1959 Pontiac Catalina

December 20, 2012 Timothy Price3 Comments

A storm rolled through today, dropping the temperature signficantly. The Sandias were mostly covered in clouds this morning, while the clouds were breaking up to the north over the Jemez. By noon, when I photographed the 1959 Pontiac Catalina parked on the street, the clouds had been cleared out by a cold, biting wind.

After falling in trenches in the dark and tripping over piles dirt for the past three weeks, PNM finally connected power to the new pole Hammack Electric set for our electrical service upgrade, and installed a new meter on the pole. That allowed them to remove the meter from the well and disconnect the power lines to the pole at the well, as well. So the first phase is done, which moved the meter from the well to the new service pole. The next phase will be connecting the house to the sub-panel Hammack installed on the west side of the house, and then we can have the power disconnected from the pole that currently feeds the house, have all the overhead power lines to the house removed, and take down two power poles. In the end we will have consolidated two electrical services into one, and provided enough power for a new HVAC system, which needs more power than we had, requiring the service upgrade. Hammack won’t be able to connect the house to the new service until January, so we will now wait until late spring or early summer before we have the new HVAC installed. We started on the service upgrade back in September, but figuring out how best to do the upgrade and getting all the permits took until the end of November. Hammack set the new pole the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, then dug tenches to the well and sub-panel, ran the wires, the following Tuesday, but the had to leave the trenches open for the inspectors, and PNM. Now that the new service is on-line, and the trenches are filled in, we should be able to walk to and from the cars without twisting our ankles or getting our shoes full of dirt. However, Laurie said that having gotten used to negotiating trenches and piles of dirt, she twisted her ankle and got her shoes full of dirt on the freshly backfilled trenches tonight.

No Molasses? Really?

December 19, 2012 Timothy Price3 Comments

One my way home tonight, I noticed a car dealer had the emergency flashers blinking on alternating cars on the lot. I suppose it is was supposed to be festive looking, but I was just trying to get by it before it sent other drivers into epileptic seizures. The old uncovered, covered wagon with lights on it is much more creative and festive. The traffic was as thick as molasses tonight, unlike the morning traffic which was surprisingly light when I photographed the hazy mountains. Speaking of molasses, Laurie said she couldn’t find any in Walmart, and when she went to ask the floor clerk, the clerk was deaf, and Laurie didn’t know how to “sign” molasses. I told her I thought that making a rodent face and pointing at her butt might have sufficed to get the idea, but alas, neither mole asses or molasses were to be had. Stretch was in a state of disbelief when he heard they didn’t have mole asses as he thought they would go well in his idea for almond, watermelon cookies — Stretch is quite the gourmet for a cat. While on the subject of cat food, I can understand that flavors like chicken and gourmet beef, seafood, etc. are cat foods that people can stomach buying; but I really think they should make cat food in rodent, bird and reptile flavors, flavors that cats would really go for. The cat food makers could get clever and give the cat food names that people could deal with more easily like Mole Ass Mole, Rotisserie Robin, Mouse Mousse, Rodent Ratatouille, Lizard Linguise and so on. Back to the molasses melodrama, Laurie found some organic molasses on the way home tonight that Stretch is happy with, and the almond, watermelon cookies look cute with the little tails sticking out.

No PETs Allowed

December 13, 2012December 13, 2012 Timothy Price6 Comments

12/12/12 didn’t mark the end of the world, but it has marked the beginning of the end the great health insurance policy I have. Just as I figured, people with individual health insurance policies like mine get screwed by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). I’ve had my health care plan for over 10 years now, and It’s provided great coverage at a very affordable price, and, up until today, my insurance company had never denied a procedure.

My six month PET scan was scheduled for tomorrow, but the insurance denied covering the PET scan, and approved a CT scan instead. I got a letter from the insurance company yesterday authorizing the CT san, so I called the Cancer Center to see what was going on — it turned out the doctor who is standing in for my oncologist while she is on sabbatical hadn’t yet found out that the PET scan had been denied. So I was transferred to the receptionist in Radiology who explained that when the denial came in, the doctor on call cancelled the PET scan so I would not be liable for a $9000 procedure, and scheduled the CT scan. My new doctor was out of town, so he hadn’t learned about what happened.

Here’s the issue: if I did a CT scan it would show I have a bunch of tumors. The tumors are dead, killed by the chemotherapy I finished two years ago, but the CT scan will not show if there is any new, cancer-like activity; whereas a PET scan will show if there are any “hot spots” that could be cancerous. The doctor did say that the radiologist can use a CT scan to measure and compare lymph nodes from my previous PET scan, but he went on to say that I should have symptoms and the blood work would probably indicate if there were issues with lymph nodes having significant growth over the past six months. My blood work was normal, and I currently don’t have any symptoms to speak of.

The doctor called my insurance company this morning and argued for a PET scan, but they held firm in their denial. With the new rules that require insurance companies to use something like 80% of the premiums on patient care and other changes coming into effect from the PPACA, my insurance company changed its policy to only cover one PET scan a year, once a patient has gone two years from being diagnosed with cancer and successfully treated. But they will authorize CT scans since they are much cheaper than PET scans, and argue that CT scans are sufficient preventative procedures. In my case a CT scan is more of a problem than a preventative procedure, so we cancelled the CT scan, and we will see what the doctor can negotiate in January, since it’s a new calendar year.

The lead photo is one of the images from my PET scan done on this day last year. The second photo is the Rail Runner streaking by at the Alameda crossing, and the third photo is a car covered with Christmas lights speeding up Paseo Del Norte throwing off square roots of light.

Two Flags Tuesday

November 28, 2012 Timothy PriceLeave a comment

Here are a few more photos from our trip to and from T or C last Friday. The flags were at a rest stop on I-25, and I took the sunset and view through the windshield of our Mazda Speed 3 from the back seat. We decided it was safer for Laurie to drive until dark, otherwise, I would have probably taken some of these photos while I was driving.

Hi-Ho Silver

November 26, 2012 Timothy Price3 Comments

Does anyone remember the Lone Ranger? For some reason this couple reminded me of the show. The sun had set when I did the first two photos, so the light, softness, and color from the slow exposure and wide-open aperture gave the photos a real western movie look. The photo of the cyclists were taken after sunset as well, but I added effects to that photo. An old car pulled up next to me at the light while I was on may way to Lowe’s and when I pulled out of the carwash, I got mooned by a droopy-pants’d kid working on his car. All together, I ended up with a somewhat disparate, short history of transportation in the photo series.

One the subject of droopy-pants, I cannot comprehend why young people want to wear their pants below the butt-lines, half falling off — other than to bother people. When I was in my early teens, I was 6’2″ tall, had a 26″ waist and a 36″ inseam. It was impossible to get pants that fit, so I either had to be 40 years ahead of my time wearing pants that were falling down all the time and getting called names like “baggy butt” and “saggy pants.” Or be 40 years ahead of my time wear pants that fit my waist but were way too short in the legs — I got teased for wearing “high waters”, “expecting a flood”, etc. for the long shorts. If I had been as far-sighted as my legs were long back then, I would have copyrighted and patented both the baggy pants and shorts that ended mid-calf. But who would have thought in the late 60’s and early 70’s that such uncomfortable, awkward and stupid looking clothes would become all the rage? We had Star Trek and the Jetsons showing us fashions of the future, and none of it rode below their butt-lines.

The Duke

November 14, 2012 Timothy Price1 Comment

When you think of icons and landmarks you can’t get much better than the painting of the Duke in the Frontier Restaurant across from UNM’s new School of Architecture Building on Route 66 in the Duke City. John Wayne stares, from his large portrait hanging on a south wall in the Frontier, straight out north windows at the new Architecture building across Central Ave (Old Route 66). While I was waiting to cross Central on my way to the Frontier, I heard engines roaring and tires squealing and zoomed my lens toward Girard to capture either a car chase or car race on Old Route 66. One of my clients thinks I need to make another edition of my photo book Route 66 Albuquerque’s Central Avenue After Dark and include images like these. He thinks the book is incomplete without a photo of the painting of the Duke in the Frontier and a photo of the School of Architecture Building at night.