Major Mike’s Musings

Mrs. Major is feeling better today. Still very tired and still has some cramping. I think she is on the mend.

The weather gave us a break. The rain abated for our 1.5 hour drive to Sanford, the 3.0 hour cruise¹, and the 1.5 hour return drive.

The cruise turned out to be fun. The first deck of the boat was the dining room, filled with red leather booths that tightly fit six or four people. The food was pretty good, not outstanding, but not bad. The company was good. We sat at a six-top where the other two BILs had served in the Navy…not career like I did…and had several sea stories.² The ladies at our table, including Mrs. Major, were outgoing, lively, funny, and lovely.

The second deck had a bar and small lounge area, another lounge-dance area with a guy singing lots of dance songs, and an outside observation deck. If it weren’t so cold, the outside would have been the place to gather after dinner. The poor smokers had to go out on deck to smoke…no smoking inside.

We got home at around 12:30 am.

The only unfortunate thing about the whole trip is that today Mrs. Major is suffering pretty bad cramps. We’re speculating that he had food poisoning. We’ll have to find other PEOs who had the chicken breast to see if they had any ill effects. Mrs. Major said the chicken was dry, so it was probably cooked properly. Perhaps the contamination was from the sauce or from the handling. She’s still in bed.

My pork tenderloin was very good and, so far, I’m fine.

1. Do I hear a cheesy song in the background? [↩]
2. By the way, the difference between a sea story and a fairy tale is: One starts out, “Once upon a time…” and the other starts out “This is no s**t…” [↩]

In a few hours, Mrs. Major and I are scheduled to join some of her PEO sisters in Sanford, Florida, for a riverboat cruise dinner-dance, presumably for Valentine’s Day. This is a BIL¹ event. It’s been on the books for several months.

The problem is, it’s been raining buckets² for hours and is forecast to be the same with temps around 40 degrees at launch time. Fortunately, I think the meal is served inside. At least I hope it is.

1. BILs are the husbands of the PEOs. I’m not sure what BIL stands for, if anything; except I’m sure it doesn’t stand for “brothers in lingerie”. At least I hope it doesn’t. [↩]
2. Cats and dogs [↩]

Our discipleship/small groups moved from Wednesday night to Saturday night. Wednesday is the night Mrs. Major has cards, so now I have Wednesday night free to read. Yea!

Mrs. Major and I had a great weekend (Thursday – Saturday) in St. Augustine celebrating our 44th wedding anniversary. We walked on the beach, ate lavishly, shopped in Old Town, toured the fort, drove around, and visited the World Golf Hall of Fame. All-in-all a relaxing, romantic get-away.

At 5am – 7am we had thunderstorms, a tornado,  and rain totaling 1/2 inch and and hour and a half later we were out playing golf. Gotta love Florida.

The 1.8 year old TiVo HD finally started to look like it was recording, but actually dropping programs around the 1 minute to 11 minute recorded mark. I wasn’t sure whether it was the hard disk in the TiVo, the external hard disk, or Comcast signals. Not wanting to spend a bunch of money to find out, we switched from Comcast to Dish. Since the DVR service with Dish is less than the TiVo service, and the actual Dish service is cheaper than Comcast, we’ll be saving the big bucks.

I also switched our high-speed Internet service from Comcast to CenturyLink. It’s no longer required that  you subscribe to local phone service in order to get DSL. Good deal. The DSL will be about the same as cable after the discounted price expires after a year.

So far things are working superbly and we’re learning the new system.

I’m officially retiring the static page titled “Comcast Saga” effective immediately.

I just went through my many boxes of electronic stuff to organize and throw out. I don’t know how I did it, but among the yards of phone lines, miles of coaxial cable, and plethora of plugs, I found 15, count ‘em, 15 AC adapters of various sizes and voltages. These do not include all the cell phone chargers, of which we have many. I must have kept them in spite of tossing the equipment to which they supply the juice.

I’m also getting real tired of this Halloween theme I’ve got going here. I’m glad October is almost over so I can change it. Maybe I’ll change it anyway.

Apparently, I really offended my dentist, Dr. Adam Still, (or his operations manager, Stacy Markle), of Laurel Manor Dental. Offended enough that they no longer want me (or Mrs. Major) as a patient. Here’s what happened:

About a year and a half ago, Dr. Still recommended that I replace the crowns on teeth 18 and 19 as they were beginning to “leak” and I would begin to get cavities underneath them soon. He gave me a treatment plan for the two crowns at $2200.¹ I have this minimalist dental insurance² that was already maxed out for last fiscal year, so I tried to negotiate with the doctor on the price. He pretty much laughed me off.

I waited until the beginning of this fiscal year and attempted to renegotiate a better price for the two crowns. He refused. When my perodontist also recommended that I get the crowns replaced, I began to shop around to see if a local dentist would do them for less. The good folks at Royal Dental concurred with Laurel Manor Dental’s diagnosis and agreed to replace the crowns for $699 each. I requested that Laurel Manor Dental send my x-rays to Royal Dental so that they could do the work. Which they did for the agreed upon price. They did a great job, too.

A week or so later, I got a letter from Stacy Markle stating that Laurel Manor Dental was sorry to see me leave and was wishing me the “very best in your future dental care.” I called Ms. Markle several times but was unsuccessful. The last time I left her a message on her voicemail stating that I was not changing dentists. I just wanted to save $800 on my crowns. Other than the price for the crowns, I was completely satisfied with Laurel Manor Dental.

Yesterday, I received a “Dear John” letter from Ms. Markle. I quote it here:

As referenced in my letter to you dated July 20^th 2009 it is my understanding that you have chosen to seek dental care elsewhere. You indicated such to us when you requested your radiographs be forwarded to another office in order to have your treatment performed there. As a practice policy, we do not assume responsibility for treatment received outside of this office when we have diagnosed treatment and established a relationship with our patient. Therefore, as stated in my letter, we regret your decision, however, wish you the very best in your future dental care.³

A nice, friendly letter making it seem like I had abandoned our relationship. Figuring that a business manager would be loath to loose two valued customers in these tough economic times, I called Ms. Markle. I was astounded that, indeed, I was fired as a patient. They had cancelled my appointment for a cleaning for Wednesday.

I guess we’ll have to find another dentist.

1. Actually $910 per crown and $195 each for buildups…so it’s really $2210. [↩]
2. It’s The Retiree Dental Program for retired military which we pay for. It doesn’t cover all the costs and for crowns there is a max per crown that is very low. They only pay 50% with a max of $350 per crown. [↩]
3. I can’t help it. The punctuation in the first sentence is amiss. And one doesn’t diagnose a treatment; one prescribes a treatment. [↩]