I caught the 8:25 bus this morning, and it was uneventful other than the fact that it wasn’t one of the regular buses used in the fleet. There were a lot fewer seats, as they weren’t facing the front of the bus, like the regular bus that is used. Instead, there was just seating along the outside walls of the bus, all facing in.
My manager and I walked over to the Brickyard at lunch time where the Fagbus sat off to one side of it. We had a very, very interesting conversation with Erin, who filmed a ride across the country in her VW bug, which had been vandalized with graffiti that said, “Fag. U R Gay.” She walked up to her car one day at school, and someone had done that to it, and she used the opportunity to drive it all around the country with the graffiti on it to bring attention to the problem of gay bashing and harassment.
She talked even faster than I do, but was very well spoken, and a very clear communicator. I look forward to seeing the documentary when it comes out. She’s got some backing on it, and is entering it in about 70 upcoming film festivals.
In addition to it being cool, I thought it was very cool that (1) my manager told me about this event, and that (2) she walked over there with me to see what it was all about.
I called Amy, my GP, to see when she could take me to get a Hepatitis A shot, give me a prescription for cipro (both recommended for my upcoming China trip), and to renew my two regular prescriptions (Nexium and Lisinopril) for my new State Health Plan.
They had an opening at 4:30 today, so I nabbed it. This meant I had to catch the 3:30 bus home, and then head out to RTP, where my doctor’s office is. At home, I quickly grabbed my new Blue Cross Blue Options card, on which I saw in the bottom corner, “Plan effective 10/01/2008.”
In the car, just up Kent Rd. I called my Dr.’s office to make sure that my IBM insurance would still cover today’s visit, since I just quit on the 12th, and from what I learned at my New Employee Orientation with the state, you pay ahead a month on these plans so that if/when you quit you’re covered until the end of the month.
However, the “insurance lady” at my Dr.’s office couldn’t say for sure, so I just canceled today’s appointment and rescheduled it for Friday morning, October 10, at 7AM, when I know my State medical benefits can be used.
Back at home, I did two loads of laundry, while I did some more work, and after that worked on completing our new TechCommChina blog. Within minutes of it “going live” and notifying the group about it, our leader posted this comment to it: “John, OH MY GAWD!!!! It is truly wonderful… You are A-MAZE-ING!”
This was quickly followed by another delegate’s comments: “This is very cool! I can’t believe how neat this is. What a great way to provide information for the next generation of delegates. It is also very neat for our own uses. And yes, I’m just about crazed with excitement now. This blog makes it seem so real, and so immediate. I can’t wait. Thank you for doing this. I am so impressed!!”
And not only that, we got a quick “ROI” on creating it from the leader of a previous delegation to China for technical communication in 2002, when he read one delegate’s concern about eating watermelon. He wrote: “I don’t think we had any problems at all as a result of eating watermelon on the 2002 delegation. The knives will be washed in the same water as the dishes, after all. It is ubiquitous at the end of meals, and delicious, as there is seldom any other sweet offered.”
I had a late run to the gym, where I did upper body and a little more ab strengthening.
|
Exercise Category |
Exercise Type |
Duration |
Comments |
|
Strengthening |
Pelvic Lifts |
15 minutes |
I did 5 sets of 20 of these. |
|
Resistance |
Upper Body |
45 minutes |
I could feel soreness in my abs from yesterday’s work when I did the tricep machine. |
I stopped by Food Lion after the gym, and got a bunch of vegetables and a turkey ham, with which I’m going to make some ham salad tomorrow night.
Back at home, I cut up a watermelon that I bought.
In the mail, I had my check from Fidelity, with the withdrawal of my IBM 401K plan money. I can’t even begin to articulate how glad I was to not have a quarter-of-a-million of my dollars in the market today as it crashed 777 points!
When the market had gotten to the 500-point drop today, someone tweeted on twitter: “A lot of 401K plans just became 1K plans.”
Now to get the money to my financial advisor in time to, hopefully, buy while everything’s “on sale.” 🙂