This is shaping up to be another disaster

Game night is looking to be another disaster thanks to the medical non-care system.

The GM has been without meds since Tuesday because his insurance provider hasn’t approved his refill, so unless he gets his meds today he’s not going to be in condition to manage the game tonight. Fun, but that’s America these days, good medical care for those rich enough to afford it, and crap for middle class and below. And what makes it worse is we can see what we are missing out on because we have TV shows and movies that show rich people getting medical care, while we make do with OTC shit and herbal medicine that isn’t outlawed, or even that is but not heavily enforced. Seriously folks, this is stupid and needs to get fixed. M4A doesn’t come anywhere near what we need, the best we can say about it is “It’s better than what we have” which is basically nothing.

And we just got the notification while I was composing the above paragraph that the GM’s meds didn’t get approved either at all or in time to be effective for the game tonight. So our hostess doesn’t get to show off her mad cooking skillz, I don’t get to get out of the house and interact with other people, Mrs. the Poet doesn’t get a night off from cooking (she got one yesterday because I bought dinner), and our GM also doesn’t get to show off the devious plot he has set up for us to fail against. All because the US healthcare system basically sucks donkey dicks.

So the headline is wrong because in the time it took to compose this post what had been future tense became past tense. It’s not a potential disaster it is a disaster that exists. Game is officially ruined by not taking place, unlike last week when we lost a player to bad infrastructure.

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My Warlock has been revived and other crucial news on a Wreck-Free Sunday

Getting to the good news from the Kinky D&D game, my Warlock8 has been revived and his head put on the right way so he can again aid the party in fighting the whatevers we have to fight now. I think we have about 3 overlapping quests we are stuck with counting the one we have to fulfill to “pay” for reviving the dead party members. We now have to rescue a effrit princess from a half-fiend, half green dragon, the very same dragon we were supposed to “take care of” to get rid of the monsters that had been harassing the trade routes in and out of the city we had been based in before this round of adventures started. So we have come full circle…

In other news I think I may have found a massage provider I can afford, $25 for a 50 minute massage. The bad part is these are student intern massages so I won’t have any way of selecting a therapist I know works well with my injuries. But if I come every week, I can get the people assigning students to let me work with students specializing in treating people like me. So eventually it will work out and I’ll be able to get what I need at least some of the time.

Continuing the health news, you may remember that I ran my second toe on my right foot over with the dolly while moving furniture Friday night. No broken bones, but the toe has been sore and swollen and has taken a lot of abuse because it sticks out further than the big toe. The same toe on the left foot is also swollen because it got jammed against the inside of my shoe as you can see in this picture.

You can also see the bruised nailbeds from delaying the trip to the nail spa until I injured my toes on the inside of my shoes. I know, I defer maintenance until things get too bad to do otherwise, it is a failing of mine.

On other things I really need and want to finish building the extended stem for Francis/es, but I have worn out all my cutting tools on the CroMo steel I purchased for the task. Well technically I still have a fresh sidemill cutting tool, but as I don’t have the kind of PPE I need to use it given the kind of shavings it throws off, I’m gonna put that one on the back shelf for now. I really don’t want to spend another couple of days using forceps to grab and pull tiny needles out of my skin when they work their way to where I can grab them. The process is as irritating as the little slivers of metal in my skin. The deal now is I need to make the top (outside) edge of the cutout about 3mm deeper in the raw stock, and I need to relieve a lot of material from inside the raw stock so the donor stem fits flush with the edge of the cutout and the top of the donor stem fits flush with the top of the raw stock of the extension.

That’s the hole.

And that’s the Hole Problem. You can see where the top of the donor stem extends past the raw stock of the extension by more than a bit, meaning the hole has to be made larger/longer. You may have also noticed that I went through the side of the donor stem trying to make it fit inside the raw stock. That can be filled or covered when I braze the donor stem into the extension and then filed or ground smooth for painting. NBD. The combination of welded donor stem brazed into the raw stock will be more than strong enough for the forces applied even when standing on the pedals even with the gaps in the donor stem. The donor stem survived the wreck that killed me, it should survive a few trips to the grocery store in its new form. The bottom of the extension fits flush against the top of Francis/es’ steer tube so when the binder bolt is tightened up there is very little stress applied to the bottom of the extension. I’m still looking for the one odd part I need to complete the binder bolt, the “coupling nut” that connects the bolt that fits the top of the donor stem to the hunk of allthread that spans the added space in the extension.

It doesn’t have to be pretty, it just has to work in darkness inside the extension and hold the two threaded pieces together.

So when I go deposit the check to pay for the massages, since I budgeted $60/week and I only need to pay $25, I have a little bit of money to pay for things like coupling nuts and abrasive tools for the Dremel. And I get to do that and the Huge Blog Post all in the same day. 😛

It’s time to go to evening services, and I think I have blathered on enough for one day.

PSA, Opus the Unkillable Badass Poet

Still wondering about everything, and the Feed

And by “everything” yes I mean everything. Well, almost everything, I know why the sky is blue, and why sunsets are red. Things that can be explained by science I read about and I understand. Things that can’t be explained by science I wonder about. Like the current Congress voting against the best interests of the people they supposedly represent from their districts, or voting to prevent federal funds from being spent to save women’s lives by terminating hopeless pregnancies, pregnancies that will kill both the mother and the fetus. Terminate the pregnancy and the mother has a chance at trying again assuming she can overcome the psychological problems that come from having a pregnancy that could have killed her before she could give birth, or just not spend the money and both are going to die with no second chances. Seriously this was put to a vote in the House as part of a much larger bill along with (not) paying for rape victims or victims of incest (pretty much the same thing as a rape victim) to terminate unwanted or medically dangerous pregnancies. And they voted against paying to save lives if it means terminating a pregnancy. I think paying for any medical attention to anyone that voted in favor of this is against my religion maybe. Actually no, it isn’t, and given the choice I would give medical attention or allow medical attention to be administered (even with my tax dollars). But I do think that they should be given the “opportunity” to sweat about it possibly not happening for as long as it wasn’t medically dangerous to withhold medical attention. If it wasn’t medically dangerous to let them sit forever, just uncomfortable or potentially scarring, leave them sit, since another proposed bill would defund Obamacare so that poor people would be denied access to health care even when that care is required for living without pain or permanent scarring. Yes this is personal for me.

Up first, more fallout from the bizarre question on the Australian version of Family Feud. Twitter reacts to Family Feud’s bizarre question about cyclists This reaction was mentioned in earlier links, but directly referenced in this link. Personally the part about this question was allowing “everything” as an answer to what annoying thing cyclists do.

Back in the US, terrorist attacks against transportation infrastructure continue in OR. County more ‘vigilant’ on Hawthorne Bridge inspections as tacks claim more victims and Tacks again flattening bike tires on Hawthorne Bridge I’m sure if someone was putting out caltrops and causing flat tires on a bottleneck thoroughfare for cars there would be major police presence and investigation(s) going on.

Well, after that it’s time for Our Daily Ted. Morning Links: Justice denied and threats against cyclists, and it’s time to give up some of that good bike blood

A story also reported upon in the above link, the driver and the cyclist in this wreck are robbed during the confusion after the wreck. CYCLIST HIT IN WEST OAKLAND, ROBBED WHILE UNCONSCIOUS While the driver was trying to get the cyclist stabilized until the ambulance arrived he was robbed, and while the driver’s attention was diverted someone stole the cyclist’s bike and belongings.

Sometimes we win, even if it’s a Pyrrhic victory. Truck Driver Found Negligent in Death of Cyclist Amelie Le Moullac I consider this victory Pyrrhic because the driver was convicted in civil court, not criminal, and because the SFPD provided virtually nothing to the case except excuses for the driver…

Changing the legal infrastructure to favor cars less and people more in NE. Safety bill would clarify rules for bikes and cars

Still trying to figure out where the money came from on this one. Bishop charged in cyclist’s death released from jail on $2.5M bail The driver is returning to an “in-patient” treatment center for her alcohol addiction, after spending over $2 million to get out of a free one…

More on NYC traffic deaths by mode. Mayor says traffic deaths drop, cyclist fatalities spike Not sure what is going on here as fewer pedestrians get killed, while motor vehicle occupant deaths are flat and cyclists getting killed go up at a rate that exceeds the normal data noise.

A bit of news about the physical infrastructure in Portland, OR. A $10,000 solution to dangerous Springwater path intersection $10K to fix as major a problem as this is practically nothing, it’s a rounding error in most cities’ transportation budgets.

Moire Stoopid from the UK. Cyclists urged not to use Golden Valley Bypass after Gloucester man died in traffic collision Note that people using the same mode as the victim are being urged to not use the facility, not the people using the mode that killed the victim.

Potential victims must show proper deference to potential killers according to this schlock from News Corp, the parent company of Faux Nooz. Motorist and cyclist mutual respect key to road safety Yes I know that’s not what they say in the headline, it doesn’t come until a bit later in the piece.

Insurance companies in the Netherlands know that e-assist cyclists will reduce health care costs over those who don’t ride at all, but how to keep the assisted riders from increasing other costs is the question. Researchers at Delft University of Technology Target Risk Management (The safety of electrically assisted bicycles compared to classic bicycles) And it’s far cheaper to use free student labor than paid professionals when you are doing something like this.

More e-assist news from the US. Bosch rolls into Irvine to speed up eBike operation I like this particular system, 250 Watts through the cranks gets lots more performance than a hub motor, basically it’s like adding the power of another person without all the weight and bother of carrying that person with you, just a few pounds of batteries and the motor.

And I’m all out of links now.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet