Paramedics Membership

I paid $60 last week for a Paramedics Membership with the City of Orange. When I first moved here in 2009, there was no additional charge for paramedic services. Then suddenly one year, the option to include $2 per month was included in our water/sewer bill to opt-in. That then became a $48 one-time fee payable only by check, and now it is $60.

This is basically insurance for paramedic calls. It covers all services for everyone in your household (up to ten people) anywhere in Orange and covers visitors to your house. My problem with this setup is that local emergency services is a monopoly. When you call 911 for a medical emergency, the call is routed to the fire department. You cannot choose another provider. Knowing that it is a captive market, the fire department refuses to participate in any insurance networks, so they will always be out-of-network and can charge astronomical fees.

I experienced this fucked-up system twice while I was on dialysis. The first time was when I had severe hypoglycemia. I woke up in the morning delirious and my parents called 911. The paramedics game me a glucose/dextrose IV and took me to the St. Joseph hospital ER. Even though I enrolled in the program, the fire department still tried to bill me about $2,000. The billing office claimed that someone else lives at my house, so I was not covered. It took over three months to clear that up. I also got a 30-second ride from the dialysis clinic to the ER due to a likely panic attack. I remember the fire department sending a similar bill to insurance, but that was somehow paid by insurance, and I did not have to pay.

Why are paramedics not covered by my property tax? Police and remaining fire department services are included. I think it is because you can use fear to motivate residents who are old or in poor health to sign up. If they do not, then the fire department can charge thousands of dollars for services. I really want to see if they are making money on this program and what the justification is to increase the fees from $24 to $48 then $60 in just a few years.

==========

I have lived in three other cities, five if you include my immediate family, in Orange County. No other city charges separately for providing basic emergency service for residents. The City of Orange also forces you to get a business license and pay fees if you claim business expenses on your taxes. I used to incur some travel expenses when I helped my friend with his company in China. This was not an issue when I lived in Brea or Costa Mesa. However, as soon as I moved to Orange, I got a notice demanding I get a license that costs a minimum of $65 each year. The city provides absolutely zero services, but they want their pound of flesh. Fucking assholes.

Chicken Finger Inflation

I lived with my parents for the past ten plus years until they purchased their own house earlier this year. Since they have always handled cooking and food costs, I am not as aware of the impact of the recent high inflation rates groceries. I mainly paid for costs related to the house, such as property taxes and utilities, which are less susceptible to inflation.

On Friday, I stopped by the local Raising Canes to get a Box Combo. I was surprised at the cost, which was $12.66 including tax. This was much higher than what I remembered. Since I always pay with the same credit card, I could search for older transactions online and found these data points:

Date	Cost
11/11/2020	$12.66
8/31/2022	$10.85
6/28/2021	$10.19
4/28/2021	$9.82
1/26/2021	$9.52

The last date is interesting as it is the day before my kidney transplant. It was probably not the best food choice right before major surgery.

If we take the first and last dates and call it 21 months, the inflation rate is (12.66 – 9.52)/9.52*(12/ 21) or about 18.8% per year. Now if we look at actual inflation, it is nowhere near that high. Here is a chart for Consumer Price Index (CPI) for urban consumers over the same period:

If the numbers are too small, the index starts at 262.200 and ends at 298.062. That works out to about 7.8% per year. So, we can probably say that Raising Canes Box Combo’s price is increasing at 2.4x inflation during the past two years. That sucks.

Of course, it is just not chicken. My sister, my younger niece, and me went to get ramen last night. We got three bowls of ramen, an order of California rolls, and some edamame appetizers. The total with tax was about $70 or $85 with a 20% tip. That seems absurdly expensive for mediocre ramen. Let us hope that with dropping gas prices, inflation will be lower in the future.

Analyst Quitting

A director is usually a department or division head in a business. The director supervises and leads a group of managers and employees in a particular area of an organization. For example, large companies may have a director of human resources, marketing, production and information technology.
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/director-vs-vp#:~:text=A%20director%20is%20usually%20a,marketing%2C%20production%20and%20information%20technology.

For someone with a director title, I have very few direct reports. In fact, I only have two currently: a manager and an analyst. I do have another manager starting in about a week, but I was just informed that my analyst is quitting. The problem is that the analyst position is specialized, and we do not have any potential internal replacement candidates. I need to start the process of recruiting an external hire, but that will likely take a long time. In the meantime, the analyst is going to train me in doing their regular tasks so I can transfer the knowledge later. I have done most of the tasks before, but there is about 25% that I am unfamiliar with.

Oh, and I will also need to train the new manager to take over some of my existing responsibilities. The upcoming three to four months are going to be super busy and I may need to go into the office more often each week. 😭

Series I Bonds

I will let the US Treasury Department explain:

Series I savings bonds protect you from inflation. With an I bond, you earn both a fixed rate of interest and a rate that changes with inflation. Twice a year, we set the inflation rate for the next 6 months.
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/savings-bonds/i-bonds/

These are savings bonds issued by the US government with rates that are tied to inflation. Since inflation has been crazy recently, the current rate is 9.62%. This is well above any other “riskless” investment, such as bank CD’s and other Treasury bills/notes/bonds. The only downside is that you must hold the bond for at least 12 months, and if you cash out before five years, you lose the last three months of interest. The bonds mature in 30 years, which means no more interest. Also, you can only purchase $10,000 of I bonds annually, and the interest rate is reset every six months. Confusing, huh?

My mom and I purchased $10,000 each back in April to capture a 7.12% rate, knowing that the next rate will be 9.62%. The estimated rate starting November 2022 is 6.48%. High-yield savings accounts are paying between 2.0% to 2.5% so I bonds are a good deal. If the rate stays high, then keep holding the bond. Once inflation drops and the combined interest rate falls below savings accounts, then cash in the bond.

To get more bonds at the 9.62% rate, you can also gift I bonds to other people. I did this with my mom as we each purchased $10,000 gift bonds for each other. The bonds have the same interest and date restrictions as a regular bond but is held in limbo until the recipient accepts the bond. The recipient must still adhere to the $10,000 limit each year. So next April, when we know the next I bond rate, if it is higher than 9.62%, then we will purchase a new bond. If not, then we can accept the gift bond from this year. More confusion.

==========

We have also been purchasing 4-week treasury bills. This is like buying a one-month non-cancellable CD. Last week’s auction resulted in a 3.487% rate. All the short-term T-bill rates will likely continue to increase so this will remain a viable investment for a few more months. If I was more tolerant of duration risk, I would buy some one-year T-bills as it has the highest returns currently.

FreeStyle Libre 2 Cost

I have stopped using the Libre 2 continuous glucose monitor. The supplier needs another prescription from my endocrinologist before they send me more sensors. In the meantime, there is still a lot of claim and billing activity. I finally checked the Medicare site and saw the following claims:

Date	Claim	Medicare	Paid	Co-pay
6/7/2022	$937.59	$493.23	$390.63	$98.65
7/7/2022	$445.48	$234.60	$183.93	$46.92
8/7/2022	$668.22	$234.60	$183.93	$46.92

The first claim includes the monitor/receiver plus two sensors. In the Medicare claim, there are two separate lines. The monitor was billed at $492.11 and the Medicare approved amount was $258.63. My co-pay was $51.73. I am still upset that no one mentioned there was an iOS app so I did not really need the monitor. Anyway, I received seven sensors total so the last claim must be for three sensors. Interesting that Medicare did not adjust the approved amount.

If you look at the billed cost, each sensor is about $223. They only last for fourteen days so it works out to $16/day. That seems like a crazy high amount. If you make minimum wage in California, that is about 90 minutes of work after tax. For just the co-pay, it comes out to $3.35 per day, which is much more reasonable. Remember, this is just for the sensor to measure your blood sugar and does not include any doctor visits or medication.

Work Schedule and Google Timeline

I have Google Timeline turned on and it tracks my movement 24/7. I do find that if I am on the move a lot, then Google’s data is fairly inaccurate. Maybe it is due to how often the system polls my location. Even though storage is cheap, Google cannot store everyone’s data every second… yet.

Looking through my September history, I find the data appears accurate for the days that I go into the office. On those days, I typically leave for work around 7:00 am and come back home after dinner. I assume each data point has a long enough duration for Google to log properly. Here is a summary with departure/arrival times for each trip:

Date	Leave home	Arrive work	Leave work	Arrive home
Sept 6	7:39 am	9:08 am	6:46 pm	7:39 pm
Sept 7	7:20 am	8:41 am	5:23 pm	6:32 pm
Sept 8	7:12 am	8:26 am	6:25 pm	7:18 pm*
Sept 13	6:36 am**	8:10 am	8:55 pm	9:39 pm
Sept 14	7:16 am	8:25 am	8:14 pm	9:02 pm
Sept 20	7:21 am	8:24 am	8:46 pm	9:27 pm
Sept 21	7:32 am	8:44 am	6:33 pm	7:35 pm
Sept 26	6:18 am	7:07 am	7:11 pm	7:57 pm
Sept 27	6:42 am	8:09 am	1:43 pm***	2:30 pm

Data from Google Timeline

* I drove to my church cell meeting a restaurant close to home
** I needed to take my sister to LAX so I left home earlier than usual
*** I felt sick that day so left work early to nap at home

If you look at the leave/arrive home columns, I am often out of the house for twelve, thirteen, or fourteen hours. I often find myself extremely tired on both commutes as I still have problems sleeping through the night. This is one of the many reasons I am considering retirement or finding a part-time job close to home.

==========

It is 6:18 am and my Alexa timer is ringing. I need to get ready for another exciting commute to the office.

PS5 by Invitation

I did not own any game consoles while growing up. Our family was not poor, but we were lower-middle class when we moved to Canada in the 70’s. While my cousins and friends owned Atari 2600s and Intellivisions, we did not have anything until I purchased a Sony PlayStation 2 as an adult. Many years afterwards, while on a business trip to Canada, I bought a PS3 in Mississauga and brought it back on the return flight. Along the way, I also picked up a Nintendo Wii from my sister, and bought a Switch to play Zelda: Breath of the Wild during dialysis sessions. The Switch is on permanent loan to my younger niece.

When the PS4 was released, I was still playing games on the PS3 so I never purchased the new console. For the PS5 release, I was extremely interested in purchasing one, but like everyone else, I could not find it in stores easily. Now, almost two years after its release in November 2020, I am still unable to purchase a PS5.

While purchasing something else on Amazon, I saw they were taking orders for the PS5 disc version for $500, which is the list price. However, below the price, there is a tag that said invitation only. I have never seen this on any other products on Amazon. To be honest, I was weary of checking stock and prices at various stores online and had not thought about getting a PS5 in months. However, this approach seemed much more convienent so I clicked the button and now I am on the request list.

I do not know what criteria Amazon is using to grant requests, or if I actually want one at this point. It is likely your account history, specifically how much you ordered/returned. You can run order reports on the Amazon website. My orders were:

2022 year-to-date: $3,887
2021: $3,045
2020: $3,389

That is over $10k in a bit less than three years. Is that enough versus the average account spend? I guess I will know (maybe) if I do or do. not have my PS5 request granted.

==========

Per this website, the average Amazon account with Prime orders $1,400 annually. I am well over twice that each of the past three years. Also, per the article, I am in the top 20% by order dollars. I hope that is enough to get a PS5 for $500.

==========

This is my favorite game on the PS3:

I managed to delete my almost 100% save game so I am playing it from the beginning again.

Google Timeline – September 2022

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Boring.

It was a dull September 2022 on my Google Timeline. The furthest red dots were my office and my parents’ house. In between, there were a few medical office visits, some restaurants, my sister’s house, and my local Albertson’s. Unfortunately, other than the month of June, when we were in Europe, this entire year has been boring.

For some reason, I thought my life would be more interesting. If you asked me right when I graduated college to describe my life at fifty-five, I would have said married with two kids, and about to retire after a successful career. More importantly, there would be a sense of contentment that the life lived had meaning. Instead, I am single, living alone, and have not done anything memorable other than not die. I do not even know how i feel about that.

I told my boss more firmly yesterday that I will likely quit and retire mid-next year. There is a release of vested stock (RSUs) every six months, so I want to receive those shares before I quit and forfeit the remainder. There are no goals or plans after retirement. I feel I should travel more, but I am ambivalent about traveling alone. I will likely end up sitting around the house watching YouTube videos. 😭

Fake LinkedIn Profiles

I have accounts on several social media platforms. However, since I do not like to post selfies, I am the most non-influencer person ever. I heard there are a lot of fake profiles trying to scam people on Instagram and Tinder, but now the same thing is happening on LinkedIn. I guess the idea is to befriend strangers then try to get them to invest in fake crypto or commodities trading schemes.

There was a recent article in MIT Technology Review regarding fake LinkedIn profiles.

If you were just looking at his LinkedIn page, you’d certainly think Mai Linzheng was a top-notch engineer. With a bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua, China’s top university, and a master’s degree in semiconductor manufacturing from UCLA, Mai began his career at Intel and KBR, a space tech company, before ending up at SpaceX in 2013. Having spent the past eight years and nine months working in the human race to space, he’s now a senior technician.

Except all is not as it seems.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/09/07/1059067/chinese-spacex-engineers-linkedin-scam/

In the article, it mentions that a majority of the scam profiles are China related. This is ironic since SpaceX is subject to ITAR controls, and normally restricted from hiring non-US persons.

I am unsure how these scammers select which profiles to target. I have a lot of work experience on my LinkedIn profile, and correspondingly, I am getting many invites from scammers. LinkedIn is pretty good at detecting and deleting these fake profiles, so when I click on the View Profile button, I often get this page:

As mentioned in the MIT article, the profile picture of these fake accounts is usually a good-looking Asian/Chinese person. Since I am Chinese, I am unsure they are targeting Asian users, or if it is the scammer’s default profile. Here are a few of the fake profiles from the notification emails. Scammers are likely using stolen photos too.

These are just from the past four weeks. About 80% of LinkedIn invites are made up of these fake profiles. Are all these sent by the same scammers, or are there competing groups? Why are there so many Asian female limited partners from Sausalito?

There are a handful more invites that could be fake but have not been removed by LinkedIn. I think I will accept a few of them and see what scams are popular.

Amazon Prime Credit Card

I received a new credit card in the mail because the current one is expiring next month. I went online to authorize the card, then tried to cut the old one in half. The Amazon card is one of those thick cards made of something a lot stronger than plastic. I was unable to cut it with a pair of scissors, and I did not want to try feeding it to my shredder. Fortunately, Chase (card issuer) included a prepaid envelope for you to mail back the old card so they can destroy it.

Ironically, I only use the card for Amazon purchases and the 5% rebate. It sits at home in an old wallet that contains other cards I do not use. Since it never gets physically used, the extra sturdiness is wasted on me.

==========

I took a look at the year-end summaries for this card. Last year (2021), I spent about $2900 on Amazon purchases. So far this year (9 months), i have spent about $3000. Judging from the large number of Amazon boxes in my garage, I expected a lot more dollars.

Data Is (Not) Beautiful

I am subscribed to r/dataisbeautiful on Reddit. The purpose of the sub is to highlight examples where data is presented in a “beautiful” manner. However, like everything else on Reddit, it has devolved into using data/charts as political commentary.

For example, look at this post:

Every chart tells a story. If you look at the data presented and the use of the phrase “profited from” in the title, the obvious message is that evil oil companies are taking advantage of higher crude oil prices to gouge the rest of us for excessive profit. Instead, if you look at the entire income statement, the profit is from better utilization of fixed costs.

I pulled Q2 filings for the past six years for Exxon instead of just two. With COVID, any comparisons that do not include pre-COVID data is suspect as 2020 and 2021 are not normal years. Here is 2021/2022:

If you look at the very last line, it matches the data shown in the original chart. Let us go back a few more years:

So Exxon had profits of about $3-4 billion, the lost $2 billion, made $5 billion in 2021, then a whopping $18 billion in 2022. Bastard!

However, if you look at the line detail and calculate the gross profit margin (total revenue versus cost of oil and product purchases, it looks like this:

Year	Gross Margin
2017	48.0%
2018	43.8%
2019	43.6%
2020	56.9%
2021	44.9%
2022	43.3%

From this data, 2022 has the worst Q2 gross margins for the past six years. Or in other words, as raw material prices increased, Exxon raised their prices less than in prior years. It is a simplification, but many businesses try to keep a steady or increasing gross margin percentage over time. Then where did the operating profit come from? Look at the next three lines in the income statement, especially for 2022/2021. Even though raw material prices and/or unit volume increased, the actual production and SG&A costs did not. This makes sense since it takes the same amount of work to produce and sell a unit of product regardless of whether it costs $1 or $10. You can see the reverse of this in 2020 when sales dropped enormously due to COVID. Exxon still must pay for all the production facilities and employees, so they had a loss for Q2 of that year.

Since I work in finance, I have been making slides and writing commentary for almost thirty years. If we are providing unbiased internal reporting and I get this from my staff, I would be extremely disappointed. If my goal is political commentary, then this is a great chart since it has just enough truth to push a biased agenda.

==========

In this case, I do not know what people expect Exxon to do. Drop their gross margin targets to lower prices to the consumer? This may trigger more demand, and depending on their production capacity, may require more capital investments. These costs are hard to scale back when there is a downturn, which means greater losses during those periods. I do not know if Exxon laid off employees during 2020, but companies are made up of people. Any taxes or price controls, whether we feel is justified or not, does have a direct impact on the company’s employees and its customers.

COVID Test History

So after two plus weeks, I am finally over my COVID infection. The positive indicator was very faint on Thursday, and totally not there last night. I still have a slight cough and itchy throat, but I often have those symptoms for no real reason way before COVID.

The question now is what variant did I get? Based on the new cases history for France above (the curve for Italy is similar), I think it was the BA.4/BA.5 variant.You can see the massive spike in cases for the first Omicron variant (BA.1) in January, then the smaller bump for BA.2. I was feeling pretty good about our trip to Europe since we left during the low in early June, but a month later, we can see the effect of BA.4/BA.5. I read that the BA.5 variant appears to have a R0 of > 18. That is higher than measles and puts it as the most infectious virus ever.

Here is the same chart for Los Angeles County. This is my main area of concern as I decide whether to return to the office or continue to work from home. The timing of each spike is different, but the original Omicron spike is evident. Looking at the slow increase of the past few months, is it due to BA.2 or BA.4/BA.5? I had fairly mild symptoms during the past two weeks, but if I get reinfected, will I have similar symptoms or maybe something a lot worse?

It seems that after two and a half years of COVID, we know much more about the virus but there is still a lot of questions.

Best Hamburger

Since I live in Southern California, it must be In-N-Out Burger. There are many posts on Reddit arguing about the best burger, but I think for the price, In-N-Out offers the best bang for the buck. I usually get a Double-Double with grilled onions. Their fries are terrible though.

There is an In-N-Out location right next to my parents’ new place at Laguna Woods. My mom said they ate there about a dozen times in the first several months. They do not like cheese so they usually each get a hamburger with grilled onions. The above photo was taken when I joined them for dinner one day.

Just for kicks, I checked out their employment website. They are headquartered in Irvine, and currently there are two openings in finance: financial analyst and business intelligence analyst. I am overqualified for the financial analyst position, but I am tempted by the free food benefit!

Breakfast Burrito at Work

No, I did not get the burrito.

I am a huge fan of a good breakfast burrito with bacon. There is a hole-in-the-wall near home that has a gigantic breakfast burrito, but I have not gone there in several years. We also have breakfast burritos at work, but the ingredients are set each week and we cannot substitute for other things, like bacon instead of ham or sausage.

Anyway, this week, the menu happened to have a bacon breakfast burrito. Yay! I was in the office early yesterday and I almost placed an order. Almost… I decided to go back to my desk and check the nutritional info, and I am glad I did.

Holy crap! I just avoided a heart attack. look at the crazy levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium. I forgot the actual ingredients, but I believe there is a lot of cheese. So, I just drank my vegetable protein shake and waited for lunch. 😭

Back to the Office?

I have worked at my current company for almost eleven years. However, it feels much shorter than that since I have been working from home, both full-time and part-time, for several years. When I first started doing in-clinic hemodialysis, I “unofficially” worked from home two days each week. At the time, my dialysis sessions were from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm so I worked in the morning during dialysis days, then made up the hours at night or on the weekend, while taking the occasional vacation day. I went back to work in the office full-time while on peritoneal dialysis, then “officially” part-time (30 hours/week) after heart surgery and switching back to in-clinic hemodialysis.

I remember about two years ago, in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic finally hit Los Angeles, and our department was told to go home. At the time, many people thought the pandemic would last a few weeks, perhaps even a few months. Here we are two years later, and the pandemic still rages on. Here are some charts tracking COVID cases in Los Angeles County:

Given that I have had four Moderna COVID vaccine shots and the latest dosage of Evusheld, plus the sharp decrease in the number of new cases, I feel I can start going back into the office one or two days each week. I did pose this question to my nephrologist, and she was open to the idea, after checking if the Evusheld shots increased my antibodies count. Since most of my meetings are on Tuesdays, I was thinking of driving on Tuesdays/Thursdays to work for now.

==========

I received an email from work today that we are ending our indoor masking requirement. It is not good news, but one that was expected sooner than later. Since most of the coworkers in my department know my circumstances, I will still wear my KN95 masks while in my cubicle. Let us see how long I can tolerate wearing it for 8-10 hours per day.

Medicare Premium Increase

I just signed on to the Social Security Administration website and saw that I received a notification regarding new Medicare rates. There is a base rate for Medicare part B, plus an adder based on your AGI from prior year tax returns. Anyway, starting this year, my Medicare premium increased from $508/month to $578/month. That is almost $7,000 annually.

I am still working so I have good coverage from work. Right now, the work coverage is secondary, and it pays for all my medication since I do not get Medicare part D. My work insurance did say that they would pay for all my sister’s post-transplant medical costs. I really do not know why I still need to carry Medicare, other than the rumor that it becomes harder to get Medicare again if you voluntarily give it up. In addition, if I decide to “retire” and not get another job, I can have Medicare cover 80% of my bills for the next two years, but I will not have prescription coverage. So confusing. Is there is medical insurance that only covers the 20% Medicare co-pay?

I think I should “move” to Ontario for six months so I can get medical insurance there then retire.

Peripheral Neuropathy Updated 2/15/2022

My experience with medical issues in the past few years has been, “If you think things are bad, they can only get worse.” I know some problems have gotten better because of surgery, but my peripheral neuropathy has deteriorated in the past year.

While on dialysis, there were many times when I thought the numbness and pain was getting worse. Looking back, the neuropathy now appears rather stable. I would get attacks every few weeks, and the intensity did not fluctuate that much. Even the everyday numbness seemed constant. After transplant surgery, my blood sugar has been difficult to control, which likely increased the overall level of neuropathy. Most nights, one or both feet would be so numb that I could barely move them.

More alarmingly, the frequency of pain attacks has definitely increased. Another attack just started about 15 minutes ago, and it is the fourth or fifth one in the past seven days. Each time it happens, I basically lose a night of sleep due to the constant pain. The intensity has increased too. Right now, each pain attack would leave my entire lower leg numb for about ten seconds, and this repeats every 30 to 45 seconds. The only remedy is to stay awake until you are so tired that you collapse from fatigue, and hopefully the attacks end when you wake up. Sometimes the pain would just start up again for several hours.

What really drives me crazy is there does not appear to be any immediate drivers to each attack. Sure, the long-term cause is chronic diabetes. The excess sugar in the bloodstream causes nerve damage, and the pain is from dead or injured nerve endings. However, the attacks are totally random. This time, I was tired after dinner, so I took a short nap. I was able to fall asleep, but the sudden foot pain woke me up after about an hour. Sometimes, I would be just sitting, either reading a book or browsing the web and the pain would suddenly appear. Frustrating.

==========

I may as well connect to the office and do some work since I am unable to sleep from the pain. There is a large meeting ~~tomorrow~~ today (12:39 am) and I need to provide many slides. I sent out three emails over the past week reminding my team of the deadlines, but only about 1/3 of the analysts responded. It is an inconvenient situation as I outrank everyone, both in title and seniority, but none of them actually report to me. It is going to look stupid for everyone if our slides are only half complete for the meeting tomorrow…

New Computer Is Here

I ordered a new MacBook Pro on the last day of 2021 and made a post about it. With most of the flights between US and China cancelled, I thought my shipment would be delayed. However, FedEx is not affected by commercial flights, and I received my computer yesterday. After debating for a while, I ended up getting the 14″ MacBook Pro with the 10 core CPU, 16 GB of RAM, and one TB SSD. I had an opportunity to buy a silver one from Costco for $50 less, but now that I have the computer, I am glad I waited for the Space Gray color.

So far, everything is great. By logging in with the same Apple account, it moved a lot of configuration data over via iCloud. It is much faster, even though I am not running power hungry apps like Final Cut Pro or Logic Pro. Most people get a fast Mac to run video or music production with those two apps, but I think I will stick with iMovie and Garage Band/Audicity/Tracktion for now.

Downsides? Apple seems to change ports on every new model. My 2012 MacBook Air had two USB-A and a Thunderbolt port. The new MacBook Pro had three USB-C and a regular sized HDMI port. Why? Also, my old Acer X213H monitor would not work with the new computer using a HDMI-to-HDMI cable, but I was able to find a HDMI-to-DVI cable and it worked. It is also super expensive at $2,500 before tax.

Big decision: Should I install the Mac OS version of WeChat, knowing it is likely partial spyware for China?

Natural Gas Bill

Everything is more expensive.

I just saw some posts on Nextdoor about crazy high natural gas bills so I logged into my SoCal Gas account online. Here is my payment history:

My average bill for the past six months was about $20, so the $128 bill in December is a huge increase. Looking back, this happens every winter since our house has a natural gas furnace, and it has been pretty cold at night. If you look at the usage in therms (usage), it has the same pattern.

Compared to last year however, it does seem I am paying more for gas per Therm. I found this notice on their website and indeed, every cost component is going up. For the natural gas itself, the price has gone up over 100% from a year ago.

Effective January 2021.Effective January 1, 2022, the procurement component of the core sales rate will increase 18.440 ¢/therm to 83.569 ¢/therm. This increase resulted from an overall 16.922 ¢/therm increase in commodity price and an increase of 1.518 ¢/therm in account adjustments. Compared to a year ago, the procurement rate is about 110.2% higher (39.764 ¢/therm) than what it was effective January 2021.
https://www.socalgas.com/pay-bill/understanding-your-bill/natural-gas-prices-explained#rate-change

Since natural gas is a traded commodity, i looked up some quotes online. The price did seem to increase from ~$2.50 USD/MMBtu a year ago to $4.16 today. Now quite 100% increase, but SoCal Gas is probably grabbing some margin too. Looking at my latest statement, the gas commodity cost was $0.65129 per therm in December so the additional 18.440 ¢/therm increase will show up in January’s billing. This means my January bill could be over $150.

Need to convince my parents to turn down the thermostat.

Sudden Neuropathy Pain

I was just sitting here eating lunch when I was hit with a sudden jolt of pain. This time it is in my left foot insole, right under the bone to the big toe. These painful nerve attacks are happening every few days instead of weeks and months.

Now I have to call in to a meeting with my manager. This sucks.

==========

My boss did not show up to the meeting. I did have to talk to another manager while my foot was hurting every 30 seconds.