A Busy Couple Of Days

I don't know how it happens but you can get pretty busy in a day of retirement and before you know it, it's already past 6pm and dinner isn't ready. I didn't have a lot planned for Monday except ride my bike, walk the hounds and do some reading. That all changed after my first phone call to Sierra Vista Medical Group billing department. Like all other companies I wasn't talking to anyone that was working in Arizona, let alone in the town my doctor is located. This time it was a girl in Colorado. I had her confused in no time.  LOL

She promised to make the adjustment to my balance due for a payment I had proof I made November 21st but she did not see it anywhere on my account. Yeah, I know holidays get in the way of work but come on ... 11 days??? She also told me she would send me a confirmation of her adjustment so I asked "how, in what manner are you going to send it?" ... the word "manner" threw her off, she didn't answer so to make it easy for her I suggested EMAIL !!!! What a concept. When she did NOT ask for my email address I gave it to her because I'm such a nice guy after 45 minutes of confusion on the phone just after 8:30am. See where I'm going with this?  HaHa ... thought so.

I decided I'd give her a chance to process all that she was going to do ... a simple posting of my payment 11 days prior making the balance due ZERO. I had another cup of coffee to calm down, discussed philosophy with Stella as she stared back at me ... then called again. I knew I'd get another billing trained professional that could tell me if it was posted on my account or not. After all it is 2020 and most financial transactions can post in a fraction of a second as long as you are doing your job.

Why did it not surprise me that he didn't see anything that I told him about. Nor did I receive an email confirmation. The pieces to this puzzle was coming together fast and the final piece was to get some kind of warm clothes on, get in my car and head out to the local doctor's office so they could fix what their billing department could not. I knew the process and so did they ... you know how?

I'VE HAD TO DO THIS ONCE PER MONTH EVERY MONTHY SINCE MY SURGERY AND FIRST BILL.

Let's just say things turned out the way they should with some guidance from yours truly. I felt like I was working a job again, enough to know that I don't want to work any job again.  LOL

The best thing to relieve stress in my case is to ride a bicycle. It was a perfect time when I got back, almost 60°, sunny and very little wind. You can read about that ride if you want on my bicycle blog located on the sidebar.

I knew by the time I got back a few hours later, FedEx would have delivered my rock rails ordered for the 2007 FJ Cruiser. I am slowly building this to what I had in 2014, my first FJ Cruiser.

When the sunshine disappeared today, Stella was somewhat irritated. You can see she is upset and can't find a spot to lay done to sleep. She likes to sunbath not sleep on rocks in the shade.

Heidi may not look like it in this picture but the past week I have not seen as much energy from her in years as I have the last 4-5 days. She barks, sprints around the house faster than any camera can catch her, sleeps all through the night without waking me up and eats her kibble in half the time it takes Stella to finish.  She is also going on every morning walk that Stella and I take. She has walked more here in her new home than she did in years back in 'the tropics'.

The rock rails had arrived when I got home. They are in the boxes on the right. Shelving on the left is still waiting for my friend to come and get them. He told me again last week he would be over and wanted them for sure ... it's been two months now.

I had this vision I could do this job myself. 6 bolts on each side, can't be that hard. I didn't realize how heavy that rail was and with the brackets already welded to the rails, made the job even harder. Especially when I am laying on my back doing a bench press on the rail and trying to get it up and over one of the bolts so it can slide down in place. My hip was screaming louder than I was, although it was not cussing, like I was. It did not take long to decide to load everything up in the cargo area and call Toyota for an appointment to install them.

It took them a little under an hour to install them and pull the FJ around to be picked up. Another good thing about having them do it, as they applied the brakes I noticed I had a left brake light out. So while I paid the bill for installing the rock rails, they replaced the light bulb at no charge.

Right before I bought this, the previous owner bought and installed brand new stock Toyota wheels that come with the FJ. They look great but I prefer black wheels like my first Voodoo Blue had. I'll sleep on that question a few nights and see what kind of vibes I get.

This FJ is in awful good shape for a 2007 and only 97,xxx miles on it. If I was told I could only have two cars, I'd keep this FJ and my Mini Cooper S ... the same combo I had a few years ago.

Here's a picture of that first FJ I had ... rock rails, same color with black wheels.

So what happened today ... besides the appointment to Toyota, I was too busy for grocery shopping so I ordered online and they will be here between 5pm-6pm and it's 4:49pm as I type this. The biggest thing was my 3 month followup with the surgeon this morning. Again the hip and femur look fantastic, he is thrilled I am back to riding my bike like I was before my crash. I should feel completely normal in 8 months and he finished by telling me to come back and see him a year from now.  December 3rd, 2020.

Fry's is on the way ... that's all for tonight.

Dell Inspiron 15 Returned For iPad Pro 11"

Taken with the new iPad Pro

I really did try. I ran the Dell computer through it's paces, explored Windows 10 from every corner and did all the same stuff I do now. I do more than just live on the internet and have for years on my Apple 'toys' but by Monday night I felt like returning the Dell computer. By this morning I gave it another chance but by 10am I was resetting the computer back to factory settings so all of my personal information was off the computer. I already knew what my plan was today ... that new iPad Pro w/Keyboard.

It was cold this morning as it was yesterday for most of the day but Stella found some warmth on the patio combine with the sunshine to take a long nap outside. I rode my bike and returned home to get ready for my big doctor's appointment with the MD that was highly recommended and one I choose as my new General Practitioner. More on that appointment later in this post.

You might be getting tired of the photos I take from my patio and if so, I'll say it's just hard not to. Every day and sometimes multiple times per day, the sky really puts on a show. Like my friend said the other day when we were standing at the fence ... "from here you can't even tell you live in a neighborhood" ... and that is one reason, maybe the biggest reason I chose to buy this house.

This was Monday morning ..

I looked all over for Stella but didn't find her until I stepped into the yard and looked around the corner. She had found the warmest spot in or out of the house.

Monday nights sunset was fantastic. I didn't edit any of these photos.

This morning was a different story. The "feels like" was 40° with a chance of rain and those gusty winds were coming back to the area. I knew then I might be taking the day off from riding the bike, which really isn't a bad thing as long as I get 4-5 days of riding in from Monday through Sunday.

My appointment was at 2:45pm and I was there at 2:10pm as they suggested even thought I had filled out all the paperwork they had sent me in advance. The waiting was a mad house with different doctors working in the facility but the ladies at the front desk were well organized. The wait was well worth meeting one of the nicest doctors I think I've ever ran into. He was in his early 70's, a hiker of the high elevations that you see in these pictures.

He was well aware of where I ride my bike and knew the effort needed to climb the area plus fight the winds this time of year. He agreed with the number I told him that I wanted to get my weight to. I had lost 19 pounds from the time I moved here to the time I crashed. I am still about 9 pounds away from my goal and the number he suggested. We were had the same number in mind.

I brought my medical report the hospital had sent me last month. He read the heart information in detail and thought the same way I did after he read it. The word "Normal" shows up a lot in that report. My blood pressure was very good he said for someone my age as well as my heart rate. He told me to keep doing what I was doing. I asked about supplements, about different diets and we both agreed there also. His answers confirmed what I had been thinking for the past few years. He ordered some lab tests, exactly what I was wanting. They will check all the basic stuff to see if anything is hidden that I don't know about.

I am to see a cardiologist in 7-10 business days. I will see this doctor again in 7 weeks to go over the lab results and as he said "come up with a game plan". I was happy that I had chose him as a doctor to go see. I did tell him I've never had a General Practitioner and until my stupidity in September, I never had health issues. He told me he met another older bike rider just this week that did the same thing I did, bike slipped out from under him in loose sandy rocks/gravl ... only different broken bones and not the hip.

Stella has not been demanding a morning walk since the temps have cooled off. She is more interested in the crying puppy next door early in the morning. It isn't long after her breakfast kibble that she is back to sleep along with Heidi.

So in summary, it was good to get some things confirmed that I've had on my mind for over a year or more. I didn't think there were any issues I should be concerned about because if there were, there would be no way I could ride a bike as far and as long as I do. Plus I'd be out of breath just around the house from higher elevation than the tropics of Southern Indiana.

I could tell from the very start, the Dell computer was a good computer but didn't feel nor work as smooth as the quality of an Apple product. Plus Windows 10 has had a lot of improvements but it 'lagged' compared to the macOS I use on my iMac. I liked Windows 10 but the question kept creeping into my head ... "why do you need this when everything you have works?" I've been using Apple Products for 9 years not counting the 2 years in the 1990's where the business I was working for used Apple Computers.

There was no need to have 364Gb of photos loaded on two different computers running two different systems. Outlook never would deliver my email with the iCloud accounts. The Dell app that let me text and load message from my phone to the Dell worked the first day for about an hour and then never again. I had to turn off the backlight for the keyboard because I could not see the keys and the light was on at all times. Apple's will only come on when needed. The more I used it the more I felt like I didn't need it. I had cured my curiosity and decided what I had was best for me.

You can tell by the texture of the material the iPad keyboard covered, it's different than the typical old rubber portable keyboard. It is faster than my 4 year old laptop. The keys are normal size.

Why the iPad ??

It's better than the iPad mini to take with me when traveling. Plus my Mini does not have a keyboard and I hate typing with any on screen keyboard. It's just an inch or two smaller than my laptop but faster since it's new and had a faster processor, lighter of course. The way the keyboard has worked out this afternoon I can see the new iPad Pro 11" replacing what my laptop does ... except transferring all my Mahjong game results. I've spent years trying to get all 160 games completed under 3 minutes.

See the chair behind Stella?? There is a reason for that. That corner of the room is one of two favorite places she likes to sleep. But in the past few weeks she decided her new thing laying down was going to be leaning against the wall and sliding down to the floor slowly. The problem is, on that wall that she wanted to lean and slide against, has my cable connection from outside to my computer. Luckily the installer tacked the cable along the baseboard to behind the desk.

There is a couple of inches of cable sticking out from the wall connector and all I could imagine is 90 pounds of bloodhound sliding down the wall and bending the cable at the point of connection to the internet source. So, I put a spare chair in front of that cable connection to protect it and keep my sanity.

Amazon just delivered my first pair of house slippers I've ever had. Rubber soles on the bottom so I don't sleep in tile floors and sheep skin lined to keep my feet warmer than they have been since in the winter tile floors get cold. I do turn the heat on but for a very short time early in the morning and that is all that is needed. Now I can set out the trash can on Monday mornings without changing clothes ... I can look like I just crawled out of bed with my slippers on, even though by that time I have been up for hours and have at least two cups of coffee running through my veins.  LOL

In case the week passes by too fast ... I want to wish all my readers a Happy Thanksgiving and enjoy all of the food that is prepared. I don't every year but this year I am starting to feel like cooking the meals I see on tv, have had in the past with family ... I can cook everything that is listed but then I eat too much, like non-stop, then live on Tums for a few days since there is that much food available. It's hard to follow a recipe for just one person so I cook enough for 4-8 people ... LOL

I'll pick up a new bottle of Tums when I go to the store to buy all I need to put that meal together.

Fun times here in the 'Wild West' ... I'm feeling some exploring here soon.