A dream about healthcare; a suggestion to President Obama.

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Normally, I try to live on 6 – 8 hours of sleep. When that happens I find myself dreaming very little, but last night / this morning I found myself consuming nearly 12 hours of sleep and as a result woke up with fading memories of a few wild dreams.

Lately I’ve become consumed with the issue of US healthcare. I’ve been reading blogs. I’ve been following members of Congress, CNN, Libertarians and others on Twitter. I read nearly every post related to healthcare and I RT (re-tweet) every issue I feel is important to pass on. I can’t say I’m surprised that last night I had a dream that I personally met with the POTUS (President Of The United States) Barack Obama and gave him my “two cents” on healthcare reform.

As dreams often go, most of it didn’t make sense. I grew up watching Crocodile Dundee, and for whatever reason clips of that movie, with ‘yours truly’ as a main character flashed through my mind as part of this dream, but I digress – back to the real issue.

I remember finding myself in a neighborhood. This was a typical middle-class neighborhood, small – medium sized brick houses with vinyl siding, average-size yards with green, freshly mowed lawns. I don’t remember any smells, or sounds of significant import other than a conversation the POTUS was having with a “neighbor”.

I was standing at a chain-link fence tending to my yard. I don’t know if I was weed-eating my lawn, pulling weeds or just admiring the work of my green thumb, but I recall there were two teenage boys in the adjacent yard playing; their garage door was open. I heard Barack Obama and the neighbor’s wife talking. They weren’t discussing anything worth mentioning, just…talking. I thought to myself, “Now’s my chance. Get over there and tell Barack Obama what YOU think should be done about national healthcare [reform].” So I did.

I walked around the fence and passed, if not through the two boys playing in the yard; they paid me no particular attention. Of course, I didn’t find myself walking up to the POTUS as I rounded the corner of the garage and walked under the door. My mind flashed forward to a seated interview-style “meeting” with the POTUS on a carpeted floor. We spoke very little before a small child, who I could only assume was his daughter (although she looked nothing like either of his ‘real’ daughters) came bounding in and jumped on his lap. I felt a connection to the man as a fellow father. I said, “Hi” to the little girl to which she cordially, and politely replied, “Hello.” I asked her name. She responded and then, with a big smile on her face said, “It’s very nice to meet you sir.” I remember feeling good, and appreciating the manners of this young girl. Admittedly, I have a soft spot for young girls as the father of an 8-year old girl and as a result fell victim to my ‘weakness’ and found myself conversing with this young child and totally ignoring the POTUS. I can’t remember the verbal exchange between myself, and the POTUS’ daughter, but I remember [in my dream] it lasted a mere moment before I was again transported to a different place.

I was standing at a table on which lay [what looked every bit like] a tape recorder, although this tape recorder worked in real-time, very much like a phone. The POTUS was on the “other-end” of this tape recorder and we were talking. For whatever reason there were two of my friends, from work standing there with me. I spoke to the President. I told him, “Mr. President, if I may: I’m no politician, I’m not the smartest guy, but I’m learning more everyday. As I become more and more aware of and informed about the issue of healthcare reform, I wonder if you might consider the following: let’s address, as a nation as single issue of healthcare and work to resolve IT, and it alone before we act as David and try to tackle the giant, Goliath without becoming fully prepared.” He replied to me, “Okay. Let’s here what you’re proposing.”

I was sitting in a chair…again, the same chair on which I met Barack Obama’s daughter. Random.

I looked at Barack Obama, and I said, “Sir, and let my friends here back me up on this, but I believe we should address the issue of health insurance, the premiums paid, the companies involved and work to reform this very small segment of the healthcare industry. There are already a multitude of participating, and cooperative companies that would work with you to help save the American people money towards the cost of their health insurance.”

The end.

I don’t know if what I proposed was worth discussing face-to-face with the “Most Powerful Man Alive”, but I tried. I’ve become border-line obsessed with this issue and I feel that no one can be ignorant and turn a blind-eye to what’s happening in Washington. Unfortunately, I’m convinced most [or at least the large majority] of Americans are just waiting for the Government to swoop in and fix healthcare as we know it.

I had a dream. You’ve now read it. Please comment below and let me know your thoughts on my dream and on healthcare reform.

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Feeling down, looking up.

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I woke up this morning and felt fine, I’ve been taking my medicine for the last three days and have high hopes for the change in my mood-shifting behavior that should be the result of my new medicated state. It’s Sunday, naturally we were preparing to go to Church; however, I received a text msg from a friend that sent me into an immediate downward spiral. You seem I’ve become a real jerk of a husband, I’ve made many, many mistakes and to be reminded of them makes me feel even worse. It’s like decided to change and do better, and then be slapped in the face with a reminder of the past and the wrongs you’ve committed.

I tried to shrug it off and move on with my day, but I couldn’t. My daughter and I took my sister to Church, dropped her off at the door and headed North towards Roanoke. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I didn’t want to see anyone or deal with the goings-on of Church. We ended up at IHOP and ate a late breakfast / early lunch. It was nice to spend time with Jenn, just the two of us. I had a bacon omelet, she had pancakes and bacon. Her meal came with eggs, but she substituted them for hashbrowns, although when they showed up, she said she didn’t think that hashbrowns were what she saw on her plate and refused to eat them.

I was already feeling good, being with Jenn lightened my mood and began to make my day better. We left the restaurant without the intention of going home. I wanted to take Jenn to the Roanoke Star, but couldn’t remember how to get there. It didn’t take long, we never took a wrong turn, and in a round-about way made it up to the Star.

We got out and walked to the Overlook, I had to take lots of pictures. We walked around some and I kept making Jenn stop for photo opportunities. She and I were both having a good time, she so much so that she didn’t want to leave. That is, until she decided she wanted to take off her shoes and socks. It was too cold for that outside, so I decided we’d leave and she could go barefoot in the car.

Back home I put her in front of the computer, with her new betta, Benny, beside her and took a nap. She’s always been a trooper when I’ve been down and just needed to sleep off my problems. I woke up a little while later and have felt so-so ever since. I wonder if my new phone will contribute to a more positive attitude?

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School, XBox and my daughter.

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The title of this post says it all – that’s my life in a nutshell.  I’m in school in pursuit of a degree in Accounting from Virginia Tech.  When I’m not at school, or studying, I’m usually running on the treadmill or playing Halo 3 on XBox Live; what can I say? – I love it.

My daughter comes to see me every weekend.  The bus drops her off at our house on Friday at 3:00pm, and she stays until the bus returns to pick her up for school Monday morning at 7:00am.

More later…

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Business 101

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I sat down and started writing, with no outline, no idea of what I was going to say or who my audience was.  But I ended up with the following few paragraphs.  Please, please comment and let me know what you think.  I’ve always wanted to be a Business Consultant, so I figured I’d start pro-bono and work my way up to charging a hefty fee!  –

Look I’m not a lawyer; I don’t have an MBA and am currently unemployed, so take what I say with a grain of salt.  But mark my word(s), if you don’t begin with the end in mind, you may regret it.  Imagine you go into business with a family member (*Big no, no!*) thinking, “I trust them, we’ve always gotten along, we both have assets and a great idea, how could we possibly lose?”  Think again, family members are often times the most difficult to get along with in a business environment.  Starting a business creates huge amounts of stress on you personally and within your immediately family (ie: spouse, children).  You only compound the level of stress by inviting your brother, sister, aunt, uncle, mom, dad in on the deal.  I’m not saying it will always be a bad idea; some families work very well together, what I am saying is this – Begin with the End in mind.  Setup your partnership, corporation, etc. in such a way that members of the business can get out if they so choose, and the terms and conditions under which they may withdraw their ownership rights.

Now, with that being said, what type of business do you want to setup?  Again, this advice is free, from a guy with no job, but I’ve read a lot of books on this stuff, I love talking about it, and I started my own business at one point early on in my own life.  With a grain of salt, I recommend you listen to the following: Consult with a live, real-person, face-to-face, attorney; I repeat: consult with a real, live attorney, face-to-face.  Don’t go cheap on yourself and trust your businesses future in the hands of LegalZoom.com or other quick business startup sites.  They’re not all bad, (trust me, I used LegalZoom.com) but you end up having to meet with an attorney anyway, spending the same amount you would have spent in the first place, in addition to the amount the online get-it-done-quick site already charged you.

So who should you go see?  I would suggest stepping back before you meet with an Attorney and reviewing your business plan.  Are your business goals clear?  Have you followed the goal setting outline?  If so, have your plan reviewed by your local SCORE office and get their free opinion before spending any money on a $200.00/hour chum in a fancy suit!  (Just kidding, some of my best friends are attorneys.)

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GNU/Linux Ubuntu 8.04.1 “Hardy Heron”

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With the help of my computer-savvy brother, I was able to partition / allocate 20GB of hard drive space to the installation of a second operation system (OS): Ubuntu.  He helped me get the OS installed, setup and then left me to ‘play around with it’.  In the course of trying to get the sound to work through the laptop speakers, I managed to remove the wireless networking capability.  In frustration, I deleted the OS and freed the partition.

It didn’t take long for me to revert back to the idea of dual-booting my computer and becoming more familiar with Linux.  On my own (this time) I installed a different version of Linux, Kubuntu 8.04.1, onto the original 20GB partition.  It turns out that OS has the same problem Ubuntu had initially.  I went back into Windows Vista, set aside another 20GB and reinstalled Ubuntu; the install worked, but the sound does not.

At any rate, I’m really enjoying this new experience.  The user interface is very similar to Windows, but the entire OS is setup completely different and it’s fully open source.  Which means that anyone can download Linux for free, play around with it, get familiar and even make changes that can be published along with the scheduled updates!

For anyone semi-familiar with computers, and who is not afraid of installing, uninstalling, reformatting, or doing whatever else it takes to make it work…I recommend Linux as an alternative to Windows.  Keep in mind, myself, as well as my brother, are dual-booting between Windows (on which we were raised) and Linux.

Good luck.  Don’t come to me for help when you run into problems, I’m just as new and just as clueless:www.ubuntuforums.org

o0880800o

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Mini Autobiography

I look for ways to make 'stuff' better. I'm a proponent of policies, procedures, processes, and systems.
I'm married to Sarah, father to Jennifer, and we have a dog (German Shepherd / Black Labrador), Jackson. I live in Rocky Mount, work in Roanoke, and attend Virginia Tech [full-time] in Blacksburg, VA.
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