One-payer system – a utilitarian approach to healthcare.

Why do we need this approach? In my opinion, this is the only approach  that makes good sense! Though the consequence may be that the health insurance companies might cease to exist, the one payer system form of insurance is sure to cover everyone sans the varying health insurance costs that we currently have  which make health insurances unaffordable to many.

WB, me…

I know I have been slacking off. The last thing I wanted to do was blog amidst my hectic schedule this summer. But, somehow I knew I’ll find my way back here eventually and here I am again. WB (welcome back), me!

It hurts…

I can’t think fast – it hurts! I really abused my brain today at work. This writing I am doing right now is even making me reach for a bottle of alleve tablets, that is just how bad it is. But should I be complaining? I really have no reason to, at least I have a job that allows me to afford a bottle of alleve tablets to take care of my headaches.

Early bird

I woke up very early as planned and proceeded to head towards downtown Dallas. Just as I expected, downtown was semi-deserted – only a few cars, few buses, few patrol cars and few pedestrians. I was able to get several pictures of  an area of the city from the Dallas Convention Center area vantage point. Also, I didn’t miss taking pictures of the Dallas city hall. I only took pictures of what  caught my attention and I was only there for about 30 minutes. I was in and out in no time. Much better than I expected. Pretty good, huh?

Now, only if I know what my afternoon will bring…more pictures taken perhaps??

TGIF…here comes the weekend again!

My, my…it has been a long day or week for that matter. The work at the office somehow didn’t want to let up- it just kept on coming. Thank God that it finally ended for this week. Now I am looking forward to just chillin’ out this weekend.

Nothing out of the ordinary has been planned for the weekend, just the usual “driving Ms. Daisy” duty that I do for my family. Tomorrow, I’ll be taking my daughter to two of her activities. I don’t mind taking her as it gives me the chance to take pictures. Since I will be out there with her anyway, why not be productive, right? Her first activity, she’ll be dancing the hula along with everyone in her hula class at a public venue. I plan to take a lot of group and individual dance pictures. Her second activity, she’ll be attending her classmate’s birthday party at a party place in another city with picturesque areas. I’ll be dropping her off at the party place and I’ll proceed to a few of the city’s picturesque areas. I hope to cover a few of those before the sun sets completely.

But what I have not mentioned was what I am going to do early tomorrow morning. I plan to get up early to take pictures around the Dallas downtown area at a time when there’s hardly any traffic around. It’ll give me a chance to really compose the shots and not to worry about pedestrians or traffic obstructing the views.

Between my daughter’s activities and my undertakings in the morning, I hope to snag a bunch of workable pictures worth posting on Flickr. We will see about it tomorrow.

Brain too numb again….

Listening to tonight’s nightly news I said to myself, “What the hell are they yapping about?” In rapid fire, the newscasters tried to fit all the news, weather, and sports in the 30 minutes they are allotted. I wasn’t comprehending any of it. My next question was, “why am I listening to all these?” After the second question I stood up, turned off the tv set, and proceeded to sit in front of the computer.  Now that the “noise” is gone I can make my brain go at a slow speed (minimal thinking) for just a little while.

It was brain-numbing at work because of all the unnecessary activities that happened today. One of them, a congressman came and paid my company a visit (probably looking for campaign support). The company’s leadership suspended today’s  casual day Friday just for this congressman’s visit. I just cussed the leadership in my mind as I don’t want to jeopardize my employment that allows me to bring home “bread and some butter”. It was unnecessary for me to vocalize any of it for, if I did, I would sound silly to everyone and then everyone will start questioning my loyalty. In addition to the attire change, the leadership also suggested for us to keep our work areas dusted and to keep it clean at least up to after the visit. This was so counter to my kind of organization, which is chaos, that I spent quite a few minutes after the congressman left trying to locate the things that got “misplaced” but were within reach before the visit. The other thing that got added to the mix was the slow pace of the workload getting to everyone’s desk which was due to malfunctioning fairly new work processors.

I really would like to have a glass of red wine right now but can’t do it since I just took my cholesterol medication. It is bad to mix alcohol and medication – it taxes the liver! I can just hold the glass without the wine, of course. Till next time folks.

Hasta luego.

Brain too numb to opine…

It’s a crazy world we live in today… a thriving sea piracy activity; labor unions discussing the role of unions when job creation in the country is slowing down and when value addedness of a job dictates how secure the job is; people getting too preoccupied about reproduction rights; leaders diminishing their official integrity by committing “blunders”. If you have been keeping tab on the news lately, all of these should sound familiar. There is a likely explanation somewhere why these issues are in the news, I think – could it be that all our second guessing is the root cause? I don’t really know the answer and my head would hurt if I try.

Lessons learned…

I decided to do my long run today – 18 miles to be exact, but I did not stick to my regular route which was flat and with only a gradual uphill climb. I chose a route with real “up”hills on it with steeper incline than my usual route. Good workout.  I’ve never tried grasping for breath every half-a- mile and today I did, especially on t he uphill part.

Luckily, the today’s weather was perfect for running  than the previous days. The past few days were deluge with icing and sub 40 temperatures. Today’s temperature was at 50 when I started and around 65 when I finished. In that temperature I thought that if I were not as zapped as I was I could easily have ran a marathon distance. But instead I had to stop at 18 for I was “drained”.

I had a light breakfast before I ran. I figured that I can just depend solely on the “goo” or “gu” to sustain me during the run and that that will be sufficient enough. I was wrong. It wasn’t sufficient. Halfway to the run, I realized that I should have gone to McD for the tried-and-true egg mcmuffins. I usually buy two, one to be eaten before the run and the other as I approach half way. This two-mcmuffins-plus-the ‘gu’ or ‘blocks’-in-between combination is what I have been accustomed to and this is  just fine for me. On my next run, I will be going back to doing the egg mcmuffins, that’s for sure.

I also started running today without using bandages placed on friction-prone areas on my toes. Bad idea. I started feeling the effect of my miscalculation on the tenth mile.  I thought about it prior to the run but decided not to as I was anxious to start my run. A simple process that doesn’t take but 5 minutes could have saved me in a lot of hurt had I done it. Right now, one of my small toe hurts especially when I wear shoes. It was a bad idea not to do the tape, if you ask me.

I surely learned two main things today – to always tape and to stick to tried- and-true methods of sustaining oneself. It was a good thing that it was just a “fun” run and not a marathon. At least with a “fun” run I  have a prerogative to stop whenever I  feel like it, in a marathon I will have to do 26.3 regardless of what other things I’m feeling during the ‘race’. Thank God it wasn’t a marathon!

Too little time..

I’ve been in a mad dash trying to understand a very delicate work related topic. I have a short time to remember all of it before I am supposed to function in full capacity. Here goes nothing! I will be the only person in a remote place doing it and the nearest person to consult with if ever there will be challenges is several thousand miles away. What pressure! But it’s okay, life goes on whether mistakes are committed or not.

I was not able to de-stress myself today as it was raining on and off all day long. The pavement on the running trail was wet and I just did not feel like putting out any effort trying not to slip while running. I saw some persistent runners out there (crazy) bundled up trying to overcome the rain and the cold at the same time. Crazy just like me a few weeks ago.

Well anyway, I have to end here for now. I have to do my husbandly duties now – ironing clothes for tomorrow.

What the…. ;)

It was cold this morning at 34 degrees F, too cold for my running comfort. I resigned myself to catching up on my work related readings when I woke up at four thirty a.m.. But before deciding on the last minute not to run, I already had started going through my checklist in my head: spare running phone; water sling; water jug (to be left in my car); mp3 player; money;gloves; head cap; reflector belt; and finally to drive to McD for 2 egg mcmuffins prior to hitting the running trails. So much for the planning – scrapped on the last minute for the warm comfort of home. I was being a wuzz again.

Much of the day was spent doing my readings, driving “Ms. Daisy” (the wife) to the grocery store, dozing off every now and then in front of the computer, and waiting for a good show on television to start. Sports sucks today as the Mavericks got blasted by the Celtics – it looks like Mark Cuban is pissed again because of that.

The weather got warm after lunch but can’t do any running then as my last minute errands were still going on at that time. What a life! But I guess it’s okay…there’ll be another day. Another day when I can slip out of the house when everyone still is asleep.

Till next time.