Verizon vs. AT&T for the New iPhone

So which carrier is really a better deal for the iPhone.  Well, if you look at the screen shot below from the Apple store, they both pretty much cost the same.  The cheaper model is $199 for 16GB, and the 32GB model is $299.

Since the cost of the phone is pretty close, what about the total cost of ownership including rate plans?

AT&T
$199.00 for new phone
$36.00 one time activation
$39.99 per month includes 450 minutes plus 5000 night and weekend minutes
$25.00 for 2GB of data transfer per month
$20.00 per month for unlimited texts

Verizon
$199.00 for new phone
$35.00 one time activation
$39.99 per month includes 450 minutes plus unlimited night and weekend minutes
$30.00 for 2GB of data transfer per month
$5.00 per month for 250 texts per month

Total Cost of ownership (not including taxes) for 24 months:
AT&T  $2275  vs. Verizon  $2034
(this is assuming AT&T doesn't offer a cheaper texting plan and keeps the phone prices and rate plans the same)

Not to mention the coverage maps.

The AT&T coverage map above shows some dead spots along the I-91 corridor in VT. 

The I-91 corridor above on the Verizon map looks better to me.

Both carriers are touting 4G service now and getting better into the near future.

I am pretty much sold on moving over to Verizon.  The only drawback that I am aware of with the iPhone 4 was the inability to use both voice and data simultaneously.  The big question is whether the new iPhone with Verizon coverage will still have this drawback...

Stay Tuned.  Can you hear me now?

Why Politicians Are Not “The Solution” for Health Care.

Lately we are hearing in the news that our nation has a health care crisis.  Many say we need “Healthcare Reform.”  I disagree since our country has some of the best healthcare in the world.  Refer to the January 2011 ranking of the top 1000 hospitals in the world where the US holds all of the top 20 spots except for two Taiwanese hospitals.  In fact, the US holds 426 out of the top 1000 spots for the best hospitals in the world.  That’s pretty good numbers considering the US comprises less than 4.5% of the world population according to the US Census Bureau.  Even though some hospitals in the US may be sub-optimal, we have quite a few great ones in comparison to the rest of the world.  With that said, I feel we have pretty decent healthcare in this country (I’m sure some folks will disagree for one reason or another, but I am entitled to my opinion).

Americans have access to healthcare since legally no one is turned away from hospitals.  The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) was passed in 1986 by the U.S. Congress which requires hospitals and ambulance services to provide care to anyone needing emergency healthcare treatment regardless of citizenship, legal status or ability to pay.  This is another example of an unfunded mandate put in place by our government that I’m sure drives up health insurance costs.  So even though 43 million people (roughly 14%) in the US did not have health insurance in 2008, these people still have access to healthcare, but perhaps not covered under a policy.  And a 2009 CBS News poll shows that 64% of Americans think health care should be a right.  Healthcare is often confused as health insurance; or is it really healthcare?

So why do we hear so much about healthcare from the news and from politicians?  Why do we hear so many fellow Americans complain about healthcare?  Why do so many companies complain about skyrocketing healthcare premiums?  Many people seem to think the major cause is because things are getting more and more expensive every year.  However, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average rate of inflation between 2000 and 2010 was 2.5% per annum. So inflation doesn’t seem to be the cause since it has stayed rather steady.  A few other factors could be compensation for healthcare workers, profitability of hospitals, or profitability of health insurance companies.

Forbes wrote an article about hospital profitability in August, 2010.  In this article they researched profitability of hospitals and found that many hospitals were turning operating margins above 25%.  The most profitable hospital had an unbelievable operating margin of 53%!  That means they were charging patients double what they needed to survive.  Even not for profit hospitals were turning profits!

I discovered through research that insurance companies are also doing quite well.  United Healthcare netted 3.8 billion in 2009 and 4.6 billion in 2010.  The #2 Health insurer in the US, Wellpoint Inc. made 5.6 billion in 2009 and 6.9 billion in 2010. Aetna netted 2.9 billion in 2009, and 3.75 billion in 2010.  Blue Cross and Blue shield doubled its profit in 2010 from the previous year, raking in 1.1 billion.  There are so many insurers, I could go on and on.  If you want to get even more riled up, then go online and check out how many millions of dollars of your insurance premiums are paid out in executive pay to the leaders of these giant businesses.

I have my theories of course, but I don’t think the government’s solutions or regulations for health insurance will fix the problem.  Politicians as of late seem to be very short sighted and only seem to be interested in saying what people want to hear.  In order to best describe my feelings, let me give an example:

Let’s pretend for a minute that I was going to offer you a grocery meal plan.  I know you spend a fair amount of money every month, so I am going to give you a really great policy price which will take care of all of your grocery needs.  I am going to get really low prices with the grocery store since I have so much bargaining power (I'm going to get them a bunch of customers who can only shop at their store).  Basically you take your meal plan card into the grocery store whenever you want, and get whatever you want.  It will only cost you $25 per trip as a co-pay.  Do you think you will buy the same amount of groceries you did in the past?  Or perhaps might you get more and better ones?  Do you think the store employees might throw in a few extra items with your purchase you might need since they are “covered” under your policy?

I bet if we tried this experiment, I would need to raise your “policy premium” after year one to regain my profitability.  Then the grocery store would soon realize that they can charge whatever they want to you (since you aren’t paying attention) because it doesn’t directly impact you.  Soon after that, I would need to raise my prices again since my profitability has been reduced.  Not to mention the prices for groceries went up because of inflation.  This system sounds ludicrous to me.

I don’t think the founders of the “free market” would think very fondly of our current system.  It is basically a monopolistic price fixing scheme that doesn’t allow for competition.  So what is my solution?  Well, I probably don’t have a perfect one, but I definitely wouldn’t vote for a politician just because they claim they will solve our healthcare systems problems.  Every solution I’ve heard from our politicians is really no solution at all.  The proposed solutions seem to bind us tighter to insurance companies, which I feel will only dig this hole deeper.  Do we want to head in this direction?  I really want to hear solutions that will improve the quality of life for me and my fellow Americans.

But just stop and think about the system as a whole for a minute… why should your healthcare be tied to your job?  You probably are not going to have your job for the rest of your life.  My personal opinion is that insurance should be outlawed by the government unless the healthcare companies and hospitals are non-profit organizations.  This still would be imperfect since it could leave openings for some people to take advantage of the system somehow (as mentioned above).  I would prefer if people would go to a health care provider (doctor or hospital) and pay what they can afford for the services they need.  In this model, people could pay for health services they require directly and negotiate “fair prices”.

Here is a video I found from the 2011 Bennington crit.  I am on the front in the last part of the video.  We blew apart this race!



Here is a video where I narrowly escaped a crash at the 2011 Naugutuck crit.  (This was my last crit of the season)

My Summer Cycling Wrap-up

2011 was a pretty wild summer of cycling for me.  I went to a couple of stage races early in the season to see if my winter training would give me enough strength and endurance to finally climb out of the Cat 4s.  I had been a Cat 4 since the late 90's, but I'd never had a solid enough season to get any results.  This year I was able to build on top of my conditioning from the cross season, and also learned a bunch from teammates help, and learned some from my past mistakes.

The first stage race in the end of April was the Bennington Stage Race (AKA: Tour of the Dragons).  This was a new event on the calendar, but it drew a handful of fellow teammates.  Our Expo guys carpooled and spent a bunch of time eating and hanging out together in a cool part of Vermont.  I had an especially great time at the crit and had a 6th place result and did a fairly detailed write up about the race.  Granted, it was only a cat 4 crit, but we still had an average speed of 24.3 mph.  This positive start to my season had given me hope to finally getting my Cat 3 upgrade this year.  (I left out the part where I got dropped on the hilly road race)

My second stage race of the season was the Tour de Syracuse in the end of May.  I had shown up with high hopes, but had them dashed by not being focused in the crit, and not being focused in the time trial.  I had some issue with distraction those days, and I still don't know what it was.  Perhaps it was the points series format that I wasn't familiar with.  Or maybe the long drive in the car, or the food I ate the night before.  Whatever it was, I had a disappointing event and the hilly road race didn't help.  A few good things came out of this race.  The first was a few new friends.  The second was the fact that I need to focus in a race or I fail.  The third was the realization that I needed to avoid races with hills.

Once the summer was underway I went to the local Tuesday night crit at the Rent, which is promoted by CVC.  My best Tuesday night of the year I rode the "B race" and then followed it up with riding the "A race".  This night was notable because I think it was the most and fastest racing I have ever done in one night.  Over 38.5 miles in 1.5 hrs.  The average speed of the "A race" was 27.2 mph!
On Wednesday nights I was either helping or riding our local time trial promoted by our club the Expo Wheelmen.  I also raced the Sturbridge Mass Time Trial one night.

I started to scour the calendar for races without hills and in the beginning of June I drove to New Jersey for the Watermellon Crit.  My sixth place result started to give me hope again.  I also raced in the Masters race and got into a break for a while.  I ended up blowing up since I didn't have quite enough endurance for two races in a row that day.

The day after being in New Jersey, I decided to mix things up a little and did a Cat 2 mountain bike race at Domnarski Farm.  I finished a hilly mountain bike race top 10 with a 1:01:53 lap time.  My goal was to crack an hour, but I'll need to try harder next year.

The following weekend I found a gold medal in my hands for a third place finish at the Nutmeg Games.  The reason I was a gold medalist, was because I was the top finisher from the State of Connecticut.  The net result for me was more upgrade points, and a great experience.

This is the point when summer started to get a little crazy.  It seemed like something was going on every weekend.  Plus my teammates were showing up at the local races and working hard to keep things together and pushing the pace on the final laps to keep things strung out.
Feeling like I needed points because of local events being cancelled, I drove to NYC for the Harlem crit.  This was a points format crit, so every 5 laps the riders sprint for points.  Whoever has the most points at the end of the race wins.  I attacked on one of the wrong laps and got frustrated.  It was not a great day for me.

Throughout the rest of the summer I kept training and racing the Tuesday night crits.  I raced the Attleboro Masters crit which averaged almost 27 mph.  It was crazy to be in a bunch sprint with such a bunch of fast racers.  At the New Britain crit I got another sixth place finish in the Cat 4 race.

And finally I finished my road racing season for this year at the Naugatuck crit.  I signed up for three races for the day.  The first race was a Cat 4/5 and I won the bunch sprint on the final lap, but since a rider had gotten away off the front, it netted me second place.  Then I jumped into the Masters race, but my body needed more recovery time, so I only did part of the race and then bailed out.  Then I lined back up for the Cat 3/4 race and finished it up near the top ten in the bunch sprint.  The race was a race filled with crashes, and I was thankful to end my season safe.

After all of my 2011 racing, I sent my racing license Cat 3 upgrade request along with all of my race info to USAC.  Some people say "It's about time".  But I say, "Finally!"

2011 Watermelon Crit

This week I received an email from the race promoter of the 2011 Connecticut Stage Race (AKA: 2011 CSR).  The message said our local race was cancelled this year due to low pre-registration numbers.  With that large hole in the racing calendar I was a little bummed, and I needed to find something to fill it with.  As I mentioned in my previous post, I am hunting for cat 3 points, and I know my strength is racing flat criterium type races.  With all of this in mind, I decided to drive three hours to the Rutgers campus in New Jersey to race today in the 2011 Watermelon criterium event.  Yes, it may sound crazy to drive 3 hours to race in two short races, but I love crits, and I have been scouring the race calendar for places to score upgrade points, and this event sounded like I had a chance to score a few.

Following the directions to the race from the website, I found the specified parking lot quite easily.  The 4 am wakeup had made me a little groggy, but I still managed to fill out the release form as I registered for two races.  I told the guy at the registration table Cat 4 and 35+.  He looked at me and replied "45+?" inquisitively.  It was slightly humorous, since this is about the third time I've gotten this response lately.  I mean, do I really look that old?  Is it my beard?  Who cares.  With such a long drive I figured I should take advantage of the chance to score a couple of pack finishes at least.  Pack finishes, top tens, and points each count towards a USAC Cat 3 upgrade.  The gnats were plentiful at the registration area next to the start line, so I was glad to get out of there, pin up my number, and do a quick recon of the course.

The course is sort of a triangle shape (0.7 mile long) loop, but the main straightaway is curved making the turns not too extreme of angles.  The main straight at the start line goes slightly downhill, and hangs a left at the first intersection.  This turn is super fast since it was coming down hill and can be apexed way to the inside since the pavement coverage is so wide.  The back straight is basically flat, and had only a few minor potholes.  The next left has a bunch of bumps leading into the corner, which made for a rough ride for a high speed corner.  When you exit the corner, the road very slightly slants upwards, about 23 feet of vertical per lap according to my garmin.  This straight leads back to the third left turn, which swings back out onto the finishing stretch.  After my pre-ride I was pleased with the course overall.

The cat 4/5 race got underway on schedule and it was pretty fast.  It was a very large field, maybe 60 or 70 riders.  My strategy was to "sit in" and conserve, but the yo-yo or slinky effect of the massive group was burning up my legs, so I moved up in the group within the first couple of laps.  I heard a guy at the start of the race bragging to his buddies about how he led out his teammate for a win last week, so I marked that guy, and sat on his wheel in the bunch.  The race was actually a little bit boring at this point.  People at the front tried to get away, and the big engines in the group would rev it up and reel them in.  It was constant surging, but pretty uneventful.  No premes.  Bah!  The most exciting part was when some water bottles had fallen out of cages and were rolling around in the rough turn #2.  The race organizers quickly cleaned up the bottles after we passed by and removed the excitement.

I pulled up alongside my marked rider (in the green above) after about 30 minutes of racing and told him that I adopted him as a teammate since I had nobody for a lead-out.  He said he was flattered, and right away I could tell by his body language that he would set me up for a good finish.  He stayed on the outside edge of the group, and kept right up near the front.  On two laps to go the pace was flying, and I almost got taken out by a guy in a turn who swerved cat 5 style.  With the near miss behind me, I refocused on the wheel of my guy.  One lap to go, a team in light blue and white setup a train at the front.  It was full speed and they peeled off tour de france style after each one had given it their all.  I hung on in the top ten, rounded the final corner.  There was noise from a large crash right behind me. I continued to focus on sitting behind my leadout man, and when he started to sprinthe freaked slightly, rear wheel skidded sideways, but recovered quickly.  I couldn't wait, so I blew around him and chased the 10 or so guys who were already sprinting towards the finish line.  I scooped up a few places and got 5th.  Yes!  Thats worth points and counts as a top ten and a pack finish!



I hung out for a while and watched some junior racing which was cool.  They had quite a large field of young riders.  Some of the kids looked tiny on their bikes.  I also watched the womens cat 4 race, and waited for my Masters 35+ race.  My race started a little late, but once it started rolling, it felt like we were trying to make up time.  Long story short, I hung in there for quite a while.  I got into a 4 man break group that lasted maybe half a dozen laps until one of the guys threw down an attack on us.  That move blew up a group that might have been able to stay away.  At one point we had a huge gap on the field.  Once the main field gathered us up, it was attack, after attack, after attack.  Ouch.  My legs started to cry.  Then 30 minutes into the 40 minute race my legs went ka-boom.  The switch was turned off.  I rode back to my car, and packed up my stuff.  Even though my second race didn't go so well, it was another perfect day of racing in the books...

Like poking a stick in a bees nest... Out in the Break!

My Garmin data from the 4/5 race
My Garmin data from the 35+ race

...and yes, they gave away watermelons as prizes to the winners...

Did I mention that I love bike racing?

2011 and Still Going

So I wasn't sure what to expect after this winter following the cross season since I was headed into back surgery, but things seem to have worked out for the most part.  I got my surgery done in December, and was laid up for a bit, and then had to take it easy for a while, but I was back on the bike within 5 weeks (I think - pain meds - ahhh).  Then I started, very slowly to ramp my training up with a goal of 10 hours per week of ride time, hoping to bring that up to 12 hours per week by the end of March.

In early February I got a nasty cold that I couldn't shake, and I had to take a few weeks off my training plan.  Good thing I rested up because then the weather broke, the six foot snow banks started to melt, and I got out on a bunch of weekend rides.  Most of the rides I went out on in the 30 and 40 degree days had destinations with warm plates of food.  Which was a stark contrast to all of the hours I spent riding on the stationary trainer, accompanied by boredom or netflix movies, made the outdoor rides seem quite enjoyable.
I went to a Bethel training race in March and had a great time.  There was a huge field, and I felt great.  I even dragged my teammate Lance up the hill to win a prime, and I bridged a gap or two during the race to test myself.  I felt like I didn't lose too much conditioning since cross season, but I was slow to recover from hard efforts...

 

With a bunch of anaerobic club rides and and a decent Expo Wheelmen Time Trial under my belt, I signed up for the 2011 Bennington Vermont Stage Race (AKA: 2011 Bennington Race Weekend, or The Tour of the Dragons.)  I knew going into the race that my strengths would be in the TT and the crit.  The road race had some pretty severe hills, which is something a 200 pound guy usually doesn't specialize in.
I wrote about the stage race from my perspective here:

Now I have one point towards my cat 3 upgrade.  The question is, can I (or will I) get the 19 more points I need to earn my upgrade this season.  I'm not getting any younger ya know...

2010 Cross Season Roundup

My goal for the 2010 cross season was to get enough USA Cycling points to get my Category 3 upgrade.  As the rules are written, a Cat 4 cross rider needs to complete 10 races, or get 10 upgrade points within a year.  Points are earned based on the placing and the number of riders in the field.  The UASC rules for cross can be found here.
Here's how it played out:

• Brewery Ommegang - second place finish scored me 4 points.
• Day 1 of the Providence Cross Fest - 10th place result 0 points
• TCC Mansfield Hollow Cross - fourth place finish earned me 2 more points

  Day One @ Downeast CX race in Maine - another fourth place and 2 more points

• Day Two @ Downeast CX race - finished on the podium in second place for 4 more points

Since my total points was now up to 12, I requested my USAC upgrade on the website and it was granted.  I picked up a sticker for my license at the Northampton Mass Cycle-Smart International Day 2 race.  This was my third time racing in the Cat 3 field, but was my first cross race as a Cat 3.  I had little expectations since the previous day I had ridden an 82 mile off road adventure, and at this race and the field was huge.  Starting from the back of about 150 riders, I finished 99th.