After the January 21 meeting with Dr. Erpelding, I thought I was on the road to recovery. I was finally to the “testing” stage to see if the breaks were healing. I was having telephone interviews for long term contracts. I was applying submitting applications for full-time or long-term contract work every day. Then, I had the appointment with Dr. Wilson on February 18.
Archive for the ‘Thoughts on life’ Category
Twists and Turns – Facing Reality
Saturday, February 27th, 2010
Dealing with Medical Bills
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010I retired at 62 just to have a stable income in a horrible IT job market. The boom days of IT training had ended, and training contracts were few and far between. Health insurance was one of the expenses that didn’t fit in a drastically reduced budget. As I approached 65, the insurance companies wanted $500 a month for a minimal plan. I applied for VA Healthcare, but I still earned too much under the old rules. We were in a state of virtual middle-class poverty. The energy companies and insurance companies were killing our budget. The only hope was to not get seriously injured or sick until I was eligible for Medicare. (more…)
Hanging on by a Thread
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010Since writing”The ‘Oh Shit’ Moment” post, I had another appointment with Dr. Erpelding at the VA Clinic in Billings. This time, I was able to get a CD containing the X-rays from the visit. The CD auto-starts the X-ray viewer used by the doctors to view digital images. It is a really cool tool. When I travel, and hoping that occurs sooner rather than later, I will have the X-rays of my leg should anything happen to re-injure it. (more…)
The “Oh Shit” Moment
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010My wife, Monica, and I were building our own house. We were the designers and the workers, except for hiring a people to help with pouring concrete. We built and finished the basement first, and are living in it. In 2008, we started building the main floor. Monica injured her back in December of 2007. On July 23 off last year, she had surgery to relieve the pressure on the nerve. A Montana winter was quickly approaching, and I was trying to get the roof on before it snowed. I did not want to spend another winter shoveling snow out of a partially framed house. (more…)
Religious Intolerance
Saturday, May 16th, 2009In the Bill of Rights, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof … .” Freedom of religion doesn’t mean that we need to agree with every religion. It does mean that we need to respect the right of an individual to worship in a manner of their choosing. It means respect of other religions. Whether Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, or one of the thousands of other religions, they all deserve respect.
Freedom of religion is one of the freedoms for which every American soldier has fought to preserve, and many have given their all to preserve that freedom. Religious extremism that denies the rights of other to worship as they choose is not acceptable.
The above was prompted by an article in an Egyptian newspaper and reported in Palestinian Media Watch. The Title of the article was “All Pigs Must Die because they descend from Jews: According to an Egyptian Islamic scholar.” The article actually refers to “People of the Book,” which applies to both Jews and Christians. The article was actually a justification for the killing of all pigs owned by the Coptic Christians in Egypt, as a result of the swine flu. The article also give justification for killing all descendents of Moses. This Fatwa illustrates the dangers of extreme religious views that justify the killing of all who do not believe as they do. At about the same time, a Taliban leader made the statement that they only kill those who are not pure. In this case, they define who is pure. This is the basis of all extreme religious groups. The Holocaust is our reminder of the dangers of ideological extremism.
Because of the extreme views of a few, we cannot brand all Muslems as extremists. Every religion has its extremists. It is our duty to insure religious freedom by never letting the extremists of any religion to determine the beliefs of all people. The war we are fighting against terrorism is a war to protect our freedoms.
Direction Changing Events
Thursday, March 26th, 2009About three weeks ago, I ordered a bunch of new DVDs and CDs to update my Linux collection. If I am going to blog about Linux, it helps to blog about current versions and not those that are over six months old. Part of that order included Knoppix 6.0. When I booted the live CD, it booted to ADRIANE. I had no idea what was happening, and I had never heard of ADRIANE. I just wanted to look at how Knoppix implemented LXDE as desktop. Listening to the voice feedback, while checking out the LXDE desktop was very disconcerting.
Last week, Verizon was havisng a problem with their cell tower on Red Lodge mountain, and I didn’t have an Internet connection for a day. Since the weather was not exactly warm, I couldn’t work outside. So, I read a book on CSS. The author kept mentioning the need to style for the visually impaired. I realized that I hadn’t really written my style sheets to conform to these guidelines.
This lead to reading the guidelines, and making the decision to change the sytle sheet I wrote for mtlegion.org. Of course, I need to blog about it, as I learn more, so that others become aware of the needs of the blind and visually impaired. It also brought back memories of a blind programmer, who worked for me in the 1970’s. He was my best programmer, my best keypunch operator, and a great friend. He tried to teach me braille and how to use a braille output device, but my fingers weren’t sensitive to the little bumps. Forgot to mention, he was a great cook.
