His 2013 Fall TV Lineup

And here I thought my wife watches a lot of TV. As I compiled my list, I was surprised that I watch more than she does, and my shows are more questionable. I wonder where I find the time to watch all these shows on a recurring basis, and how "corrupting" they are after all. Don't worry, we don't need an "intervention" about our TV habit, we're fine. To each his own, within reason.

My shows tend to be about justice, investigation, politics, criminal law, and some drama -- stuff I am generally interested in. These are not my wife's taste in television, but we manage a 28% overlap in what we watch. This television season, these are the TV shows I have been watching, along with a "YES" if she watches them too:

HER	Television Show	Network
YES	20/20	ABC
	48 Hours Mystery	CBS
	60 Minutes	CBS
YES	America's Got Talent	NBC
	American Greed	CNBC
	Anderson Cooper 360	CNN
	Arrow	CW
YES	Bones	FOX
	Biography	Bio.
	Breaking Bad	AMC
	Castle	ABC
	Chicago Fire	NBC
YES	Covert Affairs	USA
YES	Dancing with the Stars	ABC
	Dateline	NBC
	Elementary	CBS
	Frontline	PBS
YES	Hart of Dixie	CW
	Homeland	Showtime
	House Of Cards	Netflix
	Ironside	NBC
	Jimmy Kimmel Live	ABC
YES	Last Man Standing	ABC
	Love & Hip Hop Atlanta	VH1
	Masters of Sex	Showtime
	Misfits	BBC E4
	Modern Dads	A&E
	Modern Marvels	H2
YES	New Girl	FOX
	Orange Is The New Black	Netflix
YES	Parenthood	NBC
	Parks and Recreation	NBC
	Psych	USA
YES	Saturday Night Live	NBC
YES	Scandal	ABC
	Snapped	Oxygen
YES	Suits	USA
	The Big Bang Theory	CBS
YES	The Blacklist	NBC
	The Colbert Report	ComedyCentral
	The Crazy Ones	CBS
	The Daily Show	ComedyCentral
	The First 48	A&E
	The Good Wife	CBS
	The Middle	ABC
	The Mindy Project	FOX
	The O'Reilley Factor	FOX
	The Rachel Maddow Show	MSNBC
	The Soup	E!
	Top Shot	History
YES	White Collar	USA

Her 2013 Fall TV Lineup

When it comes to entertainment, television is one of our main outlets (or inlets, if you will). Admittedly, we watch a lot of television, but only a few shows do we watch together. This is another area (aside from politics) where couples are allowed to differ without much consequence, until, of course there is something seriously objectionable in the message of the TV shows themselves.

My wife loves cooking and reality shows mostly, which are not my cup of television. But even so, there are 10 out of her 50 shows that I watch too, sometimes together. A 20% intersection is not great, but it speaks to our different upbringings and cultures, and to a smaller extent, interests. This fall television season, these are the TV shows she will be watching, along with a "YES" if I watch them too:

HIM	TV Show
	The Bachelor
YES	Covert Affairs
	Design Star
	Project Runway
	Royal Pains
	Secret Millionaire
	Top Chef
YES	White Collar
	The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
	The Real Housewives of New Jersey
	The Real Housewives of Orange County
	Food Network Star
	Extreme Weight Loss
YES	Suits
	The Rachel Zoe Project
	Hell's Kitchen
YES	Parenthood
YES	Bones
	Once Upon A Time
YES	New Girl
YES	Last Man Standing
	America's Next Top Model
	Celebrity Wife Swap
	SMASH
	Face Off
	Sister Wives
	Shark Tank
	So You Think You Can Dance
	Breaking Pointe
	Bunheads
	The X Factor
YES	America's Got Talent
	Ink Master
	Nashville
	Downton Abbey
	Call The Midwife
	The Supersizers Go
YES	Scandal
	Catfish
	Duck Dynasty
	Double Divas
	Vanderpump Rules
	The Taste
	1600 Penn
YES	Dancing with the Stars
	Preacher's Daughters
	Newlyweds: The First Year
	Ready for Love
	Master Chef
	Motive

Taking a Musical Break

A majority of my friends know me in the context of music (I play bass guitar and drums), and they know I live and breathe music in all its variety. So it may sound strange that I am taking a break from that. The sad truth is that I am feeling the burnout and lack of skill growth on my instruments, and feel I should step back to rest and catch up.

The break is only about my public musical engagements. For any given week when I play at any church, for instance, I expect to spend about 18 hours in preparation and delivery. That week, I may download the songs and active-listen, practice on instrument against the original recordings, attend practice or rehearsals, practice again with set modifications, do scriptural review (music spiritual basis + sermon/series notes), personal "heart prep" (so I am in the right place spiritually to lead worship), and then play during the actual services. Sometimes there is travel involved. The preparation is a little different when I'm guesting in another band, as I have to learn their set and style. I've been fortunate to participate in everything from bar gigs to charity events and studio appearances. I enjoy the musical opportunities until the burnout arrives (now an annual thing, it seems), when you feel the passion slowly dying. You need rest from it before you lose it.

So until late January or early February 2014, I'll be on a sort of break. What shall I do with the freed up time? Well, my day job has already ramped up so I need the weekends for rest and recreation. During this break, I also want to work on improving my bass guitar and drums technique, so when I emerge I will be a better musician. I am also angling to work on completing my current 3 web development projects (LeafCompass, SKIVI, and Geldzin). Technically, I'll have improved skills in PHP/Symfony2, WordPress Theming, and HTML5/JQuery. True geek.

I'll perhaps cut off my dreadlocks (kidding!) and spend more time with my wife (truth). We are in such a season of our marriage that requires more presence and availability on my part, so I want to at least redesign and rehearse a new personal workflow centered around family life. It should also afford me a path to revitalize my business STRIVE, especially what services I want to offer next year. Lots of exciting things on the horizon!

Healthcare After Obamacare

With most health insurance companies having published their rates for 2014, we now know what will change in our plan and how Obamacare really affects us. Overall, health insurance rates will rise 4-6% across the board in our plan (so said HR) because of changes in compliance with the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

For our family however, my employer will be paying $483 every pay period to cover my spouse and I under an Anthem HRA PPO plan. That is roughly $996/month, a $146 (18%) increased cost to the employer. What we personally pay increases from $115/paycheck to $125 (about 9% increase). Since the plan retains most of its features, we can say healthcare will cost us only 9% more in 2014.

The other changes I see include an increase in our out-of-pocket deductible, from $4000 to $6000/year. So the only action we'll take is to increase our emergency fund by $2000. The employer still contributes $4000 into our Health Reimbursement Account (HRA) at the beginning of the year, and how we use the plan remains unchanged. I also notice an emphasis towards expanded preventive care at 100% coverage. There are more women's services, and oddly questionable items like coverage for sex reassignment. Why that in lieu of more important services like fertility treatments? Starting in 2015, we'll be able to unbundle services from our plans; there's plenty I'd strike off right away. I also notice that our dental plan is now capped at $2500, with coverages at 90/60/80 for basic treatment/major treatment/orthodontics. Preventive dental care is always 100% covered. The prescription plan and other benefits do not change.

So I'd say come next year, we are paying a little bit more for healthcare but getting a little less service. Not bad, considering the stories we've heard about people seeing insurance costs double or tripple on the private market (about 12% of the insured). While most have blamed Obamacare for these increases, the truth is that healthcare is expensive to begin with (around $900/month for a family), and its costs rise every year.

Rather than focus on access, I think healthcare reform should have first addressed why the costs are so high (see this PBS Newshour analysis, for example). Second, decoupling insurance from employment would squarely make it a market problem, much like automobile or renters insurance work. Then would it have been appropriate to consider how people access healthcare and how it is delivered. I wouldn't even mind reviewing so-called entitlements to care that ultimately someone else pays for. So whether it is Obamacare causing the price hikes or not, there is a chronic problem in US healthcare that will continue to haunt us regardless of regulation and taxation.

Healthcare Before Obamacare

As the healthcare exchanges open and people all over the US sign up for health insurance, we begin to review our own options so that we are in a position to evaluate what these exchanges will deliver. We start with a review of what we currently have, at least until the end of the year.

We get healthcare through my employer, covering both of us for all medical, dental, vision, mental (counseling), and prescriptions. For 2013, it costs us $115/paycheck (roughly $230/month), although my employer ultimately pays about $820/month for this benefit. Our $9840 annual cost to the employer for healthcare insurance is a little higher than the national average. Health insurance is quite expensive in this country, this before the effects of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) kick in.

Additionally, my employer pays $4000 into our Health Reimbursement Account (HRA) at the beginning of the year, leaving our out-of-pocket deductible as $4000 annually. Whatever is not used up in the HRA the previous year is rolled over into the new year, in addition to new contributions from the employer. As we use up healthcare services, we don't start paying out-of-pocket until the HRA is depleted. When this happens, we pay up to $4000 out of pocket, and thereafter insurance covers the rest 100%. So as a matter of good planning, we decided to stow away the $4000 expected deductible as part of our emergency fund.

Medical coverage is provided by Anthem BlueCross, and includes preventive care, doctor visits, emergency room, hospital and board (3 days), and prescriptions (the complete list of benefits includes over 100 items that I do not care to list here, but that have 100% coverage in-network and 60-80% out of network). Of note, the lifetime maximum amount is unlimited. Dental coverage is provided by DeltaDental up to $3000, with 100% preventive care and basic treatments, and 80% major treatments and orthodontics. The vision plan is 100% covered beyond a $20 office visit fee.

To date, we have not had to pay anything out-of-pocket towards healthcare, even after the annual physicals and dental checkups we have done, except for various prescription co-pays at about $45/month. We like our healthcare plan thus far, but will shop around if the healthcare exchanges provide something better than what our plan will offer for 2014.