For those of you who enjoy that Habitat for Humidity steam room feel with clammy, sweaty skin, and insist on living on the East Coast to relish it all summer, I salute you. I lived in that world for 18 years and merely traded it for an equally hot, humid country.

I wisely chose to stay out west after separation and enjoy the 0% humidity of the Mojave Desert. 40 degrees until 0700 and then a steady climb to the 80s-100s all day. Then the reverse to 0200 and 40 again.

Washington state, we tell prospective Californians, is dull, dreary cloudy skies with tons of rain and vastly over-priced real estate. People don’t tan here. They rust. We tell them our water tastes weird. Big volcanos go off all the time. Earthquakes. Doom. Birth defects. Nuclear waste. Even all those lies aren’t enough to stop them from coming.

As most know, Cupcake and I drove down to San Antonio and saw Jack the Cat, friends, clients and wild burros. Friday and Saturday were devoted to ‘book-learnin’ about the myriad ways VA comes up with to delay or deny claims and how to outmanuvre them. We got the VA Dog and Pony show put on by Mr. James Ridgway and a Doctor Edward Zech who is the resident nexus provider at the BVA. If VA needs to know pronto what generally causes a disease/injury, they turn to him to receive the answer. He’s the VA’s HAL 9000 with artificial intelligence. Think back to the old days when Mr. William M. Colvin called into question why BVA judges could make decisions medical in nature with no specific Medical doctor training. Think how many of us lost out on that until 1991. Dr. Zech is on hand 24/7 to render a quick nexus if needed on the spur of the moment.

Enjoy the show. Call in on