Boat Movie

Oma and Michael have been visiting, so we hired a boat. A fast boat. A boat that went fast enough to make Alex cry. Here's the video that Dan took.

Wooden Houses

Houses here are often made of wood. That means that they burn down in dramatic style. It also means that they float.

Why I've never been in a WalMart

I always thought that America was full of Wal-Marts. And despite having been here about 18 months, I've never been in one. That's not for principled reasons (like the fact that Wal-Mart is the country's leading seller of guns) , it's because I've almost never seen one. I saw one for the first time today (which is why I mention it), but didn't go in.

Then I get home and see these graphs. It turns out (if you're too lazy to click the link) that California (along with Massachusetts) has fewer Wal-Marts per person than all the other states.

Bouncing

I got some new video editing software, so I've been adding garish captions and titles to videos. Here's one of the boys bouncing on our bed. We were in the midst of changing the sheets, and they decided that their bedroom was too chaotic to play in.

And for those raised on a diet of instant gratification and MTV style attention spans, it's much shorter than the last one.

Nose Bill

We got a bill from the hospital for pulling the tape out of Daniel's nose. For a 'limited exam' (which consisted of taking his temperature) they charged $213, and for the actual removal of the tape (which was described as 'Foreign Body - Intranasal' the charge was $150, making a grand total of $363.00.

Using a formula that I wouldn't understand, even if I tried, the insurance company decided to pay $252.45 of that, leaving us to pay $110.55.

Which makes the NHS seem like a bargain.

In the same post, we had a bill from "Quest Diagnostics", 'cos I'd had a cholesterol test. Usually a trip to the doctor, for any reason, is $15, but this time they didn't charge me. And now I know why. This bill had a cholesterol test, a Lipoprotein (whatever that is) and a BMP (which I just looked up on Google - it's a Basic Metabolic Panel). That little lot came to $154.12, and again using their magic formula, the insurance company decided that they would pay $131.70 of that, and leave me with $22.42 to pay. These people had a nice website, so I could pay with a credit card and not have to worry about finding a stamp.

Now I look at the bill again, I realize this was for the first cholesterol test I had. I didn't know I was going to have a test, so I didn't fast. My bad cholesterol was low, but my good cholesterol was low too, so they decided to do another test. I'll await the next post.