Thoughtful Friday: Pain in my...Ribs Edition

24 Jul

Thoughtful Friday: Pain in my…Ribs Edition

Posted in Thoughtful Thursday by Roger No Comments

Well, it’s time again to gather up some of the more interesting posts on the interwebs for a feature I like to call, Thoughtful Thursday Friday! If you recall from yesterday (oh please, it was only a day ago; you can’t have forgotten that soon), I’ve been doing a lot of traveling this week. I’m not a big fan of traveling, especially when it involves me driving a total of twenty-four hours in the course of this week, just going from my fiancee’s house to my mother’s house and back, twice. (Yes, you heard that right: I’m going to spend the equivalent of a full solar day in the car this week to complete two round trips from one end of the state to the other.)

To add to my aggravation, I had an appointment with my doctor this afternoon to see if my ribs or any of the underlying organs were seriously damaged during my fall. She didn’t think there was any problem (her comments amounted to, ‘if you’re still moving around alright and haven’t been vomiting blood all this past week, you probably aren’t seriously hurt), but she decided to send me in for a few tests anyway. I ended up getting lost on the way to the hospital, missing the appointment her nurse got for me, going to the emergency room to get my CAT scan, and waiting in the waiting room for over two hours because she wrote out the prescription wrong. (During the two hours, the emergency room staff were playing phone tag with my doctor’s office.) Eventually, because my doctor could not be reached, I was sent home without getting the CAT scan (although, the tech at the hospital concurred with my doctor: with no more serious symptom than a few bruised ribs, I was unlikely to be in any health danger.) All I can say is I can’t wait for digital health records to be commonplace; hopefully, being able to store and send my health information digitally could have prevented me losing so much time over a single missing word on a prescription.

But, I’m still trying to stay optimistic; the job interview I had today went pretty well (PeTA ended up causing my would-be employers to laugh), and I should be able to go back to stay with my loving girl (although, if I get this job, I’ll have to move out, yet again). Plus, it’s that time of the week to catch up on some of the good posts that have appeared on the personal finance blogs:

Carnival of Personal Finance #214: United States Presidents Edition – I normally don’t mention carnivals on my Thoughtful Thursday posts; they are typically just a collection of links (not enough of which lead back to me), frequently presented without much thought or flare. In this case, however, Stephanie of Poorer than You has gone to the trouble of matching each submission up to one of the past (or current) US Presidents, including putting up the official Presidential portrait of each one. In short, this is a carnival as carnivals should be; go and support Miss Stephanie, and hopefully we can more beautiful looking carnivals like this in the future.

How Do You Want to Pay Taxes? – An interesting question posted by the Weaknomist. Besides the obvious answers (Never, or if that’s not possible, as infrequently and as cheaply as possible), there’s a range of possibilities from a sales tax to an income tax to a hybrid system like we currently have. Personally, I’d prefer consumption taxes (like a sales tax) over income taxes if possible, with refunds or other mechanisms to keep the system as progressive as we can make it. But that’s just me.

Going Green: Costs Big Bucks, Returns Big Bucks – One of the biggest problems with going green (now that you are no longer automatically assumed to be a tree hugging ultra-vegetarian commune dweller for even bringing up the concept) is the sometimes large up-front costs you pay. On My Life ROI, such costs are considered with an eye towards the money you could save by, say, suppling part of your electricity with solar panels or meeting LEED standards for energy efficiency. Luckily for the would-be greenie, the large upfront costs can (usually) be made up with energy savings in the future, although you’ll have to consider your specific situation to see if this is right for you.

Checklist for College Freshmen: Dorm Room Essentials – A little bit of nostalgia for me, I suppose, thinking back to my college days. Studenomics provides a list of things that an incoming freshman should bring, from hangers to sandals. Take away the coffee maker, add in an alarm clock, clothing, bedding, and toiletries, and his list matches my supplies, and freshman year went pretty smoothly for me.

Oakland Almost Stumbles on California’s Budget Fix – Taxing medicinal marijuana. As reported on Lazy Man and Money, Oakland has recently decided to start taxing medical marijuana to bring in increased revenue. This led to a discussion of whether legalizing pot would be a good thing, economically and societally. I generally think it would be; legalization, monitoring, and taxing just makes more sense to me than the government spending money to prevent people from purchasing a good they want to acquire. Of course, without having any independent research at my disposal to prove that in one way or the other, this is more a statement of my general feelings than a legitimate political platform.

Carnivals/Round Ups where I am featured:

The 99th Edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance, hosted by The Skilled Investor, featured my column Risk Management Strategies

Weakonomics Links: Management or Egoeconomics, a round up by the Weakonomist, featured my column The Tragedy of the Commons

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