Andy Boyer

Blog

  • Easiest, Quickest Way to Help Health Care

    I can’t take credit for this, since I head it on the radio.  But I think it’s the easiest and quickest way to make a dent in health care, so I’m forwarding along.

    Every doctor, clinic and provider simply should have to provide a price list for the most common types of treatments.  That price list should show what they charge for the procedure / visit, what amount is covered by each of the major insurance companies, and what the end cost would be to the customers of those insurance companies.

    It won’t cover everything of course, but the point is that if we see the price lists and what insurance is covering, consumers would have a way to look at the market of health care and make informed decisions based on quality, location AND price.   And I know this doesn’t solve everything, but if we start by developing a more competitive market where information is more widely available, we have a better chance to figure out the hard problems, such as how to cover people with low or no income.  

    Making Trillion dollar upheavals to an entire system full of long established companies employing hundreds of thousands of people, is going to be hard if Joe American doesn’t even know how a slight change would affect how much he has to pay to fix his broken hand.  “Trust me, we’re the government, We’ll get it right” is not a very compelling argument… 

  • Sportsmanship Takes a Backseat

    What a weird week in sports, eh? I had a bad feeling the stars and moon were misaligned when I watched the Little League World Series last Sunday.

    Now, NO ONE is willing to write or talk about it. In fact, during the game, the announcers left it alone. But if you watched the LLWS Championship, you saw it. California was leading int he 5th or 6th inning, close to putting it away, and the Cali pitcher plunked the Taiwan player. It was about the 2nd or 3rd HBP of the game for the Cali kid. I don’t think he’s malicious, he just has a crappy curveball that has a tendency to act more like a heat seeking missile than a breaking pitch.

    Anyway, the Taiwanese kid gets it in the back, and instead of trotting down to first base, kind of does a slow walk, Albert Belle style, glaring at the pitcher with that look of, “I didn’t fly 32 hours to get nailed by some George Bush loving surfer boy. You best not look at me punk.” Now, the pitcher may not have seen the look, but the one guy who DID, was California’s 6’2″ 220 pound first baseman. (Yes, those dimensions are accurate and quite stunning for a 13 tear old.) Now he’s pointing at the Taiwan kid to head to first, which he smartly does, and play continues. The whole thing took 5 seconds at most, but we almost saw the first brawl in LLWS history, and no one wanted to comment on it.

    Which brings us to today’s 2 clips: First, we see the brilliant (sarcasm) GK from DC United, Josh Wicks, take his team out of real contention for the US Open Cup by stomping on Fredy Montero. Then we see the equally brilliant LeGarrette Blount sucker punch a player and then try to take on the Boise State fans, his teammates, the police and anyone else trying to calm him down.  Good times.

    (Fast forward to about 3:20)

     

  • Gmail Down, but it Works on iPhone

    I’m not all that techy, so there may be an easy answer here.  Techcrunch and all other tech publications have widely and accurately reported that Gmail is down.  Apparently it’s been down since 1:00pm.  But I didn’t notice for a long time, because it still works on my iPhone.  Can anyone explain to me why Gmail is still accessible from the iPhone, but not the good ol’ interweb?

  • The New Medium for Soap Operas – Twitter

    30 minutes after being sad about sorry email I read from that nearly illiterate teacher in the post below, I rebounded and was reminded how much fun the English language can actually be.  For the last few days, I’ve been following the real or fake exploits of “Steve” at http://twitter.com/shhdontellsteve 

    It’s either the bored ramblings of a kind of messed up dude writing about another messed up dude.  Or it’s a brilliantly crafted soap opera playing itself out in 15 second intervals at no particular rhythm or cadence.  I lean to thinking it’s the latter, which makes it all the more better as far as I’m concerned.  I just hope one day the the writer doesn’t completely disappear, making us all wonder what happens at the end.

    Check it out, an give me your thoughts on it.

  • I Might Be Asking Too Much From Teachers

    I subscribe to a lot of random email lists. Democrat, Republican, City Council, etc… I won’t embarass the group or the person who wrote this email, but it made me sad that this person is a teacher. I mean, can we really expect much from the kids, when this is the kind of response that comes up from a teacher during a debate on health care? Or maybe I am just expecting too much.  I think if you are a teacher and going to write an email to an entire listserv, your thoughts should be a little more coherent than this.  Am I just being overly critical here?  Thoughts?

    Tomorrow is <name redacted>’s and my 25th anniv. If this lady I’ve been working for pays me tomorrow (she was supposed to last Friday), we can go out. I work right by the Montlake Bridge. I know there is another rally later in the week. I signed up to attend the dem. meet up on the 14th. Originally it was the 15th and I couldn’t attend because that’s Ethan’s BD. But the 14th I can attend. Seems those holding out against the public option are receiving a lot of “bribe” $ from the insurance industry. I don’t know what they’re going to do about Sen. Kennedy. They’ll have to appoint an interim senator, but whom?

    I just got home from a union mtg. We voted to accept a one-year contract, but a lot more work needs to be done on it over this next year. Here’s hoping the union works hard for us. I start classes (GCU) on Wed. Am supposed to start back at Ingraham same day but Joe and I want to spend the night at the 4 Seasons Olympic and I’m not rushing off to work first thing in the morning, so I guess I’m taking a personal day. They only gave us the phone call this morning to tell us we were to return to work on Wed. morning at 7:30. That’s kinda late notice, if you ask me. Just another example of Seattle Schools and their fine organizational skills NOT!

     

  • Question About Celebrity

    So, here’s a debate that has been waging in certain segments of my professional circles.  Your thoughts are welcome.

    There’s a school of thought that people are more obsessed by celebrities than ever before.  Twitter, Facebook, etc… all give us access to everyone’s thoughts and weaknesses (see: Beasley, Michael.)

    Another school of thought says that with 432 channels, the Internet and DVR’s, we have tons more people that qualify as “celebrities.”  Back in the day, PR flaks and studios could control their “celebrities.”  If one of them got out of line, you just cut them off and went into your unused supply of theatrical talent who were stuck waiting tables at Denny’s.  But nowadays, the need for content means the guy who played stand-in Teen Angel in his high school version of Grease still has a chance to catch a gig on a game show or Temptation Island.  And now the PR flak has to hope Johnny Screwup will be on a date with a Real Houswife from Topeka and punch 3 Hell’s Angels so US Magazine has a photo for page 34.  

    So what do you think?  Are we putting too many people in the limelight, which leads to ridiculous stories about no-names?  Or are we really seeking out the type of titialting content about people we admire as “celebrities.”

  • Odd Real Estate Stat of the Week

    Ripped directly from TechFlash, so you probably already saw this.

    “A new study released today, which uses data from Seattle’s Walk Score Web site, finds that homes in walkable urban neighborhoods sold for as much as $34,000 more than homes in car-dependent neighborhoods.”

    I wonder what the definition of a “Walkable” neighborhood is.  I hope Wallingford is one…

  • Sounders Attendance vs the EPL

    Ok, I know this isn’t exactly Apples to Apples. But, just for grins and giggles, here are the attendance figures for week 1 of the English Premier League, arguably the greatest, most well attended Football/Soccer League in the World, with the most passionate fans.

    Team Stadium Attendance
    Manchester United Old Trafford 75,062
    Chelsea Stamford Bridge 41,597
    Everton Goodison Park 39,309
    Tottenham Hotspur White Hart Lane 35,935
    Aston Villa Villa Park 35,578
    Blackburn Rovers Ewood Park 29,584
    Wolverhampton Wanderers Molineux Stadium 28,674
    Stoke City Britannia Stadium 27,385
    Bolton Wanderers Reebok Stadium 22,247
    Portsmouth Fratton Park 17,510

     

    Now, for fun, throw in the Sounders:

    Seattle Sounders FC Qwest Field 30,204

     

    All things being equal (which they’re not) the Sounders would currently be 6th in Attendance in the EPL, with 5 teams above, and 5 teams below. Just a fun stat for anyone who tells you that all European clubs draw insane amounts of fans.

  • Renewed Excitement for Mariners 2010

    I’ve done a lot of Mariners bashing here over the last 2 years.  But they honestly deserved it.

    So congratulations for making 2009 way more interesting than I expected, and giving me hope, faith and optimism to 2010 and beyond.

    For the first time in years, I’ve found myself tuning in sporadically to games on the radio.  Well, maybe not whole games, but innings at least.  And all of the recent trades, minor league call-ups and debates are exactly what baseball is supposed to be like.

    Baseball shouldn’t be like it is for the Red Sox and Yankees who (until the Rays got good) were almost allowed to write their own personal ticket to the playoffs every year thanks to 57 games against the most inept division-mates in baseball.

    Baseball is cooler than basketball because you can’t go to the 7th, 8th and 9th innings and let Kobe Bryant go to bat every time.  And it’s cooler than football because Peyton Manning can’t pitch every game.  The fabric of it’s coolness comes in a combination of players battling for more innings of that enormous 162 game, 1500 inning season, but also needing a superstar to come up huge in the ninth inning of game 76 with 2 men on and 2 outs.  

    So instead of dreading the off season, this year we’ll argue about the starting 5, what we should do with Felix, if Griffey should come back, whether 8 million is too much for a defensive shortstop, and if there’s any chance to salvage Morrow’s career.  These are the kind of arguments we should be having in a baseball off season. 

    Sure, I know technically they are still in it this year.  But that’s more of a quirk in the way the schedule is presented, not actual reality.  And I don’t really care.  Because next year, 2011 and 2012 look like a lot of fun.  At least, a lot more fun than 2003-2008.  Thanks M’s, for finally pulling your heads out of your you-know-whats.

  • Did FC Barcelona Force Sounders FC Into Their First Marketing Non-Win?

    If you’ve read this blog a few times, you know that I have unabashedly praised the management of Sounders FC since Day 1.  I admit I’m a little biased due to my previous professional relationship with a person in a high level of management there, plus my overall interest in soccer.  But I have objective arguments for how much I admire their work.

    That being said, I’m not going to shy away from saying that tonight’s match with FC Barcelona left me underwhelmed for the first time out of the 11 or 12 games I’ve attended so far.  On one hand, maybe my expectations were too high.  The best team in the world comes to town, I want to see magic.  And in the first half, I saw some really cool things from Messi, Xavi, Henry, etc..

    Then a funny thing happenned at halftime.  The Sounders decided that this was indeed a friendly, and they didn’t need to play any regulars for the second 45 minutes.  After all, the team is 2/3 of the way through their season, in a playoff hunt and coming off their worst loss of the year.  It made tactical sense to rest the starters.

    And so for the first time all year, they forgot who they were.  They confused themselves with the Seahawks and 1996-2003 Mariners.  They forgot that out of the 65,000+ who came to the game tonight, 25-30,000 of them had never been to a Sounders game before.  They forgot that the MLS is the MLS.  And for the first time all year, they forgot to put on a show.

    The result was 45 minutes of second half football that resembled 2 people kicking a ball of yarn away from a cat.  The Barcelona second team seemed to be under strict orders not to attack the goal until at least 10 passes had been completed.  (And yes, we were counting as they passed the ball easily from one side of the field to another.)  The Sounders first team is a very competitive MLS team.. With all due respect, the Sounders second team is made up of guys who can’t play on a first team in Norway or Sweden.  I don’t say this with contempt.  I’m just saying when I fire up my Xbox 360 and play Fifa 09, a game with about 1.2 gajillion players in its database, the guys on the Sounders reserve squad are not in that database.

    So, imagine you are the Sounders management.  Your immediate response is, “Andy, what do you want?  I brought you Chelsea and Barcelona.  Oh, and we’re in 2nd place.  Oh, and we made it to the US Open Cup Final. So take your blog and smoke it.”

    And that is an argument I can totally agree with.  So maybe next year, bring me one of Chelsea and Barcelona.  And maybe bring me someone else not so good that we can actually compete with.  Maybe AC Milan and Watford.  Or Tottenham and PSV.   Or maybe the MLS needs to give the teams a week off o they can book friendlies and not get screwed by the schedule.

    My rambling point, is that the MLS lost out tonight when Barcelona’s subs playes Seattle’s subs for 45 minutes on front of 65,000 people that paid full price to see at least one of the teams play starters all night long.  Or if you were going to sub everyone out, at least do it at the 50 minute mark and pull them off the field to a standing ovation.  Instead, we got one half of fun soccer, then the teams sneaking the players off the field at halftime, with a level of play in the second half that simply confirmed for soccer haters why they dislike the sport.   Blame it on the MLS, blame it on Barcelona, or blame it on the Sounders.  But I think for the first time, they allowed a crowd to leave the stadium saying, “I don’t get what the excitement is all about.”