(stale posting alert: I drafted this back in November 09 and never published it.. so here it is)

Last Thursday I took a bike ride through Brown County State Park. They have the best trail system around! There's nothing like the thrill of flying down a hill, and nothing like the sense of accomplishment after you've busted your butt to get back up. On this trip the experience was more about the scenery. Indiana is known for its colorful fall, and with the trails covered in leaves I was sure to slow my pace down a bit and enjoy the views some more.

After riding down the north tower loop and starting the aynes loop, I stopped at an old cabin foundation along the trail. This sits in the bottom of a ravine with a nice flowing creek alongside. At one time this was a 2-room cabin, with only the foundation and 2 fireplaces remaining today. I don't know if it was a state park building or homestead, but I assume it was the latter given the number of homestead foundations around this area. At any rate, its a popular place to stop and take a break along the trail.

The picture from my phone does not do the scene justice.. It was an early crisp morning, with the sun rising, the ground still wet from rain a day ago, and the trees still had plenty of colorful leaves on them. I sat down with a powerbar, turned my music off, and sat to ponder life for a while. These are the kinds of moments I would make time for as a teenager but somehow life has done nothing but speed up since.

As I readied myself to hit the trail again, I turned my ipod back on and skipped to the next song. It fed me “Land of Confusion” by Genesis. I've always felt that the lyrics and video were quite deep and meaningful (both for its time in the cold war and today) so I sat and listened before hopping back on the bike:

There's too many men, too many people, making too many problems.. and not much love to go around. Can't you see this is a land of confusion

Sadly if we watch the news it seems that Genesis was spot-on, and the pattern of war and hardships does not seem to be going away in my lifetime. But, they remind us that we each have our own circle of influence and ways in which we can make the world better:

This is the world we live in, and these are the hands we're given. Use them and let's start trying.. to make it a place worth living in.

Life is good! We all need to spend a little time in the beauty of the outdoors and appreciate what we have been given. It puts things into perspective. Take a moment in your own life to make this a place worth living in.. peacefully.

THIS IS NOT A BILL

We see these words on a statement from our insurance provider every time we use our health insurance. Now, let me start off by saying that I am thankful we have insurance and do not want to take it for granted, but if we don't pass health reform soon we are all facing a problem of premium costs that are spiraling out of control. No, I'm not equating health reform with government-run insurance. We need regulation.

Premiums are going up everywhere, some people are seeing upwards of a 30% hike in their premiums year over year. This is insane! People are angry over higher taxes (which actually went -down- last year), all the while their premium bills keep rising. Why aren't the tea parties being held on the front steps of the health care insurers and providers?

I consider myself lucky that we did not get hit with a raise in our insurance premiums last year. IU ate the hike in premiums for us ($7 million across the board), but given the economy we did not get a cost of living raise. Could have been worse in my opinion, so I'm content with that.

We have to ask why is insurance so costly? Well, your health care statements (the reports that read “THIS IS NOT A BILL”) might shed some light. Here are some examples:

Our kids both had their yearly checkup. They were taken together and seen together for convenience sake. For Tristen it was time for a hearing test (click when you hear the beep) billed at $34, and a vision test (just a simple “read the bottom line on the chart” exam) billed at $11. For Trevor it was time to fill out a questionnaire about where he is mentally. Questions like “does he recognize and remember the name of a friend?”. They call this a neurological exam. It was $20. The office visit themselves? $110 per kid. There were also a second round of h1n1 shots thrown in. Insane! Now, of course, the insurance company has negotiated “lower” rates to pay than this but in the end the provider earned over $300 from that visit to give an official thumbs-up for 2 healthy kids.

As for me, I have just finished up a 3 week regimen of synvisc injections in my right knee. Each visit breaks down to a $70 office visit, $54 “medical supply” fee (for the sanitizing swap and topical anesthesia spray.. ripoff!), and $118 for a “surgical procedure” since the needle goes under the knee cap. I see the doctor for less than 10 minutes to get this done. This does not count the cost of the injection itself, which is astronomical. Again, the insurance company has negotiated a lower rate and the visit itself comes to about $153. For 10 minutes.

On the one hand, I'm glad to have “coverage” for all of this. But, insurance companies are not charity organizations. The money they pay out on claims is made up through the group collective of premiums. In the end, myself and my employer pay those bills. The rise in insurance premiums need to be fixed along with the rise in costs. One can not be fixed without the other. Unchecked, these costs will continue to rise. Because right now, there is nothing to stop them.

Just something to think about..

On a slightly related note, this is a great TED talk tying statistics of global health and wealth together visually. Nothing political, just interesting statistics.

Ugh.. we've had problems with our internet dropping out 1-3 times a day for a few months now. I finally got fed up with it enough to contact someone about it. I'll leave out the details of using their online support, it was worthless and warranted a phone call. The phone support is worthless as well, and warranted a technician visit.

Well, the technician showed up a few weeks back. And I'll pause here to note that every cable modem carries in it a bunch of diagnostics and log entries. My modem is full of log entries timestamped with every outage that we experience. They meant nothing to the online support. They meant nothing to the phone support. The on-site tech was disinterested (or had no clue about them). Instead he unscrews the cable modem and notices that the compression fitting on the cable feels loose, he put a new fitting on, tested the signal, and left. His comment was “if this does not fix it then you must have a bad cable modem”. The problem reared itself again the next day. 2 weeks later we were billed $50 for the service call (a charge I never knew was coming, nor did I agree to. Dang that's one expensive compression fitting).

Now I have another cable modem to try (thanks Rich) to see if the modem really is the problem. But, I also have a $50 charge I want removed. So I call back tonight. The process of removing the charge mandates another on-site visit from a tech (regardless of what the first one said about trying a new modem, and me being ready for that today). *sigh* I asked: “How do I know that I won't be billed for a second visit?” The answer I got on the phone: “Be sure to tell the technician not to bill you”. HA! this is epic. If I had known he was planning on billing me the first time I would have told him that THEN! heh

But.. In all of my ranting I am distracting from the crux of my frustration: The logs. In my job, if I want to fix a computer issue the first thing I have to do is check the logs. Logs are everything. They may be cryptic but to someone who knows what they mean they point to the problem. Well, in this problem we have logs. Nobody along this chain knows what they mean. I imagine that in order to fix this problem, I will need escalated to someone who will make sense of the logs. I'll probably google them tonight and see what other people say (just for the heck of it, here are some entries)

Wed Jan 27 09:19:26 2010 Critical (3) DCC aborted unable to communicate on new upstream channel
Wed Jan 27 09:19:26 2010 Critical (3) Init RANGING Critical Ranging Request Retries exhausted
Wed Jan 27 09:19:26 2010 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received – T3 time-out
Tue Jan 26 21:32:08 2010 Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging – No Response received – …
Tue Jan 26 14:11:18 2010 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received – T3 time-out

These tech visits and tech support contacts are all a waste of time and money (mine and Comcast's) until someone pays attention to what this means and how to treat these symptoms. But until that time comes, I have another tech visit scheduled for some time between 1-5 on Saturday. Let's hope they credit our account this time.

So a couple of weeks back I griped about the Pacers signing a deal with Fox Sports Midwest so exclusive that I was unable to buy the season from the NBA directly.

I looked for today's Indycar race on ABC, only to find that it wasn't there. Sure enough, Indycar has signed with the Versus network for 12 races this season, leaving ABC with 5.. Last year ABC carried a majority of them (if I am remembering correctly).

*sigh* At least the Colts will still be on broadcast TV this year, all but one game. I'm sure it is only a matter of time.

And yes, I realize I could break down and get cable or satellite and have Fox Sports and Versus.. At this point I'm happier saving a hundred dollars a month.

-C

PS – Good to see you back in Indycar, Dario Franchitti.. even if I don't get to see you. Congrats on the win.

(I have written a lot of blog posts that end up living as unpublished drafts, I won't let this be one of them)

We're not the biggest Pacers fans in the world, but we have enjoyed our share of games. Nicole even shed a tear when Reggie Miller stepped off the court for the last time in 2005 (though she won't admit that, and kudos to Larry Brown for taking that extra time out to give Reggie his moment). One thing I was looking forward to in coming back to Indiana is catching more of the Pacers games.

To give a bit of background for those of you who don't follow, the Pacers were playing some of the best ball and were set for a good playoff run in the 2005 season. There was a brawl during a game in Detroit that should have been avoided but led to a bunch of suspensions and subsequently a loss of momentum with the team. They lost in the playoffs, and have been trying to get back on their feet ever since. Understandably between the souring reputation and the poor standings, the Pacers fan base has dwindled. (shame on you fair weather fans!)

Fast forward to today, there is a fresh new team with a lot of potential for the coming years. They are focusing a lot on rebuilding the pride and passion that the team once held. This is a good thing. Start with a clean slate and build up.

I went to the home opener against the Celtics this season with my old college roommate Greg. The mood in the stands was totally different than the way it was when I had last seen them in 2005 before we left Indiana. Fans weren't wearing team shirts, did not seem excited, and there were too many empty seats. We won that game (a pleasant surprise) but it was obvious there is work to do moving forward.

I also went to the game against the Spurs on Friday night. It seemed there was a louder Spurs crowd than Pacers crowd. This trend has got to be reversed. We lost that game (as I expected) but we did see a pretty good comeback rally in the 4th quarter that had me on my feet quite a bit. For such a young team this was a promising sign.

To help things along, here are some of my unsolicited, opinionated thoughts for the pacers:

Viewership

I was excited to be back in Indiana to catch the Pacers on the air from WTTV (channel 4). Come to find out, they have not aired games in a couple of years. I can understand a loss of revenue here between the declining fan base and what I would assume is fewer commercial offers from Conseco. I can accept this. The Pacers had also signed an exclusive agreement with Fox Sports Midwest to carry the games. I am not in the position to get cable or satellite to catch the games. I did, however, look into the NBA League Pass online. I seriously considered the $80 subscription for the season. I signed up for the free trial only to find that all of the Pacers games were blacked out for me. What? Why pay for a service from the NBA directly when you can't see the games you want? I still get promotional emails from them, to which I always reply that I will happily sign up when I can watch the games I want.

However, my point goes beyond this.. People are ditching cable and satellite left and right in this economy and fewer people will have FSM anyway. If you want to rebuild your fan base, make it EASY for them to watch the team. Get back on the air with WTTV4 and blanket the central Indiana market with the games.

Tickets

In the past few weeks, tickets for the Pacers have been dirt cheap, and in some cases literally given away. I have found awesome deals in travelzoo discount tickets, twitter giveaways, and a donatos giveaway deal where I got 2 tickets in the LOWER LEVEL for the cost of ticketmaster fees ($5) for this Wednesday's game against the Raptors. There have been club level seat deals for $20 each, and I grabbed balcony tickets for the whole family at $5/ea (plus fees). Nicole and Trevor missed the game with Trevor getting sick at the last minute, but Tristen had an absolute blast! We have a future fan there, and I would have had a hard time justifying tickets for the kids at the original cost of balcony seats.

These deals are great.. Now, it is the end of the season, ticket sales are doing about as poorly as the team is, and I'm sure there is a bit of politics involved in trying to bring people downtown while the Pacers and Colts argue for funding from the Capitol Improvement Board. When next season comes around these deals need to continue. Drop the ticket prices to bring more people in. These are hard times for wallets and hard times for the team. Make it possible for fans to attend.

Team

I haven't followed many games (see the first point above) but from what I have seen, everything looks good for the coming years. We've gotten rid of the bad apples. We have a number of players with very promising talents. This is all being done right. The team looks to be in repair, but the fan base needs the same kind of fixing. If you don't fix the two points above there won't be much point to fixing the team.

So?

Sadly, the Pacers fan base is in dire straits. I've passed links for ticket deals (and free tickets) around the office, and it turns in to a joke. I'm sure the sentiment would be different if we had the top team in the league, but we don't. As I have pointed out, to be a fan of this team is an expensive thing, between TV subscriptions and tickets. Make it cheap for the fans, and you'll get more of them through the thick and thin.

We have AT&T for our land line and our mobile service. When we got the landline we asked for the cheapest package there was. The only option I asked to have added was $3.50 per month to UNLIST me from the phone book (talk about another ripoff rant that I'll spare you for now). Total comes to around $25. We have it setup to auto-debit our account. I get an email every month when the bill comes in (electronically).

Today I just happened to look at that email in detail. $46.10… WTF?

I logged in to view the details to the bill to find this:

I have 2 “services” from companies I neither know or authorized to provide me services. I asked Nicole, she hasn't authorized anything either. We have no clue what they are, except that further in the bill the latter charge is explained as some voicemail service. What? we have an answering machine, don't want to pay for voicemail. Never have we requested that.

Quick tangent: Now, mind you, when I made a change to our cellular plan (2 phones) in-person at the AT&T store a few months back I was asked if I wanted roadside assistance and some other add-on for both phones. I declined, but in the next month they had been added totaling $30 additional per month. I called AT&T cellular and the first person to talk to me took away those services and credited my account with extra for my troubles. I was unhappy that it happened but satisfied with the result. End of tangent.

I called AT&T today expecting a similar conversation and satisfaction. The tier 1 customer rep explained that the telephone numbers on my bill (you can see them in the image) were the numbers I needed to call to dispute those charges and services with those third-party companies. I disagreed, AT&T is my provider, and they are the company billing me, the company I am paying directly, it should be on them to help me through this. No, it was left to me. I asked for my account to be flagged to prevent further services from being added. She said that wasn't possible. I flipped out, and she sent me to a tier 2 customer rep. Her name was Cant (as best as I could figure. I tried to repeat it and get her to spell it but she was silent). Again she reiterated that I had to call the companies directly. I explained that I wanted a BASIC telephone service with no frills that PREVENTS any future UNSOLICITED, UNAUTHORIZED add-on services. She said she would be “mailing me paperwork to fill out and send back in”. What?! Why is this process made difficult?

So tonight I call the two companies. The first in that list had no idea where my account was signed up from other than it was “online”. They credited and cancelled the service. Oh, and I asked what it was I was signed up for since there was nothing in the bill to indicate what it was.. It was a third party voicemail service. Great, I had 2 of them and an answering machine. I'll never miss a call. Funny, but for having 2 “voicemail” services, none of our calls ever went to their voicemail.. And its not the answering machine catching the calls first, we used the answering machine as a test to know when our power came back on while we left town to seek electricity last month. When the answering machine was off, the phone just rang and rang.. Never went to “their” voicemail.

After digging further, the second one has been on our bill since March. This is my fault for not digging through my bills more closely and I take responsibility for that (but I find AT&T still at fault for allowing this to happen without my approval!). I find out from this company that my service was signed up for through “theuseful.com” by a “Mary Jane McGruder” using an email address of maryjane7102003@yahoo.com. This time I asked her what the process was for signing up. She said that through some survey on the website the service was offered and there would have been an acceptance checkbox with a submission. I asked “Is there anything to verify that the person holds that telephone account?”. Her response “The process is just how I explained it, Sir.”

Here is the crux of all this: To even speak to an AT&T customer service rep about my account, I have to verify my phone number, name, and social security number. I had to do it with each tier of customer service today. However, to add a billable third-party service, someone just has to click a check box on a third-party website. There is no vetting process, no authorization required. The NAME on the account doesn't even have to match!! If you know my phone number, you can sign me up for a billable third party voicemail scam (and I'm sure a couple of you would like to do that, too! hehe).

So where am I at now? Well, both companies cancelled the “services” and agreed to full refunds without question. I imagine otherwise they could face some pretty hefty lawsuits, not having any chain of real authorization for the charges from the party responsible. But, I'm not looking to get money back, I'm looking for a service that will prevent this from happening, without the hassle that AT&T is giving me.

Enter Vonage (Vonage is telephone service via your broadband internet connection). I've looked into them before but they never offered service in the areas I needed it. They now offer number porting and service here, so I'm all over it (meaning we get to transfer our current phone number to the new service)! As soon as I'm done with this post I'll be unpacking the Vonage router I picked up on the way home from work (I'm actually waiting on a referral from a friend so he can get a bonus.. hasn't shown up in my inbox yet). For the exact same cost as our “basic service” (without the added riders) we get unlimited long distance and all of the features. Nicole has been begging for long distance service for quite some time now thanks to AT&T's craptastic cellular coverage out here, so she is already happy with this idea. I'm not making a pitch for them here because I haven't experienced their service yet but the people I have spoken to so far really like it.

So there is light at the end of this tunnel.. I'm quite livid over the whole ordeal though. How can this be legal? No other industry or business that I can think of gets away with this. Someone is making bank off of slipping these charges in to people unknowingly. I fell for one for 9 months.

The point I hope to make (sorry it is so long of a post) is this: CHECK YOUR PHONE BILL CLOSELY! and question the charges! And, if AT&T bullies you around about it, well, you have other options out there.

Since I'm in an opinionated and vocal mood today…

Our household is a “house divided”. I have a deep dislike of Wal-Mart stemming from numerous cases where I was left as a dissatisfied customer. They are not in the customer service business and as a tradeoff the prices are lower. I can accept that as their way of business, and once in a while I forget that only to find myself reminded when I go back. My wife, on the other hand, prefers the low prices and can stand the mad rush of people (I get cart rage easily when people cut me off).. Being back in Bloomington, our wal-mart is on the other side of town from us so with gas the way it is right now its just the same for me to pay an extra dollar for my everyday stuff closeby at Target than to drive far to save a bit here and there. And I find their customer service to be a bit better.

With that disclaimer out of the way, something that has bugged me even more lately is the excess of leftover wal-mart buildings that seem to be littering the country as the company builds their new Super Wal-Mart stores, leaving the original Wal-Mart shells behind to a property owner who hopes for a new buyer in a tough real estate market and tougher retail times.

I just got back from a quick trip to Bedford, just 40 miles away from home. On our way we passed 2 of these shells with “for sale” banners on the side. Similarly we took an 8 hour drive to Iowa a couple of months back and I noticed many of these in the small towns we passed through in Illinois. I noticed one while in New York on the way to visit IBM. All of them vacant. All of them easily identified as a former Wal-Mart, with a bigger store likely around the corner.

I know of one that has been repurposed, the original Terre Haute Wal-Mart building is in use as a Hobby Lobby.

I think this begs for some kind of discussion:

• Why are the properties not being picked up? Overpriced? Low value? Lack of retail demand?
• What can you do with such a shell, anyway? Very few retail stores are big enough to fill that space and not already have space of their own (though there is quite a demand for Hobby Lobby as witnessed by Nicole's crochet skills)
• Why not expand from the space that is already in use somehow? Build vertically if the land is not available next door. Or even split up your offerings to a smaller store nearby rather than packing everything up and moving to a bigger store. I know, single-site convenience and all.

At the end of the day its easy to say “so what, what does it matter?” Well, you end up with a building that goes unused for years… Which doesn't hurt anyone, really.. And at worst it is just an eyesore. So, if the value and market are such that the buildings are not desired, I'd love to see Wal-Mart set up a foundation and work with city councils to turn them into community centers or something where the space can be used and you can help your soiled reputation. They would make a great YMCA annex and in some cases another location for such physical activity that would be a more convenient location. The buildings are already configured as a storefront, so donate them to the Goodwill. The space could be well used by a community college or alternative school, or even a church. I guess if the demand were great enough then this would already be happening, but I see places like these building new buildings just down the block from the empty shells so it tells me that the price isn't right. And they continue to sit unused..

Maybe this isn't even worth thinking about. Maybe its just me. I'd like to hear your opinion on it.

As far as the democratic national convention goes, I only saw Obama's acceptance speech. He took a few jabs at McCain's proposed policies but for the most part he spoke about the people (us) and what we need moving forward. I liked that.

I've favored Obama for a long time so I wanted to give the Republicans a fair chance. Last night I watched quite a bit of the RNC and ended the night totally embarrassed at the tone and the mud slinging. Chris Robb said it best in his twitter: “Political differences aside, nothing is as upsetting as slinging mud to a large crowd that cheers fervently for negativity. it's just creepy”

Exactly.. While the tone of the DNC is a crowd of people cheering for change, the RNC seemed like a crowd of people cheering on a fight. Granted, I only watched one speech on the DNC side so maybe all of the others were just as bad, but in terms of trying to win people over, the Republicans didn't do a good job on Nicole and I last night..

Combine the tone with the hypocrisy, which was laid on pretty thick, and it just left a real sour taste in my mouth. Below are just a few of my thoughts. I've tried to fix up my blog spam to open up comments, so feel free to disagree openly.

- Saw Mitt Romney's speech. Sharing the same faith that he does I was a bit disappointed that his standards fell to taking cheap jabs at others. While talking of renewable energy resources he said “I have one more recommendation for energy conservation: Let's keep Al Gore's private jet on the ground.” Come on now, Al Gore isn't even in this race, and he has done more for the promotion of climate change than most republicans combined. He is very open about his family switching to hybrid vehicles (Prius's) and working to offset his home energy consumption with solar and geothermal additions. How about Romney? A 4-car family, he drives a mustang and his wife a Cadillac SUV. As for the RNC crowd, it was a mud-slinging stab against another individual so they ate it up. (disclaimer: I voted against Gore in 00, but follow his climate change promotions and think he is doing terrific things to inspire change on that front… Climate change and renewable energy are buzzwords we probably wouldn't hear on either side this coming election if it were not for him)

- Sarah Palin doesn't bring anything new and exciting to the table like I was hoping for. I was holding out for a good “first impression” in the spotlight, a chance to learn what she is about and why she is there, but instead her speech was a chance to throw some more mud around. Its a much different tone from her hint of complacency with Obama's lead in Alaska before she was tapped as VP pick, an attitude I hoped she would carry on. Sad how that changes people. I was also left scratching my head as her stated position last night on the bridge to nowhere is quite different then I had remembered it, but thankfully people are already picking up on that [1] [2]. Selling a jet on ebay is a nice move but it doesn't quite make up for the cost of that bridge. Obama has flip-flopped on issues in the past (as Rudy made an entire speech out of) but this goes to show that every politician does and that shouldn't be a point of disqualification.

- (Palin) “There is only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you … in places where winning means survival and defeat means death … and that man is John McCain. In our day, politicians have readily shared much lesser tales of adversity than the nightmare world in which this man, and others equally brave, served and suffered for their country.” Oh my gosh.. Can we let this thing to rest? Every time it comes up I feel like I myself am suddenly a “second class citizen” because I've never been in the armed forces. Other candidates are not worthy of your vote because they have not been prisoners before, so what does that make me who has never even fought for our country? I love and respect our armed forces, and they provide the sense of security that my family enjoys every day. It is not something that should give you the upper hand in a vote. “There is only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you”.. how cold and demeaning.. My point in all of this: I expect opponents to talk about each other and oppose the ideas and policies that the other brings up, not attack their person.

Well, long ago I decided that I wanted to see McCain's RNC speech and I'll probably stick to that, but after last night I'm not looking forward to it with the same open mind.

I've long felt that american politics are run by money… Politics are more like auctions, with decisions going to the highest bidder in terms of lobbying and perks.

Same goes for political campaigns and elections. You scratch my back now with money for my campaign to win this election, and I will scratch your back later with favors in my lawmaking. I call it corruption. There should be rules over who candidates can accept money from. (and maybe there are, so tighten them) Better yet, give each candidate a $20 budget, schedule fair and equal debates and town hall events for both of them together across the country, and make it a level playing field. Get the dirty money out of it.

Today we're one step closer to that ideal via a self-imposed restriction against donations from lobbyists and PACs from the DNC. This has been a standing rule for Obama's campaign, and it will continue.

every news site has a spin on the report, here is one from fox.

I'm not a die-hard democrat. I'm open about voting for Bush (in '00 at least..), and just as open with my disgust in his administration of the past 5 years. Things have got to change, and I like that about Obama's campaign.