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Reader Story: How I Purchased Private Health Insurance
Published on - September 26th, 2010 (Modified on - January 5th, 2011) (by J.D. Roth)
This guest post from Jaime Tardy is part of the "reader stories" feature at Get Rich Slowly. Some stories contain general advice; others are examples of how a GRS reader achieved financial success — or failure. These stories feature folks from all levels of financial maturity and with all sorts of incomes. Jaime writes about her financial journey at Eventual Millionaire. This piece is a follow-up to her first reader story from June, in which she described how she paid off $70,000 and quit her job.
Finding affordable health insurance was one of the biggest obstacles we faced when I quit my job. My husband is a self-employed performing artist (juggler/musician). We had always relied on my job to pay for our insurance.
Find Affordable Insurance
Health Insurance is a complicated issue. We knew we needed to have health insurance, because without it we could face financial ruin; but I didn't want health insurance to stop me from quitting a job I hated to pursue my dream of working for myself.
Before I quit, I spent hours researching different health care options. This post is about what I learned.
Finding the Right Health Insurance Plan
There were so many plans with so many options it was hard to keep everything straight. Our best option was to keep my newborn son on a separate plan. It would allow him to have much better coverage and let my husband and me purchase a cheaper plan for us, to save money.
At that point we lived in the state of New Hampshire. There was a program through the state that allowed you to buy in to their insurance program for kids. The coverage was excellent. At the time the payment was about $100 per month for just my son.
The plans for my husband and me were limited and expensive. I spoke to a few qualified agents. I researched and found reviews on the internet. I needed to make sure the plan fit our budget, had benefits that fit us, and had a good reputation.
It seemed like we had two options:
- A PPO/HMO plan which had a lot of benefits and a high monthly cost.
- A high-deductible plan that didn't have a lot of benefits but was less expensive.
With the high deductible plan, we could also sign up for a Health Savings Account. An HSA is a savings account that allows individuals to save for medical expenses tax-deferred.
We seemed like perfect candidates for the high-deductible plan. We were 25 years old and very healthy. We rarely went to the doctors. We were frugal and could pay attention to the cost of our health care.
In 2007, a high-deductible plan for two adults was $192 per month with a $5,000 deductible. We had over $20,000 in our emergency fund, so we figured we could pay for most health emergencies. Our total cost per month for health insurance for our family would be $292.
After thinking about it more, I realized I had to take into account the possible loss of income too. If my husband injured his hand, he couldn't juggle. If either of us had a serious injury and couldn't work, we'd need our emergency fund to pay for bills. We decided to save an additional $5,000 to put in our HSA to help with that risk.
A Problem with the Plan
We had the plan for a year before I realized we were losing money. I had signed up for the preventative option, so we could have regular health check-ups covered for my son. It turned out that the option had a cap of $200 per year. I was paying an extra $22 per month. That meant I was losing at least $64 per year.
I thought I had inspected every inch of that plan. There were just too many options and rules. Needless to say, I canceled the preventive option.
New State, New Insurance
When we moved to Maine, we had to find new insurance. I had to spend hours researching again. There are only three health insurance companies here, and the premiums are a lot more expensive because Maine doesn't discriminate. Everyone has the ability to get coverage.
The high-deductible plan and HSA seemed to work well before. Since the prices were so much higher here (our previous plan would have been almost $600 per month), we increased our deductible to $10,000. To avoid more risk, we increased the amount of money in our HSA to $10,000. Our current plan costs $483 for a family of four. (We welcomed a new little girl last year!)
Paying for Visits
Having a high deductible means we have to pay for doctors visits. Many people I talk with have no idea what a doctor's visit costs. A normal doctor visit costs us $92. If we pay within 21 days, we receive a 10% discount.
I've realized how great it is to pay attention to costs. I feel so much more involved in the process of our health. My daughter's doctor wanted to do a test, so I asked how much it would cost. She said that she never looks at the cost of the procedures. The test was $2,000 and it wasn't medically necessary. If a procedure is important to your health, you need to spend money on it; but I was able to save $2,000 because I did my due diligence to research and ask for second opinions about my daughters care.
Last year we spent about $2,800 on medical expenses. That included all wellness visits for my one-year-old daughter, about seven appointments for illnesses, and two emergency room visits.
A Learning Process
Figuring out what fit for us has been a learning process. Since I can't predict the future, I don't know if this plan will fit us 100%. If I have a big disaster come up and my plan lacks adequate coverage, I'll have to learn from it and adjust.
There's a delicate balance of living the life you want and mitigating risk. I'm still finding the balance, but I do my best to keep my family debt-free, healthy and living the life we want.
Do you have any ideas or suggestions for my plan? What has worked for you, and what hasn't?
This article is about Health & Fitness, Insurance, Reader Stories
You may already know this, but it cost me thousands of dollars to find out. If you have insurance, even with a $10,000 deductible, you save a ton of money. That's because the insurance company negotiates the amount that their customers pay. For example, the $2,000 procedure the author mentions may well have been $3,000 if she did not have coverage and offered to pay cash.
"The test was $2,000 and wasn't medically necessary." Interesting comment. Why not? Because the result of the test wouldn't change the treatment? I mean, I myself have refused an MRI, because the outcome of the MRI wouldn't have changed my treatment plan, so that made the test unnecessary (in my opinion). Just curious how a layman can figure out if a test is medically necessary or not. What did the author base that opinion on? I'm all for watching costs/making sure claims are paid, etc. And I work in the medical field, so can do my own research amongst the thousands of printed journals and textbooks (because I have access to them). And I do my own diligence when it comes to my health. I just don't see how a layman can do that, especially with so much false medical information on the internet.
I'm in Missouri, and I pay $160/mo for a $3k deductible plan with no maternity. It has already paid for itself, as my doctor (whom I trust, and I'm picky!) strongly recommended a colonoscopy because of my family history. I called around for the cost, saved up, and then after the procedure discovered that my insurance paid 100% because it was preventive care. When the hospital pre-authorized, they weren't even told this, and I wrote them a big fat check before I left after the procedure, so they had to refund me.
Yes, it is awful that docs have no idea what procedures cost. A month ago I had blood drawn for Vit D and thyroid levels. By mistake, it was processed in-house by the hospital and I was billed $1500! Happily, after I got up the nerve to call and ask for a discount so that I could still eat once in a while, they forgave the full amount, since they weren't supposed to have done it in-house, anyway.
I have to think twice about any medical visit or procedure, because it's not magically paid for. I'm grateful that I am healthy and rarely need care, or I would be in big trouble.
Thanks so much for this post! It's a very nice example of getting non-group health care coverage for a healthy family.
It's interesting that your plan was cheaper than covering just my son was last year on a group plan in a different state ($500+/mo– I was paying full cost for him and nothing for me).
Thanks for the post, this is such an incredibly important topic and vast numbers of people have no idea how complex and expensive our health care 'system' is. As a physician, I have tried to be cognizant of what it costs to order tests which I think are important for my patients, but the complexities of the insurance industry make it nearly impossible to answer questions about cost when patients ask me. I don't know their co-pays, the % coverage for tests, whether of not tests will be covered, and then billing departments for the places I work for have their own rules about how they go about getting paid back for services rendered.
To answer your question, you have come up with a creative way to keep coverage for your family that it sounds like is suiting you well. My only suggestion would be to find someone familiar with insurance products to go over the coverages in your plan with you to try and make sure that you don't have big holes BEFORE someone becomes very ill. Planning for every contingency is obviously impossible, but you want to at least make sure there are no obvious coverage flaws.
Relative to this topic, if I could ask the readers one thing, it would be to realize that a good doctor will be on your side with these issues and willing to work with you. While there are some doctors who have financial stakes in the services and tests they provide, the vast majority don't get a dime for ordering a test on you or prescribing a drug.
Last advice, while screening for silent illnesses like high blood pressure and high cholesterol is very important, the best preventive medicine is not achieved by ordering tests, but eating well, not smoking, and getting regular exercise.
Keep up the great work JD and Jaime!
Great post.
We have private insurance as well.
Recently we took my daughter to the emergency room. When we first received the bill, it wasn't itemized at all. Just a bill. I can't believe they thought I was going to pay it like that. (I guess most people do)
So we requested an itemized bill, and on the bill was a generic item "Intermediate care" for 600 dollars. Since she didn't need much care, I thought "What determines intermediate vs. a lower option?"
I called billing and noone could explain to me why it was called "intermediate care" vs. "basic care" or something else. Not even the emergency room knew! I finally got passed to the records department who ventured a guess, but I finally gave up and just paid it.
Other things we've learned:
Some doctors give discounts for paying actual cash.
Find a doctor that is generous with their drug samples
Sometimes if labs are ordered and paid for through the doctor instead of directly to the lab, it's cheaper.
ALWAYS ask if a test is necessary. Specifically, ask if the care would change based on the results of the test.
Always go to the doctor if you've been coughing for seven days straight (can you say whooping cough?)
Depending on your plan, emergency room visits aren't covered AT ALL. Ouch.
Even the people at the hospital don't understand the billing.
Until 3 years ago I always had private health insurance. It was a major medical plan and fit the needs of our healthy family that didn't need more then a yearly visit to the doctor.
My husband got a job that offered a 'great' health plan and they employer paid 60%. We blindly went forward and after the first year I realized we were paying more in insurance + out of pocket expenses then we had ever before. I researched the plan, made a few changes and brought our costs down. In year 2 and 3 the cost were still high. We will be going back to our private major medical plan. It comes down to what our needs were and the plan was way more then what we needed or used. I'm not looking forward to the research part!
My husband and I were turned down for insurance repeatedly (both in good health, no medical issues on records, regular physicals) because we're overweight. We ended up using our state's High Risk Health insurance, and opted for a high deductible plan for similar reasons to the guest blogger – we're generally healthy, and can predict our medical care needs per year pretty easily. Group insurance isn't an option where I work (my husband doesn't work), so we were glad that there was an option available for us (or we'd still be insurance-free).
I've tried to explain to friends why the high deductible plan works well for us. From now on, I can just refer them here so they can see how someone might make that decision themselves.
When I read a post like this, I am SO HAPPY to be living in Canada where our health costs are covered…when I go to the doctor I don't have to pay anything. I'm also very fortunate to have an excellent plan (for dental, orthodontic, paramedical, prescriptions) through my workplace (and it's a job I still love most days, so I'll stay put!). I'm a cancer survivor (over 10yrs now!) and cannot imagine how much my treatment would have cost me had I lived in the US and had to pay for it myself!
My pet peeve: Government won't let health insurance companies compete over state lines… when you live in one state with 3 health insurance companies, basic economics tells you prices will be higher than if you were free to choose from the almost 1,500+ insurance companies in America. I don't blame the health insurance companies for this. Sure, maybe they had lobbyists asked our politicians (who look out for our best interests -rolling eyes-) to make this law, but if our government really wants us to be healthy and save money, they will ditch this state lines law and let us choose a healthcare provider from wherever we want, not just in our state. Yet me thinks politicians are easily persuaded to do whatever benefits their job/pocketbook best. (I know a two lobbyists here in my town; trust me, politicians get their pockets lined heartily from them, whether we realize it or not and whether it is legal or not)
Wow – I don't know a lot of the ins/outs of health insurance, but would this example be right then? That, lets say in December and you had paid for a full year, an emergency happened and ended up costing $17,000 – that this family would have to pay $16,000 first and only THEN would the insurance company contribute $1,000 to the cost? Because it sounds like even though there is a high deductible that you aren't even getting like an 80/20 option on what you do pay. Ouchy. God forbid that your year roll over the next month and run into another (even inexpensive) accident!
I find it truly frustrating to try to find private insurance in Michigan. There are many plans but most are at least $200/month/person with $5k deductible. The problem for me is that none of them have exactly the same features or costs so it it impossible to compare them on a level field.
The note J.D. left about no one knowing the true cost of their services is so true! The insurance company wants you to "shop around" for the best price, but most places I call can't even give me an estimate until it is submitted to the insurance because they give everyone a different price! Imagine grocery shopping like this. It wold be infuriating!
It is too bad that insurance is so difficult to figure out. I bet that is a new job in the making- a health insurance broker. Someone that you could pay some money to that could find the absolute best insurance plan that would work for your circumstances. Maybe that person already exists and I am just not aware of them.
My husband works for a large company, and we still have to pay 600/month for our family for insurance. (They pay half, we pay half.) It is not like the old days, that is for sure.
When my husband changed jobs, he couldn't join the insurance plan for 2 months, so I got short term insurance for the family. The price was incredibly reasonable, but it was more of a catastrophic policy. I was so nervous those 2 months!
It is great that you have created a fund to cover the deductible if the need arises. It sounds like you have managed this situation very well.
My husband and I had to find private health insurance when I quit my job (for similar reasons to the article writer), and we found a high deductible plan with a $5,000 deductible for the entire family. Surprisingly, it paid off. The second year we were on it, my son had an emergency appendectomy on January 1. We hit the deductible in that first week, and for the rest of the year, all our medical services were covered. I was grateful to be on the plan that year, because it paid for itself. As long as you have enough in the bank to cover your deductible at all times (plus whatever more you need for lost wages, other emergencies), high deductible plans can be a decent, affordable option.
When my husband was given more hours at his day job, he was offered the employer-subsidized plan. But the employer did not cover much of the cost at all. When we did the math, we realized we would be paying far more, for not much better coverage. We stuck with the private plan.
We went through this research and headache, with this additional twist: we got denied when we applied. Several times. My husband had already quit his job to found a company, and it took nearly a year to sort through the red tape and get him covered. I shudder to think of the choice we'd have to have made had our denial been based on actual health problems: go without health insurance or not stick with the business (a successful one).
Wow. I always thought it was an either / or thing: either you pay a premium or you have a high deductible. It looks like private health insurance users really get screwed (big surprise).
I love it how this country's politicians (both sides) play lip service to the self-employed, entrepreneurs, and small business owners, but when it comes down to doing anything to help them—silence.
I think they don't know how much stuff cost because I honestly think they just change it whenever they feel like it.
I'm pregnant right now and I have diabetes so I have to go in for ultrasounds every two weeks. I received bills for last months apts (THAT WERE EXACTLY THE SAME – same time, same doc, same room, same equipment) and both I had to pay a $50 copay for.
BUT when I looked at the breakdown that they charged the insurance company for, the first apt cost was $325 and the second was for $675. There wasn't a single thing that was done differently at each apt and yet somehow the second one was over twice as much. What are they doing? Just making it up as they go along?
Chickybeth, have you tried http://www.healthcare.gov? It lists how many plans are available in your area, links to http://www.michigan.gov/dleg/0,1607,7-154-10555_12902_35510—,00.html (which is michigan's insurance department website), and coming in October will list price estimates for each policy. I don't know how detailed the policy information is, but it seems like a good start.
My biggest problem with the way health insurance is handled in this country is the way it is tied to your job for so many people (I have a lot of other issues with it, believe me…this is just the biggest one). It is insane that people have to take jobs/stay with jobs simply because of health insurance. It so limits many peoples work options. Want to work part time for some reason…sorry, you lose your health benefits (not in every case but in a lot of them). As this post points out, going out on your own for insurance is full of landmines (high expenses, gaps in coverage, limited ability to even GET insurance).
I applaud you for making the jump anyway and wading through it all to figure out a way to get insurance for your family.
I'm a doctor, and it's not that we don't know what OUR services costs. I can just look on my computer at my fee schedule and tell you how much anything I do will cost. This is not the same thing as how much any individual insurance company will pay since that depends on the contracted payment.
What we don't tend to know is how much a test we send you OUT for costs, like lab work and radiology tests. That's because there is no one price. It depends on where you go and how much your insurance company will pay which in turn depends on what plan you have from the 100s of plans that each insurance company offers. There is no way we can know all of this. If there is a medication or a test that a patient may need and they will be paying out-of-pocket, I usually just get my staff to call the pharmacy or lab, or whatever and ask them how much it is, but even that can change from day to day.
That said, I do have an idea of the relative cost of things. Like I know an ultrasound is going to cost a lot less than an MRI, so if an ultrasound will provide the information needed, then I order an ultrasound and not an MRI. And, there are only about 10 or less radiology tests I may ever order in my specialty, so it's easier to keep up with. But lab work is another story. There are 10s of 1000s of possible lab tests, and even within my specialty, there are probably 100 I order on a regular basis – no way to keep track of exactly how much each of these are at each different lab.
So, doctors DO know how much THEIR services are. We just don't know how much all the labs, radiology centers, pharmacies charge for everything, and how could we? I'm spending my time keeping up with the medicine, and with falling reimbursements and rising overhead, I can't pay someone just to keep up with everybody's charges at every lab/radiology center/pharmacy. This is why each person SHOULD check the cost at the lab or pharmacy where they go just like you'd price compare for your car or house upkeep. And, getting the insurance companies out of the middle would help a lot too since they are what make the situation so complicated. But, that's not likely to happen.
Health insurance is a real landmine because one policy does not fit all and circumstances can change what your needs are. I have a high deductible plan written on a group basis. I need to fund our HSA, but with the current economy it has been hard to have the funds. I have a son with chronic health issues and we pay the full $3,000 deductible plus the additional $1,000 out of pocket maximum every year. This is when it becomes very hard to handle the cost of health care. Finding affordable coverage and funding an HSA is much easier when you are not dealing with ongoing medical costs.
>>how ridiculous it is that doctors don't know how much their services cost, but it's not just doctors. It's the entire system.
Ok, let's get real here. The reason that no one in the health care system knows what the costs are is BECAUSE IT IS DESIGNED to be that way.
It is designed to be confusing, so you cannot compare costs.
It is designed to be confusing so people are dependent on the insurance companies.
… so what happens when there is any effort to fix the situation? Extreme hostility. Boggles the mind.
I have private health insurance, and I found it on http://www.ehealthinsurance.com — I pay $140 per month (but I pay every 3 months — I think it'd be a bit more if I paid monthly). I get $1k worth of office visits covered at 100% per year, then I have a $5k deductible, and then everything is covered at 100%. I also get free generic prescriptions. It's a fabulous plan for me (but I am keeping my fingers crossed that costs don't go up too much next year!). The one drawback is that there's no maternity coverage. Even if my boyfriend and I get married, I'll keep my plan until we want to have kids, because it's much cheaper than the plan through his work.
I like my plan because I can go to the doctor if I have to, and I love the 100% coverage outside of the deductible. The other nifty thing my plan does is negotiate one ER visit per year. So, when I went to the ER last year, my visit cost $5k. I was freaking out about having to pay the whole thing. When I finally got the bills, I ended up having to pay just $900 — my insurance company negotiated down to $1,200, and they picked up a little bit in my $1k doctor's visits cap. They said the only negotiate one ER visit per year on the plan I'm on, but that was good enough for me.
@Rachel211 (#7), have you called to ask about the difference? Especially if you're required to pay part, I'd call the hospital and ask about it. It is extremely easy to accidentally put in an incorrect code and get the billing off by a bit. I'd definitely check into that. Mistakes happen frequently in medical billing. I always check my bills to make sure that I'm only being charged for what was done.
I think this is a great post to show the confusing and frustrating process of health insurance. This is intentional on the part of the insurance companies to increase confusion which in turn increases profit.
In response to JD's comment, I am an emergency medicine physician and would like to provide atleast my insight on the "cost" game. Most practicing physicians don't know about the cost because it is an artifical system setup by hospitals and insurance companies. Most insurance companies reimburse a fraction of the amount billed, so is the true cost the amount billed or the amount reimbursed? Also hospitals set the price billed to compensate for uninsured patients. So depending on the hospital the price for the same test might be different. Most people want the healthcare system to be similar to other business transactions but I don't that is possible with the insurance companies and uninsured patients. Just my 2 cents on a topic which will go on for years.
Another resource for finding private healthcare plans is NASE, the National Association for the Self Employed
I have an HSA and I guess this article confused me a little bit. I thought BY LAW that an insurer with dependents can only contribute up to $6,050 to their HSA a year and that an individual only does $3,050. That also include employer contributions. With that said, I pay only $2,300 tax deferred and my employer pays the rest. I had done the math and I am really only paying $3-4 a month for health insurance and the rest goes into my HSA where I can actually set up various investments similar to a 401K. The only difficulty is that it is through Chase and I don't trust that bank.
To answer a previuos question, My max deductible a year is $5K, but if I had an emergency, the cost would go by the plan, the hospital would not just charge me that amount. I am hoping to stick with this plan as long as I am a federal employee and as long as my health needs are minimal. At age 55 I think I can use this money for whatever I want, including retirement.
I have to admit the only drawbacks is that it could work too well in keeping people out of the hospital when they probably should go.
Government regulations have destroyed what used to be a good, private health care system. It's such a shame.
Be thankful that you were in progressive states. In Texas, 2 adults married 1 working would have run $1400/mo for 5k deductible due to smoking and 1 with epilepsy (well managed with $35/mo prescription and no event for 20+ years). $2300/mo for HMO low deductible and preventative care coverage.
I just had to comment on the Doctors not knowing what services (prescriptions) cost as spot on. I work in a pharmacy and I will get quite a few people who have been 'told' by their Dr. that the med will only cost $XX, not $XXX.
A big one is the antibiotic Levaquin, the patient gets #10 pills and the cash price is $190. "But my Dr said it would only be $40″
Well ask him/her where they are getting it b/c I would like to get some too.
The lack of cost transparency for medical services also makes it difficult to optimize one's Flexible Spending Account. Not only do I have to guess what my medical needs will be next year, but I have to guess the prices. This has always struck me as bizarre, since I don't have to guess on any of my other tax-deductible expenses, which would be far easier to do (e.g. property taxes, wages).
We have ins thru my husband's employer. He's 56, a heart/diabetes patient. I'm 48 with BP & thyroid issues. Our 14 y.o son is healthy. We are carrying our 23 y.o son as a disabled dependent due to a childhd degenerative hip disease. Our monthly ins premium is more than our house payment. We consider this a necessity, with incurred med expenses of <$1million over the past 17 years.
I am not surprised to hear that drs are unaware of procedural costs. We just went thru a hip replacement for our son – 2 weeks ago. Cost was not mentioned by anyone. When we discussed this fact at home, we chose not to ask. The surgery was a medical necessity, cost did not change that. I don't regret approaching this with blinders, preferring to deal with the aftermath….after my son is walking, hopefully pain-free for the 1st time in 17+ years.
& since we are so warped with humor, we've been having a lottery trying to guess the Grand Total!
@14 You are completely wrong on every point. The private health care system has never been functioning and cannot actually exist without government regulation. It is a classic, canonical example of a market failure from adverse selection. Our blog post today expresses my frustration at comments such as yours, and I believe tomorrow's will touch on some of the theory as to why you're wrong, though in the context of the used car market.
I have been in business for myself for many years and have watched my premiums rise with my age as well as the times. I know the experience of calling around to compare prices for a mammagram and an annual check up and NOBODY being able to give me information.
I also have a high deductible plan and HSA, and make it a point to let doctors know my situation and interestingly enough, they often give me options or recommend alternative ways to address a health situation.
The uninsured in this country really need to organize and go to Washington. We can do so much better. At the minimum, we need annual preventative check ups and basic services. As it is, we put off because it takes too much energy to figure out the system.
Thanks for letting me rant a bit. Great post today. Love this blog.
I suspect that the lack of transparency of health care costs is one of the biggest factors in our high healthcare prices. With costs hidden, there's no way to shop around for a good prices, no healthy competition to keep costs down, no restraint mechanism or accountability for performing useless procedures just to get paid for them.
This adds to the power imbalances caused by the nature of much of health care being so urgent and so life-and-death important and so expertese-based—you are vastly limited in your ability to put off a treatment while you shop around, do it yourself, or seek out an alternative solution.
Under the current system a big chunk of the country (or their employing companies) pays a substantial amount to insurance companies, and then the doctors and the insurance companies fight over most of that money (both sides devoting vast amounts of time and resources to increasing their share), which gives the medical side an incentive to tack on whatever they can because it means more reimbursements (if the insurance pays, and if not, hey, just get it out of the patient), and the insurance companies meanwhile find it in their best interests, profit-wise, to deny as many claims as they can without tarnishing their perceived reliability for the consumer. Nobody has any interests in any frugality that would benefit the people whose pocketbooks the whole mess is coming out of.
A full-scale transparency, with procedure costs readily available and facilities and doctors rated on how efficiently they treated their patients (i.e. unnecessary testing lowers the rating because it's busywork with no practical result), would do a lot to rein in costs.
As a medical professional, I wish I could offer something helpful, but I can't because it really is a mess out there. The government bears much of the blame due to regulations, for example the fact that you can't purchase insurance from outside of your state. That's not to take the industry off the hook, they are also to blame. Their plans are complex to use and compare. And then there are the users, who abused third party payers as money trees and have milked the system dry. Don't let anyone place all the blame on any of the three parties in the system, they all share equal blame for where we are today.
HSA is what I have, and I encourage everyone to look into that option. It doesn't make sense for everyone because they had to handicap it in order to get it passed into law, but it is still the best idea out there for actually fixing the system. It gets people looking at actual costs, gets the third party payer from being completely in charge, and decreases the amount of government involvement in our health care. If implemented for enough people it would cause providers to meet that market segment, benefitting the entire system.
Of course with Obamacare all this will change, we are already seeing rates rise dramatically because of it, and will see many options go away because of it. I'm hoping the benefits are worth it, because it's going to cost a fortune…
One of the things that frustrates me the most about health insurance is the lack of rewards (i.e. lower cost) for those of us in very low-risk categories. I'm single, male, 24, never smoked, no family health issues, and extremely fit. $5000 deductible HSA through my employer is $1550 annually.
Compare health insurance to car insurance: if I buy a Lamborghini and live in downtown Chicago, I pay MUCH higher premiums than someone with a Corolla in Idaho. Why doesn't health insurance work the same way?
Hi There,
I have nothing but compliments for your plan. I'm VERY curious if you are using one of the non traditional plans such as Mega? We have Anthem (I'm self employed and buy my own plan) – My coverage costs $425 give or take with a $15,000 per person / $30,000 per family out of pocket / deductible. We, like you, discovered that the riders costs more than the typical coverage they provide. I'm surprised to hear you were eligible for the HSA – we are NOT because, not many people know this – the has's actually have an UPPER limit as well as minimum dedutible/OOP. Currently, if your family plans' total OOP is $11,900. We actually opened HAS's a while ago, then discovered they were "ineligible" and had to reverse them and take all the money out. If you have 10k deductibles per person, my guess is that you have "illegal" has's. (sorry for misspelling, my computer won't let me type h-s-a – keeps correcting to has).
I know what we do is that we make payments on our medical bills (family of 3, ages 45, 44 and 9 year old daughter, living in Winslow, Maine, Anthem Health Insurance, 15k per person deductible). Our health insurance costs $425 per month, and we pay around $400 a month in medical bills. (payments on various services)—and we're pretty "light duty". A GYN exam here, once a month Chiro there, etc.
The Mega health and life plans do seem much better, but I've been unable to find a real flesh and blood person who has used one. The internet has NOT ONE GOOD THING to say about them, so so far, I've stayed away.
Thanks for sharing. Your post is the first thing I've read that comes close to my family's reality. Sounds like you're right on track.
See this link: http://healthsavingsaccountrules.com/
To rachael211, yes, at least MY plan is like that. Mine is actually higher than the contributors — 15k per person (30k max per year for family), so we would pay 100% percent of the first 30k of medical expenses for my family, with NO COPAYS whatsoever. And we pay $425 per month for this privelage of paying all our medical costs out of pocket. The ONE benefit we do get is that by "running the bills" through the insurance, we end up getting a bit of a discount.
I think I'm glad my doctors aren't thinking about what a treatment costs. I am happy to discuss with them what is medically necessary and what is not, but I don't want them making decisions based on what they think I can afford OR what they will earn from doing a particular procedure.
That's one reason I'm happy to be working with doctors at a University hospital/major medical school who are on salary and whose salaries don't depend on number of patients or procedures etc.
Medical insurance strikes me as unlike other insurance, because health care isn't really "optional" [I can choose not to drive a car, and I can choose to "self insure" my possessions, and know exactly how much I could lose if I do so, and I can decide I don't need live insurance, for example, but those kinds of decisions don't seem as possible wlhen it comes to health care] and at the same time, unlike, say, house insurance or car insurance, the "down side" for the insurer is so much more open ended.
I'd like to see more real "catastrophic" health insurance available (at prices that aren't a catastrophy!) and more low-cost clinics for "routine" care. At one time, it looked like physician's assistants and nurse-practicaners might be able to lower overall medical costs, but for various reasons that hasn't happened…
#14- obviously you have not been outside of the insurance fold for a while. I am guessing you are with a large corporation or over 65 and covered by the government.
Ten years ago a hospital could not find my daughter's insurance when she was checked in by a friend. She had surgery IN the emergency room and was discharged as soon as she was conscience and could walk on her own- six hours after surgery.
We called about insurance.
They charged our insurance company $17,000 for the emergency room, $10,000 for the doctor and about $4000 for the rest of the stuff—a 20 hour visit! The insurance company finally settled for less than $7000- after a few discussions about proper treatment.
That was the incredible workings of private medicine.
The same daughter just got out of the military (which she had joined BECAUSE of insurance). COBRA for the healthy family of three is…$1995 for three months.
The new company does not pick up their half of insurance for two more months.
Insurance is CRAZY. Our medical system is out of control.
I thought there was going to be relief…but I don't see it.
Personally, I am praying I have nothing major happen until I hit 65!
At least I know where to help them look for private insurance IF they should be unemployed again. Thanks for the article- it is bookmarked.
Managing risk is what the Jaimie is asking about and it's not an easy theme. You might want to google the idea and see what pundits in different fields say to understand different approaches to it. It's as much about knowing facts as about understanding what they mean to your ever changing situation.
I take different risks now than when I was 30 (I'm 50). However the landscape changes as well. For example, I had a part-time job that offered affordable insurance in 1990 so that I could comfortably be a musician too.
One thing we can expect is that the cost of health care will rise while services overall continue to deteriorate. This will likely include having more products and services on the market, which also implies we'll have to spend more time evaluating them.
Illness is a part of life. Accidents happen.
To not plan for these is risky.
10 years ago when I had just returned to the U.S.for school, I used my student health services for checkups and had a high deductible catastrophic plan that covered 100% of major hospitalization. I live in CA. I don't remember how much it cost, but it wasn't a lot and I felt like I was managing my risks appropriately, seeing as I ride a bike and could get run over in a heart beat.
Today, I won't live in the U.S. and be self-employed, that is, I have no desire to deal directly with the business of making money on illness.
I think HSAs are good IF you are young and healthy but for anyone with a chronic condition???
One med alone in our household is $1500 a month (that is $18,000 annually) and, with insurance, we pay $25. Our annual premium for family HI is about $22,000 a year with 90% paid for by the employer.
@AC We put in about $5,000 per year. Right now it has $10,000 in it, not $10,000 per year.
@Ahzz Wow! I thought Maine was pretty bad, but I had no idea how bad it can be. That is crazy. I remember asking my agent what the top plan was. She said it was $2700 per month. I couldn't believe it.
@Ken LaVoie Ah a fellow Mainer! And you might be right about the illegal HSA. We are still trying to figure that out without any luck. Our health insurance agent wasn't sure but neither was the bank when I called.
My agent said that she has a plan for small businesses that isn't an HSA (I can't remember the name of it at this moment!) that we are investigating but so far we haven't figured out if we are eligible.
I do use Mega, and I have read bad reviews. Most of them concerned the quality of customer service not the quality of payouts, I spoke to two people that have had Mega for awhile and called customer service beforehand to see what they were like. So far they have been way better than my previous plan that covered NOTHING. So far they have actually covered things I didn't think they would, and customer service has been ok so far.
I wish you luck with everything you are going through too!
@elisabeth I also wish routine care was less expensive. I wish I didn't have to take the kids to an expensive first care emergency room on a Sunday. I think it's a huge hassle to go through insurance for everything when I am basically paying everything out of pocket anyway. But I really don't want to have something horrible happen and pay $100,000 so we live with what we have for now.
I am inclined to think that anyone these days who doesn't think that insurance at the very, very least needs some regulations (if not a full overhaul) have just lucked out and not had to deal with a major insurance bill that was 'questionable' to be covered. Of the three friends I know who have had cancer (all of them young) they have all had horrible, horrible times trying to get the insurance to pay for treatment. One friend even had a HUGE amount in savings from being single and having a very lucrative job, and now is bankrupt and has to live with his parents. And he is still racking up new bills with rechecks and upkeep. Sad.
And he was one of those people who did everything "right"! He had 'good' insurance through his job and a very hefty (over $100k) savings account. If he still ended up bankrupt and living at home, what chance does anyone else have?
#18 Nicole – you may wish to do some research on fraternal organization, mutual aid societies and lodge doctors. It was a way for the the immigrants and minorities to take care of each other in the age before government services.
I'd provide links, but a simple google search with the terms above will bring up enough resources.
@26 Yes, dear. I know all about the history of health care in the US in enormous detail (and quite a bit about 19th century England, France and Germany's systems while we're at it). If you would like to engage me in a long discussion on this topic, I suggest you enroll at the university where I teach as I keep having to remind myself that I'm not getting paid to remove ignorance from the internet.
It is quite lovely to think that fraternal organizations, mutual aid societies and charity would solve all our world problems if only the dratted government wouldn't get involved. That would force everyone to become religious too, which would save their souls, an additional benefit. Sadly that just isn't the way the world works in reality.
See, I also know poverty statistics through at least the 20th century, and I know how much difference government public health programs have made… and I've taken classes on earlier even more nasty, brutish, and short time periods.
Empirically history does not bear you out.
Theoretically, the free rider problem argues that these kinds of societies will never be able to provide the optimal level of provision. The race to the bottom lemons problem described on our blog tomorrow will further explain the health care market problem in terms of adverse selection, though it will focus on used cars.
Normally I'm all nice and teacherish about these kinds of issues. I like to educate and one does catch more flies with honey than vinegar. But, I think the election season is bringing out the boneheadedness in people who know nothing except the misinformation available during an election season. It's getting to me.
Just having insurance for the discount and paying out of pocket would totally be worth it if you ever ended up in the hospital. I had a very routine vaginal birth with absolutely NO medication and less than two days in the hospital. I was pretty much ignored most of the time while I was there unless and until I asked for assistance and got checked on about twice a day. For this, I was billed over $10,000 initially. By the time the insurance company adjusted for their rates, the insurance company paid about $3,000 and I was responsible for about $1,100 ($250 deductible and 80/20).
Just having insurance is over a 50% discount. If I didn't have insurance and had any kind of birth, I would have to declare bankruptcy! That's insane. I basically would have paid $5,000 a night for a terrible hotel with infrequent visits from a nurse. Oh, the $10,000 did NOT include my doctor's fees which I had already pre-paid. No wonder so many people have to declare bankruptcy for medical reasons. I can't believe what hospitals get away with.
The issue about how much procedures cost brought back an interesting thing I noticed when I moved from Canada to the US:
In Canada, where I grew up, procedures were never about cost. The choices were always more about side effects, time it will take to recover, long term expectations, etc etc. You worked with your doctor to determine the right treatment for you, and that was what you got.
When I moved to the US, all of a sudden it was a menu: Procedure A cost X, Procedure B costs Y. You decide what you want. I remember thinking "I decide?! I have no idea, I have no medical training!" It was a strange feeling to choose your medical care based on prices.
Anyway, it's a bit off topic, but this post reminded me of that
@#14- how exactly has government regulation "destroyed" good public health care system? I would like to agree with you, but just making that single statement hardly constitutes a position on the matter and it's a tad anachronistic in my opinion. On a macro econ perspective with the government's already heavy involvement in health care through Medicare, medicaid, and CHIP it is in the public's interest that health care costs are exposed and properly regulated and managed. Obama is considering prolonging the Bush tax cuts until 2020. That seems reasonable given we are on our way out of the recession, unfortunately if he were really to do that, the CBO estimates our accumulated deficit will run over 100% of GDP by 2023! not only that, the ENTIRE reason why that will happen is because of the mandatory health programs; not social security. Now if the government were to pull out of the health care system completely, that could fix the problem and we could all pay less taxes, but it would leave many older folks who are not lucky enough to have pensions or plans that will take care of them and their burden will again quickly fall onto their loved ones. How is that even possible with a national savings rate below zero and a decline in wealth over the last decade for the average household?
Reading all the comment and the reader story make me VERY HAPPY that I live in Canada and enjoy excellent medical care that I don't have to pay crazy money for! I'm equally happy that I've got excellent additional coverage through my employer (for prescriptions, dentist/orthodontal, paramedical services etc). I am a 10yr cancer survivor and I never experienced any kind of delays with my treatment at all, and the only thing I had to pay for was parking at the hospital. Had I lived in the US, I would have very high medical bills to try to pay.


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WILL, the Mimbres Region Arts Council and the WNMU Expressive Arts Department continue with their successful Artist Lecture Series.
Get to know some of America's finest artists - learn about an artist's motivations, techniques and history while being genuinely entertained. The series offers a range of accomplished individuals. Light refreshments will be served.
Location: WNMU Parotti Hall
FREE and Open to the Public [ Get a printable map PDF ]
Gary Trousdale
Storyboard Artist/Director
Thursday, April 10, 2014, 6:30pm
WNMU Parotti Hall
Gary Trousdale, Storyboard Artist/Director gained prominence in his field with the success of his animated film directorial debut Beauty and the Beast, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture and won a LAFCA Award. Beauty and the Beast is often considered one of the greatest artistic successes of the Disney Renaissance. He later directed other features such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1996 and Atlantis: The Lost Empire. Leaving Disney after Atlantis: the Lost Empire (released by Disney in 2001), Gary moved to DreamWorks Animation where he has written, directed, and storyboarded ever since.
"The Writer as an Artist in a World Obsessed with Categories"
Michael McGarrity, Author
Friday, April 25, 2014, Refreshments at 5:00pm, Presentation at 5:30pm
WNMU Global Resource Center, 12th Street and Kentucky - Free and Open to the Public
Michael McGarrity, author of the acclaimed Kevin Kerney crime-suspense novels that take place in modern New Mexico, will discuss his experiences as a writer and law enforcement officer.
Mr. McGarrity will also speak at the Silver City Public Library on Saturday April 26th as part of the Second Chance portion of this event. A number of his books will be on sale at both venues.
Michael McGarrity holds a BA with distinction in psychology and a master's degree in clinical social work. As an undergraduate, he held a Ford Foundation Scholarship at the University of New Mexico. Additionally, he is an honor graduate of the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy.
His career in criminal justice includes work in corrections, law enforcement, security, and police officer training. As a Santa Fe County deputy sheriff, he worked as a patrol officer, community relations officer, training and planning supervisor, and lead investigator for the sex crimes unit, which he established. He also has served as an instructor at the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy, an investigator and caseworker for the Public Defender's Office, and an investigator for a state government agency. In 1987, he was honored as Santa Fe's Police Officer of the Year.
As a trained psychotherapist, McGarrity specialized in the treatment of high-risk populations including drug abusers, chronically mentally ill patients, juvenile delinquents, adult felons, and abused and neglected children. He was responsible for re-establishing mental health services for the New Mexico Corrections Department after the infamous prison riot of 1980. That year he was recognized by his peers as the New Mexico Social Worker of the Year.
He served on the faculty of several colleges and universities, teaching courses in psychology and counseling and functioning as a field supervisor for undergraduate and graduate clinical social work students. For a number of years he maintained a private practice in family therapy and consultation services to community- based treatment agencies.
With the publication of Tularosa in 1996, McGarrity turned to writing full time. A number of his best-selling novels have been nominated for awards, and in 2004 he received the New Mexico Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts and Literature.
He was instrumental in establishing the Hillerman-McGarrity Creative Writing Scholarship at the University of New Mexico, the Richard Bradford Memorial Creative Writing Scholarship at the Santa Fe Community College, and the N. Scott Momaday Creative Writing Scholarship at the Institute of American Indian Arts.
WILL is very pleased to have Mr McGarrity here as part of Reflections of an Artist series. Please visit his website at www.michaelmcgarrity.com.
Friday, April 11, 2014, Lecture at Noon; Workshop at 1:30pm
WNMU Global Resource Center, Room ABC
Free and Open to the Public
Dan Shilling, author of Civic Tourism, and past executive director of the Arizona Humanities Council will speak on Civic Tourism - Seeing Tourism as a Public Good, Valuing It as a Public Responsibility, and Practicing It as a Public Art. on Friday, April 11, 2014 at noon, in the WNMU Global Resource Center, Room ABC, 12th & Kentucky, in Silver City.
The presentation will be followed at 1:30 by an interactive community workshop using the three major strategies of civic tourism: rethinking economics, connecting with community, and developing stories that convey a sense of place.
Both events are presented by the Western Institute for Lifelong Learning (WILL) and the Southwest Green Chamber of Commerce and are free and open to the public.
Dr. Shilling, the architect of Civic Tourism, says "Regions can use the tourism industry to help preserve their distinctive cultural, natural, and built environments, as well as foster economic growth." But in order to do so, communities need to "reframe" the conversation about tourism and community development. "Rather than see tourism as an economic end in itself," Shilling says, "citizens should use it as a tool for healthy place-making. It's part of the solution." Civic Tourism maintains that the discussion should include the general public. According to Shilling, "The goal is to design unique, vibrant and prosperous places for the people who live in them. If this is done well, tourists will visit." Shilling has given numerous presentations across the country on the subject of Civic Tourism and is the author of the book, Civic Tourism: The Poetry and Politics of Place, which features many best practices. Ted Presler, WILL Program Coordinator, reminds us that "Silver City has much to offer to our community and our visitors and it is up to all of us to share our past and present with the rest of the country and, indeed, the world. Our local businesses, their employees and all our local citizens are Silver City's ambassadors to our visitors. Civic Tourism offers practical ways to show our pride in our community and our joy of living here."
For more information, visit www.civictourism.org.

subset: commoncrawl


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Got 15 minutes? Then you've got enough time to make baking magic! Happy baking...from Eagle Brand®!
Thank you to Jacquie Lindner of Richmond, BC. for sharing her delightfully easy but elegant holiday gift recipe with us.
Prep Time: 10 mins plus chilling and rolling time
Serving: 2-3 dozen
1. Melt chocolate & butter over low heat. Remove from heat & add vanilla, Eagle Brand & graham crumbs; mix well. Chill 30 minutes.2. Take by tablespoons full and roll by hand into ¾" (17 cm) balls.*3. Spread sugar, 1/8 cup at a time onto a plate. Roll each ball in sugar to coat lightly and place on wax paper.
I used Oreo cookie crumbs instead of the graham wafers and mint extract instead of vanilla. The result was a nice mint chocolate taste without the honey flavour form the graham wafers.
instead of sugar add flaked coconut they are delicious.


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DCAM2's view of IKAROS
Filed under pretty pictures, animation, pics of spacecraft in space, IKAROS
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Advertising Photography with CGI & 3D Integration
Charlotte photographer Sean Busher produces conceptual advertising photography, CGI/3D projects and video production for ad agencies and corporations. He works with retoucher and 3D animator Peter Godshall in creating commercially-viable works of art.
Advertising Photography with CGI & 3D Integration
Charlotte photographer Sean Busher produces conceptual advertising photography and CGI/3D projects for ad agencies and corporations. He works with CGI artist and retoucher Peter Godshall in creating commercially-viable works of art.
Commercial Galleries
Big News
Hello and welcome! Thanks for taking the time to get to know our work. Hopefully you can tell already that we're passionate about creating great imagery. I'm a commercial photographer based in Charlotte, NC. I studied photojournalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill but decided the typical journalism career wasn't for me. Instead, I started taking on advertising jobs and have been pushing the creative envelope to produce evermore challenging conceptual projects since founding the company in 2001. I work closely with Peter Godshall, our team's retoucher and animation artist. He rocks. His technical abilities are the perfect compliment to the visions in my head, and I think we make a great team. Together we're able to produce any visual an ad agency or corporation may desire.
I love getting to know the interesting people I photograph and the other creatives we collaborate with. I like jobs that let us travel, and also enjoy big studio productions. I love sushi, vegetables, and nature. I find pleasure in putting things on my bucket list and then doing them immediately (though I've still yet to take a long walk in the woods naked). I'm in my mid-30s, explore the world from a metaphysical perspective, and live in uptown Charlotte with my wife, Heather, and our daughter Mirabelle.
I hope to be able to work with you on a project soon. Thanks for taking the time to get to know us and our work!
- Sean Busher, Director of Imagination
Allianz Life Insurance
American City Business Journals
Bank of America
Cassidian Communications
Center City Partners
CLT Airport
City of Charlotte
Continental Tire
Del Frisco Restaurants
Dole Foods
Duke Endowment
Duke Energy
Ernst & Young
Food Lion
Foundation for the Carolinas
Früsh Yogurt
Huber Engineered Woods
Johnson C Smith University
LASH Group
Levine Museum of the New South
MetaRisk Insurance
Mint Museum of Art
Neighboring Concepts
North Carolina Research Campus
Pamlico Capital
People Magazine
Queens University
Rodgers Builders
Saussy Burbank
Sheetz Convenience Stores
Skanska USA
Sona MedSpa
The Hartford
University of North Carolina
Wachoiva Bank
Wedge Capital
Wells Fargo Advisors
...and many more
See our team in action in this behind-the-scenes video of the Heels.com advertising campaign.
CGI Demo Reel
A showcase of our 3D animation work, plus we bring to life the CGI backplate to some of our advertising imagery.
From Our Latest Blog Posts and Social Media Updates
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[QUOTE=MCBNY;3646588]I say the Dolphins will. I really like what I've seen from Henne and I think he should be even better this year with more experience. Marshall will help the offense tremendously and Dansby was a great pickup as well for their defense. Mike Nolan should make them instantly better, even without the upgrade at the LB position. I see the Pats' decline continuing. Plenty of JAGs on defense, no leadership there. Brady doesn't give a **** about football anymore. They have no defensive or offensive coordinator.
What say you?[/QUOTE]
Ok, lets see how many times you talked out of your ass in this one paragraph...
JAGs on D? - Bodden is a JAG? Wilfork is a JAG? Merriweather is a JAG? T. Warren is a JAG? Mayo is a JAG? Butler is a JAG? James Sanders is no pro-bowler, but he isn't Junk either..Ill give you OLB and RDE as weak spots.
"Brady doesn't give a **** about football anymore." :huh: Really? You really believe that? He is busting his ass out there every day at UCLA with Welker, doesn't miss one mandatory requirement..Funny, Sanchez is the man for working out with WR's in Cali, but if Brady does it its because he is mailing it in
And finally "They have no defensive or offensive coordinator." By title only - Bill O'Brien is the unquestioned OC and Matt Patricia is the unquestioned DC..they haven't earned the titles yet..
You do realize that Josh McDaniels was never named OC, right?
Ohhh, I see, you just wanted to rip on the Pats..ok my bad.


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After years of speculation on the difference between "Digital Natives" and "Digital Immigrants" may soon be revealed through an ambitious research project commissioned by Time Inc.
In the study called "A (Biometric) Day in the Life," neuroscientists have been employed to wire two groups of consumers- Millenials and Boomers- with "a battery of biometric technologies that will literally track how their brains respond to media consciously and unconsciously throughout their day."
The final results of this study will not be available until 2012, but initial results show that the brains of Millennials are, in fact, wired differently for media than the brains of Boomers.
In an example shared at the IAB's MIXX conference this week, a glimpse was given into the lives of Rachel, a 23-year-old, and Dan, a 47-year-old. Rachel revealed that she is more attached to technology and is constantly multitasking between media options and could care less about TV. Dan, on the other hand loves TV and did not multitask between media at all during his day of observation.
Why does this difference matter? We're in the business of storytelling and the early results from this study suggest that the one constant between the two generations is the importance of storytelling. Our new task, however, is to monitor and optimize the way in which consumers connect with those stories through new media technology.Source: mediapost.com
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Is it any surprise that this study was commissioned by Time, Inc's advertising arm? And that the results of the study...
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Member Since Dec 10th, 2006
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Recent Comments:
Jeff Conaway Dead at 60
May 27th 2011 3:25PM Well, Looks like he finally succeeded at his suicide attempt.Congratulations!
Stevie Nicks Says 'Stupid' Doctor 'Ruined My Life for Eight Years'
May 10th 2011 10:29PM When will people start taking responsibilty for their own actions and stop putting the blame on everyone else?
Report: 'Jersey Shore' Cast to Film Season Four in Italy
Jan 26th 2011 9:40AM If this is how Italians act in Italy. I NEVER want to go there!
Kitty Litter Lawsuit Filed Over Commercial Claims
Jan 6th 2011 9:02PM My cat hates them both! He doesn't like dirty paws, He sits on the throne like any other normal cat!
Yucky Secrets in Australian Hotels
Dec 19th 2010 1:32PM Every time I stay in a Motel or Hotel the first thing I do is clean the room from top to bottom! I carry my cleaning supplies with me! I rip off the comforter and sheets and inspect them myself to make sure they're clean. If there is a laundry facility onsite I take the comforter and put it in the laundry. I don't have the cleaning ppl come in during my stay. I clean the room myself and know it's clean. Btw, Never use straight alcohol on the remote! It turns it white! Use Purell hand sanitizer. Rather than waste my time complaining about cleanliness I take care of the problem myself.
Models Frontman James Freud Found Dead in Apparent Suicide
Nov 8th 2010 7:33AM Bill I agree with you 100%. Alcoholism and Drug abuse is a choice not a disease!It sickens me people who lack self control actually can collect money off the state for this and can go to a clinic and get free drugs "meth". Don't touch it and you won't get addicted. End of story.
Household Hauntings: Be Your Own Ghost Hunter
Oct 30th 2010 4:56PM I'm not a fan of "Ghost Hunters" They never Shut Up on that show!
Interview With a Witch Mom
Sep 20th 2010 4:40PM Steve, What a narrow mind you have! As long as there are people like you roaming on Mother Earth there will be Religious Wars! Btw, According to your Bible You are not supposed to Judge! Do you think you are some sort of God? Or perhaps you think you are above God to make such statements! If you're going to live by your book then do it! But, don't be hypocrite!
Should You Sleep With Your Dog? The Pros and Cons of Sharing the Bed
Aug 30th 2010 12:57PM When you meet someone and they know you have a pet that sleeps with you and they don't approve of it. Do yourself a favor and get rid of them! They're not worth the time or day. If you have allergies they stay away from pet owners! Animals are more loyal than any human could ever be!
Bed Bugs and Pet Safety - What You Need to Know
Aug 28th 2010 11:59AM If people didn't live like dirty pigs they wouldn't get bed bugs. I know there will be people who will say the bed bugs don't come from dirt. I'd like to add the ones that make such a statement either have bugs or they're the dirty pigs carrying them!


text: Toyota's vehicles are about to get a whole lot safer thanks to their just announced Pre-crash Safety System. Using radar, the system detects if the car is about to experience a front or rear end collision and appropriately applies additional precautionary measures to 'mitigate' and reduce injury. If the system detects a head on collision a sound notifying the driver is emitted, more brake power is engaged once the driver reacts, the motor-powered seatbelts tighten and readies the airbags for immediate deployment. In the event of a rear end crash, the seat backs are moved forward to a more vertical position and something Toyota is calling Intelligent Headrests are activated to reduce back and neck injury. The first Toyota vehicles to receive the Pre-crash Safety System will debut in Japan in the 'near future'.


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the reason panel data sources can't be accessed outside the panel
Category xpages
Marky Roden recently called attention to a lesson he learned: if you associate a data source with a specific panel, you can only refer to it by name via events (or attributes) attached to components inside that panel. There are two very specific reasons for this:
- Hierarchical component processing
- The role the
requestScopeplays in variable resolution
While there are no doubt some subtle exceptions to this premise, you can consider all runtime processing of XPages to be hierarchical. To conceptualize this visually, imagine the view root (basically, the page itself) as the trunk of a tree. Think of each of the components that are placed directly on the page, rather than inside other components, as branches attached directly to the trunk of the tree. Each of those branches might, in turn, split off into several smaller branches.
Let's consider a simple real-world example:
Imagine an XPage that contains two 2x2 tables. In both tables, each row consists of two cells: one containing a label, and the second containing an editable field.
The server-side structure of an XPage at runtime is sometimes referred to as its "component tree": in this example, the XPage itself is the trunk of the tree. As we look up along the trunk, at some point the trunk splits into two branches: each branch is a table. This branch, in turn, splits into two separate branches, each of which is a table row. Each of these also splits into two branches, each of which is a table cell. The first of these two branches contains a single "leaf"; the leaf on the first branch is a label component. The leaf on the second branch is an input text.
So, if this were a real tree, and we wanted to reach any of those leaves (and, assuming these branches are too high for us to just reach up and touch a leaf), we would climb the trunk until we can reach the tables. We could then make our way along the branches - first one of the tables, then one of its rows, then one of its cells, until finally we're at a leaf. We've found our field. If we retreat back to the inner branches, and then repeat the process for all the rest, we would eventually touch each leaf.
To very briefly change the subject by introducing a less obvious analogy: imagine that some of these leaves (namely, those representing fields) are sentient, and your friend Steve can communicate telepathically them, so he constantly knows what they're thinking. But you can only communicate with them by touch. So… suppose that a leaf named Alan recently learned something you need to know. You decide to climb the tree and work your way along enough branches to eventually find Alan. This could take a while, because not only do most of these trees have a lot of branches, but you don't actually know what branch Alan is on. To find Alan, you have to follow each sub-hierarchy of branches, touching each leaf to ask it its name (technically, its ID).
Eventually, you'll ask a leaf, "are you Alan?", and it'll say yes. Now that you've found Alan, you can ask it everything it knows.
Meanwhile, Steve knew the whole time what Alan was thinking. He's standing safe on the ground, laughing at you scurrying from branch to branch and trying not to fall.
If any of my previous descriptions of why we should always call
dataSource.getValue("propertyName") -- instead of
getComponent("componentId").getValue() -- didn't make sense, perhaps this illustrates the premise a bit more clearly.
getComponent() crawls along all the branches until it eventually finds Alan.
dataSource is Steve. Just stay on the ground and ask Steve.
Okay, back to the topic at hand.
Part of why it's not a problem for the core processing of an XPage to traverse this hierarchical structure is that each of the various JSF lifecycle phases has to touch all the components anyway (with the exception, during some phases, of components that aren't rendered, and the descendants thereof), and each only needs to be touched once. So each phase starts at the view root (the
<xp:view/> tag) and works its way inward until it's processed all of the components that it needs to a single time.
Some of the phases split the processing into "begin" and "end" operations for each component. For example, the bulk of the work of the
RENDER_RESPONSE phase (the very last phase, which is what actually sends the HTML markup to the browser during a typical XPage request) consists of executing the following three methods on every rendered component in the tree:
encodeBegin- For most components, the primary purpose of this method is to emit the opening HTML tag, along with all the currently applicable attributes.
encodeChildren- Once the HTML tag for the current component has been sent, this method basically loops through all the components directly within the current component and passes control to them to "encode" themselves.
encodeEnd- For many components, this just closes the HTML tag.
Because these methods execute in sequence, the result is hierarchical.
Let's consider an even simpler table than before: one row, one cell in that row, and one button in that cell:
- table runs
encodeBegin, emitting an opening table tag with all pertinent attributes (client-side ID, CSS class, et cetera)
encodeChildrenpasses control off to the table row
encodeBeginof the row opens a tr tag
encodeChildrenpasses control to the cell
encodeBeginopens a td
encodeChildrenpasses control to the button
encodeBeginopens a button tag
encodeChildrendoes nothing, because this button contains no child components
encodeEndof the button closes the button tag
encodeEndof the cell closes the td
encodeEndof the row closes the tr
encodeEndof the table closes the table
In reality, there's a bit more going on in there, like making sure there's a tbody surrounding any tr's, etc., but essentially the above is what occurs when this type of component hierarchy is rendered. When any components have multiple children, it gets more complex, except it's still really just these three methods making sure that a parent component gets to start sending its markup before any of its children are processed, that all children have been completely processed before it finishes sending its markup, and finally that it has an opportunity to finish processing itself before any sibling components are touched.
And that last premise is what causes the behavior Marky experienced. Panels are one of a few components that are considered "data containers". As such, when the above process starts for a panel, it doesn't just open a div tag... it also checks to see if any data sources (and/or data contexts) are associated with just that panel. If so, it goes through the motions of ensuring the data source exists, which consists of something like the following:
- Based on the scope (r/v/s/a) and name, does this already exist?
- If not, create one and store it in the correct scope
- Add a pointer in the
It's that last step that's crucial: adding anything to the
requestScope makes it a variable.
Within any EL expression (whether standard Expression Language, SSJS, or some custom language), any symbols determined during expression parsing to be variables end up asking what's known as the "variable resolver" for the object to which that variable refers. There are several places the standard variable resolver looks, and one of them is the
requestScope. So any
requestScope key is a valid variable for as long as that key exists within the
requestScope… which is usually the entire request.
Panels, however, don't just add variables, they clean up after themselves.* Specifically, at the end of a panel's processing, it again checks to see if it has its own data. If so, it removes the
requestScope pointer it created during its initial processing. If the data source has a higher scope (the default is
viewScope), the data source itself still exists within that scope. But there's no longer a pointer to it in the
requestScope, so there's no longer a variable by which it can be directly accessed. On any subsequent requests, when the same panel is processed again, it will find the existing data source instance in its correct scope, create a fresh
requestScope pointer, and then remove that pointer again when it finishes its processing.
That might seem a little pointless, since it's typically milli- (or even micro-) seconds between the creation and obliteration of the variable. But because all processing is hierarchical, this means that during all processing of components anywhere inside that panel, the
requestScope pointer does exist. Any components in that sub-structure can refer to that variable. But once the panel and everything within it have been processed, that variable is gone. The more complex an XPage, the more valuable this automatic cleanup, because it optimizes resolution of all variables. So it's a good practice to always be looking for ways to structure our user interfaces in ways that allow us to localize our data as much as possible. This not only maximizes app performance, but also makes the application source more logically coherent by compartmentalizing its visual structure according to the conceptual structure of its data.
* P.S. If you considered the above and immediately guessed that Custom Controls and repeats behave similarly, you get a gold star.


text:
Written by:
Buds of a blossoming word,
Rooting thoughts beneath
Earths cold canopy.
You will raise the dying leaf
Steel bridges of rain.
Where cables hold the heart,
To Flowers, bay ,and harbor
Death and life join two parts.
But you make new again
The breath of one dandelions
Upward spiral of love –
A budding flower of sweet peas.
Words pass the pouring cloud
Holding those departing hours
Raining seeds ascend
There waiting mothers of sky
To live no more with dying


text:
We are all but Animals searching for meaning within the Universe.
No Knobs. No Probs.
Detox then Retox
Happy Fathers Day To All The Dads Out There. Get Rad.
Pinstriping Inspired Pieces. These are my first renditions, a lot more to come.
Fire Water Burn
No Escape.
White Rose
From These Lands
Text, photographs, quotes, links, conversations, audio and visual material preserved for future reference.
A handpicked medley of inspirations, musings, obsessions and things of general interest.


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Calabash VFW tourney Nov. 12
St. James captured first place in the final 2012 Coastal Carolina Interclub Association event played at Carolina National golf course but Magnolia Greens captured the CCIA 2012 championship by leading with all teams with 1,734 points.
The CCIA format includes seven two-man teams from each club who play a USGA Stableford system, net best ball, and count the scores only from the top six teams of the seven competing.
Clubs complete for the championship trophy by earning points in each event and accumulating the most points at the conclusion of the season.
Results of member-guest tourney Oct. 22. Azalea-Magnolia: 1. Ellie Allen and Juanita Adams; 2. Trish Lemmon and Wanda Wiltbank; 3. Pat Wish and Penny Crawford; 4. Paula Gaudette and Gwen Jerome; 5. Kathy Toeppner and Marsha Kerchner; 6. Kathy Rosenberg and Nancy Pennington.
Magnolia-Dogwood: 1. Sandy Owens and Jeanette Burton; 2. Janet Iekel and Diane Sandoval; 3. Mary Helen Naecker and Joanne Barton; 4. Lori Schneider and Sharon Clark; 5. Pat Haniquet and Judy Falloon; 6. Evelyn Claus and Sherry Higgenbotton.
The Brick Landing Ladies Golf Association played its league championship last Thursday and Friday. The league champion is Pat Christenbury with a two-day combined gross score of 186. The net champion is Mary Tacea with a two-day net score of 137.
The Beachcombers played a three nets tournament Friday at Cypress Bay. The winners at 190 (-26) were Jim Beairsto, Jim Ritter and Gary Gutheil and a player by draw (Sid Silver). In second at 196 (-20) were Dan O'Connell, Bob Healey, Ed Redman and a player by draw (Sid Silver). Gross: Sid Silver, 80; Gary Gutheil, 81; Bob Healey and Ed Redman, 88. Net: Ed Redman and Sid Silver, 66; Gary Gutheil, 67. Sid Silver is golfer of the week.
By Elsa Bonstein
Beacon Correspondent
On Saturday, two old friends had a great day on the golf course at Brick Landing: Bob Gorman shot his all-time low score of 75; John Nunnenkamp had his first hole-in-one, on the fifth hole.
On Sept 3, the third annual Crow Creek charity golf tournament benefiting Communities in Schools of Brunswick County was hosted by the Crow Creek women's and men's golf associations.
The event raised $12,000 for CIS, whose primary goal is to provide the services Brunswick County needs to keep kids in school and prepare them for better lives. The success of this event was a direct result of the generosity of many businesses that sponsored golf holes and donated more than 100 prizes for our auctions and raffle.
Ladies on the Links tourney is Nov. 1
Magnolia Greens is hosting Ladies on the Links Nov. 1. It is a golf tournament for ladies and a ladies' expo. The format is two-player captain's choice. In addition, there will be competition for the Orchid Cup as part of the golf tournament.
Any course that has four or more teams participating is eligible to win the cup, based on the total of the four best scores from a given course.
The Brunswick Novant Medical Center Foundation was host of its first golf tournament Oct. 12 at Lockwood Folly Country Club. All proceeds from the golf tournament will support the BNMC Foundation's Women and Children's Wellness Outreach Initiative.
First, from Davis Delivery Service, were Greg Davis, Tom Jones, Dan Adkins and Sam Walker with a score of 60 in the captain's choice tournament. Second, from Wilmington Health, were Scott Colquhoun, Jay Bennett, Brian Webster and Matt Dzunk.Third were Jack Braak, John Cefelli, Jeff Duncan and Dave Poeppelmeier.
On Oct. 22, the Ocean Ridge Men's Golf Association and the Ocean Ridge Ladies Golf Association competed in the first Battle of the Sexes tournament, a new 18-hole four-ball match play tournament contested on Lion's Paw.
The event consisted of 44 men battling against 44 women, with 22 matches at stake. After the first 17 matches, the score was 8.5-8.5.
Copyright © 2014
The Brunswick Beacon is your source for local news, sports, events and information in Brunswick County, North Carolina and surrounding areas.


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Akron/Family: Soul I Know b/w World Is Tired
"Soul I Know" b/w "World Is Tired" is a limited edition 10" from Akron/Family recorded during the sessions that lead to their 2013 scorcher, Sub Verses.
Greylag: Greylag
Like the wild goose that the Portland-based trio are named after, the members of Greylag have all undertaken amazing journeys, migrating as if by homing instinct from different parts of the US, to create a self-titled debut album that's the latest must-have slice of verdant, far-reaching Americana. Greylag is rich in melody, mood and detail with a range that mirrors the distance between their individual birthplaces, creating a personal twist on some timeless musical traditions, embracing electric and acoustic with a sound that's both subtle and forceful.
Meet Andrew Stonestreet (lead vocal, acoustic guitar, originally from West Virginia), Daniel Dixon (lead guitar and other stringed things, keyboards, from Northern California) and Brady Swan (drums, from Texas). The venerated Phil Ek (Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes, Modest Mouse, The Shins) produced the album at Seattle's Avast! Studio, who clearly knows a sublime enterprising combination of roots and rock music when he hears it.
The name Greylag looks and sounds strong but has developed more meaning for the band - It's a wild goose, from which all domestic geese originate, so it's the first survivor, and it's still wild, and doing things its own way - the 'lag' part refers to it being the last bird to migrate. It sits back and watches. We love the connotation.
Greylag: Greylag Deluxe Bundle
Limited edition gold vinyl(while supplies last)
Custom screen-printed Greylag poster
Digital download code for the album (as a .zip file containing 320kbps mp3s), redeemable two weeks before release date on September 30, 2014
Bleached: For The Feel
After spending the past year touring the US and abroad, the Clavin Sisters have settled back into their LA digs long enough to bestow upon us a few more nuggets of dirty, blissed out hits.
Bleached had this to say about the title track: "For The Feel is a song we originally wrote for our full length but it didn't sound right once recorded so we held off on putting it on the record. Finally when it came down to recording it again we were really inspired by the sound of The Kinks, we even used The Kinks amp. I'm really glad we waited to release this song because now it's perfect."
On the flipside, they've churned out two jukebox classics; "Poison Ivy" is inspired by The Rolling Stones' take on The Coasters (and Bleached's love of both) and a live show favorite, The Damned's "Born To Kill" finishes out the sweaty dance party to perfection.
Limited, of course, and yours for the taking.
Bishop Allen: Lights Out
The new Bishop Allen record, Lights Out, is here at last. Here's what went into it: ten years, three full-lengths, twelve EPs, thousands of shows, a move out of Brooklyn, a new home in the wooly wilds of Kingston, NY, time off to score the films Bully and Mutual Friends, as well as an Anderson Cooper 360 special, months of demos, drum tracking in a sweat-lodge attic studio during a July heat wave, a wet Fall arranging guitars, bass, and synths in a now-chilly attic studio, the coldest December on record spent mixing, a close call with a frozen pipe and flooded hard drives, and a photo found on a friend's refrigerator.
Bear In Heaven: Time Is Over One Day Old
Bear In Heaven's new album is aptly titled Time is Over One Day Old. It's a record with a visceral relationship to time and its processes. Where invulnerability and ambition can support you as you grow, at some point they become dead weight, and being true to yourself means casting them off, starting anew. This plays out as a powerful analogy for the band across the arc of it's career. They've always made intriguing records, here especially. It's easy to see why musicians fall hard for this band. They entice and envelop you. Any Bear In Heaven song will most likely greet you with a provocative beat, textural synthesizers and unassuming but adeptly supportive bass and guitar, all exquisitely arranged and glistening. Jon Philpot's high, smooth, strong voice is so tightly wound into the music that it can be easy to overlook the lyrics, Bear In Heaven's capacious third dimension. Philpot is a center-seeking, contemplative writer who captures the fleeting thoughts that underscore our emotional lives, the interactions with the world that are both difficult to express and anathema in daily conversation. While all of this can be said of any Bear In Heaven album, each varies wildly in tone and approach. 2007's Red Bloom of the Boom is ambitious and experimental. Beast Rest Forth Mouth (2009) was a pivotal record that still feels important, seductive and intense. On their 2012 LP I Love You, It's Cool the structural and musical ideas are challenging, and masterfully developed. For Time is Over One Day Old, we witness the band once again turning their gaze inward and prioritizing their evocative abilities in line with or even slightly ahead of technical skills. It feels very much in the tradition of BRFM in that way. It's beautiful; it's moving. Here Philpot and Adam Wills are more deeply collaborative than ever. This album is darker at times, louder than their others; it feels personal and direct. "If I Were To Lie" places Wills' bass groove front and center, "Demon" is riveting and propulsive in spite of its dark pointed lyric, and "They Dream" dissolves into three and a half minutes of deeply satisfying ambient synth work in its second half. Wills has always been the bands anchor, providing rock solid, rhythmic bass lines and guitars that blur the boundaries of Philpot's synth. Though in moments such as the final track, "You Don't Need The World," Wills cuts through with an audacious, biting guitar hook. It's a great culmination of the album's sense of release. This album isn't about being dark, it's about releasing darkness and frustration. When bands age well, their vitality takes shape. They wear, but with intention. They trim excesses. Throughout this album you'll hear a band at peace with themselves. They've learned to cut back on that which is merely impressive and to concentrate on simply what is crucial. For Philpot this is about making something lasting. "A lot of shedding, getting rid of layers and preconceptions? breaking up with old ways of thinking, old ways of being, starting to look at this thing in a new way and finding something positive." The result is a record that will stay with you.
Strand of Oaks: HEAL
From the first bars of HEAL, the exhilarating melodic stomp of 'Goshen '97' puts you right into Tim Showalter's fervent teenage mindset. We find him in his family's basement den in Goshen, IN, feeling alienated but even at 15 years old, believing in the alchemy and power of music to heal your troubles. "The record is called HEAL, but it's not a soft, gentle healing, it's like scream therapy, a command, because I ripped out my subconscious, looked through it, and saw the worst parts. And that's how I got better." HEAL embodies that feeling of catharsis and rebirth, desperation and euphoria, confusion and clarity. It is deeply personal and unwittingly anthemic.
Showalter was on tour, walking home on a mild autumn night in Malmo, Sweden, when he first felt the weight of the personal crisis that would ignite him to write HEAL. "It was a culmination of pressure," Showalter recalls. "My marriage was suffering, I'd released a record I was disappointed in, I didn't like how I looked or acted?so I'd gone on tour, I was gone about two years! I didn't take time to think about failure, but I knew I was going deeper and deeper?I was thinking, I have this life, but it's not my life, I haven't done it right?"
When Showalter returned, he wrote 30 songs in three weeks, a process that proved difficult, but cathartic and at times invigorating. Previous Strand Of Oaks records were more skeletal, raw examples of folk-rooted Americana with occasional rock and electronic currents, that have now come to the fore. HEAL is a bold new beginning, with a thrilling full-tilt sound that draws on Showalter's love of '70s, '80s and '90s rock and pop, with the singer and guitarist playing the intense valedictory confessor.
Crucial to HEAL's sound was the man who Showalter chose to mix the record, the stellar alt-rock icon John Congleton. Showalter also re-connected with Ben Vehorn, synth expert and studio engineer extraordinaire, and drummer Steve Clements, who provides HEAL's thunderous, sinewy drive. Songs such as 'Shut In', 'Plymouth' and 'Woke Up To The Light' have a classic construction and mood, recalling '70s power-pop/ballads and the yearning ache of Big Star's late, great Chris Bell. Many of the songs on HEAL reveal an electronic undercarriage and towering drums that push the album's wired dynamic to its stretching point, especially on 'For Me', which expertly bridges the album's twin decades of influences. And if 'Goshen '97' recalls the molten energy of Dinosaur Jr, that actually is J Mascis on lead guitar. Despite the initials, the album's smouldering 7-minute epic 'JM' is not a Mascis tribute, but to the late Jason Molina, about having his music as comfort no matter how bad things get.
Which brings us to another crisis, this time much more serious and immediate. HEAL was scheduled for mixing on Dec. 26, 2013. Driving on the freeway Christmas Day, Showalter and his wife were involved in a car accident with a semi-truck, and were fortunate to walk away with their lives. Showalter suffered a, "pretty severe," head trauma, "which affected me much more than I realized at the time." Fearing delays, Showalter didn't let Congelton know about it, so the mixing session went ahead. "Being on the verge of death, and my thoughts being so closely tied to that, changed the album's direction," Showalter claims. "Together, we pushed it toward a much more cathartic sound that forces the listener to where I was at that exact moment, somewhere between almost dying and being absolutely fearless."
HEAL is not just a saviour for its creator, but for anyone who needs reminding of music's ability to heal, or just thrill. Showalter is taking out a full band to play, and finally, the kid who wanted to be a rock star at 15 might get his chance. Finally, he and Strand Of Oaks have much to celebrate.
Dub Thompson: 9 Songs
Take the 101 north out of Los Angeles, and you'll pass by Agoura Hills, where the core duo of the band Dub Thompson grew up. Whatever you see in that town won't readily prepare you for the music they wrote while there, but you're free to look.
"Most everyone who's in a group who's our age lives on the Internet," says guitarist Matt Pulos. "The kinds of things that have shaped our band aren't anchored to any one time or place."
Pulos and his bandmate, drummer Evan Laffer, are currently both 19 years old, and are putting that line of thought to the test; their musical influences travel from the Midwestern malaise of Big Black and Pere Ubu, to Kraut pioneers Can and Kraftwerk, while bowing to the British belligerence of The Fall and This Heat.
Recording the album while living with Foxygen's Jonathan Rado at his rented house in Bloomington, the band had its first taste of a heavy Indiana summer, and all the humidity and insect life that buzzes along with it. "We woke up every day, ate hard-boiled eggs and stood on a porch," says Pulos of the experience.
Their first collection of songs slyly unties the shoes of genre and convention, shapeshifts mischievously, and tramples on the promises delivered on the name itself.
There are only eight songs on this rangy debut.
Intense blasts of hook-filled noise rock ("Hayward!"), rocksteady marionette stomp ("No Time"), hypnotic bouts of doomy poetics ("Epicondyles"), outlandishly sexy groove rock ("Dograces"), and a number of other bite-sized forays into parts unknown are made manifest across 9 Songs.
The vibes are strong here. Pulos sings and plays like he's working out long-standing grudges, pulling the most sinewy tones from an acoustic guitar and ripping huge chunks of demon flesh out of his electric. Laffer matches him step for step on the drums, an exacting presence behind the kit who pushes even the band's more placid moments into bouts of tension. Together they succeed in animating their musical ideas to startling, almost unnatural life. Reverb units, keyboards, samples and processing gluing everything together, saturated in the August heat and worn in until they sound second nature, it's like somehow you've been listening to these songs forever.


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Birds gotta fly, and Creepers gotta creep!
"Photobomb" by wytrab8 is up for scoring in our second Minecraft design challenge!
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You Can See Sony's E3 2014 Press Conference Live in Movie Theaters for Free, Tickets Available Now
So when can we expect Microsoft to announce they'll be doing it, too?
While Nintendo is dropping out of the press conference running for the second year in a row, Sony is investing deeply in theirs. When the presentation happens on June 9th, viewers in theaters across North America will be able to experience the show in theaters just like they're on the floor at E3—for free.Read More


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CAPTIVE GRAY ALIEN - Movements Analysis Part 2
- Doclottalove
- uploaded: Oct 23, 2009
- Hits: 1026
CAPTIVE GRAY ALIEN - Movements Analysis 2 (640x480)
Some foolish people bored me saying: "hey, Doc, you're nut... only the head and the mouth move. It's CGI (or... it's a puppetry)." NO... it's NOT!
This Video Analysis shows that it's not exactly as they said...
I've already seen in my life many one-eyed leading blinds and all have fallen down into deep holes.
Here we can see clearly that the elbows, arms, legs, hands... all have their own movements. What about one eye only blink at the previous video?
Here is what he's got in his attempt of a cover up of this real video; tell me if (ONE YEAR LATER) it's the same thing you see here ?!!
94 comments
Doclottalove December 24, 2010 6:22:21 PM CET
Up to me, thanks for your words about my works uploaded on DTV.I will be patient, I promiss you !Up tp my FRIENDS here most are realy GREAT. 'Top Posters' mainly.I have 57 friends here ONLY.I have just erased a dozen of obviously fake profiles who asked to be my friends here.They had nothing on their channels; only my "Profile Picture" hanging there.I don't like these kind of 'friends'.About Martha, an acquaintance of mine, she was not talking about the Amrican People; she's talking about the elite.The elite that started wars, forgery, won money with weapons sales, etc...I agree when she says that those that started the Vietnan and the Iraq wars should face a trial.Like Sadan Hussein did.Both Countries did NOTHING to USA.They were NOT democratic; it's up to them...Why so much death and people with serious problems (those who got back) ?And I say: 9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB !Thanks for your comment.Doc
Truepatriot December 24, 2010 8:50:56 AM CET
@Marthalien, try not to hate all of us Americans, our politicians suck, no doubt, but most true Americans want nothing more than for everyone (all countries) to be healthy, happy and prosperous. To "Doc" You put some Great stuff on here, love your work. I've cruised the website for sometime now but really just recently joined up. Today i believe is my first reply to anyone, Be patient with me, all this stuff fascinates me. BTW, Looks like you have great friends as well, God's Speed to everyone.
Doclottalove November 5, 2010 2:11:50 PM CET
This is simply ridiculous !!!Doc
Doclottalove November 5, 2010 2:11:18 PM CET
LEARN ABOUT "Betty & Barney Abduction Case".This is just ONE example.Doc
Doclottalove September 14, 2010 12:08:29 AM CEST
One thing I know: USA have the cheapest mobiles fees in the world (LOL*); this is true !I agree with you about Nixon, Bush and some few more of "the elite".We are talking about just some few people, from the elite, who were in the USA Government and some other activities. Nothing to do with the real "american people" that I think to be very gentle and honest.I know you, you know me, my dearest Captain Martha.What about NO NUKES AT ALL ?Don't forget to have your Valium 10 mg tonight (lol*.... I'm kiddin').Tight hugsss, dear...Doc
Miami September 9, 2010 8:58:20 AM CEST
Doc,do you have any opinions on the National Geografic 1 hour special on the March 13,1997 Phoenix Lights? It aired about 1-2 months ago July or August 2010 Thanks Miami& expl
Miami September 9, 2010 8:43:49 AM CEST
Doc,Equiptment Equiptment Equiptment and then there is going to be more Equiptment and we are going to improve this new found skill set of near impossible yet ever improving Science. Miami and fellow explorers Thanks
Marthalien August 10, 2010 4:10:32 PM CEST
These americans think they own the world.Only they can have "their aliens", only they construct "flying objects", only "they everything"!What they do make best are idiot wars against small countries, those with NO BOMBS, of course.Corruption and Conspiracies everywhere.A home made job on 9/11!Where is Bush?Where is Nixon?No TRIAL at all?I'm willing Iran to reach its nuke asap.
Doclottalove August 9, 2010 8:20:25 PM CEST
Cops ???It would not be for 'cops' level...Thanks for the comment.Doc
Hippielover August 6, 2010 3:52:38 AM CEST
i havent decided wether this is real or not.. my only hold back is if this is real, why is an alien sitting in a chair? and why is it not taking action, and why is the person filming this not calling the cops or reporting this thing sitting in their chair? i certainly would be. i would not be sitting there recording it in the dark.