Ear Infections

As if daycare center fees aren't bad enough, it seems like every week I'm taking one of the kids to see the doctor.

Thankfully, both kids got put onto my health insurance as of September 3rd. We have an $800 deductible. I've only been paying office visit copayments, so I'm expecting a boatload of medical bills in the mail next month.

Here in Austin, they have a medical clinic that is open on weekends, so this Sunday I had to take Kyle in. He's got yet another ear infection (or it's just a continuation of the same one, I'm not sure.) He's had this freaking ear infection for the last two months, and he's been on three different antibiotics (augmentin, amoxicillin, and cefdinir). This time they just gave him a shot of something called Rocephin. This is supposedly the strongest antibiotic they can give a child. If Kyle still has problems, they told me he might need "ear tubes," which would require surgery. This surgery would allow ear drops to go directly to the infection, rather than resort to oral medication. I have no idea if insurance would even cover this, and it stresses me out just thinking about all of it.

We started thinking: how is he getting all these ear infections? Probably from the daycare center. That place just seems like a haven for disease. I've seen kids vomiting there, sharing each others food and water, etc. Viruses are probably flowing left and right.

Just more trials and tribulations of being a parent.

The Death of CD and Remembering the Days of Vinyl

So I'm reading online today that the days of CD are almost over.

http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/25/the-end-of-music-cds/

I'm not really surprised by this. I remember a couple of years ago when I came back from Taiwan over the holidays to visit my family, I stopped at the local Tower Records, only to find it going out of business, and selling everything off at heavily discounted prices.

Downloadable music/MP3's has pretty much put most music stores out of business. I occasionally go to a store called "FYE" (For Your Entertainment) which used to be called "The Wherehouse." When I see that they're still charging upwards of 20 bucks for a music CD, I know that their days are numbered. I only go there nowadays to sell stuff, rarely to buy.

As a child of the 70's and 80's, I still remember the good ol' days of vinyl, 8-track tape, and cassette. Actually, I never really liked cassette or 8 track. If you played them a lot, the tape would warp and it would be ruined. I warped my brothers copy of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" on 8 track tape. And with 8-track, they often cut off a song halfway through. I remember my brother had the debut album by Foreigner on 8 track. The song "Cold as Ice" was broken up into "Part 1" and "Part 2", with part one fading out, then fading back in. Pretty ridiculous. I can see why that format died out fast.

I always liked vinyl, and I stuck with it until about 1989. I enjoyed looking at the artwork, reading the liner notes and lyrics, and becoming totally immersed in the music. I owned a lot of great albums on vinyl, and it really shaped my appreciation of music at a young age.

I feel a little sorry for future generations who will never have the experience that I had. Nowadays people listen to music on their computers (including me) in MP3 files, or on iPods. The artwork (if you even have it) is now just a small square at the bottom of your screen. If you want l yrics, you have to search google to find it. It's not quite the same as the old days.

Apparantley the new format for music is going to be these micro SD cards that are about the size of a fingernail. I can't really see this catching on. It seems to me it would be very easy to lose or misplace. I've been searching for the remote control for our TV for weeks, and still can't find it. I don't want my music on a tiny little card. I can see it now...

"Have you seen the new Pearl Jam record?"

"Uh..it accidentally got sucked up in the vacuum cleaner."

(Pictures: 1. The new SD "Micro Card" 2. The vinyl version of Led Zeppelin III 3. The vinyl version of Pink Floyd's "The Wall")

Why McCain Should Not Be President

I was reading today that McCain has a very good chance of becoming president because "racist democrats" won't vote for a black president. (http://news.yahoo.com/page/election-2008-political-pulse-obama-race).

Living in Texas, I already know that McCain will win this state. Although I still plan to vote, my vote is pretty much wasted here. The best it will do is add to the overall "popular vote." I think Obama will get the most votes here in Austin, but the rest of Texas isn't as open-minded as Austin.

I overheard my colleagues at work complaining about Bush and the economy the other day, so I asked them,
"If you hate Bush so much, why did you Texans re-elect him in 2004? By then you already knew that he sucked, why give him another 4 years to destroy the country even more?"

"Because we didn't like the other guy." my colleague answered.

That would be John Kerry. Apparantley to them, he was worse than another 4 years of Bush. I'm guessing people will have the same opinion when it comes to Obama. As much as they don't like McCain, they will think he's better than a black president.

I just don't get it. I don't see the logic of voting for McCain. When something is not working, we FIX IT. We don't keep using the same faulty equipment.

Look at the state of our country today. Bush and the Republicans took Clinton's surplus and turned it into a record deficit that the country will still be paying back when my kids are grown adults. We're paying more for gas and food and just about everything else. A lot of this, of course, is because of what's going on in Iraq. The instability in the middle east is part of the reason why gas is so high, and because gas is high, it costs more to import food here.

Our reputation to the rest of the world has dropped considerably. Americans are hated worldwide. When I was living in Taiwan, during the height of the hatred of Americans, I often told people I was from Canada. That's how bad it got. There are several Asian countries I would have liked to visit during my four years in Taiwan, but I didn't for fear of being kidnapped and/or beheaded.

Do we really want another four years of this? More war? Increasing gas and food prices? Recession? America is broke, and we have to do something, anything to fix it.

Also, look at McCains vice presidential choice, Sarah Palin. McCain is an old man and might not even make it through his first term. This Palin woman is SCARY, with some extreme right-wing views that make Dubya look like a Kennedy.

Is Barack Obama really the answer to all of our problems here in America? Who knows? Maybe not, but we have to at least give him a chance. Just give the guy 4 years to see what he can do. If he sucks, just vote him out. Do you want things to get so bad that you can't even afford to live anymore, just because you're afraid to vote for someone that is black?

Get past your prejudices, people. Think about saving this country instead.

(Picture: Do we really need another angry old white dude as president?)

Moving to the Night Shift

The hospital that I work at has three shifts. There's the one I currently work, which is 6am to 2:30pm. The next shift, known as the "night shift", is 2:00pm to 10:30pm. The 3rd shift, "the graveyard shift", is 10:00pm to 6:30am.

I just couldn't take waking up at 5am anymore. In the last two months I can only recall about 3 days where I didn't feel tired or ill, so I asked my boss if I could switch to the second shift. My boss seemed surprised when I asked her.

"Wow, usually people want to transfer to the day shift, not vice versa." she said to me. She also told me that by working the second shift, I'd get a 55 cent raise, and she said if I was willing to work the graveyard shift, it would be an 85 cent raise.

There is no way I'd work the graveyard shift. I'd rather quit than work those kind of hours. If I got off work at 6:30 in the morning, my wife would think we don't need daycare anymore, and I'd never get a minute of sleep.

So with the raise and the extra free time in the morning and afternoon, I figured it would be a no-brainer to take the second shift. 10:30pm is not really that late to me. I always worked nights in Taiwan, often until 10pm and sometimes later.

"You'll have to give up your social life if you work the night shift." one of my colleagues told me.

Ha! What social life? Do you think it's possible to have an active social life when you have two small children? Buddy, my social life has been dead for the last four years!

So in a little over a week I'll start my new hours, and I'm telling you it can't come soon enough.

R.I.P. Richard Wright

It's a very sad day today, as one of the original members of Pink Floyd, Richard Wright, died of cancer at age 65. He follows Syd Barrett, another original member, who died in 2006.

That leaves us with David Gilmour, Roger Waters, and Nick Mason.

Richard Wright contributed heavily to the earlier, classic work of Pink Floyd. The albums "The Dark Side of the Moon" and "Wish You Were Here" feature a lot of his signature piano and keyboard, particularly "Us and Them," "The Great Gig in the Sky," "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," and "Welcome to the Machine." He also contributed some great harmonies with David Gilmour on "Echoes" and "Time."

By the time Pink Floyd recorded "The Wall" his work was pretty much marginalized by Roger Waters, and by "The Final Cut" he was fired. He did however, return for the later Pink Floyd albums "A Momentary Lapse of Reason" and "The Division Bell."

I think any possibilities of seeing a Pink Floyd reunion are pretty much dashed at this point. David Gilmour had ruled out any reunion even before Richard died. The best we have is the 2005 "Live 8" reunion, which was the last time the "classic" lineup of Waters/Gilmour/Mason/Wright appeared on stage together. I'm listening to that right now.

I've been to several Pink Floyd and Roger Waters concerts, but unfortunately I've never seen them all together. I saw Pink Floyd on their tours in 1987, 1988, and 1994. I've seen Roger on every tour except the last one (since I was in Taiwan at the time), and the "Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking" tour. It's not quite the same as the original lineup, but it's better than nothing.

Wright will be missed, but we should be thankful that we still have Gilmour and Waters out there making new music and (occasionally) touring. As long as we still have them, the spirit of Pink Floyd will live on.

(Picture: Pink Floyd at the "Live 8" reunion in 2005- from left to right - David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Nick Mason, Richard Wright)

Sara Sings ABC (Part 2)

I decided to make a a follow-up to the video I shot a few years ago of Sara singing "ABC." She didn't actually sing the song in the old video, she only said "Meee!" at the end of it (click on the link below to see the old video). This time she's finally got it, although it's still not perfect.

http://kenberglund.blogspot.com/2008/04/sara-video-2-abc.html

Seeing the Dentist in Taiwan

Earlier this year, when I was still living in Taiwan, I decided to go see the dentist. I knew I would be going back to America soon, and seeing a dentist in Taiwan is pretty cheap. You can get a checkup and cleaning for about 3 US dollars. The way they make their money is by getting you to agree to a lot of extra dental work, most of which you probably don't need.

I couldn't believe it when they told me that I had four (4!) cavities.

Four cavities? This cannot be possible. I've had about two cavities during my whole life, and now I suddenly have four? I didn't wake up one day and stop brushing my teeth, so how did this happen?

My initial instinct was not to trust what they had told me. They even told me that they wanted to re-fill a cavity that I had already gotten filled years ago. Something seemed fishy. I decided I wanted to get a second opinion. I was going to wait until I got back to America.

So today I saw an American dentist, and I have no cavities whatsoever. None. Nada. Zero. They did, however, want me to spend $485 on a "deep cleaning", but I didn't need any fillings.

So what is up with these Taiwan dentists? Are they just a bunch of scam artists?