One year ago today: July 7, 2016, what’s a stageplot?
Five years ago today: July 8, 2012, zero-sum B-average, etc.
Nine years ago today: July 7, 2008, scented, married, and earthy.
Random years ago today: July 7, 2011, the original battery PA.
I got to the motorcycle shop to find they had sent the wrong chain. It was the type that could not just knock out a link or two. Now, I must wait until Monday to get the part, meaning no trip back until after that. When it isn't raining. That means crashing on the old sofa for a few days. Hey, I mean old. He told me he got that from his sister when she graduated from college. Insert snarky comment here. I'll never understand this guy, he should have the best furniture money can buy. He's had a broken tap in his bathroom since I met the dude in 2000. I can just see him getting some dame over there and she sees that tap. She'll think, "This is the guy I want to father my children." Yep, that's what they'll think.
Normally I'd stay inside the air conditioned movie theaters, but have you seen this summer's offerings? These millennials can't even invent their own super-heroes. I ain't paying $12 to watch the same Spiderman I saw in the comics when I was eight.
Hopkins private school.
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This was a sad day but it had to eventually happen. First of all, I want to stress that I have never stated that my doctor’s office was giving my private phone number to the telemarketers. What I did say was materially different, and that is whenever I left my doctor’s office, I experienced a flurry of telemarketing calls for several weeks. It was so bad, you could tell by my phone usage when my appointments had been scheduled. (My phone is unique in that it is used only for medical appointments and has the text feature disabled, meaning I have to pay for those events.)
I won’t go into much detail, but I had left specific instructions that the office is not to give out my phone number at all and that meant specifically NOT to my medical provider or any pharmacy. There was a gap in my visits to this doctor, during which the [telemarket] calls tapered off to nothing for over a year, during which I changed medical providers. However, in March, I visited this doctor, and the calls started again. And as you may know, in April, I was practically standing next to a pharmacist when he wrote down my phone number. I know the doctor’s office does not know this pharmacist or anything about him, but let’s just say I had spent a lot of effort making sure this particular pharmacist never had my number.
When I explained this to the doctor, he immediately emotionalized the issue, wrongly saying I was accusing his office of giving my phone number out. He stated they never did that – except he also said they do it all the time. But not in my instance, he assured me. I was appalled. This guy is second to none in the medical field, but outside of that, he ‘s got the debating skills of a kindergarten brat. When I tried to show him the corroborating evidence, he went off the deep end. Accusing my ex-wife of giving out the number and saying I was out of touch with the way the world has changed.
I guess he hasn’t read any of the 312 articles I’ve written on database security since 1981. The doctor was actually defending the office manageress on this issue. That’s an outrage because he would not even look at the evidence. A reasonable man would have concluded that I was upset about something, but instead he said I was paranoid. That’s interesting, I thought he was a cardiologist and now he’s also a psychiatrist?
Either way, he should at least have examined the evidence, but it’s plain the office manageress got to him first. She played the guy like a fiddle, turning it into a different issue by playing the first-offended card. And he fell for it. Possibly he has not learned that the keyboard is mightier than the scalpel, or for those of you bent that way, maybe he’s got a hard on for the screwy bitch. Within a week, I’ll have her rap sheet, there’s one thing you learn at the phone company, it is how to deal with this situation.
That is the end of that doctor for me. I can’t be taking prescriptions from somebody who doesn’t respect the patient’s situation. And as for my respect toward him, let’s just say over the past decade, I’m glad the guy was my doctor and not my lawyer. He would not last ten seconds in a courtroom with me. Nor could he explain how, by his theory, my ex-wife who lives a thousand miles away, could possibly have known when I was in that pharmacy.
Now, I had considered the possibility that the medical provider was insisting on getting my phone from the doctor’s office. But I had left specific instructions not to put that number in a computer, rather to staple it inside my hard copy with a note not to give it to the provider. Once they, or the pharmacy get it, the cat is out of the bag. That’s the angle the manageress was playing, hiding behind that veil of deniability. Worse, my doctor, when he called me paranoid, was possibly the only person in the room who had not heard of the breach at CVS and Wal*mart in the past two years. (You might say he’s unaware of how the world has changed.)
You see, I could not tell if it was directly the doctor’s office that was triggering the calls, or if it happened somewhat later when the medical provider was billed. I don’t know the interval, but read on below. I now suspect it is around three hours. You see, I did not catch anybody red-handed, as my doctor’s behavior would suggest, rather I possessed strong corroborating evidence. And he should have seriously examined it, for his own best interests. Instead, he started a pissing contest.
He adamantly denied his office could in any way be responsible for those telemarket calls. He would not listen when I explained that beginning on May 29, I began getting text messages from marketers who had my full middle and last names, and knew that I was taking heart medication. But that’s okay, he would probably just have blamed the man on the moon. I left his office for the last time today at 2:15 PM.
Three hours later Aurora e-mailed. Commencing at 5:08 PM, telemarketing calls began. Since the doctor did not bill me for this appointment, that would indicate the problem most likely remains in his office. I have never lived in any of these area codes. Here is a partial list of the numbers, many of them spoofed (meaning they are not legit businesses):
470-250-6734, 609-201-0881, 727-218-1132, 248-254-6057, 936-213-8059, 845-750-3515.
[Author’s note: later, the 609 number is fake vehicle warranty scam, the 727 & 248 numbers are a Michigan scam claiming to do surveys for Medicare, the 936 is a loan approval scam based in Texas, and the 845 number is a New York vacation coupon scam. These are 6 calls from a total of 19 calls within a week after I visited the doctor above, the one who categorically denies there are any leaks in his security system. His attitude is that since he's a doctor and I'm not, he's in the right.]
The moral to the above story is that one should always remember, the person who writes the best blog always has the last word.
“People who sleep like a baby
usually don’t have one.”
~ Leo J. Burke
One of the vehicles I’m looking at is a Dodge Magnum station wagon. These are usually completely loaded with most imaginable extras, though that is pretty much what is needed to sell a car these days. This is the best one I’ve looked at. The reader should be aware that I am done making the mistake of ever buying a new car in America. (You instantly lose 30% of the price because that is what goes to the union pension plan.) While I won’t likely buy this particular car, be aware that there are plenty of units in the 2006-2008 range that pass the Carfax filters. This one caught my eye, as it is from a dealership, has only 53,000 miles on the clock and I got the guy talked down to $5,100. They’ll guarantee it for a year at any associated dealership, and there is one in Tampa.
The financing is in place, which over here means I have the cash. What I'm not keen on is the insurance costs. This could be the final car I ever buy, so I'll take my time and like my old Cadillac, may just put out the feelers that I'm interested and see what that rustles up. That's how I got the price of the Cadillac down by 2/3rds back in 1988, when it was just three years old. For any new people, that is the car that a building contractor had bought for his wife. But she didn't like it. It was one of those 1985 2-door El Dorado type, but with all the extras.
It was very similar to what you see here, but it had the opera windows and the aluminum block V8. Best of all, it had the climate control air conditioning. That was something else. I test drove it for a long time before deciding. The only thing I could find wrong with it was the tape deck was worn out. She hated all electronics so most of the buttons had never been touched. For all I know, she sat in it parked in her driveway listening to Paul Anka or something. I've said it before, it was the best car I've ever owned, but I will never buy another Cadillac. There is no such thing as good service.
Examples of that would be the oxygen sensors. When one gives out, you have to replace all four. Big bucks. Same with items like the windshield wipers or door latches. It is impossible to buy just that part they know damn well wears out first. Dare to put your own or a used part, and it voids the warrantee. I believe the cheapest repair on that car ever was $135 for a fan belt.
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