The new place

My first night and day at the new place went by without incident. Happily, the place is pretty quiet, I slept like a baby. My housemates (so far) are decent enough. Living here reminds me of my time in Yemen a bit. There is an Afghan family to one side of me and on the other is an Arabic family from an as yet unidentified place. One of my current housemates is from El Salvador and the other is from Nicaragua. There will be a Bolivian family moving in as well in a couple of months. I love all of the international elements here, maybe I'll pick up some Spanish as well as get to practice my Arabic...

I love the location, the bus stop is literally right around the corner and I think that even I can make the walk to the metro in good weather. There is plenty of shopping and restaurants along the bus line (along Backlick road) and everything is pretty convenient.

Mom has left her car up here until I can bring it down. I'm of two minds on the car. Yes, it is handy. On the other hand, I am on a serious austerity budget and it isn't clear to me that I can afford car insurance, gas, taxes, etc. right now. The other ironic thing is that it is easier to walk back from the bus stop than it is to walk back from where I end up parking the car. Parking spaces are at a t here, come back at night and you might be in for a bit of a hike.

I still need to get some basic stuff to make living here easy. Stuff like salt and pepper shakers, a spoon, a plate, etc. I'll round those things up over the next couple of days. Tomorrow, I get familiar with the bus routes...

The move

Everything went very smoothly, well almost everything. Kelly, Pat, mom and Rick helped me move into the new place. Thank God they were there. There was no way on earth I could have gotten my bed out of Rick's place and up into my new place without their help. So all my stuff is now there and I am going to spend my first night there tonight!

The only hiccup occurred when I gave my landlord my check. He looked down and pointed out that my checks still said "First Union" on them. First Union was bought out by Wachovia something like 6 years ago. Obviously, I don't write checks very often... I'll get some new ones from the now Wells Fargo bank that I use.

My new place doesn't have internet just yet so I'll be offline for a little while. I'll go up to the library and get online in the nearish future. Till then, I'll be learning the bus lines and starting my new job!!! I'll post news when I have it.

I have to wait another week

My training has been postponed for a week due to the launch of the new operating system by Apple. They just don't have the time to deal with a new person.. SIGH



But it's not all bad. I can get stuff done this week. I already have a new phone, and I used it to set up a dental appointment with my dentist. I'm also going to start looking at places to move into. With any luck, I'll have a place by the time I need to report to work.

So a slight delay, but things are going on. I feel like I'm starting a new life...

My new job

Yes, I am no longer unemployed. At long last, I was hired by Apple computer. Once I understood that I was not going to be able to do the teaching overseas thing, working at Apple became my next goal. The trouble was that as soon as I figured this out, the economy tanked and Apple put on a hiring freeze. As days stretched into weeks and then months, I started to despair. As I've written before, I had never been in the position of having to do a job search before. I had simply figured out what job I wanted to do, and then I went and got it. As it turns out, I have done it again, but it took quite a bit longer than I expected...

I have been hired as a "specialist." That is Apple-speak for a salesperson. I have no doubts that I will totally kick ass at that. After all, I have actually sold 5 Macs this year without being in the store or even working at it. My enthusiasm was enough to convince those people that a Mac was the best idea for a new purchase. I'll be working at the Pentagon city location, come and see me if you have some time!

I am beyond psyched at having a job, and one that I will enjoy at that. The downside is that I am starting over. No really, I am. I have been hired as a part time employee. From what I can tell, this is typical. They start people as part timers and "promote" them to full time once they have proven themselves. I won't have any trouble getting the number of hours I want. Between back to school and the holiday season, there will be plenty of work to go around.

In addition to being a part timer, I will be paid essentially the same amount I got paid when I first joined Penn Camera back in '97. That's a huge pay cut as compared to what I was making before I left. On the other hand, it's a hell of a lot more than I was getting being unemployed... No matter, I consider this a foot in the door. Apple gives me an opportunity to go places professionally that I just couldn't go in the last company. In addition to going into management, there are all sorts of other opportunities to be had as well. I could become a trainer, I could go into tech support, I could go into the corporate world. The sky's the limit!

So yeah, I can't wait to start. I'm also excited at the prospect of starting a new chapter in my life. There's no telling who I'll meet, where I'll go, or what opportunities I'll come across. It's good to have some excitement about life again!

The best sentence I read today

"In other words, I'm not in favor of business. I'm in favor of competition."

That's from Megan McArdle, a really good blogger from the Atlantic. She has a knack for explaining things from a libertarian point of view very well. I highly recommend checking her blog out.

I used to hate shaving

I have always been thankful that I don't need to shave that often. For a large part of my life, I would only need to shave once a week, nowadyas it's every third day. Seeing guys that needed to shave twice a day to look decent made me even more aware of how lucky I am.

That's changed a bit, now I actually look forward to shaving. No, seriously, I enjoy it now! It turns out that if you do it properly, it is quite pleasant. Use a real shaving soap or cream and throw away that canned goo! Use a proper single blade to shave with instead of those expensive multi bladed contraptions. Use a decent aftershave afterwards and your skin will feel great!

The best part of all of this is how cheap it is. Go to Amazon and buy the Van der Hagen shave set. It has a puck of shaving soap, a brush, and a bowl and runs around 12 bucks. Trust me, your face will thank me later on. Just using a proper shave soap will do wonders for your attitude about shaving. You can also go to Bath and Body Works and pick up a tube of the C.O. Bigilow shave cream. They say you can use your hands, but you should really use a brush...

The aftershave can be something as simple as witch hazel. I use a scented one from Ogallala, I love the lime and peppercorns. The main purpose of the aftershave is not for the scent. The scent should fade away fairly quickly with a decent aftershave. You want to use the aftershave to tone the skin and possibly moisturize it.

Seriously, just try them. I am now a little jealous of the guys that have to shave every day. If you want to know about razors, just drop me a line.

The difference between democrats and republicans

A friend took one of those silly facebook myers-briggs tests and was horrified to find that some prominent republicans shared her personality type. I would be honored if I were to be compared to Thomas Jefferson, but Cheney is on that list too, so I can understand the consternation.

But really, I'm surprised more people don't the see the similarities between hard core republicans and hard core democrats. They both have ideas, BIG ideas about things. They are prepared to wage political and social war in order to have the power of government in order to bring about their visions. To a lot of people, they don't look all that different

Oh sure, they do have different outlooks about people, morals, possibly even money, but they are united in the importance of the government and their desire to control it. Of course controlling the government is really just a proxy for controlling people that don't agree with them. Seriously, squint just a little, Pelosi and Palin aren't all that different in the control department.

As long as the disagreement is over how to use government to implement favorite outlooks and control the people that do not share that outlook, the political war will never end. It is this quest for power that causes the conflict.

Of course people think I'm crazy for bring this up. Duh Isaac, what else is government supposed to do? Look at the constitution, that's what the government is supposed to do. Those things are not, for the most part, very controversial. The things that are controversial, abortion, stimulation of the economy, maintaining of the economy, protection of jobs, health care, gay marriage, etc. are all products of political party fights over power.

That's really the difference between the two parties, how to wield power. So remember, the personality test is not a political one, don't be too terrified if you show the same personality traits as your political enemies. The fact that you are so similar is why you are enemies, the drive is the same, just for different ends.

A deep breath, healthcare reform, and the 10th amendment

I don't want to give the wrong impression, but it may already be too late. If you read enough, you'll see that people in countries that have various forms of nationalized healthcare, or at least nationalized healthcare coverage are mostly happy with it. People deal with whatever they have to work with. In other words, if something were to be passed, and it worked overall, I don't think it would be the end of the world. That doesn't mean I'm not worried what is hidden in those 1000 pages, but I'm not going to get crazy if it does get passed.

I am getting frustrated at people scoffing and ridiculing others for being worried about the federal government involvement in things that it doesn't have any jurisdiction over. Calling them "unamerican" like our speaker of the house did is unexcusable. Whatever you may think of those people, they do have an argument that has some force, it's called the 10th amendment. The 10th amendment (the last of the original bill of rights) is the key difference between our government and all of the other governments out there.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

It is a clear limitation on the extent of the powers and scope of the federal government. Granted, the people yelling at the meetings are not citing the 10th amendment, but their sentiment is the effectively the same. Like it or not, it is there and we shouldn't ignore it, or the people that share the sentiment.

Of course, the 10th amendment has all but been ignored for all of the 20th century. The supreme court has twisted itself into knots using the commerce clause in order justify all sorts of federal involvements that are not in the constitution. I do wish that we would remember what the federal government is supposed to do, it is very clearly spelled out in the constitution. The 10th amendment was put in there to prevent the federal government from emulating a monarchy. You have to have limits to prevent that, an the 10th is it. On the other hand, the proper use of the commerce clause could in fact help out this issue and the government could stay within its prescribed bounds. SIGH, I guess it's too much to ask for that to happen...

Just for the record, I do think things are screwed up

I have posted many times before on how screwed up the medical industry is. Insurance companies are sheltered from competition, providers can't tell you how much anything costs, and there is an enormous amount of confusion about costs in medicine. it should be much more straightforward. If people are unaware what things cost, how will we ever get prices lower? If we don't get prices lower, how will we ever expand availability in a way that doesn't kill us?

So what are my ideas for correcting things? I would like to start with stripping away the layers that protect the insurance companies. Make them compete on a national level. I would like to see providers be more transparent on the costs of procedures. I would like to see more competition for care in the same way you see competition among dentists, corrective eye surgery, and plastic surgery.

All of these things could be done without additional tax burdens. Who knows, maybe they wouldn't be enough for the people that are so eager to reform, but they would certainly make a difference. I want the lawmakers to go after the low hanging fruit before trying incredibly expensive and large programs. Shouldn't that be the way things work on a normal basis? What's wrong with doing the easy thing first?

"It's not a single payer system, so what's the big deal?"

That's a response I got to my last post. It's true, I don't know of anyone seriously promoting that, but it can still do what I said in my previous post. Why? It all has to do with the fact that it is a federal program.

Imagine that you have kids and live in an area with lousy public schools. You really don't want to send your kids to neighborhood school, what to do? Sure, you have a choice, you don't have to choose to use the state's school, there are plenty of private schools to choose from. Here's the thing, even if you choose to not use the public school you still have to pay for it. Your choice to not use the school does not help you out at all. You have to come up with the money for both the public and the private school. On top of that, the public school doesn't really care if your children don't go, they won't change what they do at all.

Facing that decision, most parents go ahead and send their kids to the public school. If they are really committed, they will agitate to improve the school. Of course, if anything ever does come of that agitation, it will only be long after their kids are through that school.

It's a similar thing with a federal health insurance "option." It will be optional to use the services, but it will not be optional to pay for it. Faced with that decision, most people will go ahead and use it. Using what you are charged for is the rational thing to do, even if that thing is substandard. The cost of using something else is just too much for most people. This is the mechanism that will cause the federal program to squeeze out the private ones.

Keep in mind that this holds even if you can opt out of the premiums. This is because the inevitable cost over runs and/or cost underestimates will still be the responsibility of the federal government. Without any real reason to worry about profitability, there will be both. It will be like Fannie mae and Freddie Mac, political promises with no incentive to rein in costs or risks. In other words, a disaster waiting to happen.

My thoughts on health care reform

I have had several people say to me that I must be excited about the effort to reform the medical world what with my MS and all. Despite what some people would see as an advantage to me, I don't really see much upside in my circumstance.

It probably doesn't come as any surprise that I just don't trust reform coming from DC that involves more federal activity. The political process is not conducive to doing that well. Even if they managed to set the ideal system up, how long would it last? Special interest groups will be rewarded for their contributions and we will get mission creep like all other federal programs. The bill in the house is a prime example. It is currently over 1000 pages long, it isn't a stretch of the truth to say that nobody can understand the thing in its entirety. The most recent concession involves an ethanol program for a lawmaker in Illinois. Perhaps there should be a law stating that new laws can be a maximum of 5 pages long...

A bigger worry is that with more government involvement we will get far fewer innovations in the medical world. Say what you want about the US healthcare industry, but there's no question that it is responsible for the vast majority of medical innovations in the world. This is especially true when it comes to drugs. It is the quest for profit that drives inventions like MRIs, laser scalpels, heart valves, etc. Of course those new treatments are one of the reasons that costs keep going up.

On a less grand scale, I also worry about people losing options that lay outside of the medical mainstream. MS is a case in point. The approved drugs are expensive, don't have a great track record as far as effectiveness goes, and of course have various side effects. There are some other drugs that have been approved for other conditions that seem to help a lot of people with MS. They are much cheaper, have no significant side effects, and seem to have at least a similar amount of success as the approved drugs. Right now, I can get a doctor to prescribe these for me, but will I have that option if the feds are much more involved? Would I be able to get drugs that are not approved by the FDA for my condition?

So unless the lawmakers can get their act together and draft a law that anyone can read and figure out (If no one else reads it and understands it, at least they should be able to) I am firmly against this current legislation. It may have some good stuff in there, but how can anyone know?

Vegas, and a modest proposal

Gambling was a blast the first time I went to Vegas. I hung out at the Roulette table and had a pretty long run. Eventually, I ran out of chips and the thought "I need more chips" crossed my mind. It took several minutes to remember that those chips were actually money. That isn't by accident, the casinos know exactly what they are doing.

In the same vein, I'm getting sick and tired of hearing "The federal government" will pay for program x, y, and z. I would like a law passed that would require all government employees to substitute the phrase "The American taxpayers" for "The federal government." It sounds like a minor thing but I think that it would have some significant effects. Instead of hearing senators say "The federal government will provide a subsidy of $4500 for older cars," we would have "The American taxpayer will provide a subsidy of $4500 for older cars." That does sound different, doesn't it? I want politicians, members of the press, and political hacks on all sides to stop deceiving themselves and others. I want them to stop playing games when it comes to spending money. Be truthful when talking about spending our money!

Money isn't the problem, people are

This is something else that came up with my kidney post. it's from a friend of mine and I think it's a fairly common outlook.

I guess in my ideal world, Isaac, we stop our worship to the god Money, who rules over us now, and puts himself between people and life, fun, love, education, food, nature, etc, etc, etc. It seems as people make more money, and create new and better avenues to money, they also create bigger needs for regulation and protection to control the greed produced in its wake.

Wow, where to start? How about this, the greed doesn't come from the money. People have unlimited desires, we always want more. Of course in order to satisfy all of those wants, this world would need to be unlimited as would our lifespans. This is a limited world. We are limited.

When economists say that there's no such thing as a free lunch (TNSTASAFL), they aren't really taking about money. What they mean is that something has to be given up. There is labor, and time spent on lunch. Now, we could incur that cost ourselves, or we could get someone else to incur it for us. Of course, if they do that for us, they expect something in return.

Ultimately, we are all engaging in barter. I exchange my labor for someone else's labor. Some people make sandwiches, some people sell cameras, other people do other things. But barter is really unwieldily. If I sell cameras and I want a sandwich, I would have to find someone that makes sandwiches AND wants a camera. So instead of doing direct barter, we use money instead. We exchange out labor for money and then exchange the money instead of labor directly.

Peoples' desires for more is always what is at the root of what people blame on money. Those desires would still be around even if money were to disappear tomorrow. Of course, a world without that unit of exchange would suck. We should all be thankful for the existence of money, it makes life much easier. People's desires, or if you prefer, greed, has always been around and always will be. What we have to do is learn how to deal with other people's and our own and stop blaming other things for what we see as wrong in the world.

As far as the government being the best thing in order to protect us from greed, I'll just say this; the government is made up of people too. They aren't special people, they aren't above anyone else. They too, are subject to the same types of desires and greed as anyone else. The difference is that the people in government are able to wield quite a bit more power than the average person. Entrusting other people with that kind of power is asking for trouble, and boy have we ever gotten it. At best, I would say that the government's efforts have not helped at all with the issue of greed. Of course they have done that at great cost, and I really do think that they've made things worse anyway. Inevitably, when government "protects" us from something, they give more power to some corporation or at least give them more money. Keeping a level playing field is best accomplished without government interference and it allows us the maximum amount of freedom to determine our response to other's greed.

More on selling kidneys

I've had a little exchange with a friend on facebook over my ideas on selling kidneys. I'm sure that other people have similar fears, so here are my responses.

First off, it must be remembered that if selling and buying kidney were legal, things would not be the same as they are now. Issues relating to variable quality, obtaining kidneys from unsavory sources, the cost, and the potential violence of harvesting from unwilling people would be solved by the ability to go to a local clinic or hospital to have the procedure done. Imagine that kidney clinics were as common as fertility clinics, or dialysis clinics... There is no reason to think that kidney transplantation would be much different than it is now when it comes to safety. Selling would be done at the same places.

You have to keep in mind that you can't just pop any old kidney into anyone else. There are compatibility issues. In addition, you don't want any sort of nasties to be transmitted to the recipient, so proper screening is necessary. When dealing with a black market, you take some pretty big risks, but there's no reason to in a legal market.

As far as the cost goes, it would still be expensive, but what major medical thing isn't expensive? It's hard to imagine that insurance companies wouldn't cover the procedure since it would prove to be a great savings over dialysis costs and complications. Legalization also would end up lowering the costs since the supply would be dramatically increased.

My friend David summed it up like this, "Would selling organs open a Pandora's box? Yes. Do I have the right to keep that box closed. No. Should I fight to make sure people aren't exploited- absolutely." I would never claim that legalizing this wouldn't bring up some tricky issues or solve all of the problems out there but it would help a lot.

In the end, all of the positive results are very nice and good, but they are not the real reason to legalize the buying and selling of organs. The real reason is that people should be in charge of their own bodies. If ethical issues come up because of that, so be it. taking control away from people in regards to their own body is the real crime, everything else is a secondary effect.