Keiser Graphics

So first a little background: I used to have health insurance with Kaiser Permanente. I was laid off but paid my COBRA payments to continue the health insurance. I last saw the gynecologist last February to get my yearly check up and a refill on my birth control pills. I have a skin condition called seborrheic dermatitis that flares up every time I have a period so the gynecologist prescribed me a regimen where I would only get my period 4 times a year in order to help me maintain my skin health. She suggested a generic drug where I just throw out the sugar pills instead of a new high priced drug that doesn’t have the sugar pills like Seasonale. I have no problems at all with my insurance company wanting to save money, especially when the two drugs are pretty much identical.

I ended up finding a new job and now have insurance with Anthem, which started 7/1/2009. 36 days into my new insurance I got kidney stones and I got to spend a fun filled night in the emergency room. I was told the best part is when I got a MRI scan and my husband got to see all the cool gadgets and computers that do the MRI. I on the other hand would like to permanently forget it ever happened. Anthem is currently trying to dispute my insurance claim with the emergency room on a pre existing condition. I find this ridiculous and insulting. I had kidney stones. I have never had such pain in my entire life. I can’t imagine going weeks with that kind of pain. I’m sure this will eventually get resolved, but not without a ton of time, hassle, or money.

This last week I needed to refill my birth control prescription from Kaiser. Since I no longer have Kaiser Insurance I took it to a local Rite Aid to be refilled. They only gave me a single month worth, when my prescription was for 4 months worth every 3 months. I asked them whey they didn’t give me what my doctor prescribed me. They replied that Anthem refused to let me have that many pills at one time. Of course this got me angry and upset. I tried hard not to take it out on the pharmacists at Rite Aid and I did start to cry some. I was told to call the insurance company to sort it all out.

The next day I called the insurance company. They stated that they only allowed 3 month prescriptions through their mail pharmacy and gave me a number to call there. I called the mail order pharmacy. I told them the whole ordeal that I had to go through. They then told me I would have to revisit my doctor and get a new prescription. I asked them if they could just transfer my current prescription. They said no. That’s right, every pharmacy in the nation from Walgreens, Target, Save-On, Rite-Aid, Wal-Mart, Costco, ect, except Anthem has the ability to call the previous pharmacy and transfer a prescription. Now I know the people at Anthem Pharmacy have telephones, because I called them on one, so I’m not sure why they can’t transfer a prescription. It’s pretty pathetic really.

I told the lady at Anthem Pharmacy that I could not go to my previous doctor as I no longer have Kaiser Insurance. I told her that I would have to see a new doctor, which is completely unnecessary as I last so the doctor in February. This was going to cost Anthem money that they don’t need to spend. She just repeated that all I had to do was see my previous doctor. Again I told her that I couldn’t see my previous doctor as I no longer had Kaiser health insurance. She really didn’t seem to understand this; it was like a scene in Idiocracy where Brando has the electrolytes that plants crave.

So in the end I have to set up an appointment to go see a new doctor and get a new prescription. I’m honestly just going to get the more expensive brand of birth control as I can’t trust Anthem to give me four months of generic pills for every three months.

So this is one of the things wrong with health insurance in this country. Here is my insurance company wasting money on extra unnecessary doctors visits and over priced prescription drugs due to their own bureaucratic idiocy. Oh and they spend money disputing claims on things like kidney stones where it is practically impossible to move let alone carry on with the pain for any length of time. I really hope the government pulls through and lets everyone get the insurance that they have, then I might actually have some choices in where I get my insurance from.

I know I could just buy my own insurance, but it turns out that regardless of how healthy I am (I eat right, I exercise, and rarely get sick) my seborrheic dermatitis disqualifies me from privately getting health insurance. That’s right my skin condition that requires me to maybe see a dermatologist 1 to 2 times a year and get topical creams that cost roughly $5 a tube prevent me from qualifying with many insurance companies for basic health insurance.

Well I have finally broken down and joined Facebook. Again this is my husband’s idea. He should have gone into public relations. I don’t think there is anyone out there who does a better job of getting my artwork seen and generating traffic to my web site. He is also my backseat blogger who often comes up with the tutorials or subjects that I write about.

Facebook seemed innocent enough, but within 24 hours my page has exploded. I never realized I know so many people, and most if not all of these people I consider good friends that I would do anything for. I often feel like I am so antisocial sometimes working on all my various projects that I forget to hang out with the people I love and just enjoy their company.

I’m still trying to learn how to utilize Facebook, I’ve currently got a balloon from one of my friends and I’m not sure how to send it to another person. I’ve also got an invitation to Farm Town from one of my sisters and although I’m pretty busy I have heard great things about this game and would love to get to know my sister better by playing it. I will have to ponder it a bit longer. Now I could always join mafia wars with my husband, dad, step mom, sister in law, and brother, but I think their mafia is pretty strong. Though us Keisers need to stick together.

I just finished another painting for the Children’s’ book that I am working on. I think there is something like 15 left to go. I will finish this, and hopefully it will be great. I hope that by next week I’ll have another tutorial ready for all of you who like to read those.

I know I promised all of you spammers who continually read my blog and tell me how awesome I am (though I don’t know why you continue to do so as I never publish any of your links or posts from Russia), that I would do another tutorial this week. Well I lied. I didn’t really lie, I fully intended to do just that. Then I got kidney stones. They f-ing hurt. I say f-ing because the actual f word doesn’t even begin to describe the pain. Take any pain you have ever had in your life, add it all together, and then multiply it by 100. Then you have kidney stone level pain. Fortunately for me the pain finally subsided last Friday, and although I still feel week and off, I am no longer needing pain meds 24/7. I am also drinking so much water that my skin feels loose on my body and I look like a blimp of my former self.

I also have to leave tomorrow for a week with my day job, so being that I spent most of the week dealing with pain, and the last of it preparing for a trade show like event, I didn’t have time to create the tutorial completely for all of you. I promise as soon as I get back from Minnesota that I will create another tutorial for you, hopefully you will have it by the end of the night next Monday, PST time.

Oh yeah, for all you spammers out there that won’t leave my blog alone. For the last time I do not want any viagra.

So I’ve been using the monitor for a couple weeks now. I found that the reason I was gaining weight was due to skipping too many days exercising. I am now exercising 6 days a week. Though I’ve continued to gain weight, now it is for a different reason: Muscle! That has to be the reason as I have lost a half inch off my waist. I don’t have that flat six pack stomach yet but I am on my way.

So now I am a 6 foot tall 175lb woman, I feel like such a giant sometimes. I have a new goal now; I want to be able to lift my own body weight. I currently have a Wii fit, but the problem with the strength training in that program is that it all uses your own body weight as the resistance. So I have absolutely no problems with any of the leg strengthening exercises but I can’t really do any of the upper body strengthening exercises. So after reading many reviews and a few great tips from a marathon running friend I went and bought EA’s Wii Active. This game comes with a giant rubber band that you use to do various strength training exercises. I was able to create a workout that lasts about a half hour and targets all the areas that I would like to be stronger. I plan on doing this arm workout every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday on top of my 6 day a week DDR playing. I’m hoping that by increasing my upper body strength not only will I be stronger but I should also increase my base metabolic rate, burn that last bit of fat off my body, and finally have the six pack waist line.

I’ll let you know how it goes. As for the game I think EA Active is pretty nice. My only complaint is that I wish I could access the journal without the game in the system, as I only use the game to train 3 days a week, on those other days I have to insert the game just to put in time I spent playing DDR and what I ate the previous day. Though what would be really cool is if the game recorded me playing DDR and updated that info by itself, but that will probably never happen as DDR and EA Active are produced and distributed by two completely different companies. Maybe Nintendo could just create some kind of journal in the system that records any time spent playing any work out game?

Next week I promise to show you how to piece together multiple scans, or how to use all the previous repeating patterns tutorials to make a really neat finished piece of artwork (I’m not sure which will happen next week, as it depends on how much free time I have.)

So I was invited to a party where they might end up playing DDR 1 for the wii. Now I used to play DDR 1 all the time for my daily exercise but for the last few months I’ve been playing the sequel. I figured I should get DDR1 out and do a little practice so that I wouldn’t look like a complete idiot playing DDR1 as all of my friends know that I play DDR on a daily basis. Did I mention how much I love this game/exercise routine? Oh yeah, DDR is awesome.

Anyways, I put the game in and start to get excited about these old songs that I haven’t played to in several months. I can see all my high scores and how I have A, AA, and AAA on almost all the songs and in all the difficulty levels except expert. I feel so uncoordinated in that I can’t even come close to my old expertise. I was lucky if I could get anything better than a D. Yup I went from an AAA to the same consistency of many community college students D grade. I don’t know what has happened. I’m stronger and more fit now then I was back then, I have faster reflexes, and I look cuter in a skirt now then I did then (I’m not sure how that would help me but whatever).

I don’t know what has happened. I’ve been starting to play DDR2 on expert mode, maybe that is what has messed everything up? Have I started to become so godlike at this game that earlier easier versions of this game no longer can keep up with me? Man I’d love to be a DDR god with light coming down from the heavens every time I step out on the dance mat and angels from above sing along with Ushers “I’m so caught up” as I pound my godly DDR feet to the rhythm of the music. I could then sprout wings and have my DDR wings carry me off into a disco burst of holy glory.

Oh and I promise to post more regularly. My brother just got married and I have some fantastic pictures to share after I get them all organized.

Recently I’ve been gaining a little weight. Being that I am a woman, the second I gain more than 3 pounds is cause for concern. The thing is that I shouldn’t be gaining any weight. I work out regularly 5-7 times a week playing DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) on the Nintendo Wii for a little over a half hour per a play session. DDR is a great game for exercising. I’ve been playing it for about 2 years, though recently I’ve been playing DDR2 which I think is better as it has more arm movements, and in that time I have lost roughly 40lbs and I now have legs that are very muscular from my calves all the way to my hips. If any of you are thinking about DDR as a fitness routine, please remember to contact your doctor as I would hate to find out one of you had a heart attack while pushing yourself to get 100 combo points.Now during my DDR time it tells me how many calories I’ve burned when I play in work out mode. I play mostly in the difficult and expert settings and it usually says I burn about 800 calories per a session. With these numbers it should be close to impossible for me to be gaining weight. So this is why I went and bought a heart rate monitor. I figure before I go to see the doctor about this I should get some accurate data on how many calories I am burning compared to how many I am eating. Who knows maybe I am just being a little piggy?

I looked at several heart rate monitors. I also had a little help from a co-worker who was also interested in heart rate monitors send me website links with more information. First I looked at the GoWear fit Lifestyle and Calorie Management System as well as the Body Bug as I was intrigued by a system that would count how many calories I burn all day long as well as telling me how much sleep I was getting, how many steps I was taking, and give me spreadsheets on my progress. Further exploration of these devices showed me that I would have to buy a watch display device to go with the arm band if I wanted to look at my stats while away from a computer, and I would have to pay for a monthly subscription to use their software to track my progress. These devices are expensive, between $170 and $200, add to that the cost of the watch display device, around $70, and then add to that a monthly subscription and the costs start getting a little ridiculous. I don’t even have a gym membership as I find it to be very stupid to pay for something I can do for free, I’m definitely not paying for all this stuff. One thing I did notice while reading many reviews on the GoWear and the BodyBug was that people were testing their accuracy with Polar products.

Polar F11

I then began to look into various Polar heart rate monitors. I’d like to say it was easy, but the Polar website is very very very slow. Did I mention how slow it was? I was tempted to just not look into a Polar monitor, but this is my health and it is really important for me to figure out what is going on. Not only that, the more information that I can relay to my doctor (should I have to visit) the easier it will be for them to determine what is wrong. After painstakingly going through the Polar website I found the F11 model that seemed to be the right model for my uses. I went and checked reviews on the model and of the few complaints out there, most seemed to be about batteries. These complaints didn’t seem to bad and so I finally decided on what hear monitor I would buy and I drove out to Sports Chalet and picked one up for the same price that was listed on Amazon so I didn’t even have to wait for shipping. Also this monitor records all my stats that I can view anytime for free without any monthly subscription.

The time had come for me to test out my heart rate monitor against DDR and see just how accurate DDR was. I inputted my weight, height, age, and gender into my new powder blue F11. I took the standard assessment test with the F11 and was told that my resting heart rate, though not excellent, was very good. So now I have actual data to support my heart & lungs getting healthier, and not just me saying I feel stronger. I put the chest strap on, which was very comfortable for me as it was very similar to any bra strap. I then played DDR how I like to play it. The Final conclusion: I do not burn as many calories as DDR is saying I burn, but I still burn a lot. DDR says I burn 800 calories, but thanks to my F11 I know I am actually burning only 500 calories. Though burning 500 calories a day, and 2500 calories a week I would have to eat an excess of 6000 calories a week in order to gain a pound. I still should not be gaining any weight.

I’ve decided to spend the next week with a food journal and really take a tally to see what in the world is going on with my body. As well as testing my heart rate doing some daily activities like drawing and such so I can get a really good idea of calorie expenditure during the day. Hopefully I have just been absentmindedly pigging out lately. I don’t like the prospects of having some health condition that turns me fat. Isn’t that terrible? I could have diabetes or something and I’m more concerned with getting fat. Being a woman is hard.

Well a couple of nights ago I was watching American Idol. My husband was walking by to get a coke (I’m not supposed to say I made him watch it with me) and he notices that Randy Jackson is wearing a huge watch. I’m putting a picture here where Randy is clearly very proud of his huge watch. Unfortunately It doesn’t come any smaller than this and I’m not sure I like that ad right there, though it’s not like I have enough readers to be selling ad space anyways. I began to wonder why anyone would ever want such a paper weight on their arm and it occurred to me! I don’t need glasses!

I’m going to be rich with this idea. It’s a product for everyone in denial about their eyesight. It’s several products. I’ve already come up with prototypes! All I need is to get Billy Mays to yell about it and I will sell millions.

Order now and get all three devices for 2 easy shipments of 19.95$ plus shipping and handling. PATENT PENDING, PATENT PENDING.

I know you may have come here to see my “I don’t need glasses” idea come to life. But alas a real life event happened in regards to one of my other posts, so the “I don’t need glasses” will have to wait till next week.

So I recently got an email from a Manager of Communications at Charter regarding my previous post about the awesome items I could redeem my points for in the “Live it With Charter Program”. Apparently there were some features that I missed. So I went to check them out. First there is a catalogue where you can buy stuff at a discount with real cash and a few points. Points are worth five times as much here according to charter. I quickly went to see if there was anything I wanted as I have finally convinced my husband to ditch our cable for Fios and Tivo. So I have till Tuesday to spend these points. There seem to be some decent items here, but I was wondering if there really was any discount, so I started some comparison shopping from Live it With Charter to Amazon.com.

I started by looking at things that would cost me out of pocket less than $25. First I looked at a Lexar 256MB Memory Card from Charter was $17.48 plus 155 points. Normally I would add in the costs of points, but today I’ll ignore it since I got my first 3,000 points for free. The cost of the same memory card from Amazon: $7.64. Unless I get a lobotomy it doesn’t look like I’ll be buying this from the charter site. Let us compare a few other items under $25. How about a Farberware 2-Qt. Whistling Tea Kettle in Red for $18.48 and 164 points. Amazon has the newer Farberware model for $18.99. So I can buy the older model for 50 cents less than the newer model. I tried the celstron 8×21 upclose binoculars at $18.16 and 161 points. At Amazon: Again like the Farberware a much newer nicer model for $20.00. I’m starting to see a trend in the under $25 group. It all looks like stuff that possibly a liquidator bought 1-3 years ago and is still trying to sell at the prices this stuff was at 1-3 years ago.

I figured I’d try price comparing a few higher ticket items. Now note there are a ton of items on the Charter store and I have no intentions of sitting here all day looking at all of them. So I’m just going to pick a few randomly that I might like to purchase either for my self or as a gift for one of my friends/loved ones. I like cameras and have wanted a new one for a while. On Charter the Camera I wanted costs too many points, but it is the Canon 10.1 Megapixel Digital Camera with 18-35mm Lens in Black at $515.75 and 4584 points. At Amazon: $609 with an accessory kit. Though with that points cost after my free 3,000 points I would have to spend another $150 to get that Camera, and the one from Amazon is a better deal at that point. I then looked at golfing stuffs as my father in law likes to golf. From Charter: A Callaway Big Bertha Stand Golf Bag Carrier in Black $104.26 and 926 points. From Amazon: $100, so not only am I paying more at Charter, I also have to pay points on top of that. Last I checked for a camping tent as my husband and I would like to go camping. From Charter: Coleman 9′x7′ Sundome Tent $39.27 and 349 points. From Amazon: $69.99. So after spending an hour looking around on this stupid store, I finally found one thing that was actually a deal to buy. When my husband wakes up I’ll ask him if we can purchase the tent. As these points will turn into a pumpkin come Tuesday.

There was a charter mall, that if I shop at other stores I get points for dollars spent there, roughly 4 points per a dollar. But as we have seen from my previous post, the redeemable rewards are not really worth it. I can get special discounts at image.com, but most printing places already give these special discounts without any affiliations. For example Vista Print is always offering free printing and you can get your picture on all kinds of stuff like mugs, magnets, tee-shirts, etc. I have my picture on everything at home so my husband can tell what is mine and what is his. There is a link from the Live it With Charter sight to play games on GSN. Note to Charter, MSN Games are much better and they too are free.

Last with the Live it With Charter program there are sweepstakes. Currently there is a sweepstakes to win the ultimate “man cave”. As a woman I find the sweepstakes name retarded. It does have a decent prize, pretty much a huge entertainment center for your home and $500 in home depot cards. It costs 2000 points to enter. So if I spend $200 at Charter then I can enter one of there sweepstakes. This doesn’t seem entirely on the up and up to me. I know that it is illegal to hold sweepstakes in the U.S. that requires people entering the sweepstakes to pay money or purchase anything to be in the sweepstakes. I guess Charter is circumventing the legalities by converting those dollars into points and then using the points for the sweepstakes. Since I have to use up my points by Tuesday I’ll probably enter, as clearly there isn’t much else worth spending my points on in the Live it With Charter program.

The other day in the mail I received an offer from Charter Communications to join their “Live it With Charter” club. It is basically a point reward system like many credit cards. It was free and I would get 10 points for every dollar I spent with charter. I thought to myself this might be nice since I pay too much for cable anyways. In case you are wondering I pay roughly $90 every month for all the normal channels, HD channels, and DVR. Now I have to buy some channels twice because Charters HD channel line up pretty much sucks, the only HD channels worth anything from Charter are the Discovery channels, the rest of it is lifetime, bravo, tlc, and crap like that. So in order to have the Sci Fi channel I have to buy it in regular format and it comes with lifetime, bravo, tlc and crap like that. So I have all the crappy channels in duplicate (I do like project runway and top chef on bravo though). I do not however have any premium channels, no sports packages, or even any porn channels. Half the time when I DVR anything it has visual and audio hiccups through out it. I pay way too much for my crappy cable.

So when I received this points offer I was intrigued. I signed up as it was free, and they gave me a bonus 3,000 points for signing up when I did. Now I could have gotten more points if I also got charter internet and phone, but my husband works in telecommunications and we get internet and phone for free. Though as many times as I have told the damn Charter telephone sales people that, they keep calling me and asking me if I’d like to upgrade my cable to include internet and phone. I tell them on the phone roughly once a week to stop calling unless they are going to lower my ridiculous cable bill. I have been getting nasty with them, but they seem to not understand that they can not beat free internet and phone.

After signing up for the “Live it With Charter” membership I went to see just what I could redeem my points for. First I am told they are all sold out of any redemption stuff, but there is a link where I can redeem my points for charter products. I’m thinking maybe I can get a free On Demand Rental or something like that which would be nice. Now here I got really excited. I’ve never in my life seen such wonderful magical fantastic gifts! I can’t wait to spend 800 points on a White or Ivory Hex Wall Plate. The Ivory would be a great present for my mother in law who smokes. No one will ever notice that she has had her wall plates replaced recently! I could spend 800 points on a 7′ phone cord. Ooooh I need that extra 7 feet so I can extend my phone cord and attach my phone to the ceiling! Won’t that be quirky! Though the gifts really start to get good when you spend a bit more: A 2 way splitter for 2800 points, a white or black RG6 Screw Clip for 3600 points, or a 3 way bal splitter for 3600 points. I am set! I’ll never have to go to radio shack again!

Though out of curiosity I went to radio shack  to do some price comparisons of the rewards to the actual cost of these fabulous components that I was planning to stockpile in my closet. The wall plate with a connector from Radio Shack is $5.49 compared $80 worth of points from Charter. 6″ of phone cord from Radio Shack is $5.99 compared $80 worth of points from Charter. A two way splitter from Radio Shack is $14.29 compared to $280 worth of points from Charter. A 4 way splitter from Radio Shack is $12.99 compared to $360 worth of points from Charter, and I get an extra thingy on the splitter! Coax Clips for RG-8/6/11 Cables (6-Pack) from radio shack costs $2.29 making each clip $0.38 compared to $360 of Charter points for 10, making each Charter screw clip cost $36. That is a %1000 increase for the Charter points product.

Well it looks like my dreams of stockpiling cable accessories in the closet are just not economically feasible.

Disclaimer: Suicide is a serious issue and if you or anyone you know is seriously contemplating it you should seek help.

There are many ways to knock yourself off. Some ways are more publicized then others. A few weeks ago we had a murder suicide where some guy went and killed his wife, all his kids and then killed himself. I see stories in the news like this every so often. A few years ago it seemed popular to suicide by cop. I guess if you kill yourself by threatening a police officer to the point of killing you in broad daylight in front of national television your family can collect on any life insurance policies. And just yesterday, a man walked into the crystal cathedral and shot himself.Read Story Here. The story was a little bizarre in that there was a group of Canadian tourists who were touring the cathedral when it happened while their tour guide was talking about the cathedrals suicide prevention hotline (I wonder what their success rate is). After the suicide the tourists then prayed and went to Disney Land, yet another although outdated since the people movers and the sky buckets were removed, destination suicide.

 This made me think of a whole new category of suicides. Destination Suicides, like a destination wedding without the in-laws. Now destination suicides have been around for a long time, though I’m not sure any one has categorized them in that fashion. A couple of months ago an old couple went on a cruise together and jumped off together in the middle of the ocean.

Where would be the best places to commit suicide? Apparently the crystal cathedral is a nice place for those overtly religious Christians. Heck it shouldn’t be to hard to clean up all the brains and guts and stuff off of all those glass surfaces afterwards either. The Grand Canyon seems like a nice place and I’m sure they get a fair number of jumpers every year. Cruise ships seem popular as people often go missing, although I don’t know how many are missing from suicide as opposed to kidnapping and murder.

So then my little cynical brain began to think about promotional materials, and what might a destination suicide brochure look like, and how much would a package deal cost? Would there even be packaged deals available? Would I be able to book it with a travel agent? When walking in for an appointment would the agent bring out a handful of brochures and tell me “These are our most popular destination suicides! As you can see all of your meals and transportation is included in the pricing. Would you like a room with a view or more secluded accommodations? You simply must try the salmon dinner when your there, It’s to die for! Also would you like to leave a video suicide note? It’s all the rage now and we have our own videographer here ready to do it for a small fee. And for just a little more we can add a video soundtrack or a music video of your life. Also you will see that this package comes with a clean up crew so that afterward you don’t look too unsightly and our clients are compensated for cleaning up your remains. Though if you opt for jumping off one of our lovely cruise ships no clean up is necessary as the various ocean critters will consume you. They are so cute and efficient! So when and where would you like to off yourself? We accept Visa, Master Card, and American Express.”