Viget Labs, Facing South Maple Avenue

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I also posted a quick time lapse video from yesterday when the storm was just getting started.  I’ll try to post some more videos later.

My oldest daughter’s birthday is in early September.  The Commonwealth of Virginia requires her to be immunized against certain diseases before they will let her attend public school.  Our insurance company will not allow my daughter to have a checkup within 365 days of her last one.  This gets us into a situation where school is starting, she needs some shots, but we can’t take her in to the see the doctor.

Our pediatrician understands this situation and had our daughter come in and get shots from the nurse.  Problem solved!

Well, now the insurance company is saying that they’ll cover the cost of the shots but not the nurse’s visit.  If she had been seen by a doctor they claim it would have been covered (I’m not sure that it is true because of the 365 days thing - but I’m pretty sure the person on the phone wouldn’t be able to figure that out).  Because the doctor tried to save everyone money by having the shots given by a nurse (actually, the nurse always gives the shots - it’s just that the doctor didn’t stop by to check on my daughter during this visit), we end up on the hook for part of the cost (which is only $37 - almost not worth arguing over).

The best part is the amount of overhead involved: our doctor submitting the claim, the claim being reviewed and partially rejected by the insurance company, the insurance company sending me a letter about it, me writing a letter in response, the insurance company reviewing my letter and then spending 15 minutes on the phone explaining it to me and then writing up the conversation and sending me another letter.  And, it could get worse.  I suggested to the insurance person that maybe the doctor did actually stick her head in to see my kid and so I might have the doctor’s office file again - the insurance person thought that would be a good idea (wink, wink).  So, here comes more overhead - I’ll call the doctor’s office, they’ll file another claim to the insurance company, the insurance company will review it and (maybe) send the doctor’s office a check (for a lot more than the $37 that they would have paid the first time around).

Just because I save $37 from this whole mess doesn’t make me happy.  I’m sure I end up paying for it in the long run - the cost of insurance is jacked up 15-20% every year.

It seems to me that the government is trying to figure out who should pay for health care… but what they need to do is figure out how to make the entire health care industry 100 times more efficient.  If you do that then figuring out who pays for it becomes a lot easier.

Last night’s meeting covered a variety of topics.  The meeting got started by completing the switch to David Tarter as the Chairman - an issue that was raised at the end of the last meeting.

The first topic of the meeting was a grant for Falls Church Arts and Creative Cauldron - the two groups that are working together to build the art center located in the Pearson Square development.  They have some funds from the developer and some funds from the City but they need more.  The buildout costs are estimated at $300,000 (which for about 3000 square feet seems high to me - but maybe theaters are more expensive to build out than other spaces).  I’m not aware of the details but it sounds like the City Council is working to get them some more money but they’re also hoping to get $15,000 - $25,000 from the EDA.

The EDA approved a grant for $15,000 and it sounded like Falls Church Arts and Creative Cauldron might come back in the future looking for another grant to help promote the center.

I certainly think having a small theater in that location is a good idea.  The City is starting to build up a pretty good collection of nice restaurants but there aren’t as many options for things to do before or after dinner - and this arts center could be a perfect fit.  I do worry about parking though.

Next on the agenda, we heard about the City’s plan to make it much harder for car dealers (new, used, rentals) to locate in the city.  Apparently neighboring jurisdictions have already made it hard in their areas, and car lots are very low revenue for the City (for a variety of reasons).  It seems like a no-brainer and I expect the City Council will pass the measure soon - and the EDA supported it.

One related thing that came up was if or when these kinds of changes would impact existing car businesses.  It sounds like in the long run it would be nice to replace car lots with more revenue generating businesses - but I think we should be careful.  I don’t know the history but Don Beyer seems to be a big supporter of the city and I’m not sure it would be right to try and force him out.  It sounds like if anything like that were to happen it wouldn’t be anytime soon.

There was a lot of discussion about the plan to get a BJ’s Warehouse located on the edge of the city.  It’s a complex deal with pros and cons and the general sentiment seems to be that getting something like a BJ’s in there isn’t ideal but pretty sweet considering the current market.  I think I’d be more opposed to it if they were looking at any other location in the City but the little strip where BJ’s would be seems like a decent fit for something like that.

The only other major thing that came up during the meeting was the idea of hiring a consultant to really help with planning and establishing a clear vision for how we want future development in the City to go.  I’m too new to things to totally understand how all the parts work together but I gather that there’s a big overhaul of the zoning laws going on right now (about a year into a two year process was what I heard) - and that’s the primary mode for guiding development over time.  My impression is that all of these things have to be looked at with a pretty large time-frame in mind - you can’t change most things overnight.

Anyway, the meeting was a bit longer than I wanted (wanted to get home to watch the returns) but it was interesting to see a little bit of how City business is conducted.  I hope to stay involved with the EDA and offer my perspective on things as a resident and business owner in the City.

The software update that came out several weeks ago really helped the battery life. At least it seems to me to be much, much better. I suspect the engineers managed to optimize the GPS, Wifi radio, or something. Who knows what they did - I’m just happy I don’t have to charge the thing as often. (I suppose I’ve also gotten in the habit of charging it more frequently - so maybe some of the improvements are due to changes in my habits.)

On the negative side, it seems like the device gets sluggish more frequently and I’ve had it totally freeze and reboot a few times. I guess that’s pretty much the case with all computers but it always seems to happen at the most inconvenient times.

The phone generally reports better coverage (more bars) than it did before the software update but I have seen no change in actual call performance. I guess I don’t understand the point of the bars if I can’t place or receive a call when the phone is reporting 3 bars. I pretty much ignore the bars.

There are a handful of apps I use and I’m always trying out new ones. Maybe I’ll try to start a regular series of simple reviews of the iPhone apps that I use or have tried. Maybe. (It’s an original idea, don’t you think?)

Finally, the more I use my iPhone the more it drives me insane that I can’t sync my podcasts over the air. Sure, I can hook the phone into my computer and sync but why can’t I just sink over Wifi? I know they’re scared of bandwidth intensive activities over the 3G network - so limit me to doing it over Wifi (I doubt I’d wait around for it to happen over 3G anyway). Plus, not that I’ve tried, but can’t you buy some songs over the air with the iPhone iTunes application? Why not podcasts! Grrrr.

One of the things that came up at the meeting was whether or not Falls Church could/should try to be branded as a “green” city or maybe even “the most green city around” - which would be fine by me. It’s an interesting idea and one I think I’ll start talking about.

Over on the Blueweeds blog, Bob recently posted about a recent US Conference of Mayors report which looked at “Green Jobs” and how it’s a growing industry. This report was mentioned at the EDA meeting and it does seem like a potential opportunity for Falls Church.

The city is small - which I think works to our advantage because it might make it easier (or at least less costly) to implement green initiatives than it would be in a larger city. I haven’t done any surveys but it seems like the people who live here are the kinds of folks who might identify with an initiative like this.

My next-door neighbor developed most of the houses on our little street about 20 years ago. He tells me that in several of them he installed geothermal heat pumps and that the current residents have greatly reduced utility bills. That’s great!

I also think the city’s recent switch to single stream recycling is cutting edge and very green. I wonder if anyone has ever looked into a food waste recycling program (like they have in Berkeley)?

This push to come up with a more defined brand for the city is just getting started so I’m sure it will be a while before anything is settled - but I’m certainly into the idea of becoming the Green City of Falls Church.

It’s also known as a reverse solidus, oblique, slosh, hack, escape, reverse slash, backslant, backwhack, bash, reverse slant, reversed virgule, or backslat.

This, which is somewhat similar, is a forward slash: /

If you’re reading this in a web browser look up at the URL.  It is full of forward slashes.  Not a backslash to be found, right?

While working my way through the HP phone support system the recorded message instructed me to go to a URL with a bunch of backslashes in it - gives me a lot of confidence that they’ll be able to help me.

(Okay, I know I’m overreacting.  I’m a slash snob.  I shouldn’t judge people on their lack of knowledge when it comes to back and forward slashes.)

Well, I’ve been there, done that back in the day with Riya and I wasn’t impressed. So I was skeptical of Google being able to provide this service (something I think would be really useful).

I’ve had a chance to try out the face recognition stuff with some of my photos and I’m quite impressed. It isn’t perfect but it’s much, much better than anything Riya ever had. Google also seems to have taken a more realistic approach and uses a decent amount of human input (by me) to get the face tagging correct. They could stand to improve that process/user experience some but overall it’s not bad.

With less than an hour of effort I have tagged 634 of the 3,821 faces Picasa has found in my web albums. So now I’m trying to figure out what to do. Maybe I’ll use iPhoto to interface with Picasa Web Albums and give up on the Picasa desktop application. Hmm, I’m not sure.

I’ve had ones to link to my cell phone to make calls. I’ve had ones to hook to my iPod to listen to music.

Other than generally just not working that well this is my big complaint: the on/off switch. Actually, it’s the lack of one (at least a normal one).

Every Bluetooth headset I’ve had works the same way. To turn it on you hold down a button for 2-3 seconds. To turn it off you hold down the same button for 2-3 seconds. It’s a huge pain. What about a good old fashioned on and off switch? You know, something where you slide a lever, flip a switch, push a button (once, and quickly)? What’s wrong with that?

When I want to use a headset I just want to use it - I don’t want to wait 2-3 seconds as I’m holding down some stupid button. Ugh.

(I can deal with the crazy pairing process - although I’d appreciate it if all components involved could remember each other a little better.)

Actually, a few weeks ago I heard about this kind of stuff on NPR. Robert Seigel (who apparently lives in Arlington, who knew?) was trying to figure out why different jurisdictions have different recycling programs that take different kinds of things. It was really quite interesting.

Apparently the technology around sorting recyclables has really evolved making it easier and more affordable for them to sort through stuff back at the recycling shop (factory? warehouse? not sure what you call it). At the same time it has gotten more expensive to deal with regular trash. Also, running trucks that can pick up sorted materials is more expensive than just using your regular trash truck.

Anyway, the way the equation works out is that they want to encourage people to recycle more so they don’t throw as much stuff away (expensive to deal with). By accepting more things the theory is it’s easier to get people to recycle (it requires less thought to decide what to recycle and what not to recycle). Certainly taking away the sorting aspect of things makes it easier for people to recycle. Then you get to the trucks. With single stream recycling you can just take all the crap and throw it in the back of a regular trash truck. This way you can eliminate an entire fleet of specialized trucks - that’s got to save some money. You even get side benefits - like now you don’t have to flatten cardboard boxes. With the old trucks you had to get the cardboard flat so it would fit - now they can just chuck the whole box in the back.

I think it’s a great move by the City and I hope they keep up with these innovations in recycling. I’d love to see them start a food waste recycling program (they’re doing it out West) - I think that would be great.

I’ve read/listened to various opinions about this situation and the general consensus seems to be, “this is the NFL, this is 2008, there must be a way to prevent this from happening!” Certainly the rules can be changed in whatever way they want but it is a complex situation.

As it turns out, and I didn’t know this until this incident, there’s a relatively new rule that says that even if the whistle is blown the players can continue to play if there’s a potential fumble - unless the QB is involved. The explanation that I’ve heard is that they don’t want the QB to get hurt (but it’s okay for other players to get hurt, I guess). So, if this had been a running back getting ready to throw an option pass it would have been a fumble and San Diego would get the ball (actually, I don’t know if that’s true - the rule may say something about “in the act of throwing” or “any player attempting to make a pass” - I don’t know if it actually applies only to QBs. For that matter, I’m not sure what happens if this situation happens when a QB is handing off the ball, or running down field, or playing defense on a turnover.).

Honestly, I’m surprised that in a game like football there are any situations where it’s okay to keep playing after the whistle. The whistle is supposed to invoke some kind of pavlovian response by the players - everyone is supposed to stop. I always assumed that the main point of this was that everyone would know when to relax and not worry about getting hit. Apparently now if the whistle blows and some folks see a potential fumble all bets are off - better stay on your toes. This seems dangerous. What happens when a player thinks he sees a fumble and blasts someone after the whistle? Is that okay? It seems like the point of these rules changes is to take away situations where the ref has to make a judgment call - but obviously there’s still a judgment call to be made.

Hey, if you want to protect the QB in these potential fumble situations then change the rule so that the QB’s not allowed to go after the fumble and players aren’t allowed to hit the QB in an attempt to get the fumble. It seems dumb to me - but no dumber than the current rule.

Either that or you go back to letting the refs be part of the game, for better or worse.