Moving Truck Madness

As I was driving home from work today, I heard the traffic report on the radio. The dee jay reported that there was a moving truck driving the wrong way down the road near Rancho and Lake Mead. Oddly, I was headed exactly for Rancho and Lake Mead. I wondered if I should just pull over or try an alternate route; I mean, which wrong way was the moving truck going? Was he taking people out in his path? Just before the intersection in question, there was an accident; several cops were there, but I didn't see a moving truck. I still assumed that it must have been a result of the moving truck situation. So I kept driving, figuring that I was out of danger. Then I saw the flashing lights ahead of me again. As I got closer I saw a huge semi of a moving truck, crashed on the side of the road. It appeared to have been heading into an apartment complex. It ran over the curb, and it looked like it went into a tree also. Rather than driving by the mess in the death lane--the truck pretty much took out all the west bound lane of Lake Mead--I decided to bypass the whole thing on another road. Of course, I ran into another accident there anyway. Some days, I guess you can't win, but at least I didn't have to dodge the out of control moving truck after all.

Bad-Age

My arm does not like the bandage that was used to cover the tetanus shot site. I removed the bandage on Thursday night and noticed it seemed a little pink. I washed it off, and on Friday it still looked really irritated where the bandage had stuck. I basically just have a bandage imprint on my upper left arm.

As we were driving up to Mammoth Lakes, I pointed out the bandage site to P&AF.

M: "Look, it's all red and irritated where the bandage was on my shot arm."

P: "I don't see anything."

M: "You don't? Maybe it's because you have your sunglasses on."

P: "I don't know. I just see a bandage. It looks fine."

M: "Yeah, but there isn't a bandage."

Nevada Health Care

I recently saw an interactive map on MSNBC -- which I, of course, cannot find now -- to compare the health care systems in different states. Poor Nevada came in near the bottom at around 46 or something. Sadly, I have to agree. I think this is one of the worst things about living in the state of Nevada.
Today I tried to get a tetanus shot. The whole saga actually began yesterday. I called to make an appointment with my primary care physician, but I was informed that she was out of the office for several weeks. I asked if another physician, nurse, or physician's assistant could see me, and they told me to go to a Quick Care office instead.
So I went to the Quick Care office today. The people there were very, very nice. I went through the whole check-in process, but when the doctor walked in, he told me that my insurance would probably not cover the shot. I am so grateful to him for mentioning it, because from my conversation yesterday, I hadn't gathered that there would be a problem.
I called my insurance company to verify, and the conversation didn't go so well. After it was determined that I did not have a wound, she informed me that I couldn't go to Quick Care. We went around and around a little bit about what my options were as my PCP was out of town. She then stopped the conversation and asked me if the vaccination was for school. I explained that I was some 4-5 years overdue on it, but that it was also required for school.
BIG mistake! She then completely flipped on me and told me that they weren't going to cover me at my PCP's office either because they don't cover "third party examinations." Hmmmmm...so even though I need the vaccination, because someone else also requires the vaccination, they aren't paying.
Anyway, the conversation ended with her telling me to find another insurance carrier and me telling her that I'd like to. She hung up on me.
After all, I went to the county health department. It wasn't unlike the DMV, though the people were quite friendly, and I didn't wait nearly as long. It cost more that I'd hope to pay for a vaccination, given that I have a health insurance plan with quite rich benefits, on paper, but at least it's done.
And thank goodness for the doctors and nurses and staff at that Quick Care! They saved me a good chunk of change!

Drive-In Etiquette

It's a new month, so I figure I should get back to blogging a little bit more. I've been pretty lazy lately.

In the most recent issue of Sunset magazine (which I love!) they recommended that you take a trip to the drive-in here in Las Vegas. I just have to disagree on this one.

One Friday night, we decided that we should go to the drive-in. It was hot out, but we figured that sitting outside in the breeze wouldn't be so bad. We went really early (last time we tried to go, there was such a traffic jam that we missed the first 20 minutes of the movie, and just left by the time we got to the payment stand,) parked our car, and walked over to a casino for dinner.

When we came back to the drive-in, there were several cars parked right near us. It seemed like there were about two adults and twenty children, ranging from 6 months old to 17 years old. The kids were yelling and running around. We thought maybe we were at the wrong screen because the movies were "Ocean's 13" and "1408." Why would a bunch of little kids be watching those movies? Especially when the younger kids kept yelling out, "Ratatouille!!" When the movie started, they realized that they were at the wrong screen. The kids were all yelling and pointing at another screen, and the adults packed up the car so that they could get to the right movie. It was only a minor fifteen minute disturbance.

We had about 10 minutes of a pleasant, quiet movie, with a nice breeze, when up drove a huge red SUV. First the SUV decided to leave its lights on for a good 10 minutes. It only resulted in a slight glare to the screen. Then the SUV refused to turn off. Apparently they wanted the air conditioning or something. However, this blasted me with hot exhaust air, rather than the cool breeze I had been enjoying. Am I completely crazy, or is it customary to shut your car off at the drive-in? After 20 minutes of sweltering heat and exhaust fumes, we carefully rolled our own car foward out of the SUV heat blast radius. The movie was much more enjoyable after that.

I still don't think I'd venture down there again though. Just not my type of crowd, I guess.