From the Gospel of Matthew:  

6: 25 ¶ Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
29 and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
34 ¶ Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

 I love these verses.  It is so important for us to keep the commandments of God so that we can live with faith that He will bless us according to our needs.  In our stake (just a small area in our town), during the month of February, over 40 families went unemployed (that they knew of).  It is not uncommon to drive in any neighborhood and see homes being forclosed.  With the struggles my company is having and based on the economy in general, I was impressed stronger than ever this weekend to get our food storage ready, our costs lowered, and save as much as we can, while we can.  I know that as we keep the commandments of God, we will be blessed, and I have faith that everything will be okay in the end.  Because of this faith, I know we can continue to live happily, even looking oncoming struggles in the eye.

Somebody has got to do something about the cost of health care!  I injured a toe in basketball last month, bad enough that I had to go to the after hours insta-care.  They had signs all over the place touting their "$60 flat rate for all services."  I asked the receptionist about it.  "Its only for those without insurance."

"Ok, well I don't want to be fraudulent, plus my insurance will cover this and I'll just have to pay a copay," I thought.  Boy was I wrong.  My insurance is trying everything to not cover it.  The bill is for $550!  I received a denial of claim letter pending further investigation.  I had to fill out a form explaining all the details, and they still wanted more.  For some reason, they thought the injury must have been a workplace injury or car accident.  "Retards"  I thought to myself. 

Anyways, I am sure that they will end up covering it so at least it will go towards my deductible this year, but all in all, I would much rather go the $60 route!  Maybe I should stop paying the hundreds of dollars a month and just pay $60 for each visit.  I guarantee we don't see the doctor enough to make insurance worth it!

I'll have to look into the $60 fee a little more, because if we really can see the doctor and have all the services and stuff paid for $60, there is no reason to have insurance that I pay $600 a month for!  I suspect the insta care is being sleasy though and its just $60 for a doctors visit and you have to pay for extra services on top of that... 

The economy sucks.  Everyone knows that.  It seems like everyone knows someone close to them that has been laid off.  It is a scary time in America!

I read a column in the paper today that shows just how bad it really is.  Who would have thought 10 years ago that a fast food restaurant would have thousands of people lined up to submit applications, many of them willing to take ANY job.  Here is a portion of the article, which was published in the Las Vegas Sun, Dec. 17, 2008:

"

...meaning that by day’s end close to 1,000 will have applied for no more than 50 $10-an-hour jobs at an In-N-Out restaurant opening at Tropicana Avenue and Tee Pee Lane.

Some wore ties. Some wore their pants too low. Some were balding. Some owed two months of mortgage payments. Some spoke openly of suicide. Some asked this reporter for a job. Some asked the manager at the hotel hosting the event for a job.

Of the crowd, Blande Pittman, regional division manager for the chain, flatly observed, “We expected a high turnout, because of the economy and all.”

But Sharell Hewlett, who will be one of the managers of the new restaurant and had the front line job of handing out applications, said she found the range of applicants, from teens to retirement age, “incredible.”

"

I have been following an auction by the FCC for some time now (I thought Google would have it by now...) but I am still excited about it.  Basically, the FCC is auctioning off a huge chunk of airwaves and mandating that the winning bidder set aside a quarter of the airwaves for FREE INTERNET with pornography filters.  The FCC will allow the winner to create a subscription service with higher speeds, but the lower speeds will all be free and smut free!  I like the idea.  I hope Google picks it up.  I would not mind free garbage free internet in the home! 

For more about this, visit the Wall Street Journal article here:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122809560499668087.html

I am having a great time at the company that I work for, checkMD.  I finally am doing the type of work I have always wanted to do: web and database programming.  At the end of my second day, when I completely lost track of time because I was enjoying myself, I thought to myself, "This is awesome."

CheckMD is a website that is going to change the way healthcare websites work.  It has more information on physicians and hospitals than other healthcare websites, and we are going to let the physicians themselves own a portion of the site to communicate with their patients.  Our goal is to promote good physicians and hospitals to eventually improve the quality of healthcare in this country. 

Check out the site at http://www.checkmd.com, recommend your physicians and hospitals, and help us get this going!