Book Buys and FSA Resolution

It has been a painfully cold week, and yet I have managed to show up for work every day. The cold only froze the hot water pipe to my bathroom sink, and that for only one day. Otherwise, there has been no real ice or show. I have avoided having to put on my bulky, bulky winter coat by layering two or three hoodies. Despite the layers, I was fairly comfortable as well as able to move around.

I had stuff to resolve this week. Foremost among them was my flexible spending account (FSA). I had thought that I paid off Anthem, my insurer, for their inability to accept my use of my FSA to pay a chunk of my bill for my molar crown. (Why is it that insurers have trouble accepting documentation from my dentist?) Yet, when I visit the Anthem site and tried to find out my balance on my FSA, I got an error message. I kept getting it for weeks. This was annoying, because I could get the account balance before early December.

Finally, I called the company that runs the FSAs for Anthem, and found that I have to set up a separate account with them in order to view my account stats. It turns out that my check did clear. In fact, I have until mid-March to use the amount that the check added to the account for 2014.

Also this week books arrived package by package from an order for which I had used two Amazon gift cards I got for XMas.

Denei Shôjo (Video Girl Ai)

I ordered six books that complete my collection of the Viz Media version. I want to read the whole series, and understand what I am reading, since its animé was the first one I had seen as an adult, and was what made me a fan of animé.

Puella Magi Madoka Magika: The Different Story

The three books in this series should have been named Puella Magi Mami Magika, since the story concentrates on Tomoe Mami and her friend Sakura Kyôko.

Version Control with Git

Version control is usually used to keep track of changes in a software project, but it can be used to track changes in a Web site as well. I could use Git in revising my own Web site. I have been meaning to do this for a long time.

I also got two books that could never be available on Amazon.

Hello, and welcome to the Ink Experiment. I'm Dan Kim. The book you just received presents to you text and images you would never find in a bookstore.

The book in question is NNN, a text and art festival based both on House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski and on Alice in Wonderland, specifically Alice (who is called The Captain here) and the White Rabbit (a bureaucrat for some government archive). It has to be read to be experienced (if not understood).

The quote is based on the intro of an old midnight radio show called The Sound Experiment on Indiana Public Radio back in the early 2000's. (I still have the pledge gift compilation CD.) The student who hosted it, Dan Crall, graduated, moved to Oregon, got disenchanted with public radio (well, Oregon Public Radio, at any rate), and started a pedicab business.

These are the books that I have received. The remaining book is Before, After & In Between, a comics anthology, compiled by illustrator Ms. Yuj Lee after a successful Kickstarter compaign, deals with the end of the world on 21 December 2012. I have ordered one of two or three of the last remaining volumes.

And then I went and orders a whole bunch more books, but these are Dover Thrift Editions, so it is okay. More on those as they arrive.