to rule out the blood clot prior to treatment, (OK, no truth in that statement). Remember the part about quite deadly and eats muscles, to me that would mean that time was an important factor. Well the good NP sent Sharon home to wait until she decided on how to treat.

                So just to recap here, Sharon goes to the doctor’s office before 9 am. Calls the NP at 2 pm to ask if she can get an antibiotic. NP calls back at 4:45 to say, “No I can not write a script for an antibiotic because your liver enzymes are elevated. (Of course it only took about 5 minutes on the internet to find that your muscles release liver enzymes as they break down. Boy, a flesh eating bacteria couldn't be the reason for that could it?) The NP said she would contact Sharon’s oncologist in the morning to find out what she should do. Sharon asked, what do I do if this gets worse? “Go to the emergency room,” was the NP’s answer. Ah, now we are back in my universe, never have a medical problem during office hours. How crazy was it to even bother going to a doctor’s office to start with. We should have just gone to the emergency room right off the bat and given them our bank account information so they could withdraw funds at their pleasure.

                Of course she went to the emergency room that night and began a 5 day regimen of intravenous antibiotics. Instead of an office visit at the doctor and a $5.00 copay for the antibiotic, (not to mention the pain and everything else that went with the flesh eating bacteria), we got to see those wonderful explanations from our health insurer how they were saving us money by not paying the hospital except for the portion that the insured (that would be us) owed.

                Although I do want you to know that the NP did send Sharon a nice hand written letter explaining how it was not her fault. As the commercial says Treatment $2,683.24, letter from NP, priceless. I know you are all jealous and want a letter like that now. Well I will sell you the one Sharon has if you send me the exact amount of the medical bill.

We took Tony to see the SAC museum 

I am still employed by VG Farms but I have to wonder why occasionally. One day when they were short on labor I was asked to drive a bus full of just weaned pigs to a nursery. Well I hopped in the driver’s seat of that old school bus and took off down the road. As I turned onto the highway the bus listed off to the right. OK so it more than listed, it felt like it was going to tip over and came to a dead stop. Seems I might have taken the corner a little too sharp and had dropped the back right wheels of the bus into the ditch. The front of the bus was on the highway blocking a lane of traffic. The rear of the bus was setting firmly on the gravel and the wheels were turning ever so freely and happily in the air. Of course the bus was twisted just enough the door would not open so I could sit there while all of the labor force that was not available to drive the bus could come to point and laugh, while I was flinching and cowering down every time traffic on the highway would slow at the last moment and swerve around me. After a while a wrecker came and pulled the bus out, funny thing is though I have not been asked if I would deliver any pigs in the bus since then. For those of you who are wondering I couldn't have planned it better myself.

Tony, real name Zou YiShuan

We have had a Chinese international student living with us this year. He had a couple of friends stay overnight one weekend. After breakfast the next morning, one of them saw our family picture on the wall. He asked how long ago the picture was taken. I said about six years ago. He said “you looked a lot better then.” Wow and here I thought I look just as young and handsome as I did when I was twenty.

I am always willing to help Tony with his homework, even though he never asks. I try to be helpful and give him answers to his calculus questions, but for some reason he doesn't believe me that the answer to every problem in calculus is “12”.  They must have learned a different math in China.

                         On our front porch.

I was out for a walk one night when my phone rang. I answered it only to have a woman yelling at me “why do you even have a phone if you are not going to answer it?” I said “well I am answering now. Who is this” I’ll never know because she had hung up. I thought about calling her back to see if she answered her phone but thought, Nah, let her think she straightened up whomever she thought she was yelling at, and seeing as this is already four pages long I had better stop before more people I don’t know are yelling at me.

Have a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Christmas 2013

Our rock flower beds. After the past couple of days, this looks very nice.