Medical Savings Plans

Anybody have any experience with Medical Savings Plans ? I'm going to have to seriously look at these. Health Insurance Premiums for someone on their own are becoming more outrageous every year. Mine have gone up 15-20% every year and that just isn't going to cut it, boys and girls. So if you've gone down the road of Medical Savings Plans, post a comment here and let me know of the possible pitfalls or your experiences.

Photo of the Day

What would a web page be without a picture of one's cat? Wiillow is our "youngster", a 4 yr old female who has to put up with her older brother and arch nemesis "Turbo". She is the most loving and yet hyperactive cat there is, whereas Turbo is misnamed - the older he gets the slower he gets, yet he still has that nice male aggressive streak in him, which only means trouble for Willow. Canon 20D EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 ; 1/200th f5.6 55mm ISO 1600

Quote of the Day
Mitch Hedberg - That would be cool if you could eat a good food with a bad food and the good food would cover for the bad food when it got to your stomach. Like, you could eat a carrot with an onion ring and they would travel down to your stomach, then they would get there, and the carrot would say, "It's cool, he's with me."

Problems with IE

In case you're wondering, I haven't posted much lately because I'm trying to figure out why this new blog template doesn't display correctly in IE. There are supposed to be two columns, but the 2nd one doesn't appear.

Strange, as it works fine in Firefox and Opera. I think I'll try a different template just to see what happens, although I'm not holding out a lot of hope.

Interesting - I just changed it to one with a sort of dark teal background and this time both columns show up in IE. Not that I like this color text against this background (think it is a bit hard to read, but it dows give me something to work with). Expect even more changes and possibly new styles as I keep fiddling with this. I do see now that the padding between some of my photos and the text looks good in IE, but is too close in Firefox. Ya gotta love these cross platform problems. Everyone should just switch to Firefox and save me a lot of trouble. :)

Well, found one that I like for its legibility and am now in the process of tweaking it. Test Link

Over There - Whew!

I will say one thing for this show - it will keep you on the edge of your seat - you get a real feel for the tension of a car approaching your checkpoint in the middle of the night with no headlights - shoot? don't shoot and get blown up maybe? Talk about a buildup of plaque in the ol' arteries. I don't know how you can chill out after daily doses of that - no wonder soldiers come home all messed up.

Over There

Over There airs it's 2nd episode tonight at 10 p.m Eastern on the FX channel. You get to live the life of a soldier in Iraq vicariously.

HTML
Incidentally, does anyone know the html for opening a link in a new tab, but in the background, rather than stealing focus? I know" target=_blank" and that's what I use for most of my links but that takes someone away from the page by opening a new tab (or window). Is there a way for that to be written so that the reader can stay on this page and see the tab load in the background?

Testing out a new format

Playing around modifying my blog template some - bear with me while I do my best to screw this up. If you think it stinks, please comment. :)

You Don't Know Jack about Firefox!

If you use Firefox or are thinking about it and want to know more about its features and why everybody raves about this browser, then do yourself a favor and visit You Don't Know Jack About Firefox! I learned quite a few tips myself and I've been using this for some time now.

Was Bush wrong to appoint John Bolton as UN Ambassador?

According to the Lou Dobbs web site , 87% of you said Yes, he was wrong. Shows what Bush thinks of your opinion. With all the bright and good people there are out there, you send a blustery, tactless fool to the UN? Geez, don't we have enough problems already?

Photo of the Day

Oil on Water Sometimes it is the simple subject that works the best. I happened to notice the light coming in behind this oil lamp and since red is my favorite color, I was unable to resist. :) Canon 20D 100mmEF f2.8 Macro USM 1/60th @ f6.3 ISO 800 Click picture for full detail.

Extreme Makeover - Home Edition

You know in this crazy world of ours, one could become a pessimist without breaking a sweat - that's why it's nice to occasionally look over the other side of the fence and see the greener pastures - such as the TV show "Extreme Makeover - Home Edition" . If you can't shed a tear watching this show, then you might as well lie down in the highway right now and wait for the next tractor trailer. This is truly TV at it's best. Not only do you marvel at the incredible creativity of these people and their amazing construction abilities, but you also have to truly appreciate the genuine kindness these folks radiate. If you're ever feeling down and feeling cynical and just downright nasty, take the time to tune in - it will totally change your perspective - guaranteed.

Anthony Bourdain
Oh, before I forget - Anthony Bourdain does Iceland tonite on the Travel Channel - 10 p.m. Eastern. An Interview with Anthony . Most of you know about Anthony from me talking constantly about his engrossing ( a double entendre there) book - "Kitchen Confidential".

Raging Baristas vent! (or is that venti?)

I always like to check in on the Starbucks gossip blog - always interesting and sometimes quite funny - Check out what Baristas think of irritating people who come in to the stores - quite a hoot! An example - "There is a woman who comes into our store every day, orders a tall decaf drip,(Sumatra; you know who you are!!) eats samples with both hands, and takes change out of the tip jar to pay for her coffee...unless I see her first. I move the tip jars when I see her in line. She also complains loudly every time we don't have bran muffins (could use the roughage, from the looks of her) but NEVER buys one when we do.
I wanna be the "Bad Barista" for just one day, so I can toss her wrinkled ass on the street. .

They get even better (and raunchier) - Don't you despise a customer who comes in and asks for grande non-fat cappucino and you get all excited because the store is almost empty and you have the chance to make the perfect cappucino, in a "for here" cup(!), with liquid chrome foam piled high and super sexy delicious. You create, very likely the best cappucino of your life, not too dry and and just at the right temperature. Then that same customer, you know the one, who wears the fake Gucci sunglasses and only comes in the day after welfare cheques are diposited, complains and says, "this is ALL foam, can you fill it up with milk. I didn't pay $3.91 for a cup full of foam." Thats what a fucking cappucino is you ignorant hoochie fool! Some people are just soooo not worthy!

For more of these priceless observations check out the "Bad Barista" story link .

Sports
The one guy who looked like he mght actually be telling the truth before Congress - boy, oh, boy - Rafael Palmeiro, the Baltimore Orioles slugger who at a Congressional hearing in March vehemently denied using steroids, was suspended for 10 days today for violating major league baseball's steroids policy. Read the full article in the Times . Another fine role model for young kids.

Quote of the Day
Mitch Hedbert - Rice is great if you're really hungry and want to eat two thousand of something