Musings From Across the Pond

Health Care in America: A Layman Reads the Health Care Bill - Part 6

2010-06-29T21:17:00.006-05:00

Well it's been a little while since I last posted, but I wanted to make sure that everyone had plenty of time to read, reread, and then reread again the last post, since it was so stinking long...and interesting. I know you appreciated it, and now I think you've had enough time. You're welcome. Really, it was no problem.

But now I'm back with Subtitle E - Affordable Coverage Choices for All Americans. This is exciting stuff. Also, it sounds a lot like the general title of the bill, but whatever. Anyway, let's get started. There are 2 main parts to Subtitle E. The first deals with individuals, and the second with small businesses. Part 1, for individuals, in short, sets up a refundable tax credit for eligible folks under a qualified health plan, and sets up cost sharing reductions for eligible people under a qualified health plan. Then there is the obligatory stuff at the end of Part 1 that deal with details of those plans. Part 2, for small businesses, sets up a tax credit designed to help defray the costs of meeting the requirements of employer sponsored health insurance plans. Let's break them down.

Part 1 - Individuals, Tax Credits, and Cost Reducing

People are eligible for the tax credit if they earn between 1 and 4 times the poverty line (for a family their size) in the relevant year. The credit is equal to the lesser of the following 2 options:

The cost of the monthly premiums purchased through an Exchange
A really complicated equation to figure out the amount of your monthly income spent on insurance. I'm not going to get into it here, but if you ask really nicely, I'll go so far as to show you where exactly in the legislation it can be found, so you can muddle through it like I had to.

There are a lot of restrictions on the credit, like whether or not you get a refund for dependents in certain cases, or if your household income levels change, and tax issues and ratings that I don't think I really understand. But that's the basic idea.

The cost reductions work a little differently. You have to be enrolled in a Silver level plan or higher, and have an income between 1 and 4 times the poverty line again. The primary goal of cost reductions is to lower the actual out-of-pocket spending on health care. There are levels of reduction based on income level. If your income level is at:

1-2x poverty line - cost is reduced by 2/3
2-3x poverty line - cost is reduced by 1/2
3-4x poverty line - cost is reduced by 1/3

The caveat - these reductions shouldn't raise the actuarial value higher than .7, .8, or .9 respectively for sliver, gold, platinum plans.

It appears the federal government picks up the tab on this one, except for the parts of plans in states that require more than the essential health benefits outlined in this legislation. The federal government does not pick up the bill for those parts of those plans, because it doesn't require that they be there.

Once again, none of this is available for illegal aliens (or any other name for anyone here illegally).

In order for the proper info to be gathered to establish the amount of tax credit or cost reductions, people will have to submit info like citizenship/immigration status, family size/household income level, name, address, etc. I think you only have to submit this info if you are specifically applying for this stuff, and I think it is submitted with your taxes. Also included with this info is data on your employer-sponsored health plan so it can be determined what part of your income actually goes to health care premiums. And employers have to meet certain requirements of providing options for health plans that are affordable for their employees and will cover essential health benefits. If they don't, they'll have to pay a tax on the difference between what they offer and what their employees can afford.

There is a steep penalty for providing fraudulent information here - up to $25,000 fine, and if it can be proved that you did it willfully and intentionally, you owe up to $250,000. This is in addition to any civil penalties already standing for fraud like this.

We finish Part 1 with some housekeeping sections on streamlining enrollment procedures, dealing with advanced payment of tax credit/cost-reduction, and other fine print that doesn't really make a lot of difference to normal people.

Part 2 is the shorter of the two. It's pretty simple. Essentially, beginning in 2014 a tax credit will be available to small businesses to help subsidize the cost of providing health plans that meet the federal standards for their employees. The way I read it, employers are required to pay at least 50% of the cost of sponsored health plans, and then get a credit of 1/2 of the amount they pay on behalf of employees. So if I'm doing my math right (seriously a possibility that I'm not) then potentially they could only be paying 25% of that health plan. Not bad.

The rest of this subtitle is, once again, tidying up details about the interceding years (before 2014) and how to work out the equations to figure out who will pay what. It's boring, and really isn't worth getting into. Suffice it to say, there will be a gradual increase of these numbers so small businesses won't jump straight to the 50% number.

So that's it! After that last post, this one is really like a walk in the park. In fact, I bet you'll want to go read a part of the dictionary or an encyclopedia now just to really get a challenge in. Well let me tell you, I support you in that decision (kinda), though even I have never done something like that. And I'm reading legislation, so if you really feel that way there might be something wrong with you. Just something to think about until the next post.

Health Care in America: A Layman Reads the Health Care Bill - Part 5

2010-05-25T18:53:00.007-05:00

Subtitle D covers a vast stretch of legislative land, and took me quite some time to get a full enough understanding of to actually be able to post something here. Finally, I've traversed its expanse a number of times and I'm here to give you all a step-by-step, detailed tour through the wilderness. In other words, I'm going to try to summarize it like the rest of the posts. Here goes.

You should know that this is the longest post yet...so you might want to grab a glass of water...or vodka.

To start with, it's probably helpful to mention that this subtitle is split into 5 parts. They are, Part 1: Establishment of Qualified Health Plans; Part 2 - Consumer Choices and Insurance Competition Through Health Benefit Exchanges; Part 3 - State Flexibility Relating to Exchanges; Part 4 - State Flexibility to Establish Alternative Programs; and Part 5 - Reinsurance and Risk Adjustment.

Part 1, dealing with the establishment of qualified health plans is, obviously, a big deal. Here, we finally learn that there is in fact a definition of a qualified health plan (i.e. a health plan that is qualified to operate within an exchange...but that's not the definition). It is long and rambling, but the exciting parts are: such plans are certified through exchanges, provide the Essential Health Benefits (to be covered momentarily), are offered through an Issuer which is in good standing with the state, and offer a mix of plans - including at least one Gold level and one Silver level. It also stipulates that rates for the plans must be the same whether offered within an exchange or privately, outside of the exchange.

Next, we have the definition of the Essential Health Benefits. Notably, for those of you following along, these are in Section 1302 - I mention this because this section is frequently referred to throughout the legislation, but you already knew that. These are simply a list of benefits which must be covered by any health plans in exchanges. They are:

Ambulatory Patient Services
Emergency Services
Hospitalization
Maternity/Newborn Care
Mental Health/Substance Use Disorder Services (including behavioral health treatment)
Prescription Drugs
Rehabilitation and Habilitation [sic] Services and Devices
Laboratory Services
Prevention & Wellness Services and Chronic Disease Management
Pediatric Services, including oral and vision

It is noted here that coverage of these benefits must be equal to that provided under "typical" employer sponsored plans. In this case, there is included a set of instructions for determining what is "typical." It is also specified that coverage of these benefits must be balanced, not weighted entirely toward specific benefits and limited severely on other benefits.

Next up, we discover Levels of Coverage within Exchanges. There are four (4) levels of coverage. They are: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. The levels of coverage a differentiated based on Actuarial Value of the plans. AV is a fairly complex issue, which is actually handled quite nicely by the group responsible for Consumer Reports. You can find their article here. It has charts and graphs...so...yeah. I'll try to explain it below without charts or graphs. Feel free to scroll down.

Essentially, the AV of a health plan is the amount that, over the whole average population of people, the plan is expected to cover in health expenses. So, if your health plan's AV is .60, then the plan will, on average, cover 60% of the medical costs of those involved in the plan, and the average amount covered by enrollees will be 40% of the costs. This means that chances are, if you're fairly healthy and not racking up a lot of medical costs, you'll pay more than your 40%, because it's based on the average, and you might not reach your out of pocket expense limit. If you're still confused, go check out that link. The graphs are helpful.

That said, the 4 levels of coverage are differentiated by their actuarial values - .60, .70, .80, and .90 respectively. Because the Platinum plan will cover an average of 90% of the enrollees' medical costs, it will be considerably more expensive than the Bronze level plan. That is the long and short of the coverage levels. The caveat here is that they also provide for a Catastrophic Plan, which is available only to people under 30, who meet certain criteria for tax exemption. These plans will cover essential benefits, but, among other things, don't kick in until the enrollee has spent the total out-of-pocket cost-sharing limit for the year.

The next major issue covered here deals with the never-divisive subject of abortion. It comes down to this: abortion is not required to be covered by a plan in order for the plan to qualify for the exchange. However, at least one plan must be offered within each exchange that does cover legal methods of abortion. Laws regarding federal funding of abortion stay the same. Also unchanged are any state laws regarding abortion - including parental notification laws, where applicable. Providers retain the right to refuse to perform abortions.

The final tidbit of information in Part 1 deals with market definitions. I know, I was excited, too. Here's the quick version - Individual Market and Group Market definitions are self-explanatory. If you need more help with that, you're out of luck. The only thing that needs explaining really is the difference between large and small group markets. It's simple - large group markets are for employers who employ at least 101 employees at the start of the plan year.

Now it's time to move on to Part 2! Hooray! Part 2 deals with Consumer Choice and Insurance Competition within Exchanges. To start with, we get a little statement about the reason for exchanges. They exist to "facilitate the purchase of qualified health plans" and to help small businesses in the state enroll their employees in health plans. They must be established, in each state, by January 1, 2014. Also, they'll get federal funding to be used only for the establishment of the exchange - not it's operation once it's established.

The criteria for certification within an exchange is as follows:

Must meet marketing requirements, including not being marketed specifically to discourage people with "significant health needs"
Must ensure plenty of choice to consumers
Must include, in-network, providers serving predominantly low-income, under served neighborhoods
Must be accredited by consumer review programs - these will be established by the exchanges and will have review/satisfaction systems which will be incorporated into the web portal discussed earlier
Must use uniform enrollment form and the standard format established earlier

Plans must also have a rating system in the exchange based on quality and price, and must include standard annual enrollment periods as well as special enrollment periods (such as for marriage, divorce, etc.).

Here we learn that the exchanges are specifically run by the state governments or approved non-profit organizations, and that states can require the additional coverage of benefits not specified in the Essential Health Benefits. However, any cost associated with coverage of those additional benefits must be covered by the state, not passed on to the federal government.

The functions of state exchanges are as follows:

Certification, re-certification, de-certification of any plan applying to the exchange
Operation of a toll-free assistance hot-line
Maintenance of a website with standardized comparative information on all plans
Assignment of ratings to plans as discussed above
Informing public about state programs like CHIP programs, Medicaid, etc. - to include eligibility, requirements, plan information - and enrollment of all qualified individuals
Provide a calculator to show actual cost of plans after "premium tax credit under Section 36B" of the 1986 tax Code and "cost-sharing reduction under Section 1402"

Other miscellany: all exchanges are to be self-sustaining by January 1, 2015; regional and interstate exchanges are allowed, must be approved; there are no requirements on choosing specific plans; no one will be compelled to buy through an exchange, except members of congress and their staff; all exchanges will undergo annual audits to ensure transparent use of funds.

And that's all for Part 2. They go by so quickly, don't they? On to Part 3!

Part 3 covers state flexibility in exchanges. These include non-profit, member-run insurance issuers and a non-profit, community insurance option.

To begin with, let's examine the non-profit, member-run issuers. The Secretary of Health will have $6 billion to distribute to the states for the establishment of these plans in the form of grants and loans. Once again, these funds are to be used only for establishment, not further operations of these programs. They are calling them "Consumer-Operated & Oriented Plans" or CO-OPs. Pretty witty, eh? Well, in any case, they want CO-OPs to be established in every state, with priority for the funds to go to CO-OPs that will be state-wide, have significant private support and meet other specifications. If no one steps up to start one, the Secretary can use the appropriated funds (that state's portion of the $6 billion) to "encourage" creation of one in that state.

CO-OPs must sign an agreement to meet certain requirements to get the federal funds - including not using any of the money for marketing, propaganda, or lobbying purposes. Failure to meet the requirements, or fix problems once they've been pointed out, will result in a fine of 110% of the total loan and grant amount, plus interest. Yikes.

To qualify for funds, a CO-OP must use all profit money (once they've paid back the loans) to lower premiums, improve member benefits, and otherwise serve the members. They must still comply with all state insurance laws, including those regarding certification and licensing. Also, these organizations will fall into a new 501(c) tax category, the 501(c)29...in case you were wondering. I know you were.

Next we move on to what sounds very similar to what we just talked about - Community Health Insurance options. These are also to be started with federal funds - though I don't believe the amount was specified. I don't recall seeing anything about them being in every state, and the federal funds will, again, be used only for the establishment of the program, not its continued operation. They must meet state solvency requirements, though those aren't specified anywhere in this legislation as far as I can tell.

These options will cover only the essential benefits, and enrollees can pay out of pocket for any additional coverage - though again the state can add benefits, but must cover any additional cost - they can't pass it along to the federal government. The stated goal of these programs is to provide high value for premiums, reduce administrative costs, promote administrative simplification, provide high quality clinical care, provide high quality customer service, and provide a sufficient choice of providers. I may be wrong, but most of this sounds like the stated goal of the exchange itself...so by the end here we should have the most efficiently run, administratively simplified, high quality, customer oriented health plans in the world!

Enough with this repetition in Part 3 - let's move on to Part 4, regarding state flexibility to establish alternative programs. The stated alternative programs amount to basically 2 things - programs for low-income individuals who aren't eligible for Medicaid, and the allowance of multi-state and national plans.

Let's start with the second part first. The multi-state and national plans are just that - plans that cover multiple states or the entire nation. Basically this section is in here just to state that those are allowed. It seems somewhat unnecessary to me, but hey, this is federal legislation we're talking about. Why skip saying something when you could just go ahead and write 4 or 5 pages about it?

The first part is more interesting - programs for low-income folks who are ineligible for Medicaid. These programs are essentially subsidized health plans for people whose household income is between 133% and 200% of the poverty line and who are under 65 and, again, ineligible for Medicaid. They provide the essential health benefits at a discounted rate. As I read it, if your household income is less than 150% of the poverty line, you pay the cost of the second-lowest Silver level plan, but get the cost-sharing benefits of the platinum plan. If your household income is between 150% and 200% of the poverty line, you pay the same, but get cost-sharing equivalent to the Gold plan. Not a bad deal, if you ask me. And states are supposed to contract with providers to negotiate supplying these plans at a discount to the state.

Finally, we arrive at Part 5, which discusses reinsurance and risk-adjustment. To be honest, I'm not sure I follow the reinsurance thing here. I've looked it over a number of times, and I while I'm not sure who is being actually re-insured here, I guess this establishes a program that will provide some cash to help stabilize the premium rates for the first 3 years of the exchange programs, when, we're told, price spikes are a high risk. I suppose this is due to all the transition and chaos, but it's not really explained. In any case, it's supposed to help keep everything level as far as premiums go. I'm not really buying it, but I'm not sure what the downside is, here.

The risk-adjustment part I do understand. It's pretty simple. Low-risk plans, those with an actuarial risk for their enrollees which is less that the average actuarial risk of all enrolless in all plans in the state must pay a fee that will go to helping cover costs of high-risk plans. High-risk plans here are plans whose actuarial risk is higher than the average actuarial risk of all enrolless in all plans in the states. In simpler terms, if the enrollees in a plan are, on average, really healthy, and the actuarial risk for them is, on average, less than what it is for an average of everyone in the whole state, then your plan is a low-risk plan. The opposite is true for high-risk plans.

Congratulations! You've finished the longest, driest post yet in our epic journey through the health care legislation. I'm proud of you. Now take a breath...and re-read it, because let's be honest, you probably fell asleep about half way through. When you've finished that, you can move on to more exciting blogs, like ones about famous people tweeting obnoxious things or non-famous people tweeting obnoxious things on reality shows. Until next time!

Health Care in America: A Layman Reads the Health Care Bill - Part 4

2010-05-13T19:25:00.006-05:00

In this installment of the health care act reading, we'll be looking at Subtitle C: Quality Health Insurance Coverage for All Americans. This subtitle is broken up into 2 parts, so that's how I'll break up the post as well. The first part is yet another set of amendments to the Public Health Service Act. That is followed up with a foray into the rights concerning existing coverage. Let's get started!

Subtitle C is a pretty exciting subtitle, and I don't mind saying so, and the bulk of it is found here in Part 1. Here, Sections 2701 - 2708 are amended. Rather than breaking them down one by one bullet-point style, I'll just give you the gist of it all at once.

First, we eliminate exclusions and discrimination based on preexisting and other health conditions. Apparently, the Public Health Service Act specifically allowed for such discrimination, but it's off the table now. Also changed are the rate and reasons for which premium rates can vary. Now, the only variance allowed is based on: individual vs. family coverage; age (not more than 3 : 1); tobacco use (not more than 1.5 : 1); and rating areas, which will be established by each state. Also of note, here, is that age and tobacco variations have to be proportionate. So if 1 person in your family of 5 would be affected by those variances, your premium can only be affected by that same proportion.

Another major change in these amendments is that health plans cannot discriminate against people based on what they're calling "health status." First, eligibility rules are stated, listing several examples of health status factors such as "health status" (wow, thanks!), medical condition, claims experience, medical history, genetic information and disability. Second, to put those factors into practice, the amendment prohibits "wellness programs" and disease prevention programs with rewards (like premium discounts and rebates) if they require the fulfillment of a health status requirement to achieve. So, a program cannot require that, for example, an individual meet a certain weight requirement, or run a given distance or lift a required amount of weight in order to receive a premium reduction or rebate. Those goals may not be medically feasible (or advisable) for certain people, so they are not valid goals in these programs. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule. In order to be legal, such a program must meet the following requirements:

The discount must be equal to less than 30% of the total cost of coverage
The program must be "reasonably designed to promote health or prevent disease" and can't be "subterfuge for discriminating based on a health factor" and, my favorite, can't be "highly suspect" in the method of health promotion or disease prevention. You gotta love legislative language, eh?
It must have open eligibility at least once a year
It must be available to all "similarly situated" individuals, and offer alternative standards for cases in which achieving the standard is medically dangerous or inadvisable. And whenever one standard is listed in the program literature, they must both be listed.

These programs will have a 10-state, 3 year demonstration period (from 2014 - 2017), and if they work they can then be expanded. Part of that demonstration will include, of course, a report , which will note what programs and rewards were most effective at promoting health and preventing disease, which were cost-effective, and how much they might cost the federal government if they were implemented on a more broad (i.e. nation-wide) scale.

Other notable changes in the amendments:

Insurance issuers have to grant coverage to all who apply
Renewability of coverage is guaranteed
Insurance issuers cannot discriminate against health providers (i.e. hospitals/doctors) if they meet plan requirements and, of course, are practicing legally
All health insurance plans must meet certain "comprehensive" coverage requirements, which will be enumerated later in the legislation, and will be called "essential benefits"
Excessive waiting periods are prohibited - apparently we'll hear more about this in Section 2704(b)(4)

Part 2 of Subtitle C deals, as we said, with existing coverage. This part is pretty simple. Basically, if you have health insurance, either from the individual market or as part of a group plan (like through an employer), the amendments in this subtitle (C) and in subtitle A will not apply to your insurance. Even if you renew your insurance, the changes won't take effect, as long as there are no changes to your coverage. Also, if it was possible for your family to join your plan before, they can still do so without the changes. And if your employer has a plan (i.e. a group plan) they can continue to enroll new employees (and families, as applicable) without the changes. If your health plan is part of a collective bargaining agreement, none of these changes will take effect until the last part of the agreement expires.

Two other little tidbits from this subtitle - all standards have to be applied uniformly to all health insurance issuers; and all amendments in Subtitle C are effective for plan years on or after January 1, 2014.

So that's it! That's Subtitle C, in all its glory. Stay tuned for the next installment - Subtitle D, the longest subtitle yet! And let me tell you, it's a real page turner. All 30 or so pages of it!

Health Care in America: A Layman Reads the Health Care Bill - Part 3

2010-05-01T19:40:00.006-05:00

Before we begin the almost uncomfortably exciting Subtitle B of Title I of the health care act, I believe some administrative activity is in order. It has come to my attention that the version of the legislation I linked to in the first post is technically the Senate version of the bill. While I believe that there is no difference between that and what is officially listed as law, I think in the name of authenticity that my source should be updated. As such, I found, through the government printing office website, the full text of the bill as enacted. I'll also update the original link to reflect this change. An unexpected upside to this adjustment - the bill is now a measly 906 pages! Not that anything is missing, the text is just mashed closer together with smaller spacing and, I believe, a smaller font. Good times!

And now, on to the the actual reading.

Subtitle B - Immediate Actions to Preserve and Expand Coverage is, as mentioned above, riveting stuff. So let's get to it.

Section 1101 starts out the subtitle dealing with granting those with preexisting conditions immediate access to health care. By sometime around June or July, a temporary "High Risk Pool" will be established to provide insurance to said folks. This pool will expire on January 1, 2014. The pool cannot restrict because of preexisting conditions - surprise! - and must meet specific requirements, such as covering at least 65% of costs and meeting a specific out-of-pocket limit which can be found in section 223(c)(2) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (hereafter referred to as the "1986 Code"). Apparently one is supposed to be able to read section 223(c)(2) and understand just what that out-of-pocket limit is. Also apparently, one should be smarter than me to do so. I think it's $5,000 max, but I'm not guaranteeing that. Feel free to check my work on that one.

Other restrictions stipulated apply to how drastically rates can vary, specifically that there cannot be a 4 to 1 variance based on age. I'm assuming this means that at most, an older person who is more of a liability to the insurer can't pay more than 4x the amount a younger person would pay.

Eligibility for the pool is pretty simple - one must be a U.S. citizen or national, have a preexisting condition, and cannot have been insured for the prior 6 months. This last part inspires the next part - a stipulation against other insurers "dumping" risk, which is to say encouraging (or paying) folks enrolled on their plans to leave so they can be eligible for this new pool. That kind of activity will be illegal, so don't even think about it.

There will be a provision of $5 billion to cover the costs of the pool that exceed the income from premiums. It is also required that, in the next 4 years, procedures be devised to transition enrollees to a qualified health plan in one of those mysterious exchanges we've mentioned earlier. Those qualified health plans will be required to leave out coverage caps on this. It is also noted that the Secretary (presumably the Secretary of Health) can stop taking applications to the pool in order to stay within the $5 billion budget, and that this pool provision supersedes any state laws for high risk pools. So far, this is the closest thing I've found to infringement of the Constitution, and I'm not even sure it is. I believe that the Constitution explicitly states that the federal government can enact laws that will supersede state laws. I'm just saying this is the closest thing I've found so far. I'd be interested to know if anyone reads this differently.

Section 1102 provides for reinsurance for early retirees. This is a temporary gig, and expires January 1, 2014. After being confused about this one for a while and seeking input from none other than my brother, I believe this implies an expansion of Medicare. I also believe this because I'm pretty sure I saw in the table of contents that later on we'll see an expansion of Medicare. I'm good like that.

In any case, it's essentially reinsurance for folks who are retired, over 55, and not yet eligible for Social Security benefits if they're enrolled in an early-retirement insurance plan sponsored by a previous employer or employers. The plan appropriates $5 billion to reimburse those plans for claims of expenses between $15,000 and $90,000 in a plan year. It will reimburse up to 80% of the total expenses, but those reimbursements have to be used by the plan to lower the cost to the individual enrollees by lowering premiums, deductibles, co-payments, or out-of-pocket costs. This will be enforced by annual audits of the insurers.

Section 1103 tackles information that is supposed to allow consumers to identify affordable insurance. This one's pretty cool, actually. It has two parts. First, in May of 2010, a standardized format will be created for the presentation of information on coverage options. Think of it as the "Nutrition Facts" of health insurance, except, despite what you may see on certain auto insurance commercials, no insurance comes in a cardboard box. Sorry. Anyway, the format has to at least include info on:

the percentage of premium revenue spent on non-clinical costs
eligibility
affordability
premium rates
cost-sharing provisions

Second, by July 1, a web portal will be created through which anyone, in any state, can find "affordable health insurance options in their state." The aforementioned standard format will be used for the website.

The final section in Subtitle B, section 1104, covers "Administrative Simplification." I know, I'm excited, too, that the same folks who brought us the DMV and eleventy-billion different variations of the 1040 tax form are now putting on clinics for administrative simplification. But this section is surprisingly valid.

First off, we have the creation of what they're calling Uniform Standard Rules of Operation for, basically, paperwork. This Standard requires simplification of terminology and forms within the health care/health insurance industry. It "seeks to reduce the number and complexity of forms...for patients and providers." It clearly states that the goal of these uniform operating rules is ease of use and simple "uniformity."

These Standards must be adopted by July 1, 2011 for implementation on or before January 1, 2013, and must include special rules for dealing with electronic payments. Similar rules for health claims, enrollment, premium payments, etc. are required to be effective at least by January 1, 2016. It is disturbing that there exists an industry for which it seems understandable that the government should step in and effectively say, "Ok, folks, this is ridiculous - how can anyone understand all these forms?! Let's clean it up, for Pete's sake!" But, here we are.

My favorite part of this section is the "penalties" part at the end. Noncompliance, basically not implementing the standardized rules, will be incur a penalty payment of $1. Yep, just $1...per covered life in the noncomplying plan...per day that the plan doesn't comply! That could seriously add up, and that makes me happy. Oh, and the penalty for "misrepresentation" (i.e. being a dirty stinking liar) is double the standard penalty. There is, though, a limit on the penalties. They can't amount to more than $20 per person per plan annually. Or $40, if you're a liar.

So there you have it! Subtitle B, done and done. Next time, uncontrollable excitement with Subtitle C - Quality Health Insurance Coverage for All Americans. I know - all of us? But then how will we know who is important and who is worthless around here? Don't worry, I'm sure we'll still find a way. We're innovators, after all.

Health Care in America: A Layman Reads the Health Care Bill - Part 2

2010-04-25T16:59:00.008-05:00

Hello loyal reader(s). We're back with another installment of the Health Care Act reading. In this episode, we will actually begin reading the act. As I mentioned last time, the first part of the legislation ("Subtitle A") is a series of amendments to the Public Health Service Act. Now, I'm no expert, but as far as legislative amendments go, these are pretty exciting. No, seriously.

Considering that I haven't actually read the original text of the Public Health Service Act, I'm not sure what these amended sections originally said (or if they even existed, as opposed to being amendments adding sections to the act). But a quick rundown of the 26 pages of amendments follows:

Amended section 2711 - This section states that there can now be no limits on dollar amounts per beneficiary, and no "unreasonable" annual limits on the dollar value of benefits for an enrollee in a program. There is a caveat - if a plan is not providing "essential benefits" it can have limits on "specific" (though unspecified) covered benefits as permitted by law. Apparently we can see section 1302(b) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (i.e. the new health care bill) for explanation. Presumably we'll get there at some point in this process.

Amended section 2713 - This section discusses coverage requirements on preventive health services. Insurance companies must cover, without cost-sharing, the following:

'A' or 'B' rated services according to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force...I don't know what that means;

immunizations recommended by the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunizations, which seems reasonable to me;

preventive services for infants, children, and adolescents supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration, which again seems like a reasonable source;

U.S. Preventive Service Task Force recommendations regarding breast cancer screenings, mammography and prevention, etc.

It is pointed out that this list does not prohibit services other than those recommended by the U.S. Preventive Service Tast Force. So they're just not limiting options, here.

Amended section 2714 - This section is the one I was most familiar with so far. It states that a covered person's dependent will continue to receive coverage until they are 26. This takes place immediately. It's a short section.

Amended section 2715 - This section is about explaining coverage. It's a long section. But I actually really enjoyed reading it because it is so obviously needed for protecting consumers. I'm glad that out of 2000-odd pages, it seems like there's actually some substance to this bill!

The short version is that all insurers will have to issue summaries of their coverage to any enrollees - before they enroll, or any enrollee already in a coverage plan.

The requirements are almost entertainingly specific. For example, all summaries must be 4 pages or less, and cannot contain print smaller than 12 point font. You can almost see those fine-print writing guys throwing their hands up in exasperation on reading that rule. Other highlights - the summaries must be "linguistically and culturally appropriate" to the enrollees, and understandable by the average enrollee; must include definitions - of insurance and medical terms, coverage descriptions that must include cost-sharing descriptions, exceptions, reductions and limitations, deductible/co-pay/co-insurance explanations, renewability, even common examples of coverage scenarios such as pregnancy, chronic conditions, etc. They must also include a clear statement that they are only summaries along with contact info for questions and website listings where the full contract can be found.

The summary has to be delivered within 2 years of passage of the bill (so March 2012) to applicants, enrollees prior to enrollment or reenrollment, and policy holders. They must be available in both electronic and paper format.

Also, insurers are required to communicate plan changes to policy holders at least 60 days prior to effectiveness.

Failure to fulfill any of these requirements will incur a maximum penalty of $1000 per offense. I'm unclear if that means, for example, $1000 per each change that's not communicated, or $1000 per change for each policy holder they fail to contact. I hope it's the latter, but that's just me.

Amended section 2716 - This is another short section. It simply notes that, in group plans, elegibility rules cannot be established that discriminate based on salary. My understanding here is that if your company has a group plan, it can't make elegibility for the really good coverage cost a high dollar amount that will preclude lower level employees from being able to afford it. Elegibility can, however, be based on a percentage of income, so everyone pays, for example, 10% of their income for the better coverage. The goal seems to be that everyone could afford to pay for that coverage, regardless of their wage level. Whether or not they will all decide to do that, when another option could cost only 5% of their income, is up to the employee.

Amended section 2718 - I really like this section, too. Insurers will have to start reporting the percentages of premium income spent on the following 3 categories: 1). Enrollee reimbursement; 2). Quality of health improvement activities for enrollees; 3). all other non-tax expenditures, along with an explanation of those expenditures. These reports will be available for public viewing on the Health and Human Services website.

The next part of the amendment I'm a little shaky on, but I'll do my best. As I understand it, the reports will be used for requiring insurers to grant rebates to enrollees on a pro rata (anyone speak Latin?) basis if they spend more than 20% (for the group market) or 25% (for the individual market) of the premium income on that 3rd group of expenditures. So if your insurer spends 30% of what they take in with premiums on anything other than their policy holders' medical reimbursements or quality of health improvement programs, they have to send you a rebate of some sort.

I think that rocks. I don't personally enjoy the idea of spending nearly 1/2 of my income (according to an NPR report last year, by 2015 Americans will spend about that much on health insurance) on making insurers really really really rich. That's shenanigans.

Along with the rebates, the amendments also require hospitals to publish a list of "standard charges" for items and services provided, so consumers can compare and see what kind of a mark-up they're paying the insurance company (at least, that's what I understand to be the purpose of those lists).

Ok, the last two amendments have to do with consumer education and protection.

First, Amended section 2793 discusses the creation of grants to fund consumer assistance/ombudsman programs to answer questions, explain consumers' rights and responsibilities, and help with consumer appeals to insurance companies within the state exchanges. In case anyone missed it, at some point we learned that there will be private insurance exchanges created in each state (I think it's each one) from which people will be able to buy insurance at a (hopefully) reduced rate, due to competition between insurers. We'll see how that all works out, but right now we're just talking about essentially a consumer hotline and 1-stop-shop to get their insurance questions answered. The federal government will set aside an initial $30 million in grants to establish these facilities. States will have to apply for the grant money for their programs. Each state that qualifies for a grant will get between $1 million and $5 million in grant money.

Amended section 2794 further amends the last section, creating a review process which will require insurers to submit justification for "unreasonable increases" in premiums to the Secretary of the health care administration. The consumer assistance/ombudsman facilities will, in order to get the grant money, also have to engage in collecting info like that from the insurers in their states. That info on premium increases will then be evaluated to determine if an insurer gets to stay in (or gain initial entry to) the exchange program. This amendment also provides for another $250 million in grant money, if necessary, for the assistance offices between 2010 and 2014. Not sure what happens after 2014, but I guess we'll just have to see if there's any more info on that later in the bill. Lord knows there's room for it.

The final section just explains that, unless otherwise specified, all these amendments are effective in September 2010 (6 months after passage of the bill). Sections 1002 and 1003 (these last sections about the assistance and grants) go into effect immediately.

Congratulations! We've completed the first part (Subtitle A, to be specific) of the health care bill! Wasn't that fun? Well, it could have been worse, I suppose. Maybe. Honestly, I'm pretty impressed with it so far. I haven't come across anything that's grossly harmful to the average citizen, and while a lot of this stuff may make it harder for insurance companies to become trillion dollar businesses, that's honestly not a problem for me. I want to pay the insurance company to give me insurance, you know, help, if I need it. And for you to get help, too. Not for them to buy Jaguars. I don't care if they have to drive lame Ford Focuses like the rest of us (seriously, how many of those freaking cars have been sold? It's like 1 out of every 3 cars if a freaking Focus!...sorry, that was random). I'd be interested in any thoughts, questions, challenges to my interpretation that anyone has. Otherwise, I get kinda bored just sitting alone in a room reading health care legislation.

In any case, we'll see you next time, when we begin...wait for it...this is gonna be exciting...Subsection B! Woohoo!

Health Care in America: A Layman Reads the Health Care Bill - Part 1

2010-04-13T21:25:00.006-05:00

To begin with, let's be clear on one thing. I am a legislation beginner. I've never read a piece of legislation in my life. I thought it would be fun to start with one of the most complex and polarizing pieces of legislation to come out of congress in about a decade or so. I'm a glutton for punishment, it seems.

Now that that's out of the way, let's get started.

The first thing one notices about the bill is the sheer size of it. I looked at a few different versions of it - mostly formatting changes - online before settling on my final choice, and none of them totaled fewer than 900 pages. Unfortunately, the shortest one I found was formatted so that the text was nearly microscopic, not to mention the margins were smaller, so an already daunting document was now made more so by the fact that each page was simply a wall of text nearly eight inches wide and 10 inches tall. Not nearly as inviting as my final decision - the 2,409 page behemoth. Much better.

After coming to terms with the enormity of the document, it becomes clear that this is more than just a large compilation of words and punctuation - it seems to have been deliberately designed to ward off even the most adventurous readers. This is the equivalent of Sleeping Beauty's castle to her potential suitors. Yep, I went Disney in the second post, and compared myself to a knight, and the Bill to a beautiful sleeping princess. Ok, so the metaphor isn't perfect, but the point remains - legislation is designed not to be read. I'm surely not the first person to realize this, but again, this is my first stab at legislation and I was just quite honestly taken aback by the simple un-readability of the stuff.

It starts with 17 full pages of Table of Contents. Seriously, 17 pages. And as if that wasn't enough, once the TOC is finished, we launch right into what appears to be a series of amendments to an entirely separate piece of legislation - from 1944. Not be alarmed, though, said amendments are for Title XXVII of the Public Health Service Act, which, as I understand, is an act from, again, 1944, which spelled out all legislation related to Public Health Service (if you're really interested, this appears to be a pretty good explanation). And so, the series of amendments tackle issues such as "Lifetime and Annual Limits [on benefits and coverage]," rescission, preventative health services, etc. Nothing to scoff at - just something to confuse the rookie (i.e. me).

After an evening of wading through the first several pages of the bill, I think that's about enough for tonight. To recap - we decided that the bill is enormous and confusing. I feel like a lot was accomplished here. Oh, and it starts out referring to other, previous pieces of legislation. But it only took me about 2 hours to figure that one out, so I feel pretty good about the whole thing. Next time, we'll begin actually reading the bill. It's gonna be great!

Health Care in America: A Layman Reads the Health Care Bill - Introduction

2010-04-13T21:09:00.004-05:00

What with all the chaos surrounding the passage of the health care bill into law, I decided it was time to break my long silence on this blog. I will take it upon myself to attempt the seemingly impossible - I will read the entire health care bill. And along the way, I'll blog about it here. And for those of you following along at home, you can read what I'm reading, if you're so inclined, here.

Get ready for some exciting reading - legislative style!

simplicity?

2009-03-29T22:15:00.004-05:00

sim-plic-i-ty -noun: freedom from complexity, intricacy, or division into parts.

Here's how my mind works: I see the word and definition above and I think, "Ok, but 'complexity, intricacy, or division into parts' of what? In what way?" You see, there's always more to see, more to define, more to understand, even to better understand what "simplicity" is.

I've spent much of my life thinking about how great it would be to live more simply. But, without even realizing it, I had fallen into that trap of believing that if I just had one more thing, one more year, then I'd finally be able to simplify for real. I adore the romanticized idea of living simply in the country - even more in the country than where I grew up - I'm talking up in the mountains or something, far away from anything, even far away from the basic technologies that I grew up with (which would be laughable from the perspectives I've surrounded myself with lately - living in one of the largest cities in the world, with more technology at my fingertips than I usually know what to do with...literally). And yet, I rationalize: I would probably need some kind of satellite connection so that I could stay apprised of worldwide news and keep in touch with my family; I'd also need a whole new skill set - I'm not too handy in the wilderness, though I'd love to be; I'd also need to have enough cash to sustain myself, right? These needs surely aren't too great, just enough to get by and stay in touch - at least when and how I want to be.

So now we're back to the earlier questions - simplicity in what way? Is it simpler to live away from society and rely on only oneself and one's environment? Is simplicity the smartphone I've got on my desk? It allows me to place calls, check emails, surf the web, send text messages, record "video," take pictures, plan my calendar, and play games - and it fits in my palm! But when I think of simplicity, surely a device like this is nowhere to be found. Indeed, I love the idea of sitting down and hand-writing letters to friends and family. But I seem unable to deny the simplicity of simply sending an email instead.

Inadvertently, I stumble upon the realization that simplicity may in fact be an ideal that exists only in my head. If the very notion becomes an unending trail of question and confusion, requiring thoughful answer after thoughtful answer, is this not the very nature of complexity? And finally, I find myself in a familiar state of awe, once again bowing before the simple complexity of a creative God, who in wisdom unimaginable bestows upon himself the simple and paradoxical name YHWH - I am that I am. And I pray for understanding, even of the most simple.

Profundity is Overrated

2009-02-15T12:13:00.003-06:00

I don't write as much as I'd like. Anyone who checks this blog (or has in the past, you know, when there were updates) is aware of as much. Or at least is aware that I don't write much. Well, if you were wondering, I'd like to write more, so I don't write as much as I'd like. I think I may have stumbled upon the reason for that. It appears that I have this misconception that every time I write, it has to be profound and deep. Fortunately for me, I recently came to the conclusion that this is simply untrue. Sure, I'd like to be profound all the time, and I'd love it if everyone thought I was profound all the time. Unfortunately, that would really only work on people who've never met me, and I don't think a lot of them have/will read my blog, and anyone who actually knows me and has real conversations with me will quickly uncover the ruse. So I'm done with that, then. Hopefully, this revelation will inspire me to write more, whether on here or on paper (like in the old days) but either way, it would be nice. So for now, that's all. Just a bit of an 'apostrophe' I recently enjoyed. Thought I'd share.

Also, I'm reading a book about the war of 1812 called "The Invasion of Canada" and let me tell you, we (the U.S.) really jacked that up. Can you imagine how much more lumber we'd have at our disposal if we had just successfully annexed that place almost 200 years ago? Talk about natural resources.

Not sure why I threw that in there, but I did. So deal with it. In case anyone is confused, we did not (yet) annex Canada. But don't worry, there's still time.

Ok, I'm gonna go. In review, profundity is overrated. Most of the time, anyway.

Life, of late

2008-06-24T21:10:00.003-05:00

I haven't posted in a few days because it's been pretty busy. So now, I'll just update all (both) you faithful readers as to what's been going on - even though at least one of you was there for most of it. ;)

Recently Amanda and I went to a wedding and then her family came down to meet my family for the first time the following day. It was, all told, a pretty good weekend. Amanda and I had a lot of fun hanging out with my family, as is usually the case. She even learned how to drive a stick-shift after the wedding on Saturday! It was really impressive, she didn't kill it once on the whole way home. I was very impressed.

The wedding we went to was possibly the most awkward wedding we've ever been to (together, at least). There was no specific even that occurred to make it so awkward, it was really more of a state of being. Just not a comfortable atmosphere. Not what I expected out of a couple that's been dating for...let's just say a very long time. Since the wedding, I realized that the reason it felt so awkward was really just that it was a wedding involving normal people. By that I mean that they are part of the vast majority of people who are not, in fact, terribly comfortable in front of large groups of people. Or at least, they do not with their presence put groups at ease. This led me to the realization that I have a very strange group of close friends. By and large, my friends to whose weddings I've been invited have been very socially skilled people. A lot of my friends spend time in front of large groups on a consistent basis - either as teachers, preachers, musicians, or through the course of other more random things. Anyway, all that to say that my friends are the strange ones, and anyone who is less comfortable with these things is, I suppose, way more normal. But it just is more entertaining for the audience when the main focus is a couple who thrives in the spotlight, no offense to anyone who does not.

In other news, this week is being pretty insane at work. I started training at a new position - basically the same thing I was doing, managing a copy/mail/general service center at a law firm - but now it's exceptionally larger. I went from a firm of 13 attorneys to 60 (plus several more in the coming days and weeks) and from a staff (under my employ) of 2 to a staff of 6. That change alone would be enough, but on top of it, during my one week of shadowing the current manager and training on the position, we've got a huge in-house move to prepare for the incoming attorneys. That means that I'll be staying late, potentially several hours late, on Wednesday night, and then heading back to work at the normal 8 AM on Thursday, which may or may not also be a late night (though not as late). I've gotta be honest, I'm not exactly looking forward to all that, but such is life, I suppose.

So now that we're all caught up on my exciting life like it's something worth being caught up on, I'm going to go ahead and call it a night. Thanks for reading, and sorry it was so boring.

2008-06-20T12:02:00.000-05:00

What's your theological worldview?

You scored as a Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan

You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God's grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists.
Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan
79%
Reformed Evangelical
71%
Emergent/Postmodern
68%
Neo orthodox
61%
Fundamentalist
61%
Roman Catholic
43%
Classical Liberal
39%
Charismatic/Pentecostal
36%
Modern Liberal
29%

Understanding Obedience

2008-06-19T05:49:00.004-05:00

Another post on N.T. Wright's book about Paul. I have a feeling these will become commonplace before this book is over. I suppose that's not such a bad thing, I'm just gonna roll with it either way.

I'm not sure exactly where it was that Wright talked about this, but it was somewhere in the 2nd or 3rd chapters, I think. In any case, I feel like God slapped me across the face with an understanding of the Cross and Obedience that maybe should have been obvious a long time ago. In his discussion of Paul's understanding of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ - specifically from the perspective of a 1st century Roman-Jew - Wright went into some detail about the fulfillment of the prophecies to Abraham, Paul's inherent understanding of those (as well as other prophecies about the coming Messiah), and how these things would have been naturally internalized by a man like Paul.

Somewhere in this detail, I finally came to understand the part in Romans where Paul says that Christ was the fulfillment of the law and, if you will, the counterpart-man to Adam. Where Adam's sin was disobedience to God - the eating of the fruit - which resulted in Sin's great entrance into the world, Christ's sacrifice was a great obedience to God whereby sin is defeated for all who accept the gift. Sounds great, but that's about where it always ended for me before. Then I realized (again, I'm not sure exactly what it was that tipped me off) what the operative word here is - I italicized it, in case you missed that.

So obedience is what was most vividly displayed on the Cross - humility, yes; love, yes; sacrifice, yes; but all of those things were borne out of the unspeakable obedience of Christ.

I look at it this way: Adam could have eaten anything in the garden except that food. Why that food? Could God have made that food without whatever special properties it had? Absolutely. Could God have given the special properties to something else - maybe a certain part of the garden to which Adam was debarred from entering, or a body of water he was to avoid. The fruit and it's nature as food is not what's important here. What's important is that he was given a command from God - any command would have done! - and he disobeyed.

Now look at Christ. He was God and man at once. He had all power and authority in heaven and earth at his disposal (and we see examples of that, calming the storm, miraculous healings, even bringing people back from death!) and he allows himself to be treated the way he was. And let's be clear about something else here. Wright goes into detail also about the horror of crucifixion. This was not just execution. The act was so heinous, so despicable that respectable Romans avoided it in polite conversation. I can't even think of a modern equivalent (maybe that speaks to our depravity and exceptional debasement...but that's another post), but the point is, this was horrible, in the most painful sense of the word. And Christ did it - and the reasoning behind his doing it was to obey his Father in heaven.

I think this is what Paul's saying when he says that any "good" done without God is not good (I'm paraphrasing, obviously). If God wants the glory for anything we do - and if we do good things in His name, not ours - then how could we do them for any reason other than simple obedience? It suddenly strikes me that if I give out an amount of money every week or month, and that amount of money is a sacrifice for me (because I believe that just giving 10% is not what's important, what's important is not the amount, but that the giving is sacrificial, whether more or less than 10%), but I don't do it to be obedient to God, then it doesn't matter. If I tell someone I love them and give them food or money or my time, but I do it because it makes me feel good about myself or because I feel guilty, then it doesn't matter! I am convinced that the only justifiable reason for any such action is in order to obey the dictates of God. Otherwise how can I say that I do it for God? If obedience is not the basis for my action, then how can I honestly say it's not because I feel better after? Christ's sacrifice was incredible, and painful, and loving, but it was most of all - and, I would argue, most of those things simply because it was - obedient. Maybe I'm wrong here, but I cannot shake this new belief that love is not love for God if it is not borne out of obedience, sacrifice is not sacrifice for God if it is not borne out of obedience.

I'll end with this thought. If nothing I can possibly do, or say, or think, or feel can be worthy of my God on its own - and it can't, how could anything I do be worthy of the God who created me?! - then it follows, doesn't it, that only my vivid, simple, sincere obedience to God would be of worth to Him? Any amount of money I give, any amount of time I give, any amount of love I give is absolutely pathetic in comparison to Christ's sacrifice, and is of absolutely no worth in comparison to His Love - what He requires instead is constant, life-changing obedience. Nothing less, and simply, nothing more - because anything I could do should flow out of obedience to God's commands. And that's my epiphany for today.

What Gospel?

2008-06-18T13:15:00.002-05:00

Toward the end of last week, I started reading a book by N.T. Wright called What St. Paul Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? Now, I've heard a lot about N.T. Wright and I've read some excerpts before, but I've never actually sat down with one of his books myself. I have to say, I'm pretty impressed thus far. Aside from what seems an absurdity of giving a book with this title a slim 183 pages, it's packed with dense reading (plus, Wright's way smarter than I am, so I suppose I should give him the benefit of the doubt here). And it's not a scholarly work, nor is it entirely pop literature, so you sort of have the choice between making it more or less scholarly depending on what level of focus, thought, and intensity you want to give his writing.

As I'm only about 60 pages in, I can't comment on the entire work just yet, but at this stage, I'd suggest it to any of my friends, no questions. The thing that struck me most, though, was a discussion of what the word "gospel" might have meant to Paul. Wright does an incredible job of flushing out, in each of his subjects so far, the relevant sides of the relevant debates, their merits and shortcomings, and, finally, why he disagrees with both sides and chooses a third side (usually, anyway). He has an incredible grasp on the historical situation in which Paul lived, both secularly and religiously, which anyone must agree is fundamentally important in any discussion of a historical person, place, or event.

The conclusion that shocked me started by raising this question: what does it mean to say "the gospel of Christ?" The question itself shocked me because I realized that I don't have an answer to that myself. I could ramble about it for a while, but I don't think I would get anywhere substantial. He then traced a number of reasons to conclude that for Paul, the "gospel" is not any set of issues relevant in the Church today, it's not singularly about wealth or sexual orientation or giving or saving or teaching or speaking or sharing - it's about being a herald for the King. The word (in Greek) references the style of heralding the Emperor of Rome, of announcing his presence or his ascendency. This is what Paul lays out in Romans, according to Wright, as the definition of the gospel of Christ.

The most poignant part of the explanation, to me, is how Wright points out that by the very annunciation of the presence of the Lord of all the World, of the victory of Christ over death and His subsequent ascent to the Throne of Dominion over sin in the world, people are saved - salvation is the subsequence of this announcement, not the reverse! People aren't saved only to later discover Jesus' victory! If there is no victory, if there is no fulfillment of the prophecies naming Christ as Lord of all the world (as opposed to just ruler of Israel), then there would be no salvation. Bearing this in mind, Wright paraphrases Paul's mimicry of the Roman emperor's herald as saying: "When the herald makes a royal proclamation he says 'Nero (or whomever) has become emperor.' He does not say 'If you'd like to have an experience of living under an emperor, you might care to try Nero.' The proclamation is an authoritative summons to obedience - in Paul's case, to what he calls 'the obedience of faith.'"

This just floored me. The reality is that we are not living under a King who's content to let us choose whether or not He exists and is King. He has become King through the ultimate act of obedience and sacrifice - this is not a passive ascendency! He has violently laid claim to the throne of utter world domination and whether or not we decide to accept his legitimacy and his presence, it exists, and it exersizes judgement over the world. It's a pretty big deal.

Needless to say, it was a pretty intense ride to work this morning, reading this and having a series of little epiphanies. Hopefully, in my attempt to paraphrase the discussion in the book, I didn't commit too many heresies. If you spot one, let me know, I would like to not blaspheme - at least not on accident - if at all possible!

A Whole New Level of Disgust

2008-06-17T09:02:00.003-05:00

Look at this, and discover a whole new definition of disgust, and a whole new level of vanity. And be sad with me. Misery does, in fact, love company.

And just so this post, being only my second, is more than two lines long, I think I'll go ahead and come up with something to say.

I was listening to a new album the other day and I thought it was really good. In fact, I still do. So I started telling people about it. It's a local band (but not local to me, so that's weird) and they're basically just a bunch of guys with no money who love doing music. But when I mentioned how good I thought the music was to one friend, his response was, "yeah, it's ok. I thought the vocals were too far up front and the music wasn't mixed right." I just don't understand. If you're Coldplay and you're putting out an album on the dime of a multi-million (or billion?) dollar record label, and you're working with some of the greatest sound engineers you can find, then sure, you expect perfection. But if you're a local band who scratches up the money to put together an album to sell at your shows, trying to get your name out there and just getting started, then is it really necessary to require that your album sounds like it was done by a legend?

This, to me, seems like the equivalent of looking at a car to buy and then deciding not to because, even though it's an extremely well made car, reliable and safe, with great mileage and at a decent price, but the lighting in the showroom was bad, and the salesman really needed to brush his teeth. Hmmm. Maybe I'm just not a truly devoted audiophile. Or maybe I just prefer to listen to good music roughly mastered than shitty pop music* gloriously mastered at the best studio money can buy.

Sorry this post is kind of a downer, but I think there's only one person (other than me) reading this, so I suppose it's not a huge deal. ;) So there we go, a little peak into the rantings of Joe.

*this phrase does not apply to Coldplay

insert pithy title here

2008-06-12T08:42:00.004-05:00

It's been a big day. It's 8:43 AM and it's been a big day. Not a lot of times in my life I've been able to say that.

I decided today (well, today and last night) to become a morning person. To do a lot of things I've wanted to do for a while, really. There's this guy in my head that I imagine myself to be, and he's really not all that unattainable, but he's not really who I am. I decided that it's about time to go ahead and see just how attainable he is. One of the things he does is get up early and get things done, rather than rush around for 25 minutes and just barely make the train.

He shaves more often, too, but I think that one's more flexible.

I call this "musings from across the pond" but obviously, I'm not in York. I've not been in York for quite a while, actually. Roughly two years ago this time, I was finishing up my school work in the UK and trying to soak up as much of England and it's wonderful people as I possibly could. And it's taken me this long to start writing again for some reason. In any case, I'm back, and I think the title will stick around, too. I like it. It reminds me of a good time in my life (not that this time is necessarily bad) and, cliche as it is, a simpler time. I spent a lot of my time over there thinking, reading, playing Zelda, eating rice, drinking really good beer, and enjoying people. I also got pretty decent at frisbee (and double-bee, more importantly), but that's mostly gone, and I really need to get good at it again. But one of the things England taught me was how to be an alien. And how to enjoy it, to relish in the joy of difference. To love not belonging, not entirely, anyway. Cause, I'm not English. I know, it surprised me too. But it's true. So now matter how comfortable I got there, no matter how much it felt good to be there, and even natural, it wasn't natural to everybody. People I didn't know saw me as different, as an outsider. And it was kind of nice, to be honest. I've never really been a true outsider before. And more importantly, I believe that I am an outsider here, or I should be. My faith tells me that I'm an alien, and the more I come to realize my faith, and accept what it teaches me and try to embody it (let me tell you, that guy in my head rocks his principles like no other...it's impressive, trust me) I realize that to do that, I must be alien. I cannot conform. It doesn't work.

That was quite an epiphany for me when I realized it, and then I started thinking about York and then I started thinking about this blog and then I thought, well given this new reality, I suppose I may as well be musing from across a pond, whether that big Atlantic one or not. So the title remains.

Who writes this big of a post (with that big of a paragraph?) about a title? Me. If you're reading this, still, you should probably get used to that kind of thing. I'm sure it'll be commonplace.

So that's it, that's my first post in this new part of my journey. Hopefully it won't be my last, and hopefully it'll soon be joined by others. We'll have to wait and see, eh? In any case, it has begun. Feel free to join me if you want, though I'm not going to promise excitement...or even good writing. Just thoughts. I'll be here if you want to stop by. Enjoy yourself.

AMERICA

2006-07-08T15:08:00.000-05:00

I'm back in the States!!!!!!!

Mom came to York on the 28th and then we went to London on the 30th and hung out there for a while and came home on Wednesday. London was a good time and mom had fun, which was good, but it was crazy hot the whole time we were there. It was in the 90s for most of the week, which of course made the front page of all the papers. Lucky us. The flight home was good - pretty uneventful, thankfully. We pulled into O'hare at around 3:30 on Wednesday afternoon and went and got some good American style pizza and equally importantly cold drinks (the English aren't terribly worried about making sure their beer/pop/anything else anyone could drink is cold). So that was a good time. Now I'm just working on getting the next few months of my life figured out and making sure I can take this last freaking class up in Chicago in the fall. Hopefully it'll all work out alright and then things will be happy. That's about all I got right now, and I need to go replace the fuel filter on my car. Man it's good to be back in the States. :/

huh...

2006-06-04T06:51:00.000-05:00

I was just sitting here thinking. I like to read good writing, a lot. I have some friends on this thing that are really good writers, they have the ability to utterly pull you into their words and make you feel like you're with them, like you're experiencing what they're saying. I've always appreciated good writing, I think I just never really put a lot of effort into finding it and reading it - partly because I couldn't even keep up with my school reading, but still. Not that the stuff I've read before was bad writing, I just feel like I've missed out on a lot of good writing because I've been too lazy to do a lot of reading. Last week I read F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and now I'm almost done with Appolonius' Jason and the Golden Fleece. It seems like England has, if nothing else (and trust me, there's some things 'else'), led me to seek out and get through good literature. Strange that none of it thus far has been English, but whatever. That's just a thought I had this morning. Oh, by the way, I might not get to go to Ireland. That sucks. Gotta go now.

(see previous post for title)

2006-05-24T04:00:00.000-05:00

So there I was, walking through town past some charity shops (that's what they call clothing re-sale shops) and as I look in the window, what do I see? Normally after a sentence like that, a person would just go right ahead and tell you what he saw, but not me. I want more than that from you. I want you to take a minute or so and think of all the outrageously absurd things that one could see in a charity clothing shop window. And don't think stupid things like, I dunno, trees. Obviously there won't be trees in there, it's a clothing shop. Come on, work with me here. Ok? Ok. Now, here we go, I'll give ya a minute........................and stop. Got any good ones? Like, I dunno, a hat with antlers on it? Or a U.S. uniform from the Revolutionary War? That would be entertaining, good thought. But no, it was neither of those. It was, in fact, an Arizona FFA jacket!! Let me say that again, cause I'm sure some of you in the back didn't hear me. It was, in a charity clothing store in York, England, an Arizona FFA jacket (boy, after you type arizona once or twice it really starts to look strange). How freaking outrageous is that? What's it doing here? How did it get here? And why where they charging 35 pounds for it? Who is going to want that, if they aren't in the FFA? I mean come on, it's a royal blue cord jacket with tons of gold embroydery on it, someone else's name, and a giant bright gold FFA symbol on the back (consisting of plow, owl, rising sun and of course, corn, for those of you who don't know.) Actually, that parenthetical reminded me, let me just take this time to address those of you silly enough not to know what FFA is. You all are silly. There, you've been addressed. Ok, actually it's a huge youth organization centered around the agricultural industry. It's massive, and given that the ag (that's what those of us in 'the know' call agriculture, try to keep up ;)) industry is the largest employer in the country, that affects a lot of people. Go to ffa.org if you want to know more. And don't kid yourself, you do. Yeah, so anyway, that's my stream-of-consciousness post for now. An FFA jacket in York. Absolutely fantastic. Aight, peace.

NO FREAKING WAY

2006-05-17T04:01:00.000-05:00

JOHN C. MCGINLEY A.K.A. DR. COX IS IN THE ROCK!!!!!!! That's right, we were watching the Rock the other day (it was a great day) and when it started I was like, wait a minute, I know that name, no way, he's not in that. And then, he was! This pushes The Rock over the edge into a new realm of wonder. Not only is it the greatest action film ever made, it must now have surpassed even the possibility of being challenged. Sweet. That's all.

philosophy and footie

2006-05-13T06:14:00.000-05:00

Man, it's been a while since I've done anything on there, sorry about that. I'm just generally lazy, but you all know me, so that's no surprise. Things have been going pretty well here, time is going really fast, which I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, I can't wait to get home. I feel like I'm in a period of my life where I am just treading water and not really moving forward, but only in some respects. Even though I'm not working or moving to Chicago right now or anything like that, I am definitely making progress in other ways. The things I'm reading for class are all about the philosophy of history, which sounds like it would be boring, but I'm kinda into boring things, so it's cool for me. It really makes me rethink the way I think about history and how how I view the importance or lack thereof in it. Stuff like that. The casual reality of my life here (no job, no car, no cell phone, it's a very different world for me) allows me to do a lot more thinking about things like this than I would do at home, I think. So that's definitely a good thing, and I'm enjoying it a lot. Plus, my friends here are fantastic and we have a great time, so they tend to curtail my anxiety to get home. But at the same time, I miss all my friends back home, I miss being able to see my family almost any time I really want to, if I just make the effort. I want to be working, finishing school, moving on with what Western society touts as "real life," if you'll excuse the absurdity of the statement. It's weird to try to articulate what exactly it is that I want to move on with, because it is so clear that the things that I'm thinking about here are so great a part of what life really is. So there I am, and it's a strange place to be.

When I haven't been thinking/reading about the history of philosophy, I've been working on getting my computer back up and running so I don't have to keep hiking over to this freaking computer lab every time I want to check an email. It's coming along slowly, and hopefully in the next week or two will be taken care of. Cross your fingers. Also, me and the guys are getting a lot better with the frisbee. I'm told there's an outdoor basketball court nearby, so if we can find a ball I'll work on schooling England in yet another aspect of what makes America great. :) And if I lose, you'll never hear about it, heh heh. It's looking like a couple of us are going to try to get to Ireland around the second weekend of June. I'm excited about that, even if we'll probably only get to see Dublin and nothing else. It'll still be sweet, plus the Guiness brewery is there. Hooray!

Yeah, so that's about all that's going on here. The 'footie' (football) (soccer) is starting up around here, so it looks like that's going to consume most of our Saturday afternoons from now on. I'll see if I can't pick up some idea of what the heck is going on, and maybe I can try to explain the peoples' fascination with sports that involve neither throwing nor catching with the hands. Don't hold your breath, though. Aight, I'd better go so I can meet the guys before the match starts!

2006-04-26T13:52:00.000-05:00

Aight, well, I tried this the other day and it didn't work, but maybe it will go better this time. So I am back in York and had my one exam yesterday. It went alright, no big surprises, really. Now that that's over, I decided that today would be the day that I would shave my beard that's been growing for four months and cut my hair, which also hasn't been touched as long as I've been here. It's been a big day. And, I'm really excited that things like that constitute big days lately. That's fun. The computer's still jacked up, so I'm not sure how soon that'll all get figured out. Hopefully soon.

Traveling was fun, and hopefully I'll get around to chronicling (?) the whole thing at some point, though I'm not sure if I'll put that up here or not, since I have already got several posts up here from that whole time. We'll see. After Brugge I made it back to England in one day, succeeding in making it to three countries in one day, which was fun. I got to London at a decent time and met up with Andy and Colleen. I hung out there for a couple days, then went to Windsor to see my friend Dan and the castle, which was closed because the queen was there, which totally pissed off all of the locals that I met, all of whom went on a big rant about how I had traveled from the U.S. just to see the freakin' castle and she goes and closes it. I mean how many rooms does she need at one time? The nerve. But the outside was cool. Then I came back to London and stayed there for Easter and then went to Scotland on the following Tuesday, met up with my friend Lindsey and crashed at her parents' place and then proceeded up to Fort William in the Highlands, actually at the base of the tallest peak in Britain. That was cool and beautiful, even if I failed to find the really cool sounding waterfall on this river that runs out of the mountains - possibly because I didn't start walking along the river until almost 6:00 in the evening, though I still walked for a solid hour and forty-five minutes one-way, which I think should be more than far enough to find a freakin' waterfall. Any waterfall worth seeing should put itself within an hour and forty-five minutes of anyone who wants to see it, that's what I say. Anyway, then I was back in York on Friday, did some studying then and on Saturday, too, and finally got to move into my room again on Sunday afternoon. Joy. Since then not much has happened, just studying and hanging out in the flat. It's nice to see all the crazy people again and it's nice to have a home again. I don't know if any of ya'll have ever been homeless for any extended period of time, but the 5 weeks that I was without a real place to call home was enough for me. That's just a stinking awkward feeling right there. So that's the story thus far. Assuming the computer works at some point, I'll have pictures up and that will be cool, including the ones from today chronicling the various stages of me aquiring a face again. They're interesting. Aight, that's all I got right now. Peace ya'll.

ten

2006-04-10T12:49:00.000-05:00

Aight folks, so I've only got 10 minutes or so right now. I thought I would have more but just getting this site to come up took about 5, which is kinda annoying but whatever. I just thought it would be nice to have a more in-depth update some time.

So I got here yesterday and there was only one person in the room, this Canadian girl named Sherry. We introduced ourselves and she was nice enough. I went out and saw some stuff, came back and she was in the bar at the hostel so we talked for a few minutes and then I got some dinner, read some, did some emailing and went to bed. Then today I went out again during the day and came back in the afternoon and now there was another girl, this one from Australia, talking to Sherry. We all sat and talked for a while, found out the new girl's name is Megan (pronounced Aussie-style, Meegan) and the all of a sudden the whole room filled up. So after a while we were all hungry and Megan knew about this place that had take-out pasta for like, 2.70! We went there, then got a belgian waffle and came back and now we are up to like, 8 people. It's crazy! And they're all so nice. It turns out that traveling alone has its own perks, like getting to know a ton of Aussies and Canadians (everyone in my room is either an Aussie or a Canadian except one other girl from Alaska - may as well be canadian!). But all in all it's a good time and I'm having a lot of fun with my new friends. Hooray for people traveling alone and in need of making new friends, just like me.

It's looking like the London-with-the-Keltners thing is going to work out alright, which will give me a day or two to plan for the Windsor-with-Dan and the Scottish Highlands trip. Good times. The European leg of traveling was a really good time, and I think Germany was the best part, but Brugges is fun too. It's a small town and has a cool atomosphere, even if it's just because it's made for tourists. It kinda reminds me or York and Munich, both of which have a very laid-back atmosphere and are really good for walking around. Ok, so now I only have a few minutes left so I'm gonna have to cut this short. So much for an in-depth update. But at least I got to put something up about today, and something more substantial than one paragraph. Aight, peace.

singularity

2006-04-09T14:45:00.000-05:00

Aight, so I don't have a lot of time, but I wanted to put something up quick because, hooray, the hostel I'm in right now has American keyboards, which it turns out is one of the most exciting things a hostel can do for me, score. I'm in Bruges right now, the first city I'm doing on my own. After this I'm heading to London to crash with Andy and Colleen (hopefully) for a couple days, then with my friend Dan from York Uni at his place in Windsor, then probably up to Scotland to see the highlands. We spent some time in Paris which was alright, but generally overated, I think. The Louvre is cool and just massive. The Eifel Tower is really big and awfully ugly. Honestly, I'm not sure I see the romance of that one. Notre Dame is big, but not as big as the York Minster, and at this point I pretty much am not impressed with giant churches - they just kinda make me sad/angry. We saw Versaille, which was cool, but tours of palaces only show you the same 8 or 10 rooms of every palace, so it all kinda seems the same each time. Ok, this post is annoying me already because I'm so unimpressed with what really is pretty cool. So I'm gonna stop I think. In general, things are going really well and I'm having a good time. So there's your update. It's not as bad as the previous few lines made it sound, I'm just a cynic. :) Peace.

Germany, Part 2

2006-04-02T17:53:00.000-05:00

So we're back in Germany now. We left Prague today at around 5:30, but only after we got to the station about 40 minutes early and then realized 30 minutes before our train left that we were at the WRONG train station. That was fun. Fortunately for us, we're getting really good at "mobilizing" as Emily put it later on the train, so we still made it. In fact, after we ran through two train stations carrying all our stuff, we ended up getting to the platform before the train! That was more annoying than it seems like it should be. Anyway, I haven't got a ton of time, so I'll make this short. We're in Berlin until Thursday and then we go to Paris. Yeah, I know, but it just seems like you should go to Paris if you're in Europe. Hopefully I'll make it through the situation. Ok, I gotta go before I run out of time. Just thought I'd try to update quick.

2006-03-30T00:43:00.000-06:00

Today is the day we leave Hungary. We are wandering around for most of the day, trying to get a little more sight-seeing done, and then at around 6:00 we will leave for Munich. Sadly, we will only be there for about a day, then off to Prague for another short stay. The time in Budapest has made us realize that we could really use more time in these places, but we'll just do the best with what we've got. I just thought I'd throw a little update on here because I have no idea what it's going to be like in Munich and Prague, so I'm not sure how possible this might be there. So those are our plans, and hopefully it all works out. By the way, if anyone is thinking of coming to Budapest, you absolutely have to do it and you have to stay at the ART hostel. You can find it on hostelworld.com. It's freakin' amazing!

HUNGARY!

2006-03-27T11:35:00.000-06:00

Yo ya'll. So today was the day, we started the journey. Currently we are staying at a hostel in Budapest which is freakin' sweet. It only has room for 16 people total, which makes it really cool because it feels kinda like a bed and breakfast but cheaper. We had a pretty uneventful flight here from Manchester and once we got here we just walked around a little bit (on the suggestion of the woman looking after the hostel today) and walked for a while along the Danube. It's gorgeous, just in case you were wondering. Well, not a whole lot to say right now, but the internet is free so I thought I'd throw somethin up here while I can. We leave here on Thursday for Munich and then to Prague. Hopefully I can keep this thing somewhat updated for most of the journey. We'll see. In the mean time, just know that this is really hard to do because the z's and y's are switched on Hungarian keyboards, and the apostrophe (?) is different, too. And come to think of it, so is the question mark! And the exclamation mark! Ok, I'm done. Peace.

travels!

2006-03-18T11:32:00.000-06:00

Hey folks. So today I moved out of my room for the next five weeks and pushed all my worldly belongings (the ones here, anyway) to my friend Phil's place in a shopping cart that randomly appeared at our building. It took about forty minutes. :) We're finalizing our plans for our big travels, pretty exciting/stressful. It looks like our plan is this: On the 27th we're going to head to Manchester and take a plane to Budapest. Then on the 30th we're flying to Munich, but it's supposed to be kinda expensive there so we're only gonna stay for a day. On the 31st we take a train overnight to Prague, which should be a good time. On the evening of the 2nd it's another train to Berlin, where we'll be for four nights. We head to Paris on the 6th by plane and then on the 7th or 8th I'll leave the rest of the group to go to Brugges which is in Belgium. Hopefully then I'll have booked a ferry ride to Dover a day or two later and then I'll just bum around the UK for a day or two (some of my flatmates told me I could crash with them, score) and then head to Scotland where I can check out the Highlands. If there's time, I might just go to Ireland, too, after Scotland. Either way, the guys from my flat and I are planning a trip or two to Ireland next term just for the weekend. I'm just trying to not get too nervous about all of this, so wish me luck and feel free to send up any prayers that come to mind. :) I've never really done much of anything like this (obviously) so it'll be an adventure, I'm sure. Contact will be sporatic at best over the next five weeks, cause I'll always be on the move, but hopefully when I get back to York I will be able to get Skype working again and talk to some of you. Have a good Easter, everybody!

To sum up the trip:

Manchester > Budapest 3/27 10:05 - 13:55 Jet2

Budapest > Munich 3/30 17:55 - 19:15 (Nuembourg) 19:15 - 20:45 Airberlin

Munich > Prague 3/31 11:00 pm - 4/1 8:00 am DeutscheBahn

Prague > Berlin 4/2 17:34 - 22:18 DeutscheBahn

Berlin Schoenefeld > Paris Orly 4/6 8:45 - 10:30 easyjet

Paris > Brugges 4/7 (or 8)

Brugges > Dover 4/8 (or 9)

4/9 - 4/15(ish) > UK travel

update

2006-03-14T06:08:00.000-06:00

Yeah, so Scotland was fun. Since then it's just been mostly trying to get ready for the big trip across the channel (?) over break. Should be an interesting time. It looks now like after I get back from the Continent I might be able to go to the Scottish Highlands with a real Scottish guide! (not like, a professional guide, but this chick from my building said she might be able to drive me up there for a couple days, we'll see) In the mean time, I've got a paper to finish up and we still need to finalize some of the specifics about travel and whatnot.

On a completely different note, it seems like I've brought Illinois over here with me. When we went to Scotland (so, two weeks ago, roughly) it had just snowed a bunch and apparently they got a lot more snow here than where we were, because I'm told of a giant exciting 200-man snowball fight all over campus. Kinda sad I missed out on that, but I got to see Edinburgh, so it's all good. Then, the week after that it was probably in the fifties here, and really nice. Then we got some more rain (which shouldn't be surprising, but I'm told England is in the worst drought since the 60's, so it doesn't rain as much as it should recently), and then the temps started dropping again. A couple of us tried to go rock climbing around here on Sunday, but it was blizzarding (kinda, england style, not illinois style), so we went anyway. We're hardcore. When we got there there was probably a good 2 inches on the ground and it was blowing and snowing pretty hard. Visibility wasn't exactly wonderful. A couple of the guys climbed a little bit and one actually made it quite a way up but didn't want to try the last 10 feet or so because it was really snowy up there and he probably would have slipped or something. I tried to climb (first time!) but that freakin rock was so cold. I got a little way up and realized that I couldn't feel my hands AT ALL so I just sat back on the rope and swung for few minutes. It was really cold. Yeah. Then yesterday it was really cold and windy, kinda like home. Probably the most like illinois it's been since I've been here. And last night it sleeted for a few hours and now we have snow again. Well, maybe it's good for these crazy English folk to get a taste of a real winter from time to time, eh? In any case, it keeps ya guessing, keeps ya on your toes.

Tonight we're going out for the March birthdays that fall during break (there are four of us). That should be a good time, but it'll probably just be really cold on the way to town so I doubt we'll do a whole lot or stay out terribly late. Plus it's the last week of class, so most of us have tests (not me) or papers to write (definitely me). Ok, that's my exciting update for ya'll. Wish me luck in getting all our crap finalized for the trip. We'll probably need it.

Scotland

2006-03-06T12:14:00.000-06:00

Ok, so we went to Scotland this weekend. First of all, I have to say if you ever get the chance to go to Scotland you HAVE TO GO. It is maybe one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen thus far. All I got to was Edinburgh, which is pretty far south, and I hear the north is quite a bit more breathtaking, so I'm gonna try to get up there before it's all said and done. It was, quite simply, amazing. Edinburgh is cool for a couple of reasons, and here they are:

1. The center of the city is pretty incredibly historical and aptly called the Old City. There are a bunch of hostels, including the one we were in, that are all right there in the thick of a ton of historical stuff, which makes the city seem pretty stinkin small, since there is so much right there in like, 2 or 3 streets. The other thing that makes it feel small is the fact that it's kinda built on a hill, and from where all that stuff is, if you look to the east, you see New City, which seems pretty small as well. What you don't see, because it's not below you, is the vastness of the city to the west. I'll get to why I know that in a minute. The final reason it seems small is that the little maps you get from the hostel (or rather, we got from the hostel we were staying at, I don't know about other hostels) are not only pretty bad in general (they just leave out some streets for kicks) but only show a tiny portion of the city, which admittedly is more than you could get to in a weekend but still misleading.

2. Within the center of the city which is so small and historic are a couple of really interesting museums including one entirely devoted to three writers. Let me say that again for those of you in America where nothing like that could ever exist (that's pretty much all of you). There was a museum in Scotland entirely devoted to three writers - that means they actually think literature and the humanities are important! Not only that, but one of the writers, Sir Walter Scott, has a giant memorial elsewhere in the city from which you are supposed to be able to get some of the best views of the city if you go to the top. That's a lot of importance placed on writing. Would that America was smart enough to recognize the importance of literature/humanities. (sigh) Another thing in the center of town is a street called High Street. Most cities in the U.K. have a street with the same name, it's essentially the street where a lot of important things are/were, like shops and offices and such. It's kinda like the Magnificent Mile, or more commonly, main street in most towns. In Edinburgh, though, the High Street is also called The Royal Mile. "Why?" you ask. I'll tell you. It's because at one end of the street you have the Edinburgh Castle, which is huge and incredible and actually built on a cliff, literally, on the freaking cliff, like there's no space between the bottom of the castle and the cliff, the walls actually look like they're coming out of the cliff. It's amazing. Ok, so there's a castle, that makes sense, but why call it the royal MILE then? That's because at the other end of the street, there's the Holyrood Palace, which is still used by the royal family. That's right, two ends of a street, two castles! Are you freaking kidding me? It's incredible. The palace is better to see, though, cause it's still used so when you go inside you get to see how a palace looks when people sometimes use it, whereas the castle has been all changed around and in no way resembles a castle, but rather a bunch of museums. I'm bitter.

3. The final thing I'll tell you about how cool Edinburgh is is the reason I know that there is a huge amount of city to the west. There's this peak called Arthur's Seat that's off to the west of Holyrood Palace - it's actually part of the Holyrood Palace estate, it turns out - that you can go up on. It takes about an hour to climb up to the top, and it's quite a way up. It's probably really not much more than a big hill, compared to real mountains, but it really might as well be a mountain in my book, cause it's got cliffs, which I think is pretty cool. So you climb up this little mountain and you can see that Edinburgh is surrounded by snow-capped mountains! It's absolutely gorgeous. I got some good pictures, but I can't get them off my camera to a place where I can actually use them right now, I'm working on it, but just trust me, it's cool. Probably if you google Arthur's Seat you'll see some pics from up there. When you look to your left (facing the city) you see hills and mountains and more city, all very beautiful. When you look to your right, you see the North Sea, also very beautiful. When you look in front of you, you see the incredibly old city of Edinburgh. And when you're climbing up, you are on a little hill to the side of the actual Arthur's Seat and when you look at it you can actually block out all your peripheral vision and see just hills/mountains - so there you are, in the middle of Edinburgh just seeing cliffs and hills and mountains and lakes. It's truly incredible.

So that's Edinburgh. We also went on a whisky tour and learned the different kinds of whisky and how to differentiate, which was interesting. No, they didn't give us more than one taste, but they did give us a real whisky glass, which is kinda cool. And now we're just trying to finalize plans for going abroad over break. It's coming up quick and we've still got quite a bit of work to do, but I think it'll all come together and it's getting pretty exciting. Ok, that's about all I've got right now. If you want to know anything else, just email me or comment and ask. I might answer, or I might just make you live in ignorance. It'll be a case by case basis. :) Peace, ya'll.

london once more

2006-02-24T06:03:00.000-06:00

Hey all, I just thought I'd let it be known that I'm in London again for the weekend. I'm not sure why this might be pressing information for anyone...like you were planning on stopping by or something. But in any case, I'm here, not in York, and I'll be back on Sunday night. Hopefully I'll have a computer shortly after I get back. We'll see how it goes. Aight, peace.

ALL THE WAY FROM THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!!

2006-02-15T19:13:00.000-06:00

Ok, seriously, it's just been way too long without a post. I mean, the past couple have been pretty weak anyway. So here goes.

To begin with, I want everyone (both of you out there) to know that I had fully planned to update as soon as I got back from London, however my computer disagreed with that idea. It in fact vehemently disagreed and then went ahead and commited suicide. So right now, I am sans computer. I have to use the pathetic computer labs they have over here and let me tell you, technology hasn't quite crossed the pond just yet. I think I saw a steam boat the other day. Not really, but I think these computers were used along side Apollo 11 and then just shipped over here when we got done with them. It's pretty rough. So that was this week.

The weekend, though, was a pretty good time. I left for London at about 7:00 p.m. here in York. I walked for roughly 45 minutes because I'm just too cheap to take the bus to the train station. No big deal, I'm still ok with having walked for that long, and I'll probably do it again next time I take the train. So I made it to the station and bought myself a tasty-lookin BLT from the little convenience store there. Amazing how decietful they can make these sandwiches these days. It tasted like soggy mush with the occasional crunch of an un-ripe tomato or whatever strips of lettuce hadn't become saturated in the mayo. Not pleasant. But that was my dinner. I got on the train that pulled up and found a seat. Only after it started moving did I realize that I hadn't even taken the time to check and see if it was my train, I just got on. That was a fun little freak-out. Turns out I'm just that lucky, it was my train. So roughly 2 hours later I pulled into London, well I didn't personally pull in, the dude driving the train did, but I was on board...anyway... I got off and called Gina, the Study Abroad Advisor that was in charge of the weekend, but of course she didn't pick up her phone, so I just left a message. I knew where I was going, so that wasn't a huge deal. Although I don't have a cell phone, so the money for that call could have been used elsewhere, but whatever. I got on the Tube and headed toward the nearest stop to the hostel we were staying at. I didn't print off the map because I don't have a printer and I figured I have a decent enough memory, I should be able to find my way well enough. I didn't take into account (as I never do) the fact that English cities are not set up in the Roman style like we're used to, they're way older than that and the roads are still the original ones, so they go pretty much wherever they want to. Seriously, go find an online map of London and when you find yourself assuming that once you're on the ground it can't be as absurd as it looks just believe me when I say it is. In fact, it's worse. So, lucky me, I got to take a little tour of the area around my hostel before I actually got to the hostel. Actually, a big tour. I got to know the area fairly intimately. We go way back now, me and those streets. Well, after about 40 minutes I got to the hostel and got settled. I met my roommate a couple hours later when he came in (most of the people had been there since about 4 or 5 in the evening, so they had dinner together and most of them went out). Fortunately, he was very sober and a generally good guy. That was reassuring.

Day two was fun, and not only because it started about 3 hours earlier than had been originally planned. We found out the night before - or for me just hours before when my roomy came home - that there was a big change in plans and we were getting started at a little before 8 in the morning. Cool. We started out with the free "breakfast" from the hostel (it actually tended to encourage the fasting for a few more hours, so appetizing it was) and then a walking tour. The walking tour was really cool. Well, after I switched groups so that I could get away from the crazy lady with this strange parrot-head clicky thing that made a lot of noise so that people could find her (she was pretty senile, folks, a very strange woman) and got in with the normal tour guide, it was cool. We learned all kinds of interesting stuff about London like the fact that Churchill actually created a tunnel system under much of the city of Westminster (it spanned 2 miles or more) and he and roughly 200 people lived down there for the entirety of WW II using it as the British command post. This was kept secret until just a few years ago when somebody just stumbled upon the tunnels when I think they were expanding the Tube system. You can tour it, now, and it's all exactly like it was when they left, complete with Churchill's cigar stub in an ashtray in the map room - seriously, they just up and left. I didn't actually take the tour, but when I go back next weekend it will most definitely happen.

After the walking tour we went to the National Portrait Gallery. I wish I could tell you that it was really cool, but it really wasn't all that great. They do, however, have the picture of ol' George Washington that's on the $1 bill. So that's cool.

Free time after the gallery, so the four of us from York went back to Westminster Abby and found it closed. But, being brilliant resourceful young minds we went and had a drink and then came back for the Evensong service that started around 5:30. That was cool. Not every day you get to see a service in Westminster Abby. Did you know the kings and queens of England have been crowned there since 1066? Ten freakin sixty six! That's a long time.

Dinner was cool and then we went to a pub in Notting Hill. Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts were both absent, so that's no fun, and the drinks were expensive, which made it a little worse, so we just went back to the hostel.

Day 2 saw another fantastic breakfast and a boat tour on the River Thames. That was very entertaining and if you're in London and have some time to spare, I would certainly recommend it. The commentary guy was very funny and knew way too much about all the old buildings. The boat went to Greenwich, so we saw the division of the east and west hemispheres and ate at a place where the special was stewed eel. Naturally, I went with the minced beef pie. A very tasty choice, and it has the bonus of not containing any eel. Score.

Then we went to a play that night, not much to talk about there, it was a little rough. But not a bad way to spend an evening. The highlight, though, had to be eating at a Japanese restaurant called Wagamama. That was cool. Wagamama. Come on. And it wasn't that bad, either so that's a plus.

On Sunday I met up with Andy for a couple hours, which is always a good time. We ran out of ideas for things to do after our first idea, though, which made it kinda rough. But we had fun anyway. Then I went back to the train station and read until I got tired and then watched football for about an hour and a half until my train left. It was a good time. Two guys got hurt. Cool. A two hour train ride and I was home again. Well, after another 40 minute walk, then I was home again. But all in all it was a pretty exciting weekend.

As if that wasn't enough, on Monday I went into town and came upon a magic show. I think entertainers like that have a knack for picking the American out of the crowd. That's right, I was the one who was asked to come up on stage "ALL THE WAY FROM THE UNITED STATES PEOPLE, COME AND SEE JOE!!!!" to put the straight-jacket on the guy. But fortunately he was really funny and it was mostly painless. Mostly. I suppose the good news is he got out. He was pretty good. And I got to be made a spectacle of. Every American's dream, right? I feel like I've failed the State Department, seeing as how after they issued a warning to all Americans abroad that tensions were high and we should maybe keep a low profile I get called up in front of a big crowd and some guy stands next to me and screams about how I'm "Joe-from-the-United-States" for 15 minutes. Yeah, I should be a spy.

Alright, on that note, I leave you. I hope you've enjoyed the update and thanks to everybody who has sent mail, it's really exciting. Hope things are well at home. Peace.

just wandering around aimlessly...

2006-02-09T12:25:00.000-06:00

Hey everybody! Sorry it's been a while since I've written, I've been pretty busy with a paper that was due on Monday and then my computer decided that it didn't like me very much, so I spent a lot of the past week trying to change its mind. It's cooperating a little better now, but you just never know with this thing.

So yeah, things have been going pretty well lately. I haven't done much of anything interesting, just hanging out and working on school work and stuff. Although last Sunday we had a little Super Bowl party. That was a pretty good time. The guys on my flat decided that the only way to throw a truly American sports party is to get those hats that you can put beer cans on and then drink them through a straw. So they ordered a few online and they were pretty pumped to use them. I opted not to get one, which turned out to be a pretty good idea, because they don't work all that well. Plus they're just weird. But it was a good time, even though we didn't get to see the great commercials because it was on BBC, and the guys that talked during time-outs and whatnot were Brits who generally didn't know quite what they were talking about. Anyway, it was fun and we all had a good time.

I also found a church to go to on Sunday morning, which was an ordeal all its own. I didn't know exactly where the church was, per se. So I set out from here with a general idea of where I was headed -- I knew the name of the road it was on and that it met in a 'gym' somewhere on the mystery-road. I got to a road on the north-ish end of campus which was pretty much the farthest I had ever been in that direction and I saw a sign for the 'Science Park' -- basically a science complex, kinda like where NCSA and Motorolla, etc are at U of I -- which I remember some of the guys arguing about whether or not they should tell me to take. Some of the said it would work but some others said it was more confusing. I went ahead and walked through the science park. I got to the back of it (north end) and I could see through a fence that there were a bunch of people playing football (soccer) on the other side and it looked like that might be the gym. But I didn't know how to get there, what with this freakin' fence in my way. So I started wandering around and found a sidewalk/path back across a parking lot in the science park (back the way I had come). I followed it to the right (east-ish) side of the complex and found that it went out toward a road that looked like it would go in the direction I needed to go, but I also saw a dirt path through a little forrest-y area that ran between the road and the field where the guys were playing. I took the path (come on, i grew up on a farm, you had to see that choice coming). It was pretty cool, I still have no idea exactly what it is usually used for, because just about 20 feet to the right was a road which surely had a sidewalk on it, but whatever. I followed this path through the 'woods' up and down a couple little hills and next to the football field and it came out onto the road to my right just a little way away from the road that the church/gym was supposed to be on. So I went in that direction and by now it was getting pretty late. I had about 8-10 minutes to find this place. I got to the road and decided I thought the place was to my left and went that way. I walked a little way and there was a little winding driveway that went toward a big complex, but I couldn't tell what it was. I was looking for a sign or something that said "G2 service" or something vaguely similar, but I got nothin. So with about 5 minutes left I decided I'd walk this driveway which looked to be about 75 yards long, give or take, and if the church was there, cool; if not, i'd find it next week. I got to the buildings and I was sure it was a gym, but still there were no signs or anything, except I saw some people walking in that definitely didn't look like they were gonna play squash or lift weights or anything (from the way they were dressed, just to clear that up) so I figured I'd check it out. I walked in and to my left was a little shop (shorts, water bottles, etc), in front of me was an info-lookin desk with a line of people standing at it and to my right a winding staircase. I figured nobody was gonna meet in the shop and I wasn't gonna stand in this line to figure out 15 minutes late where the church met (or didn't as the case may be). I went up the stairs and started looking around. Around a corner to my right there was an open door with a big room that looked like people were in it, so I went that way. Sure enough, that was the church -- still no signs or anything, but it was definitely the church. The service ended up bein pretty cool and I liked it a lot, but finding the place was pretty strange. I think I'll go back.

This weekend is the (semi)-legendary London Weekend for U of I students in England. I'm heading out in about 20 minutes to catch my train and then I'll get back here around midnight on Sunday night. I'm not sure really what exactly we're gonna do but I know it includes tea at Kensington Palace, so I mean come on. I assume the Queen will be there, naturally. If she's not I'll probably protest, but we'll see. Anyway I'm gonna finish getting ready for that. Hope things are going well back home. Have a good weekend everybody.

Address

2006-01-26T19:12:00.000-06:00

Oh yeah, I forgot. I finally have my address for ya'll. I'm not sure exactly where the lines are supposed to start over, but this is exactly how it is on the paper in our kitchen, so this is how it's going up:

Joe Hofbauer
Room MO11
Flat 2
Block M
James College
James Way
University of York
York YO10 5NA

I'm told that you should write ENGLAND in all caps (just like that) somewhere at the bottom of the front side of the envelope. Do that, too. I like care-packages, but I suggest you avoid such items as milk, butter, cheese (obviously), and large animals; it's kind of a long trip. Aside from that, I think you should be good. So now I'll go away expecting a massive influx of packages in my mailbox in the next week or so. (Also keep in mind that it's outrageously expensive to send pretty much anything other than an empty envelope over here, but don't let that deter you!) Aight, later.

2006-01-26T18:34:00.000-06:00

Boy, it's been a little while, huh? Yeah, I'd love to say that that's because I've been out doing crazy exciting things and haven't had a chance to update about all of it. But sadly it's mostly because not much has happened. We did go to town last weekend, which was fun, and that's what most of those pictures are from. It was a really good time. Myself and six other Americans met at about 9:30 in the morning and then walked into town and first saw Clifford's Tower, which is in a few of the pictures I have posted. That is the largest part of the remainder of the castle which was just to the West (i think) of it now. It was what is called a Mote(pronounced mott)-and-Bailey castle, so there was a big courtyard thing that was walled and huge and there were lots of rooms and tons of stuff there, that was kinda in front of the tower, and then the tower itself was most of the castle proper, if you will. There would probably have been a moat between the tower and the courtyard area(with a draw-bridge), and they would both probably have been up on hills, like the tower is. Clifford's Tower is also where, in the early 12th Century, I think, all/most of the known Jews in the North of England were somewhat forced into and when they saw that the situation was dire, they set fire to the wood (which I think would have been all on the inside of the tower, as well as the roof) and comitted a mass suicide. Not a whole lot of fun, that part of it.

Then we wandered around for a while waiting to meet up with a few other people and headed over to this bar called the "Roman Baths" or something like that, cause when they went to expand it a few years back (when it had a different name) they found a Roman Bath-house underneath it! (Roman street level is several meters - yards - below current street level, just because of sediment and whatnot) So we went down there after lunch and toured it. Apparently York was the northernmost point of the entirety of the Roman military machine. This is as far as it gets, and I think they said that under the North corner of the walls (which are still standing) is actually exaclty where the old Roman walls went to, and that's technically the northernmost tip. That's kinda cool.

Finally we went to the Minster, which is that giant church in the pictures. The Minster is pretty much the most mammoth building I've ever seen. It's giant. They have little diagrams that show an overhead view of the city around the Minster and it takes up several blocks (or it would, if the towns around here had any sort of 'block' rather than just winding streets that have no pattern). It is also built on top of a building that the Roman soldiers would have used. It would have been pretty much the center for the military and it was also where anything official would have happened. In fact, it is where Constantine (you might know him from the name of the city Constantinople, now Istanbul, as well as for legalizing Christianity in the Roman Empire and then for making it the official religion of the Empire a little later (i think)) was crowned Caesar. He was with his dad visiting the outpost during his rounds when his dad died and he was immediately crowned by the army. Kind of a big deal. The current Minster took over (wait for it) two hundred and fifty years to build. TWO HUNDRED FIFTY! That means that it took longer to build the Minster than the United States has existed! WHAT???!!! I know, crazy. Just crazy. Just sit and think about that for a while, and then continue reading.

On Saturday night, then, four of us were sitting around playing video games, being board when we decided to go up to flat 6 and, since only one of the girls that lives up there was here at the time, newspaper the whole corridor. It was pretty cool and it took about 3 and a half hours for four of us to do. I've got some pictures, but my camera battery died, so we'll have to wait until I charge it up to see them. Then on Sunday when the girls came back, a bunch of us went up and climbed through the paper into Katy's (the girl who was here this weekend) room and then resealed the newpaper to listen to their responses. It was pretty entertaining, just a bunch of laughing and screaming and "this is so crazy, how did they do this??" and stuff like that. Good times. Remember, these folks are freshmen, so I've got to help get them started off right with college life. Know that I'm doing my best.

Ok, well that's about all I've got. Notice, Ang, that I did throw a couple of paragraphs in there, though it's pretty clear that even within the paragraphs it's fairly stream-of-consciousness. In any case, I like stream-of-consciousness. It's fun. :) Well, I hope you all enjoyed the news. I'll try to do something exciting next week (or remember if I did anything exciting before, and then just claim that it happened more recently). Later ya'll.

2006-01-22T21:47:00.000-06:00

Just in case anyone was wondering...

You're a Gorilla!

Highly social and group-oriented, you like hanging out with the same
people constantly. You have either black or gray hair and spend a good deal of time
grooming it or getting others to groom it for you. Sleep is a big part of your daily
routine and you like to either make very loud noise or no noise at all. You have
more skills with language than most, however. One of your absolute favorite drinks
is hot cocoa.

Take the Animal Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

pictures!!!

2006-01-21T14:26:00.000-06:00

Hey folks, I got some pictures set up, so go check them out. I'm tired now and I don't want to be on the computer anymore right now so just go to www.snapfish.com. Paste that in, and enter the email address: joe.hofbauer@gmail.com
password: joespics

Have fun. More later.

2006-01-20T07:27:00.000-06:00

Yesterday we had our first discussion group for my class. Discussion groups are fantastic! It's probably just because I am infatuated with the pretense of academia, but to sit around with about 8 or 9 other people all of whom actually care - to some extent - about what you're talking about and have read at least a little about it and just talk for an hour. That's a good time. I'm such a geek, but I still like it. It only proved to further my dislike for the way we do things in the good 'ol U. S. of A. I need to figure out how they do University funding around here, cause if that's the only reason we don't get to have discussion groups at U of I and we could be doing it better I'll probably be a little angry. Although to be fair I saw a headline in an online paper from here that said that a university somewhere in England, I don't know where, was cutting it's HISTORY program. I mean TOTALLY cutting it. Like it's not gonna offer history degrees anymore because they don't have the budget for it. That may just be the saddest thing I've ever read. I was dumbfounded. Speechless - and we know that's rare. So clearly they have their problems here, too. Oh well. At least I get to have one discussion group (maybe two, who knows about next term) in my entire college career. I think this weekend one or two (or maybe a lot more, but you never really know) of the guys from M block and I are going to wander into town and just walk around. I'll probably be able to convince them to go with me and do a bunch of touristy stuff around here. I think it would be fun. And a few of them have expressed a bit of a desire to do that, too anyway. In any case, I think I'm going to go do some laundry. I'll talk at ya later.

Class!

2006-01-17T18:12:00.000-06:00

I had my first class today. The class I'm taking is called Luther and the Age of Reform. It seems like it will be a pretty entertaining subject. The class is set up as a "seminar" which means that there are about 15 of us, probably not more than that. We sit in a sort of conference-room setup, all in a square facing each other. The prof is pretty cool and seems like he'll be entertaining enough. The reading list is pretty intense, though, and could actually take up quite a bit of my time. Who do these people think they are?? I am really excited, honestly, to try this style of school - with one class to focus all my efforts on instead of 4 or 5 to think about. It seems like this is a much more efficient way to do school than the way we do back home. We'll see. The reading for each week is actually less than what I normally have back home, so I think the research for papers may actually be worth doing! It's going to be crazy to have time to put into papers so that, in my opinion at least, they might be worth reading at the end! Weird. Anyway, all in all things are going well. I might write more tomorrow as I have no classes and will probably get bored with reading after a while. For now, peace.

HOORAY!

2006-01-14T16:35:00.000-06:00

HOLY CRAP WE'RE GONNA WATCH ANCHORMAN TONIGHT!!!!!!

yes folks, that is indeed worthy of its own post.

(that's, i'm not even mad, that's amazing!)

talk talk talk

2006-01-13T19:09:00.000-06:00

Tonight was fun. We didn't do a whole lot, tried to go out but that was short lived just cause we were all kinda tired, so we came back here and watched dvds of the British show Spooks about the agency MI-5, sort of like the FBI for these guys. It's a surprisingly good show, too. But before all that was the interesting part. A few of us decided to make spaghetti bolonese (sp?) for dinner, which is to say that they asked if I would like some and I and two other guys mostly watched a girl cook it for us and then we all ate together. Good times. But while we were eating some of the folks from M Block that we hang out with came in and sat with us (pretty common around here, everybody just kinda congregates in whatever kitchen has a few people in it and we hang out there). After some small talk we started talking about some of the impressions and surprises regarding the Brits and States. I have no idea how that all got started, but soon enough we were talking about things like different accents in different places and perceptions of each others' countries. Then this girl from France who's pretty cool, but I can't for the life of me try to spell her name, came in. She's not doing a thing like me, she's here long term. I think she has travelled quite a bit, and she speaks like four different languages (not like any of the other French people I've met so far, but who's counting). She sat down and joined the conversation and then they (mostly she, but not totally) started asking me about the various major issues in America, being the war, the president, and gun control. A lot about the war and the president. One or two of the guys kept joking that I had the weight of the country on my shoulders with this "interrogation" but I was pretty ok with it. I know what I think and why I think it, and I'm not really shy about talking - as most of you know - so I had a good time with it. I think overall it was a pretty good time. I felt pretty good at the end of it, anyway, and I think for the most part we all kind of agreed...I think. It seems like some of them were not ok with anyone going into Iraq at all, for whatever reason, but actually I think the crowd was pretty split on that one. Most of us, but not all, agreed that the U.N. is inconsequencial, which kinda surprised me. Anyway, the long and the short of it is that I enjoyed my first conversation with real people about my views and others' views of the States from a more in-depth level and I don't think I offended too many people too badly. Of course, there is that quote I love so much that I can't ever remember word-for-word but it's something like: "If I have offended you it is only because I dare not, even in the interest of winning you, offend my God. And if I have not offended you, I have not spoken of my God." Not that the international policy of the U.S. is my God, but the point is that mildly offending people is not my main concern. Honesty is worth more than the fear of offense. I'll let you all know if they decide tomorrow to blackball me. I'm not losing sleep over it.

2006-01-13T08:34:00.000-06:00

For those of you wondering, yes, I will eventually be attending classes, but that won't start until next Tuesday. And those of you back at U of I might want to look away from the screen and scroll past my class schedule which will be as follows: Tuesday 1:15-3:15; Thursday 2:15-3:15. This semester should be rough with all THREE hours of class that I have. But I'm sure I'll make it through, don't you worry. I mentioned last time that we won the bar quiz, and I feel like I should tell you at least a little about the celebration that followed the next day. Since we won a 50 pound bar tab at some pub in town, we decided we should go in the next evening (Wednesday) to take care of it. You don't want things like that to go bad, you know. So it then became apparent (to some) that we ought to dress up like pirates when we went into town. Some of the folks in M Block went so far as to go to town early and buy pirate-y costumes and such. One guy made a treasure map that led the way (somewhat abstractly) to the bar - they stained it with tea bags so that it looked old and stuff, these guys are pretty witty. So we spent the better part of Wednesday night trapsing around the town of York dressed up as pirates - all 15 or 20 of us - and getting all kinds of comments from people we met. It may be worth mentioning that all, or most, of the people in M block are first year students, which kind of explains their craziness. I'm not sure how long I'll be able to keep up, to be honest, so stories like this may end up being a bit less common in the near future. We'll see.

While we were out the other night, someone was saying something about America, I'm not sure exactly what anymore, but it seemed like something about how great it was or something along those lines, but what they were excited about seemed to me to be not so great. So I went ahead and told them that in quite a few ways, America sucks. Sure, it's got its positive characteristics, and they may very well overshadow the negative (the jury's still out on that one, I think), but the negatives are certainly there. I think there were about four or five guys in on this conversation and I remember they all just looked at me in shock. Then they all were just like, "no, I love America. It's great. Sure, there are some idiots there, but they're everywhere. And aside from them, I think it's a fine place." So that made me feel a little better about where I come from. Turns out maybe only it's only the French that hate us so much. And I don't like cheese, as so many of you know, so I really have almost no need for France. It was a good evening, all in all.

Last night we stayed in and some of the girls made pancakes, really more like crapes, not the pancakes of America. They were pretty tasty, though. Then we proceeded to play games on the Nintendo gamecube (they have a gamecube and an x-box in the kitchen, we spend a fair amount of time in there). I'm interested if anyone back home has heard about this game they found recently, it's called Wario Ware or something like that. It is hands-down the strangest game I've ever seen. I can't even describe it, it's so bizarre. Most of the time I just sit and think about the outrageous amount of narcotics that absolutely had to go into the making of this game. So let me know if anyone knows about it, cause you should. It's fantastic.

Another thing I think is worthy of comment is the fact that all my thoughts are in a british accent. Ok, to clarify a little, I usually just have this running commentary going on in my head, like I'm talking to myself but without the insanity that accompanies that. Kinda like JD in Scrubs with the narration. I do that. Does anybody else? I hope so. Anyway, since I've been here and everyone around me talks with an accent, my thoughts are all in that accent. It's strange. Same thing when I read. All with the accent. Anyway...

That's all I've got so far, hopefully it's at least mildly entertaining. If it is, feel free to let me know how great I am. If it's not, keep it to yourself, nobody likes a nay-sayer. Later folks.

I'M A WINNER!

2006-01-11T06:04:00.000-06:00

Ok, so remember how I said yesterday (i think i said something about it) that we were going to do some weird quiz thing last night? Well, we did. We all trecked over to Derwent, somewhere across campus, I don't really know where because most of out walking around is done at night, not terribly helpful but whatever. So we went and it was a "bar quiz," essentially just a quiz game in a bar (you may remember from before that all the different colleges on campus have bars except James, where I live). They ask random pop-culture questions and weird semi-trivial-pursuit-questions and then you write down your team's answer on a paper and at the end you switch with a different team and grade the papers. The whole way there the kids were talking about how they never win, it's just fun to go to. And then, WE WON! It was very exciting. I mean come on, we won the bar quiz. So now we're really pumped about the quiz at Goodricke on Sunday. Apparently, we hate Goodricke - but I'm not totally sure why yet. So it would be a lot of fun to beat them. For winning we got a bunch of stuff: pizza, two (why two?) pints of some common beer around here, a bottle of horrible wine, a 24 pack of something kinda like smirnoff black or one of those drinks, and a £50 tab at a local pub in town. It seems like a lot of alcohol, but when we got back to M Block all the people we normally hang out with (on our flat and the flats above us) came down and ate and drank with us, so really we all pretty much had one drink and one piece of pizza each. But it was fun nonetheless! Today I'm going to venture into town, I think by myself just cause I'm too lazy to find someone who might want to go along and I'm kinda in a hurry, to take care of some random business. I'm sure it will be a learning experience. I might have internet by tonight, if all goes well today. No promises, but it's a distinct possibility. I really hope it happens, cause these lab computers are trash. Rubbish, if you will. Or even, dare I say, pants. That's right, I said it. (they have weird sayings over here, i'm pretty sure I don't get a lot of them) Well, that's all the excitement for now. Take care everybody. Oh, and for Jimmy, they do have Aldi over here and it is indeed still a very ghetto store, but it's probably one of the only ones I'll shop at while I'm here. HOORAY FOR ALDI!

2006-01-10T09:57:00.000-06:00

Ok, so this is pretty much the first time I've had internet since I got to York. I'm not sure why I just said "pretty much" becuae in point of fact it is the first time. But anyway, I don't even have it in my room yet, that's still an ordeal in the works, so I have to use this shady computer lab and let me tell you, there's not a dell in sight. Or a mac, for that matter, before you creepy mac-people get all excited. I'll give you all a quick (yeah right, who am I kidding?) run down of what's gone on since I got here.

On Sunday night, I got to the university around 6:30 or so and got into my room by about 6:45. York is set up in what they call colleges, which are essentially just areas of the campus. I'm in James college, which is one of the few if not the only one without its own pub. Kind of a downer, but I'm sure we'll deal with it. It's also kinda removed from campus a little bit, but not as much as some of the others. In fact, it's only about a five minute walk from where the History Department is, so it could be a lot worse. So within James college, there are several buildings of "dorms" if you will. They're separated inside by flats (floors), each of which has its own kitchen and in James, each room has its own bathroom. Lucky me. I was met at the door by two kids, John and Jenny, who saw me coming and let me in, showed me my room and invited me to the kitchen where everyone was. I dropped my stuff and went in to find about 10 people standing around; immediately someone said, very loudly, "everyone, this is joe." And then they all turned and looked at me...silence... I still don't know who it was that said that, but I should find them and thank them for that awkwardness. But everyone turned out to be very nice, even though I immediately forgot their names. I left then and tried to figure out how to make the internet work in my room. This is an ongoing process, as I mentioned earlier, so that first night was not terribly effective. When I got back I was pretty tired, so I just went to bed. The rest of the flat proceeded to play hide-and-seek outside, which was pretty entertaining for me to watch from my window as I fell asleep.
Then yesterday I met with the other U of I'ers here and we ran some errands and then walked to Aldi to get cheap food. I was surprised to find that the walk to Aldi passes through the pasture behind out barn back home (the "bottom ground", for you Quakers and siblings out there) - be sure to watch out for the manure...no, seriously, and then a perfectly randomly placed army base as well. It's a pretty scenic trip, I assure you. It all takes about 20 minutes or so. After walking all over the world and buying groceries, I got back to M-block (the building in James where I live) and was promptly invited out with the flat for half-off italian somewhere downtown York and then the possibility of a pub on the way back for the aforementioned John and Jenny's birthdays. I accepted and we (all 20 of us) had a pretty fun evening in which I asked them a lot of probably very stupid questions about conversational english here and things like that and then exposed them to my best southern drawl and the farmer walk (ang, you know what I'm talking about here). I think tonight we're going to go to some inter-collegiate quiz night thing in which different colleges are pitted against each other in a quiz game while, of course, downing as many cans of - you guessed it - whipped cream as they can. Yeah, sounds...interesting. Oh, and Clay, turns out "Bob's your uncle!" is a pretty common phrase here that means good job, and the guys told me that I would probably hear it a lot more often if they could only get a little more beer into themselves. We'll see what happens there.

So for now, that's all that's going on. I hope things are well there, and remember, Bob's your uncle.

joe

p.s. thanks for all the happy comments and emails, they're much appreciated.

Arrival

2006-01-06T18:21:00.000-06:00

Hello from Britain! Did you all know that back in the day, when the Brits with all the rest of Europe (mostly) was active in the slave trade, they wouldn't allow slaves onto the island because they actually claimed that the air in Britain was so special that no one could be enslaved and breath it? They said that as soon as said slaves breathed the air they would have to become free. Yeah, tell that to the surfs harvesting filth (Monty Python, anyone?). Anyway, on to only slightly less boring information. My flights were ok. We only pulled out of Chicago about a half-hour or forty minutes late, so I guess that's fun. I'm not sure exactly why it took that long, but they kept saying something about baggage loading and air traffic. Whatever. I didn't get a whole lot of sleep because there was some turbulance (sp?) and whenever that would happen and I would instictively think about us having hit a bump or something (having usually just finished forgetting that I was in an outrageously heavy peace of metal some 40,000 feet above the ocean) I would remember that if we hit a bump, we die. Then I'd be awake again. But fear not! I had the splendid company of Mark Wahlberg in 4 Brothers to keep me company. And then it was parts of Little Manhattan, In her Shoes, and it seems like there was another, but I can't really remember anymore. I didn't get a whole lot of reading done, much as I tried, just because I have a hard time concentrating when I'm on my way to a place I've never been before with no real known way to contact anyone, including those people I plan to meet upon arrival. Call me crazy. So that was fun. The little puddle-jumper we took from German to England was a real treat, too. I honestly wondered for a while if the pilot was just willing it to keep moving. But it did, and that's what's important. I pity the poor schmucks that flew on it next, cause I'm not sure it was up to the task beyond one or two more trips. When I got to London of course I immediately looked for a coffee shop in the airport. Actually, I did that even before I tried to contact Andy and Colleen (the friends with whom I'm staying while in London). That shouldn't really surprise anyone. Anyway, while I was trying to get some coffee I asked a nice young lady if she knew any place I could get online in the airport, she said she wasn't sure. Then we both stood there for maybe another 3-5 minutes before she asked me if I was waiting to get some coffee (she wasn't behind the counter, she was like a busser or something). I replied that I was, and she told me that I might want to go to the start of the line, not the place where you pick up your drink. I wished I could claim that I had just gotten into England and it was my first time out of the States, but I couldn't convince myself that she would believe we don't have beginnings and ends to lines in the States, so I just smiled and thanked her for the help. Then I went to Andy's and hung out with them last night and slept for a long time. Today I went downtown to get a train ticket to York for Sunday because all I could find online that was affordable was a trip that would have taken something like 14 hours. A little much for a trip of roughly 150 miles. I had a lot of success downtown and it was really fun, I even used one of those cool red phone booths just cause I thought it would be fun and I had Andy's number. Getting home was a bit rough, though. Andy told me directions to the bus stop, but I messed them up without knowing it on the way into town, so when I got back trying to find the house was a trip. I walked up and down the street I thought it was on a solid 4 or 5 towns for about 40 minutes before I walked back down to the High Street (what they call the main street in the borough - suburb - with all the shops and whatnot) to find a phone. All turned out alright in the end. It was a solid day, and Colleen even made cookies! Tomorrow we're going to head downtown again to do some sightseeing, which should be fun. Sorry this is so stinking long, for those of you who made it this far. Feel free to vent your frustrations in the comments. ;) Peace.

New Beginnings

2006-01-02T22:44:00.000-06:00

So this is the medium from which I will be communicating with most of my friends for the next six months or so. True to form, I think I'll just go ahead and start off by telling everyone who doesn't know yet about this new program I've found recently online called Skype (www.skype.com). IT ROCKS! It is an online phone system that's totally free and really easy to use and is of incredible sound quality. It is pretty much the best sounding phone call I've ever had. You all should get it. It rocks. So...anyway.... I think I'll just go ahead and talk a little about what's coming up. So right now it's Monday evening. (I just want everyone to know how hard it was for me to say that just now, cause all day I've thought it was Tuesday, and yesterday I thought it was Monday, so it's been a rough few days) Tomorrow I've got to finish up on some preparations and whatnot and do all my packing and then, of course, watch Scrubs. Then on Wednesday the Quakers (my parents, for those of you who aren't familiar) and I will venture up to Chi-town and I'll hop on a plane and sit restlessly for roughly 9 or so hours until I land in Frankfurt Germany. Then I'll chill for about 2 hours and fly for about an hour to London. I'll get there around 8:05 (you like that? I say "around," implying an abstraction, but then I said 8:05, which is pretty precise. I'm witty like that). Hopefully, when I get through customs and get my baggage and whatnot Andy will be there to help me find my way through the crazy metropolis that is London. It'll be pretty exciting, I'm sure. I really am just looking forward to being over there and getting things moving. The past few days have been pretty freakin' stressful just constantly trying to make sure that I haven't forgotten anything and that I'm getting all my stuff together and all that good stuff. It'll be nice just to be able to take a breath. Anyway, I think that this post pretty effectively displays my inability to really function and think clearly. It's getting pretty long and pointless, so I'm gonna call it quits. Peace out, ya'll.