Tubing is great!

Last night my Meetup group went tubing at a ski slope in Pennsylvania. I'd never been tubing before but have been looking forward to it for the past couple of months. I wasn't disappointed. We got up there around 5:30 last night and spent a few hours spinning down slopes and trying desperately to stop before bowling people over at the end. It was great! I couldn't quite get the pictures to do the slopes justice (they don't show the steepness particularly well, but trust me - when you're at the top - it feels steep.) It's a bit of a drive to go up too frequently, but definitely something I want to do again!

The view from the base of the slopes.

Shannon riding the big conveyor belt up to the top.

Ryan after getting some serious air on the way down.

A view from the top.

Maryland = $

I've decided Maryland is the biggest nickel and diming state I've ever known. I have been back and forth since I got here about getting Maryland license plates. I was going to do it, but then I found out they have this rule about getting a Maryland State Safety Inspection before they'll give you plates. This just seemed like a big annoyance to me (not to mention an expense I didn't really want to get into.) Plus, I'm just against this. When I went in to a place to see what the cost was of one of these "inspections", they informed me that it's an $80 charge pass/fail and if there's anything wrong with it, it has to be fixed and then re-inspected (for another charge.) When I argued the price, he states, "Well, it's a one time fee - you never have to have it done again." This I had to just laugh at. "So, you're telling me that in Maryland, they do a safety check on your car once and then your car continues to deteriorate, but they never check it again?" He just gave me a look.

Anyway, I decided to press my luck and not go through with the inspection. Then recently I got a notice in the mail saying that I need to register my car. So, I decided to be a good, law-abiding citizen and get my plates changed.

So, Friday I made an appointment and went in to get my safety inspection. The car was fine except my serpentine belt needed to be replaced. I'm actually glad they found that and fixed it before it caused any real problems. At any rate, I walked out of that place paying about $130.

Then I went to the Motor Vehicle Administration and sat there for 2 hours waiting for someone to help me. I finally got up to a person, she did her fancy computer work and announces to me, "OK, that will be $569."

What??? Why???

Well, come to find out, Maryland charges you a 6% tax on the value of your vehicle to bring it into the state. This is just about the craziest thing I have ever heard. I ask the clerk to explain, but she can't. Her only comment is, "Well, at least your car is a 2002 - just think if you had a new car!" Yeah, just imagine. But this is my point precisely. My car is a 2002 - and you're going to charge me $500 to register it here? That's nuts.

I argued and argued and finally to some avail. I just can't see paying that much to register my car here, when I'm not planning on staying longer than 6-9 months. After explaining this several times, the clerk finally dropped her voice and offered me a potential way out. We'll have to see if it works.

Done with Doctors

As many of you know, I have been very sick these past two weeks. It started with nasty aches and pains, accompanied by rotating fevers and chills. I was waking up at least twice a night just drenched in sweat. It was awesome. You know it's bad when you work from home and you still have to call in sick. After about 7 days the aches and pains finally left and were replaced with an intense sore throat. And then I happened to look at my throat in the mirror one evening and saw nice white spots on my tonsil.

Due to these fun symptoms, I went to the doctor twice in the past two weeks. The first time I went to an urgent care center. It was actually a relatively nice place, but there was certainly a bit of that "if you're not dying, we're not worried" atmosphere. The nurse was, well, less than friendly, but I got her back by coughing on her when she stuck a cotton swab up my nose for a flu test. :-) The doctor who saw me was actually nice, but not what I would call thorough. He basically said it wasn't "the flu" and was probably a para-flu. The fact that I didn't have any cold like symptoms didn't seem to bother him. Anyway, basically I was dismissed with the orders to eat as much as I could and come back if it wasn't better in 10 days.

Then, after I noticed the spots on my throat I decided I should go to another docter and make sure it wasn't strep or something great like that. I actually got an appointment in a regular doctor's office, which I thought was a good thing so that perhaps I could find a primary care physician at the same time. Didn't turn out that way. I ended up with one of my favorite kind of doctors - the ones that just give you these looks like you're totally wasting their time. He put one foot in the door and said, "It's probably not strep. And if it's not, you realize there's nothing I can do about it." Off to a great start, I forced him to listen to a quick background of how I'd been feeling the past 2 weeks. He still had one foot out the door. He responded with, "That doesn't change anything. " After the nurse administered the strep test, he came back in (obviously from eating lunch because some of it was still lodged in his beard) and told me it wasn't strep and began to walk out the door. A little exasperated I stopped him with, "Look. I'm only pressing this because this is the 2nd time I've been to the doctor in two weeks and I would like to not come back. Is there anything else this could be?" This made him pause for a brief moment, but after pressing on my throat for a second he ruled that there was nothing else it could be.

I HATE doctors like that.

Now, granted, it's two days later and I'm finally feeling MUCH better, so it turns out he was right, but still. I'm a new patient, I would like to think that the doctor would at least TRY to give a favorable impression. I'm sorry they booked me during his lunch, but I really didn't have anything to do with that.

Anyway, I'm done with doctors. The whole experience really made me miss my primary care physician in Chicago. She was awesome. There's a lot I don't miss that I thought I would, but I definitely miss a) my doctor, b) Irie's daycare/boarding place and c) Jamba Juice. So far I have not been able to find anything that even comes close to comparing with any of these three things.