Nobody Asked Me…

WELL CRAP… scheduler didn’t work… sorry…

When doctors can’t tell the truth in their own professions/hospitals/practices???

“Wokeness feels like an existential threat,” a doctor from the Northwest said. “In health care, innovation depends on open, objective inquiry into complex problems, but that’s now undermined by this simplistic and racialized worldview where racism is seen as the cause of all disparities, despite robust data showing it’s not that simple.”

“Whole research areas are off-limits,” he said, adding that some of what is being published in the nation’s top journals is “shoddy as hell.” 

Full article, HERE, from Substack.

This is truly scary. Makes one long for the old country doctor that made house calls and actually ‘knew’ the patients.

I ran into an absolute cluster#$#@ yesterday at the local hospital. I had a referral from the VA to go get an x-ray on my hip so that I didn’t have to drive 2 hours each way to get it done at the VA.

I had ‘my’ paperwork with a referral number etc. Called the hospital about 1000 in the morning, was told “Oh, Radiology is a walk in. We have your paperwork, just come on it and they can do it.” I go down there at 1330, walk in and…

“Oh, we need the actual referral from your primary care doctor.”

Uh, you already have it… or had it as of 1000 this morning. Nope, mysteriously no longer there…

So I call the VA, get through to my care team and hand the phone to the admissions lady. She tells the nurse what is required, which the nurse told her had already been sent. Admissions lady goes off, comes back 10 minutes later, “No, there is nothing on file for you. You’ll have to have the VA resubmit it.”

I call the care team back, they say they sent another copy to the fax number they were given. I waited another fifteen minutes and called the hospital schedulers back. Nope… Nothing received…

I left, needless to say NOT in a good mood. I talked to the OKC VA folks on the way home, and they told me the document had been resent at 1350 (WHILE I WAS SITTING THERE)…

I’m going to make some calls on Monday to the Ombudsman at the horsepistol and give them a piece of my mind. And if they can’t find the #@$%% referral again, I’ll be driving to OKC to get the damn x-ray…

Oh, and the horsepistol is requiring everyone be masked… except all the employees have theirs pulled down until you walk up to their desks… !@#$$#@ WuFlu theater!!!

Beta reading for two different authors, plus trying to write on Rimworld #4, plus a little home improvement project…

There is a REASON to buy prehung doors… Grrrr…

This sumbitch took a half day to get installed… Of course the @*(*&#)@! frame was crooked… And tearing off all the crap to get to the frame itself was a non-starter, which is why I didn’t get a prehung one to start with.

Soooo, I ended up using a trick I was taught 50 years ago by an old master carpenter I helped out when I was a teenager. I had to chisel out and inset the top hinge on both the door and the frame, and leave the bottom hinge proud on both the frame to get the door to ‘pull’ in far enough in to actually fit on the other side.

And I proved once again that chisels are sharp… sigh

Yes, I know it ‘opens’ the wrong way, but the entry to that bath is ‘small’, and having the door open in would reduce that space even more, so I made it open out, since I don’t have to get into the linen closet to the right all that often.

And then cooked burgers and brats for a few folks that came over to remember those we’ve lost. It was a long day, but a good day, and time spent with friends is always special, especially when everyone kicks in and helps get things ready.

Light posting and commenting today, lots of reading to do, y’all go read the folks on the sidebar.

Ways to ‘challenge’ yourself and put money in the bank… Especially with costs of EVERYTHING going up…

If you find saving money a challenge, maybe the problem is that you’re not actually challenging yourself. Maybe you should take on a money-saving challenge – a sort of game to inspire you to save money. If you don’t save money, it may not be for a lack of money. It may be that you simply haven’t trained yourself to get into the habit of saving. So, if you’re looking to save, consider these money-saving challenges:

52-Week Savings Challenge Simply decide you’re going to save $1 a week or $2 or $5. Something manageable is the key, and preferably something meaningful. If you save $5 a week, you’d have $260 at the end of the year, but you probably won’t feel that much satisfaction. However, if you manage to save $100 a week, you’d have $5,200, which could pay for a vacation or holiday gifts or serve as an emergency fund. Or be creative and save $1 the first week, $2 the second, $3 the third and so forth, and you’ll have $1,378 by the end of the year.

“No Spend” Challenge Pick a weekend or a week and you spend no money except for paying bills. The idea is to save some money by not spending.

Pantry Challenge This is a contest in which you declare you won’t buy any food until you’ve exhausted all the possibilities from your refrigerator and pantry. As long as the food is not expired, this is your chance to consume what you’ve already bought and save money for a few days or weeks.

The ‘Keep All the Change’ Challenge Any time you receive change or find loose change in your house, put it in a jar. Do this for a year, and see how much you have at the end.

I’ve done this for years to ‘challenge’ the grandkids and I usually have between $400-500 at the end of the year.

Holiday Gift Challenge Open a holiday interest-bearing savings account at your bank or credit union for any weekly amount, and when December arrives, you have money for
the holidays.

365-Day Nickel-Saving Challenge On the first day put a nickel in a jar. The next day put 10 cents into the jar. The third day, 15 cents, and so forth. On day 365 you’ll deposit
$18.40 into the jar and you’ll have saved $3,339.75.

‘No Eating Out for a Month’ Challenge In 2019, Bureau of Labor Statistics found the average household spent $3,526 on dining out. Using that logic, if you don’t eat out in any given month, you might save $293. This could be the easiest challenge – or the hardest, if you order a lot of takeout.

Weather Wednesday Money Challenge Every Wednesday put money in your savings place tied to the highest temperature in your town. If in August it is 110 degrees you put in $110. In the dead of winter and it’s only 17 degrees, you save $17. If it’s -3 you could take out three bucks or put nothing in. All things considered you’ll save quite a bit over a year.

‘Trim 1% of Your Salary’ Challenge Do the math and figure out what 1% of your take home income is and save that amount. 1% is manageable, so it’s not so painful that
you’re miserable. If you can only only cut half a percent you’re still better off.

‘Kick a Bad Habit’ Money Challenge Do you smoke? Drink a lot of soda? Go out for coffee every day? There are degrees of bad habits of course. Going out for a coffee every day isn’t anywhere in the neighborhood of smoking, but still, you may consume excess calories in your daily coffee drink if it contains sugary syrup and whipped cream.

Whatever the habit you wish you could drop, this could be a good time to tell yourself you’re going to finally end a pattern of behavior – and save money at the same time by not buying coffee or cigarettes. But arguably if you kick your habit at the end of the month, you should do something fun with the cash you saved to reward yourself for all of your hard work. Just as long as the reward isn’t, you know, a blended coffee drink or pack of cigarettes.

Courtesy of  money.usnews.com