The song is called Highest Praise (aka The Lord is High Above the Heavens), and I don’t know who wrote it or popularized it. The YouTube video below isn’t the best quality, but it’s the only one I could find that I could embed on the blog. You can watch the original at this link for news station KTVU, which streamed the service from its website.

The performance was at the memorial service for Bishop Walter Hawkins. The choir is the choir for Bishop Hawkins’ Love Center Church, and the gentleman leading the song is the Minister of Music for the Love Center Church. There are other versions out there in videoland, but I like this one. This man SANG this song, y’all hear me!?

Click here to view the embedded video.

So, in order to get into the federal pre-existing health conditions insurance pools, a person has to have not had health insurance for at least 6 months, and must have an insurance denial letter dated within the 6 months prior to the application date. I met the first condition but not the second, so I had to apply for a policy and be rejected. No problem; I have Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (among other things it caused). That makes me an auto-reject.

So, I surfed myself on over to Aetna’s website and spent several HOURS completely, and truthfully, filling out the application. I gave my payment information (unlike UnitedHealthcare, they don’t actually take your money until you are approved for a policy), and awaited a decision.

It didn’t even take 48 hours. The next day, I logged in to check my application status, and there it was as plain as day…

Ironically, while my greenbacks were no good to Aetna for a health insurance policy, they’re good enough for the discount drug, vision, and dental card program they tried to sell me. I wouldn’t sign up for that program, even if it was the best one on the market, just on general principle (GP). If I’m not good enough for them one way, I’m not good enough for them another way. Aetna can kiss my grits.

If health care isn’t a right, then whatever laws that say emergency care must be provided in the ER need to be repealed. Let’s just go all the way with it, then. Let’s have everyone fend for themselves, and to hell with compassion or helping those less fortunate. If you can’t afford health care then you have the RIGHT to die and be cremated on the cheap, instead of buried, with the cost of cremation coming out of an Indigent Cremation Fund that everyone pays a nominal flat fee into every year. Your relatives can dig a hole in the backyard and bury your urn there, right next to beloved Fido, if they want.

After all, God didn’t bless any of us with anything, or make it possible for us to have what we have. We did it ALL on our own and by ourselves. God who? Let’s just all stop pretending. Why even FAKE anymore? I mean, really, it’s time to end the charade. We have become our own Gods (yes, with the capital G), and there is not enough room for us and him, so he has to go. Oh, wait, he’s already gone. We just need to stop pretending he’s still here, still relevant, and still matters.

I mean, since he didn’t, and never has, done anything for us anyway, why keep him around? After all, we worked for our money and why should we have to give it away in tithes and offering for a building we only use once a week, if that? If our hurting and sick neighbor who we CAN see doesn’t deserve any of our largesse, then why should we give anything to some “being” – a perfect, and perfectly healthy one at that – we’ve never seen? Like, what kind of sense does that make?

So, let’s just cut the crap and get real. Anything that’s not a right needs to be eliminated right now, so we all can keep as much of our hard earned money in our pockets as possible. Poor, sick people? Eh well. They’ll die off sooner or later, and just could be better off for it. Right?

/sarcasm

But, yet, it’s very much an underdog because, as a low budget lens, it lacks the Super-Multi-Coating (SMC) that is found in Pentax’s higher end lenses. The lens is coated, but the lack of SMC makes it prone to flaring, among other things. But, used within its limitations, this lens can turn out some great results.

Example 1. This photo is straight out of the photographer’s camera. Not bad. All I did was crop out a cloud and some tree leaves on the sides.

Example 2. The same photo after a super quick edit in Photoshop. I decreased the exposure and increased the contrast both a smidgen, just enough to make the colors pop a little.

Not bad at all for a 26 year old underdog “budget” lens, huh? To see more pictures taken with this lens, check out this PBase photo gallery that I found.

There are two buses that come where I live. One was eliminated. The other was spared, but it’s only a M-F peak hour route, anyway. It doesn’t run from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., and the last bus leaves its bay at the MARTA station at 6:40 p.m. Not very useful. I thought about staying put and taking more cabs, but the county has set the minimum fare at $6. That could get expensive fast. So, once again, I’m moving. And, I am not happy about it.

Dealing with public transportation is becoming too much of a hassle. I can’t, and won’t, move every time MARTA decides to cut a route. The best thing for me to do is to get another car, but in order to make that work, I need to find a cheaper apartment. When I say cheaper, I mean a lot cheaper. As in paying no more than $475 a month for rent. There are complexes in the Atlanta metro with rent that cheap, but they’re in very bad areas.

So, I’m thinking about moving to one of the small towns, or smaller cities, in North/Northwest/Northeast Georgia or upstate South Carolina where decent apartments in safe areas can be rented for what I need to pay. I’d live there for the 18-24 months it would take to pay off the used car I’d buy. These smaller towns and cities may not be very happening places but, truthfully, besides my photography hobby and going to an occasional movie, I don’t do much of anything anyway. Once the car is paid off, I’ll be free to move back to the big city and go back to paying big city rent.

Well, this time I had my complete tripod… but I forgot to bring the remote control for my camera. I put the camera on the tripod anyway, because I figured that even if I did have to manually press the shutter-release button, there would still be less camera shake than if I hand-held the camera to take the shots.

All things considered, I think the results are okay. My goal for this set of pics was to improve over the last set, and I did. So, I guess I can say mission accomplished. Here are my favorite five pics from the 4th of July. Don’t forget that you have to click on the pics to see them full-sized.

Down the stone steps…

Past the hidden creek…

Through the shady woods…

To the open area on the riverbank…

Where someone built a pier…

And a house…

And their very own island…

At the end of her visit, the beautiful lady was tired but very happy. She went home, and after her aging body recovered from the miles she’d walked, she edited her pictures and found that they were good. The beautiful lady shared her pictures and lived happily ever after.

The End.

Well, I started dating someone, and we’re about 4 months in, now. Things are going very well, and I’m very happy. At the same time, I hadn’t been feeling very well and dreaded going to the doctor, especially now that I don’t have health insurance, anymore. I kept putting off going to the doctor hoping I would get better. I never did, so I broke down and made an appointment.

As far as I know, the lupus is still in remission. But, I also have Fibromyalgia, which is the culprit this time. It’s weird in that most people with lupus also have “fibro”, but most people with fibro don’t have lupus. I don’t know how that works, but it turns out that I was feeling bad because I was having a pretty bad fibro flare. My muscles were really tight all over, and as if that wasn’t enough, all the tendons and soft tissues around my joints (both shoulders, both elbows, both knees, both hands, both ankles, both hips, and my neck) were inflamed, which made them super sore and stiff. And, I had been like that since about March, getting progressively worse, before I finally couldn’t take it anymore.

I was put back on prednisone for a month long high dosage taper, and prescribed a muscle relaxant and a pain reliever. I felt a lot better within 24 hours, and dramatically better within 48 hours. At 72 hours in (3 days), I literally felt like I had a new lease on life. I felt so good! Then I had a very sobering thought… I realized that I had forgotten what it felt like to feel good. Isn’t that a shame? Then, I had another sobering thought: I might be one of the people who can never fully come off of their meds. What made me think of that was when I told my primary care doctor that my (former) rheumatologists had taken me off all meds related to lupus or fibro, he dead-panned that that might be the reason why I was feeling so bad.

And, y’all, when I say I was feeling bad, I mean I was feeling bad. I scared the poor medical assistant so badly when she put the rubber tourniquet around my arm to draw blood! I hollered, and I couldn’t help it. One of the places I was having severe pain and soreness was in both my elbows. The med assistant tied the tourniquet right around the most tender part of my upper arm, and I was hollering before I could catch myself. End result? A nervous med assistant and the doctor taking the blood samples, himself. He had to put the tourniquet farther up my arm, and it was somewhat of an ordeal to get any blood out of me.

I still feel a lot better than I did, but my body has now adjusted to the prednisone and other meds, so my activity rate is slowing back down to normal. But, I tell ya, those first few days were AWESOME!! So, that’s pretty much been what’s going on with me, and why I haven’t been blogging much. I wasn’t feeling well, and so wasn’t doing anything, and so had nothing to talk about.

Yeah, I got some camera lenses during this time, but I couldn’t really use them since I really wasn’t up to doing too much, physically. But, since I knew there was going to come a time when I would be using them, I bought them anyway. Before I go any further, I just have to say that my boyfriend has been wonderful with all of this. I know he’s nervous about the lupus, fibro, and other issues, but he’s not letting “what if’s” scare him away. He’s the real deal, and I’m glad I met him, and I’m glad he’s a part of my life.

Well, that’s it for the update. Stay tuned for some fireworks pics I took this weekend at the city of Morrow’s annual SummerFest on the Green.

My K10D can use every camera lens ever made by Pentax, so I started looking at old manual focus lenses. They are usually a lot cheaper than new lenses, and sometimes are even better lenses as far as picture quality goes. I watched eBay and combed craigslist for days, resigned to settling in for a long wait. But, this past Sunday I saw an ad for an old Pentax film camera with a 50mm lens attached, and a 135mm lens – all from the same seller – for a really good price. I sent a message, set up a meeting, inspected the lenses (they were good), and made the deal.

So, now in addition to my SMC Pentax DA 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AL II lens, I own a SMC Pentax-M 50mm f/2 prime lens, and a Pentax Takumar Bayonet 135mm f/2.5 prime lens. From my research, these new (to me) lenses aren’t great lenses, but they are very capable ones and not junk. That’s good enough for me, as I’d rather shoot with these lenses (practice makes perfect) than not shoot at all in the name of holding out for a better lens. As someone on a photography message board pointed out to me, there will ALWAYS be better lenses (than the ones you have).

Topics that I’m going to get around to talking about – hopefully over the weekend – are the Arizona immigration law, Sheri Lynn Davis; the Houston charter school teacher who beat up her student, Jessica Colotl; the Kennessaw State University illegal immigrant student, and the Gulf oil spill. So, stay tuned!