Brendan Gates

We have returned, from Playa Del Carmen in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. Actually, we were just outside of Playa at the Hotel Valentin Imperial Maya. I took some pictures, you can see them on my Flickr page here.

It was a great trip. Very relaxing, lots of time on the beach. We couldn’t have asked for more.

A few comments:

– The Mexican people were extremely friendly, and not just the resort employees who could have been pleasant just for the sake of a tip. Every person we came across, down to the airport security employee who searched my bag, was amazingly friendly.

– Based on a consumer reports review, we went with a Walgreens brand sunblock. That stuff worked great; easily the best sunblock I’ve ever used. I thought for sure my fair pseudo-ginger skin was going to fry, but it didn’t. I have a little color from walking around without sunblock in the morning, but otherwise I look much the same as I did before I left. I can’t recommend this sunblock highly enough, especially considering it’s a discount brand and I put it to the test, spending at least 4 hours a day out at the beach or pool in the blazing Mexican sun. It was the Walgreens Sport SPF 70+ Continuous Spray. If you want to spend some time in the sun and not burn, even you fellow paper-white peeps, get this stuff (and don’t forget to reapply).

– And for other teetotalers out there, you can get non-alcohol beer in Playa Del Carmen. I had about a 50% success rate in getting it when I asked, and about a 85% success rate in getting a weird look for asking for such a thing. At the Argentinian Steakhouse in Playa they had O’Douls Amber, and at the resort they had Sol Cero.

– Back to sunblock, be advised that the super fantastic sunblock I was just evengelizing above will do you no good if you go snorkeling or swimming in the caves. Those are protected areas, and as such you’ll need biodegradeable sunblock. Predictably, it doesn’t work nearly as well. But if you’re going the cave route you probably won’t see much sun. Snorkelers should buy the bio-friendly stuff ahead of time so as to not be forced to buy the overpriced versions when you’re at the snorkel shop in Mexico.

– There is no shortage of “day adventures” you can sign up for, and the zip lines alone are worth the price of admission. We did the Tulum Xtreme and were led around by a great guide named Gus. You can see a video of me riding a zip line here, ladyfriend here, and Gus here. Our day trip was offered by Aventuras Mayas, and we would definitely take a tour with them again given the opportunity.

I’m sure there is more I can say, or there are details I’m forgetting, but the pictures and video links are the most interesting things anyway. If I think of anything else I’ll come back and append this post.

Ladyfriend took a pie to the face for charity. Be sure to click the HD button for the crispest pie in face viewing experience possible.

Many of her co-workers suffered similar fates. You can see their videos on my vimeo page: http://vimeo.com/brendangates

I don’t seem to have great luck with my pharmacies.

Last fall Walgreens gave me the wrong drugs for a month. I’ve also consistently run into issues with them either not having my full prescription available when I show up, or with the wrong doctor being called to approve my refills. So I decided to go straight to the source, and try mail ordering my drugs from my Pharmacy Benefit Management (PBM) company.

That PBM is Express Scripts. I placed the order via their website on 5/29. It arrived this morning, 49 days later. Is it just me, or is that a really, really bad turnaround? If my book from Amazon takes 49 days to get to me, I’ll probably be pretty annoyed. If my prescription drugs take 49 days to get to me, I could be pretty dead.

So what was the hold up? It wasn’t the shipping. The package shipped UPS Next Day Air from Arizona yesterday and showed up on my doorstep at 10am today. It also isn’t likely to have been my doctor, since I’ve been taking these drugs for 5 years now and getting refill approvals is a routine matter. Walgreens usually has the order ready in 24-48 hours; even when there have been questions or Walgreens had trouble reaching my doctor I never had to wait more than 5 days.

The truth is, I have no idea why it took 49 days for my trunk of pills to arrive. I sent two emails to the Express Scripts Patient Care Team specifically asking what the holdup was, and if I needed to contact my doctor or resubmit the order. Both emails were greeted with apologies and vague bolierplates about possibly needing to get approvals and how my patience was appreciated. They also listed their standard interval, which was that it could take up to 2-3 weeks for the order to reach me. Even that probably padded estimate of 21 days seems way too long to me, but they still missed it by a mile (in this case a mile = 28 days).

Express Scripts is headquartered in my hometown, and I have family and friends who work there, so this rant is certainly not personal. I wanted nothing more than for the transaction to go smoothly. I was going to place the order and have it arrive a week or two later, and I was going to be so happy with the process that I would ditch Walgreens and permanently convert to the masterful mail-order method. Not so much. I guess I’ll try Target next.

If you want to see what 1080 pills look like crammed into a chilled styrofoam trunk, I put pictures up on my Flickr account here.