Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  I spent the day at my neighbor Tim's house.  We finished off the trench for his new water line today, and now he's ready for the plumber – who's showing up tomorrow morning to connect it all up.  We didn't expect to be able to work today, as the forecast was for some substantial rain – but late last night something changed, and the weather front meandered off in another direction.  On Wednesday, weather permitting, we'll be filling his trenches back in.

There was no excitement today like we had on Saturday.  We didn't break any more pipes or yank out any more wires :)  It was just a pleasant day, with the two of us working together very smoothly.  There were a couple of challenging spots, where we had to do a bit of hand digging.  As soon as you get more than about 18" deep in his yard, there are fist-sized rocks with a little dirt in between them.  We had to go 4' deep to get below the frost line, and whenever we were near a pipe, we had to dig it by hand the whole way.  But we got it done, and it's a satisfying feeling to have done so.

But now I'm tired :)

Healthcare premiums...

Healthcare premiums...  Well, we finally got our renewal notice for our Obamacare policy, and seen from a really perverse perspective, it's kind of good news.  What do I mean by that?  Well, we'd been told that our premiums were likely to go up by 50% or more for 2016, and instead they're “only” going up 23.5%.  Woo hoo!  ...he says, while raging at the stupidity.

According to this article, our increase is in line with the national average.  Small comfort, that – our suffering is no worse than anyone else's.  But that's only true when you look at it in relative terms.  In absolute terms, our premiums are going up by almost $300 a month!  Of course what's really going on is that we're involuntarily subsidizing (through our higher premiums) the lower premiums of other people.  That's socialism, plain and simple, though the progressives like to deny that.  Margaret Thatcher famously said “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”  Judging from the people around here, you could add to that: “…and those other people are armed!”  It just might be the case that socialized healthcare (aka Obamacare) is the provocation for America's next revolution.  I don't know any other issue that so unites Red State Americans...

Frozen bubbles...

Frozen bubbles...  Story here.  Via my lovely bride...