Time for some routine maintenance

It has been about 10 years now since I last went to the doctor for a physical. I had been thinking of going for a while, but to be honest just never had the motivation to find a doctor (my last doctor of record was a pediatrician, which doesn't work now that I'm 26) and make an appointment. In fairness, I did call a doctor a year or so ago to make an appointment for a physical, but the computer at the doctor's office was down and they couldn't make appointments, and I never called back. My company changed health plans as of this past July (we're on a July 1 - June 30 fiscal year) and the new plans include a routine physical that's 100% covered by the plan every 3 years if you're under 30 and annually after 30 with a company called Executive Health Exams. I'm not sure why I decided to make an appointment now (maybe it was the easy web-based appointment process), but I'm scheduled for 11am today. According to my friends who have done the physical with this group already, I'm in for 2-3 hours of poking, prodding and testing. Here's the list of what they're going to do to me today:

• Complete review of medical history and physical exam (the poking and prodding bit).
• Blood tests: cholesterol screening, complete blood count, metabolic profile, iron saturation and blood chemistry.
• Urinalysis (note to self, drink lots of water before the appointment)
• Audiometric evaluation
• Vision assessment
• Tonometry (glaucoma) test
• Spirometry test (lung function)
• Resting EKG
• Chest X-ray (if deemed medically necessary)

Now I am grateful that my company is picking up such an extensive physical exam program, even though I know they're doing it to try and reduce healthcare costs by detecting problems early. I'm interested to see what the doctors find, and hope it's more than just the typical: "try to lose weight, exercise more and reduce stress." What was stupid of me was scheduling the appointment for late in the morning, since I can't have anything to eat after dinner the night before (stupid blood tests). So basically here's the situation: I haven't had anything to eat since 7:30 last night, and won't have anything to eat until about 2pm this afternoon. Add to that the poking and prodding, and this is not going to be a happy day.

This is the world we live in

This past Thursday I was scheduled to go to Washington DC for a meeting. I was planning to take the Delta Shuttle since it's the fastest way to get down there. On Wednesday afternoon I decided to check the weather report, and saw they were predicting storms for Thursday afternoon. Since both LaGuardia and Reagan National have a tendency to delay flights even at the mere mention of bad weather, I thought I'd play it safe and switch my travel plans to take the Acela instead of the shuttle. When I woke up Thursday morning and turned on the news, I was very glad I made that decision. Is it just me or is the world becoming more crazy on a day to day basis. It seems like over the past five years things have been spiraling out of control, from 9/11 to Madrid, Bali and London. Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea and now Israel-Lebanon. Kind of makes me long for the good old days of the Cold War. Now I wasn't alive during the 60s at the height of the fears of nuclear war, but by the 80s, things had pretty much settled down into a pretty stable pattern. Now I don't know, but it seems like everything's going to hell. On a personal note, I fly pretty often for work, so I definitely took notice of this latest threat. What's strange is I'm less concerned about the possibility of being on a plane that's attacked (although that's definitely in the back of my mind), but more about the increased hassle of flying. In response to the threat, they've prohibited liquids on planes and have instituted secondary security checks at the departure gate. There have been bombs in suitcases, bombs in shoes, and now liquid bombs. Where does it end?

Time to buy a new car - UPDATE

Well, I did it this weekend. And actually the car salesman wasn't too bad. Other than some expected and typical sales lines ("What's it gonna take for me to get you into a new car today?", "Well, I'll tell you...[looks around the showroom]...I just want to make sure my manager doesn't hear me tell you this, but..."), the guy was ok. He did get a little ahead of himself and started to work up numbers before I had even test drove the car, but overall a pretty pleasant experience. They even called a few different finance companies to see which would offer the best deal on the car (which the Acura dealer I got my last car from didn't do). At the end of the day, I'll still owe the finance company a few grand in mileage penalties on the last lease, but managed to get the new one at invoice price. Actually it didn't take much arm twisting to convince me to get the new car after driving it. I've also driven the BMW 3-series and Audi A4, but like the Acura better. The 3-series is a little smaller and feels cramped, and I've heard horror stories about the reliability of Audi's (not to mention they're also a little small on the inside). Overall I'm very happy with the new car, and now just need to pick a name for her. All suggestions are welcome.

What do you mean we're lost? UPDATE

The charge for this car trip just showed up on my AMEX: $200. Normally a car from JFK to my apartment is like $115. I am really not happy. My assistant has called the car service to complain, but so far no call back. I've told her if they don't reduce the fare to a reasonable level, to tell them I will never use them again. Since I spend close to $1,000 a month on car services, this is not an empty threat. More to come...

People make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.

FinanceBoy angry. FinanceBoy SMASH. Let me clarify, not all people make me angry. It's really just a few...and they've usually done something to deserve it. Yesterday I encountered two people that made me angry. First was the jackass on the plane (soon to be the sequel to Snakes on a Plane) that was sitting in front of me and decided to use his PSP at full volume. Without headphones. Now thankfully my Bose noise-cancelling headphones drowned this out for most of the flight, so I didn't say anything to this guy. Also, he was a large and grumpy townie-looking fellow, and I really didn't feel like starting a ruckus in-flight. Speaking of the flight, that leads to the second person that made me angry yesterday, but first some back story.

I had a meeting in Chicago yesterday, so I was flying out and back in the same day. Needless to say it would be a long day since I had a 6:30am flight, and was booked on the 7:30pm return (which would get me into Newark at 10:30pm). So when my meeting ended a little early, I asked my assistant to see if she could get me on an earlier flight home. She is a godsend and got me on the 6:05pm flight home. I sit in Chicago Friday-evening traffic (which is bad) and get to the airport at about 5:15. When I check in, I am told that my flight has been delayed an hour. I get to the security checkpoint and there is a long line. For once the planets are aligned and I was randomly selected for the secondary security screening. Normally this would not be good, but it means that I get to skip the long line and end up getting through security quicker. We board and push back at 7:05. As we are taxiing to the runway, we pull off to the side and I hear the engines power down. This is never a good sign. A second later the pilot gets on the intercom and announces that we're being held for another 30 minutes. He explains that there were storms that moved through Newark earlier that afternoon and it's caused all sorts of air traffic delays. I'm not happy, but understand that the Newark-New York airspace is some of the most crowded in the world, so a storm can really mess things up for several hours after the storms have passed. I continue reading my book and we take off as promised at 7:45. When I get to Newark, my driver is waiting (NB: same car service as the Lost story, but this guy knew how to get to Bridgewater) and as we walk to the car I ask about the storms, since it seems just as hot as before I left. Driver's response: "We didn't get any storms here." THE PILOT LIED TO US! The weather was clear in Chicago, clear in New York, yet he blamed the 90 minutes of delays on weather!

Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky.

Time to buy a new car

The lease on my car ends on Sept. 4, so its time for me to start considering options for my next car. With a lease, it should be pretty easy: give them back their car and get a new one. Well, here's the catch - due to some unforeseen client assignments (before I became a management type and started working in NYC) and a 5 month relocation to Washington DC a few summers ago, I'm a bit over my mileage allowance. By a bit over I mean about 18,000 miles over. This translates into about $2700 in mileage penalties. Here's the other catch - interest rates have gone up a bit since 2002 when I got my current car (an Acura TL Type-S), so the monthly payment for a new version of the same car will go up about $200. Now that I work in the city, it's hard to justify paying $550 a month for a car that I drive 15 minutes a day. Especially when I have to pay $300/month on top of that for a train pass. So basically I need to sit down with my friendly local Acura dealer on Saturday to see what I can work out because on the other hand I'd really like a new car. Don't get me wrong, I really like my current car, but I get bored very quickly and feel like its time for a new car. The irony is that by "new" car, I mean a new TL, but it has been completely redesigned since I got mine and no longer looks like an overpriced Honda Accord. I've also looked at other cars (BMW 3-series, Infiniti G35 coupe, Audi A4), but the BMW is very overpriced (for the same features as a TL, it would cost about $10,000 more), and I know people who've had problems with the Infiniti and Audi. Everyone I know with a TL loves it, myself included. So there is some method to my madness.

Now I think the comic Ron White summed it up best when he said "the worst part about buying a new car is that you have to talk to a car salesman....nobody else sells cars." I am not really looking forward to dealing with the salesman, but it's got to be done. I'll be sure to give you the update this weekend.