Time to pick up a prescription this fine Saturday morning. And the Expedition (of course we drive an SUV) is missing on one cylinder with a "Service Engine" light on. I think it's a coil pack. So I head to town and go to Walgreen's first, pulling into the drive through. I push the call button and a disembodied voice says, "I'LL BE RIGHT WITH YOU!!!!!" Soon the box shows up, I stick in the prescription and tell the now embodied voice through a window that I'll be back in about 20-30 minutes. She tells me she'll need 30 minutes to put the 36 pills in a bottle. So I go across the street to Advance Auto and ask them, in accordance with their ads, if they can plug in a scanner and tell me what the computer says. The counterman follows me out and plugs in - looks at his scanner and says - paraphrasing only a little - "Dude - there's something wrong with your scanner outlet - maybe a wire's broken....you can probably just pull all the wires off each coil pack until you find the dead one - but I can't help you." There are eight coil packs on this engine - all buried under all kinds of hoses, pipings, and fuel rails. I say thanks and go across another street to AutoZone, thinking maybe the Advance Auto's scanner is broken. Tattooed man asks me what I need - we follow the same procedure and he says, "Dude, you may have a fuse out.....I can't help you". I say thanks, get in the truck and call DWSO. "Can you find out which fuse controls the scanner outlet on this truck?" Computer keys click - BING is your friend - "It's the number 3 fuse, 20 amp". I reach under the dash, pull out number 3 and yup - it's blown. I go back to Advance Auto since I'm on that side of the street and tell counterman I need a 20 amp fuse. He sells me a pack of fuses (OK - spares) I plug it in and he plugs in the scanner - number four cylinder is missing - he sells me a coil pack for $49.95 and I hope that's the problem. By now an hour and 15 minutes have passed. You didn't forget Walgreen's did you?
I go back there and discover 15 people in line - a very slow moving line - but they're not directly at the pharmacy - they're all getting flu shots. About 5 minutes per person. I step around to the pickup window and ask for my prescription - and the young lady who had taken it earlier and promised 30 minutes - - - well, you know the rest. Not ready. Won't BE ready until the pharmacist finishes with the flu shots. How long? Not long....15 minutes maybe....I ask her to look at the line - it's growing - no way 15 minutes. Well sir, you'll just have to wait!!!!!
How about if you just let me have the prescription back? And she pulls out a STACK of prescriptions - at least 15-20 - none of which have been filled.
I started going to Walgreens when they opened here in town because they beat Walmart pharmacy for service. It looks like those days are over - on now to CVS - oh and "Dudes" at Advance and Autozone - I should have gone to NAPA for the coil pack.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
President Bush on 9/11/09
I had a discussion a little while ago about President Bush staying home on Friday and not making public appearances. I expect he wanted, as I did, nothing to do with this so-called National Day of Service
The statement from his office said:
“We honor those who volunteer to keep us safe and extend the reach of freedom - including members of the armed forces, law enforcement officers, and intelligence and homeland security professionals. Their courage, service, and sacrifice is a fitting tribute to all those who gave their lives on September 11th, 2001. On this day, let us renew our determination to prevent evil from returning to our shores.”
The Obamabots would have made another attack on him no matter what appearance President Bush had done and no matter where he'd done it. He did his duty and he reminds me now of Neil Armstrong in his reticence. I hope it doesn't last as long as Armstrong's.
The statement from his office said:
“We honor those who volunteer to keep us safe and extend the reach of freedom - including members of the armed forces, law enforcement officers, and intelligence and homeland security professionals. Their courage, service, and sacrifice is a fitting tribute to all those who gave their lives on September 11th, 2001. On this day, let us renew our determination to prevent evil from returning to our shores.”
The Obamabots would have made another attack on him no matter what appearance President Bush had done and no matter where he'd done it. He did his duty and he reminds me now of Neil Armstrong in his reticence. I hope it doesn't last as long as Armstrong's.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Driving the DNC
The Democrats are in town and I drove one of six motor coach loads of them to the LBJ Library last night. Mostly nice people. Mostly.
One couple - a bit older - got off the bus and turned to the left while most people were going to the right, to the door for the auditorium. About a minute later they came back and the lady asked, "So, where are we supposed to go? There's construction there..." I said, Ma'am, I believe you're supposed to go in that entrance down there for the....." and she cut me off and said, "You BELIEVE? But you don't KNOW???" I said in my nicest voice possible - "Ma'am, your staff advance person is the young lady at the end of the sidewalk; I suggest you ask her since I obviously don't know anything about this Library."
It turns out he's a very senior cog in the Illinois State Senate. One of our other drivers recognized him as having seen him on TV with "The One".
It never fails.
One couple - a bit older - got off the bus and turned to the left while most people were going to the right, to the door for the auditorium. About a minute later they came back and the lady asked, "So, where are we supposed to go? There's construction there..." I said, Ma'am, I believe you're supposed to go in that entrance down there for the....." and she cut me off and said, "You BELIEVE? But you don't KNOW???" I said in my nicest voice possible - "Ma'am, your staff advance person is the young lady at the end of the sidewalk; I suggest you ask her since I obviously don't know anything about this Library."
It turns out he's a very senior cog in the Illinois State Senate. One of our other drivers recognized him as having seen him on TV with "The One".
It never fails.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Health Care Grab - Borrowed from VDH
I stole this shamelessly from Victor Davis Hanson, one of my heroes and someone I want to meet:
Health Care Grab
We all know what that a good health care system can be improved by increased competition, tort reform, tax credits for catastrophic insurance plans, deregulation, etc.
But Obamacare is not really about medicine. It is rather aimed at absorbing more of the private sector—once more, to create a vast new constituency of government workers and beneficiaries, to ensure an equality of result in treatment and access, and to replace private health insurers with public bureaucrats. (I got a taste of the future of the government octopus when I went yesterday to a California DMV office, and noticed that all the state employees at the windows had on purple union T-shirts with “organize” and “solidarity” emblazoned across them.)
In other words, in the Obama mind, would you want an autonomous family practitioner, entrepreneurial, keen to adopt to patient needs and tastes, juggling 10 employees and a 2-million-dollar family practice budget, grossing $400,000 a year in profits, highly opinionated and self-reliant, using his profits once in a while to ski or buy a BMW—or have him transmogrified into a GS-something, at $100,000 a year, with government benefits, unionized, docile, and waiting to go home when his shift at the dreary government clinic ends, wearing his doctor union T-shirt to work and eager to vote in politicians who ensure him lifetime tenure, generous retirement packages, and guaranteed pay raises?
Health Care Grab
We all know what that a good health care system can be improved by increased competition, tort reform, tax credits for catastrophic insurance plans, deregulation, etc.
But Obamacare is not really about medicine. It is rather aimed at absorbing more of the private sector—once more, to create a vast new constituency of government workers and beneficiaries, to ensure an equality of result in treatment and access, and to replace private health insurers with public bureaucrats. (I got a taste of the future of the government octopus when I went yesterday to a California DMV office, and noticed that all the state employees at the windows had on purple union T-shirts with “organize” and “solidarity” emblazoned across them.)
In other words, in the Obama mind, would you want an autonomous family practitioner, entrepreneurial, keen to adopt to patient needs and tastes, juggling 10 employees and a 2-million-dollar family practice budget, grossing $400,000 a year in profits, highly opinionated and self-reliant, using his profits once in a while to ski or buy a BMW—or have him transmogrified into a GS-something, at $100,000 a year, with government benefits, unionized, docile, and waiting to go home when his shift at the dreary government clinic ends, wearing his doctor union T-shirt to work and eager to vote in politicians who ensure him lifetime tenure, generous retirement packages, and guaranteed pay raises?
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