I mentioned earlier that I have 2 music degrees, neither of which I use. I didn't care about that for a couple of years but now I'm kind of getting a hankering to play again. The Messiah was fun to do and reminded me what it was like to play great music. Last year I played with the Denton municipal band for a few rehearsals & a concert. The band really wasn't that good and I wasn't playing(practicing) between rehearsals and I didn't sound very good. What I would like to do is play in one of the community orchestra around here. The horn player who sat next to me during Messiah said that she and her husband played for the Flower Mound symphony. For some reason, that sounded really good. There are two obstacles: 1. I am still rather out of shape. and 2. My blasted work schedule. The 3rd or 4th week in Feb I(and the rest of the shift) go back to the Thur-Fri-Sat & every other Wednesday 7am-7pm. #1 could be largely cured by a month of steady playing. #2 seems to be just the way it is. At any rate, the work schedule is really handicapping me getting back into performing.

Incidentaly, my work benefits are changing for the New Year. There were/are $10 copay for drs visits & inpatient hospital visits and $100 copay for er visits. 100% of everything after that was covered. On the 1st my insurance will be $250 deductible(or $500 per family) and 80%-20%(meaning that I will be responsible for 20% of all medical expenses after the deductible is met. So the philosophy that needs to be employed here is 'don't get sick.' And if you do get sick you had better not need to be admitted to the hospital. Here is the way that the company explained it to us in an email:

'Each year, we carefully analyze our benefit plan design and cost to balance our ability to hire and retain top quality associates with our ability to competitively price our services. This balance is critical to Perot Systems’ continued success—as an employer and service provider. Based on this evaluation, you will see changes in the structure of the 2006 health benefits plan design. Our competitive research revealed that the market trend is moving away from plans utilizing co-pays, and replacing them with deductible and co-insurance plans. Our revised plans will reflect alignment with this market trend by providing a choice of plans with varying levels of deductibles and co-insurance.'

I shall do you a favor and translate this:

'We looked around and saw that other companies were getting away with phasing out copays so it looked like a great time for us to do it as well. After all, it saves you, uh...I mean us, a LOT of money.'

One of the few good things about working here was the great benefits. Not anymore.


On the sunny side of life the, BYU men's basketball team is 7-3 after clobbering Eastern Washington at home 97-66. I'm not reading too much into the good start by BYU as most of their wins haven't come against good competition. We'll all know more after the game against Air Force next Thursday. BYU plays Tulsa(4-6) at home on Friday but they don't look too strong as of yet.

I got bored the other day and started up looking up old roommates on the web and found this. We were roommates for 2 years in a basement that an older couple was renting out to us and 3 other intrepid souls. I'm glad that things worked out the way that he wanted them to. He looks very intellectual in that picture, huh?