when honesty is not (always)the best policy:

at the start of the month, i applied for medical insurance not through my place of work. the rate was $56.85/month, which i guess is better...about half the monthly cost of what i had been paying.

i answered all the questions 'correctly:' no major family illnesses that i know of, no surgeries in the last 10 years, non-smoker, recreational drinker. (there weren't any questions about how many push-ups i can do, thankfully.) then we got to the more-specific portion, where i was asked to report any tobacco use in the last eight years or something.

"i don't smoke," i thought, "but i have smoked." so i wrote down "less than 1 cigarette/month." couldn't be a problem, right? no way that "less than 1 cigarette/month" could affect my insurance rate, right?

wrong, of course. on friday, my insurance agent emailed me to let me know that a quarterly payment of 240 was due, due to the fact that my insurer had listed me as a 'tobacco user.'

how to deal with this?

trade approximately six messages with my insurance agent. get the number of the corporate office of my insurer. ask why i'm registered as a tobacco user, when clearly i don't use tobacco to the point where it affects my health. i then glean from her the crucial fact that 'any tobacco use within the last year' affects one's insurance rate.

'how can i change this?' the customer service person.
'the only way would be to resubmit your application.'

so, consider it done. i went back to my insurance agent, we submitted an amendment stating that answer to 28a as 'have not used tobacco since graduating college in 2002' (smooth lie, no?), and now i'm waiting for a response.

a conditional policy has been granted. i'm going to the eye doctor on tuesday afternoon, which could lead to a new report.

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i made modified rud chili this evening, modifying it by using more tomatoes and no tomato juice, and also modifying by harper-izing it (which is to say, serving it over pasta).

modified rud chili is a fine product, but a fine product that requires the used of numerous canned products. my can opener, which has had good and bad days in the past, had a very bad day this evening. in fact, it had an essentially non-functional day.

with rud chili on the menu and no other immediately available options, this made things difficult. using a knife (a gift from grandma last week), i actually sawed through the side of the can. sawed for quite a fair amount of time, then used a spoon and my hands (buffered with a dish cloth) to pry it open to the point where beans or tomatoes could fine their way out. in some instances, i made some headway with the can opener, and pried the top open.

it worked out, although i wouldn't recommend it.

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very drinky weekend. hungover twice the same weekend for the first time in a long, long time. i made it up by about 10:30 sunday morning, after being out from about 6:30 to 1. made it up at about 1 on saturday morning, after going out from 5:15 until 1. good time had by all, although it's not necessarily recommended, again.

still, the company (work folk both nights) was nice enough. coworker had a fine birthday on friday, and our team finished eighth of 38 at some sort of trivia contest saturday.

which four seas are named for colors? black, red, white (!), yellow (!).

which is the only u.s. state without a straight line among its borders? hawaii.

which four st. louis cardinals won gold gloves in 2002? edmonds (duh). renteria (sort of duh). rolen (he was there?). vina (what the !?). not matheny (03 and 04). not tino martinez (03). sigh.