The end is near…with a new beginning not far behind

Feb 2nd, 2006

Well, it’s almost time – 2 more days (last day is feb 3rd). It’s a weird feeling, not quite like the first day of work, but still a little uncertainty about what it’s going to feel like on Monday when I don’t have a real ‘job’ anymore or a real paycheck. And then there’s all that little personal stuff I needed to take care of besides transitioning work:

Check the pearly whites: I’m not planning on having dental insurance during this venture so I better make sure I’ve got no cavities. I went to a local dentist, Printers Row Dental Care, a few blocks north of my condo and was very pleased to find that everything looks good. I guess the Sonicare toothbrush is working . A few cool things too: (1) they don’t have any computers in the office – they got rid of them to have a totally personal approach, even including a thank you letter a few days later; (2) Dr. Page used this cool wireless hi-res camera wand to look at my teeth and had it display on a tv for me to see – very cool.
Stock up on contacts: My new eye doctor, Solo Eye Care, a few blocks south of my condo recommended I move off the rigid gas permeables to the latest soft toric contacts because they also correct for astigmatism while not having the comfort issues (if you know me, you know I complain alot about dirt getting into my contacts). I don’t anticipate having a vision plan either, so I got my fill of these.
Sign up for health insurance: I never really appreciated the HP health plan until I started shopping for my own health insurance on eHealthInurance. Feeling pretty healthy and confident that I’ll be avoiding dangerous activities during this venture (knock on wood), I signed up for one of the cheapest plans they had for Chicago. It’s a Celtic PPO that offered a few visits to the primary and specialists for $30 copay all for just $43/month – that’s pretty cheap.
Routine physical: With my benefits downshifting I wanted to make sure that I had a thorough checkup so I found a doctor at Northwestern Memorial Hospital a few El stops away. Cool thing about this hospital is that they’ve gone almost totally paperless. After filling out the patient form, they enter in all the data, scan it, then shred it. Each office has a thin client computer hooked up to a server farm that centrally houses all the medical data – very cool. The nurse said they bought the solution from Cerner and that they have an IT department that takes care of everything, but she also mentions that everytime IT does an upgrade, there are glitches and the systems get real slow – oh well, it’s a good start though.
Execute some HP stock options: Well, they were above water, HP’s at a decent price (hit at $32), and I’m going to need the cash I’ll hold on to some shares for a while though so I hope everyone at HP keeps chugging!