Nothing of Note

Our lives have been relatively quiet except for a few burbles. Our biggest surprise was how well our retirement money did last year. Fear still seems rampant about the economy. As recently as a few weeks ago I heard someone advising friends prior to a Bible study he was staying away from the stock market. Almost no one realizes we are on the verge of crossing into the third year of up trend since the bottom. Quite amazing really.

After watching used material's ads regularly we now have much of the plumbing and electrical for Alaska stacked out by the garage. One setback is that we figured on using the ferry to get our RV transported to Gus this year at 1/5 the cost of using the barge last year. Turns out the ramp at the brand new dock isn't allowing any trailer over 20 feet in length. I can't imagine how any engineer would design a brand new multi-million dollar dock and then not make it capable of handling anything the ferry could unload. But that's apparently what happened. In essence they designed to deprive themselves business. To us that means the overall cost of getting to Alaska this spring will set us back about double what we thought due to the huge cost of being barged the last 50 miles. A disappointment to be sure. So I try to think about three grandsons waking up in the Alaska morning to take on the day with us and the cost seems viable.

The hospital informed me insurance rejected the claim for my kidney stone crisis last summer. (I even called insurance prior to the procedure to make sure there would be no problem.) The hospital says we owe them $21,000. I am not shirking the responsibility, and have been in contact with their finance personnel regularly as they try to re-file the claim so they can accent my conversations with Anthem Blue Cross before the surgery. I feel the insurance company has culpability due to those conversations. Because of this we are looking at getting some sort of supplemental insurance for the future due to our HMO saying we are not covered when over 30 miles from home unless one is hospitalized directly from an emergency room visit. We still have options. I'm trying to get to the bottom of the problem.

In spite of these two negatives we walk by faith and are doing quite well.