My employer covers 90% of my healthcare premiums - just for me.  That means I’m paying roughly $30.00 per month just for myself.  That’s great in my eyes - I have most everything I could want in a plan.  My out of pocket limit is set at $2,000.00/year after 20% coinsurance, I have a $1,000/year deductible and I don’t get sick very often.  That’s a pretty good plan for me, so I participate.  This doesn’t include dental - we pay seperately to my company for coverage for the entire family to the tune of about $42/month.

The problem is that my employer doesn’t cover my family.  That’s pretty typical in small & medium sized businesses.  Actually - they offer the availability for me to add Caitlin and Dominic to the policy, but the premiums would be over $600/month to add them.  That is a lot of money.  I mean - ALOT.  So, we can’t afford to participate in my company’s policy.  We needed an alternative.

There is a lot of talk of private health insurance.  We particpate in that.  But, there are even more problems with that system.

We bought a private policy just for Caitlin and Dominic about 2 years ago here in North Carolina.  The premiums at that time were below $200/month (that’s post-tax money people).  Even after doing all the calculations, we wagered we’d end up saving a few hundred bucks a month by using private insurance.  Note - we can’t use our flexible spending account to pay for those premiums.

Now our monthly premiums though private insurance have climbed 10% a year in two years - up to $240/month.  A meager amount, yes?  But why?  Why are they charging us MORE for health insurance when we have been healthy people?  We’ve had no major accidents, incidents, etc… we’re just trucking along paying our premiums, sending Dominic to wellness visits, and seeing the doctor maybe twice a year.

I decided today to try and shop some new premiums, as you would with your car insurance every few cycles.  Guess what I discovered?  The premiums for the same plan we have are now offered in the $300-$350/month range.  Even if I wanted to stick with the $240/month for my family, the closest premiums have twice the yearly Out-of-Pocket limit and twice the yearly deductible.  This is just truly unacceptable.

What frustrates us most is that even private insurance doesn’t cover everything.  It doesn’t cover dental.  It doesn’t cover pregnancy.  It doesn’t cover specialized tests unless we jump through great hoops, and even then we’re paying hundreds of dollars for those tests. 

I’ll give a scenario - What if Caitlin and I decided tomorrow we wanted to have another child?  What would we do?  My best guess is that we’d have to actually drop our private insurance right before her first pre-natal visit, jump-ship to my company’s health insurance for the duration of the pregnancy and then hop BACK off my company’s insurance after the birth.  After all this, we’d have to open a NEW private policy for Caitlin, Dominic and new-baby.  Why would we have to do this?  Because our private doesn’t cover it, and my company’s does (since pregnancy is no longer considered a pre-existing condition - thanks President Clinton).

What would a pregnancy cost us?  About $3,200 in new premiums, plus another $1000 in out of pocket expenses and other etc. items.  That’s to a tune of about $5,000.00.    How in the hell can anyone afford that?   When we had Dominic, we were covered under a large company’s health insurance plan for the majority of the time (my job) and Dominic cost us $35.00   —– yes you read that right —– $35.00.

If a hard-working middle class family like ours wants to have a child, we can’t.  We’ve clearly struggled to have what we have.  We’ve both worked very hard to provide our American Son with the right ideals and tools he needs to succeed.  We’ve done the right things in life.  We’ve payed our taxes, contributed to our economy by being a homeowner when it wasn’t the smartest thing to do, participated in rebuilding our community —- all for what?  Not being able to pay for health insurance?  Or… God forbid…. create another child to contribute to our country in the same way we have?

I’m not suggesting that government needs to step in a make changes.  I just want answers on why this has gotten so out of control to where a decent family has suffered long enough.  If you include all our flexible spending, we’re paying about $440/month in health costs for a family of three… and that doesn’t cover everything.  Is that right?

Paying $440/month for health in our family may be tough, but we do it.  It’s a priority to us.  But what about that family of three down the street that doesn’t make quite as much money as our family - even though they’ve done the very same right things with their American Son or Daughter? 

Lost or stolen phone yesterday. Just left the sprint store with a htc snap. Keyboard too small.about 6 hours ago from txt

Early 2000 I began blogging at the then popular blogspot.com and at that time, internet blogs were really in the mainstream infancy stages.  If remember having 100’s of unique visitors a day, implementing confusing tracking tools, and watching my page count grow.  After about a year of blogging on blogspot, I then built out a website of my own using wordpress (which this site still runs on today) and began hosting out my shared space to friends as well.  The world of blogging had changed tremendously since then.

First, around 2002 Myspace hit it big.  It was the first social networking site that really gave you the ability in a limited capacity to build a friend base online and share thoughts and stories.  Yet, the integration with a real blog wasn’t there.  Searching for friends was cumbersome.  There was no way to tie your existing blog and thoughts into Myspace seamlessly, so I continued to blog with a simple link on myspace to my website (as did most people).  I updated my blog at least 2-3 times a week, sometimes more…. and so did all the rest of the bloggers that I followed.

Since the days of MySpace, social networking sites have exploded.  When facebook took hold of social networking market-share around 2004 it was a definite game changer… but the integration with my blog still wasn’t quite there.  I couldn’t import my blog to my facebook, so I kept blogging.  Searching for friends was improved, and communication was much easier over facebook for groups.  In one fell swoop I could let my *entire* friend-base know there was a party at such-n-such a place.  No longer was it a passive tool like a blog that required my friends to visit manually.  They logged into facebook and automatically knew everything.

And then there is Twitter which I started using less than a year ago.  I find it so easy from my mobile phone to send 140 characters to update the world on my status, even if no one cares.  Twitter has become primarily a mini-blog for bloggers and facebookers alike.  Maybe it’s that people don’t enjoy reading long drawn out blog posts anymore and would rather read a tweet.  Maybe when using the internet you are temporarily diagnosed with ADD.

Facebook and Twitter combined killed the blog as we know it.  Now even as I write this blog entry it’s going to be automatically imported into my facebook page notes within minutes.  When I hit the “publish” button here in Wordpress, instantly all my friends will actively see my post.  No more counting visitors.  No more cumbersome statistics tracking.  No more “hoping” my friends get my messages.  They’ll see it in their home page on facebook or on their tweetdeck.

I used to think blogs had their own space - but now when I can post all my YouTube videos and pictures right to my facebook profile… Why would anyone ever visit a personal blog anymore?  Nostalgia? 

It’s been nice Mr. Blog, but I think you’ve been diagnosed with a case of Internet 2.0 and you’re dying a slow painful death.  Unfortunately I don’t know how much longer you have to live.

We pulled up to Monkey Joes, used our $2.00 off coupon to get in and were in the door for less than $3.00 and for a grand total of 5 minutes.  Then what happened?

Level 2 sprain on my right ankle.  :(  I was riding down the slide with Dominic and then jumped off the bounce house - no more than 2 feet off the ground and landed with a *crack* sound. 

No breaking 80 this year for me.

1st 9:

1 Birdie, 3 pars, 5 bogeys = 40        …….     4 GIRs and 17 putts with (1) 3-putt 

At this point I would have to shoot 39 on the back to break it.  Would require me to putt only 15 times and hit 4 more GIRs.  I’m thinking I can definitely do it (because in the last 5 holes I had only gone +1)

2nd 9:

0 birdies, 2 pars, 6 bogeys, 1 double-bogey =  44     ……..    1 GIR and 17 putts, (2) 3-putts

I think where I really screwed up today was the GIRs, again, along with 1 more unneccessary 3-putt on the back.  But, it’s the first time in a while I’ve shot 40 on a side so that is definite improvement (in the last few weeks I’ve shot a 41 a few times).

Progress is progress though.  Next week we all go to Kelsey’s high-school graduation in New York and I have 90 holes of golf planned over 3 days.  I’m thinking that I can probably get close towards the end.  I’ll update with progress for sure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp_WV91jx8E

I did some futher analysis using the internet to find one part of my game that, if consistent, would net me a score of 79.   Let’s take a look.

Based on statics, the chart below shows the average score for a golfer who hits a predetermined number of Greens in Regulation (GIR) out of 18 holes.  A GIR is defined as having a chance at putting for birdie (no matter the distance from the hole as long as it is on the green).

This clearly shows that if 8 GIRs are hit in a round, you would most likely shoot 79.  Now, couple that with the average score for putts per round…

This shows that if you putt on average 32 putts per round (or simply 2-putt 15 holes, and 1 putt 3 holes) you will shoot 79.  If you couple the GIR statistic with the Putts-per-round statistic, you get this:

Clearly, I have to hit 8 greens a round, and putt no more than 32 times.  If I do that, I’ll break 80.  If I look at my scorecard from the last rounds, I have a putts-per-round average of 32.  My GIRs are around 6.  This clearly defines that all I have to do is give myself a few extra good approach shots on the par 4’s, and I’ll break 80, as well as get up and down for pars when missing the green. 

August 2008 - shot my best round ever of 84.  This was the peak of my golf in 2008.

Sept. 1st, 2008 - hit my first hole in one

October 2008 - Feb. 2009:  Didn’t play too much on a regular basis, maybe hit the range once every 3 weeks and played golf 1-2 times per month.

March 2009:  Full swing of golf.  Back into playing at least 1 time per week

March 7, 2009:  Shot a 104, first full round of the season

March 7, 2009:  Shot a 98, second full round of the season

March 11, 2009:  Shot a 94

April 6, 2009:  Shot a 91

May 3, 2009:  Shot a 88, first time I’ve broke 90 since 2008.

May 14, 2009:  Shot an 89, losing progress.

June 3rd:  Shot an 86.  I have scored 89 or better in the last month.

June 10th:  Shot an 85.

My goal this season is to break 80.  I really really really want to do this, but I keep blowing up on one or two holes per round that kills my score.  I compared the last two rounds scorecards tonight and my two best nines equal 81.  If I took the best score per hole, I would have shot a 73.  That really explains my “blow-ups” and how I really need to stop hitting a couple triple bogeys per round.

Some of the things that drew us to this house:

-  Very nice large back porch/sunroom

-  1 car garage/shed/shop in the back of the yard

-  1/2 acre of grassy yard

-  Prime location for both my work, Dominic’s school, and the University of North Carolina (where Caitlin will be going)