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Resurrecting Lazarus

admin — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 03:37:46 +0000

On his adventurous journey, Harvey Mangrove, a biologist from University of California, set off to South Africa in search of plants and vegetation that were thought to be extinct, but now appeared to have resurrected.

Little did he know that his journey would make him into a household name, catapulting him into rock star status in every scientific journal and landing him on every talk show from morning to midnight. But a small patch of a red fern cropped up in Nelsen Mandela Bay and he wanted to be part of conserving the once-lost plant, in hopes of guaranteeing its existence once again on this earth.

He had already travelled to Australia for another discovery and another in New York, causing his peers to deem him the Lazarus finder and keeper of once lost species. The thrill of the corn buttercups’ reappearance in Shropshire, England’s lush countryside, where it was last seen 20 years ago, was the most exciting thing to him. To be a discoverer of lost plants and animals is like finding maps and clues to the lost covenant.

“Do not forget your trusty health insurance when you’re trekking the globe like Raiders of the Lost Ark,” said Matt Lockhard, the Independent California Health Insurance Agent and long-time friend of Harvey’s.

Harvey knew that extra health insurance would do him good on top of what the college gives him, particularly travelling as much as he did to the nooks and crannies of this globe and to every glorious nature preserve.

But Harvey was not casted into the limelight like he once dreamed of, but worked quietly under the auspices of the other celebrated scientists and conservationists. He would periodically report to Matt Lockhard, the Independent California Health Insurance Agent, about his travels and his scientific studies.

“I don’t know about you, Harvey,” Matt said, “but I think all you do is dream of lost plants and animals! Don’t you think that’s odd?”

Harvey, who is also known to a light-hearted joker from time to time, gave it right back to Matt, “Well, just as much as you live and breathe health insurance policies, I suppose, Matt!”

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The Lottery Ticket

admin — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 03:37:36 +0000

It was the worst of it she thought, forgetting to turn the burner off after boiling a pot of water. It was not the forgetfulness, but also the indifference about mostly everything.

Out of the blue, she received a letter from a long-time friend who lives out in Texas. When she was young and single, Eloise loved to go dancing and sing at karaoke night – her only claim to fame and venue for self-expression. And her girlfriend, Teresa, was her hanging out buddy. And, boy, could Eloise turn a crowd with great stage presence and engaging performances.

She could also more than carry a tune. She studied the likes of heavy-duty songstresses such as Anita Baker, Toni Braxton and Aretha Franklin. When she sang the R-E-S-P-E-C-T song, the crowd jumped to their feet and started dancing and hooperin’ and hollerin’. She felt on top of the world in her little watering hole in her small town where practically everybody knew her name.

But hard times fell. Jobs were scarce and she could barely pay for her essentials and rent. It is no wonder that it affected her spirit. She did not feel much like dancing and singing anymore. No matter if Joe Day from the auto shop was willing to pay her way all night. But she was able to maintain her health insurance, thank goodness for her California Independent Health Insurance Rep., Matt Lockhard. Bless his heart. He made sure she was well covered for what she needed in these trying times.

So when the letter from Teresa came in from Texas, she reluctantly and unenthusiastically opened the darn thing to discover one national lottery ticket and a small note that said, “Now sing for your supper tonight and make this lottery ticket pay off for you.”

“Well, it is Friday night,” Eloise said out loud to herself, “and I’m tired of looking at these dingy walls.”

She called Joe Day and they turned the night out. Eloise gave the best performance of her life and everybody told her so. Pretty soon, Eloise didn’t wake up with aching joints, but with a slight pep to her step. Her speaking voice became more sure and bold like when she sang.

Best yet, Eloise never checked her lottery ticket until she discovered it in the abyss of her purse one day. She took a gander, and went to local corner store to find that her long-time friend, Teresa, was right.

The post The Lottery Ticket first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Tina Springs Forth and Regains Her Strength

admin — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 21:11:27 +0000

“Spring forth,” he told her. She initially chucked at that advice until she saw a show on TV that featured the mineral springs of Iceland. It prompted to do some research on the Internet and she found that there were actually mineral springs in California.

It seemed like a disaster in the beginning. The chiropractor who treated her said there was no treatment that could help her with excruciating joint pain. Thanks to her Long Beach independent health insurance agent, Matt Lockhard – who conveyed to her the significance of her health insurance coverage that enabled her to see a myriad of specialists to try and get to the root cause of her pain – Tina Masakit saw all types of doctors in all types of specialties and underwent all kinds of tests and X-rays, but none could quite put her back together again.

“What you may need,” said one doctor, “is to go treat yourself on a scenic, peaceful and spiritual retreat.” This was a doctor who prescribed to holistic remedies.

And that she did! She found the idea of doing yoga at the crack of dawn very frightening because she knew that a simple movement could send her to tears. But she started early morning meditating, first to gain confidence and strength. Then she submerged herself in the healing waters of the hot mineral spring the day after. Tina floated for hours on end, practically forgetting where she was. For a time, she felt like a real person without physical limitation, so she signed up for the next yoga session.

Tina was fluid as water, although not yet a professional, but still amazed at how far she came. The next month, she packed up her house to move closer to the springs where she would be able to be a part of the retreat on a more regular basis.

“Guess what, Matt?” she said on the phone. “I know what my problem was after all!”

“And what was that?” Matt asked.

“I was not connected to the source. Now I am, and for that I can hike, swim and even dance! But don’t you worry, I will keep my coverage!” she laughed.

The post Tina Springs Forth and Regains Her Strength first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Remembering My Mother and Her Bridge

admin — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 21:10:16 +0000

My childhood was not a typical, “normal” childhood. In fact, the star of my family has always been my mother. You see, while most typical childhoods consisted of typical, quite consistent weekends, mine was full of movement and actually dappled with many adventures.

My parents loved to play bridge – the card game. That was their passion and their existence for living. I say that lovingly, of course. But it is true that my mom was the star of the family. Most weekends comprised of going to local bridge games, then chapter tournaments, to national tournaments, in which my mother reined supreme several times. Our house was filled with her ribbons and trophies.

I knew when it was almost time to go to a tourney because my mom and dad would sit up all hours of the night, with their best pals, Laddie and Millie, not playing, but competing. Of course, my dad, even though he had practiced with the best (my mom) still was only average, paling in comparison to the actual “pros”. Sometimes we wondered if it was a contact sport, when we witnessed players at the nail-biting tournaments coming to blows.

“Thank God we all have good health insurance coverage from Matt Lockhard from Long Beach in case someone gets mad at me for beating them,” my mom said. And that was a likely possibility, because she did often win.

But their all-nighters on the weekdays when we used to live in California were a sure indication that we would be travelling somewhere and staying a weekend at the select hotel, across the state or even cross-country. My brother and I were psyched. That meant we could almost do our own thing, within reason, of course. We would play hide-and-seek in strange, open rooms and play tricks on the staff sometimes.

I heard in history that playing cards were actually invented in China, using paper. But I think my mom perfected the sport of bridge. Her friends were sad to find her offspring did not gain the same passion. Unlike our dad, we did not even have a remote interest. However, I still go to the tournaments from time to time, even after my parents have long been passed, and support the old group members. I have watched them get older and my own children grow up and go to college.

Today, sitting at the enclosed porch overlooking the lake, I held my mother’s deck of cards in my hands. I can almost hear them all laughing as they dealt the next round.

The post Remembering My Mother and Her Bridge first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

A Remote Chance Of Visiting a Volcano

admin — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 21:08:52 +0000

Even though he grew up in the archipelago, Tristan da Cunha, a five to six day boat ride from Cape Town, South Africa, the most remote inhabited island in the South Atlantic, Sean Paletta was allergic to fish. It was difficult as a child because the small town’s mainstay is fishing and farming, so Sean ate a lot of potatoes instead. Sean was also oblivious to the fact that his settlement sat at the base of an active volcano.

Now overlooking Los Angeles in his luxury high-rise penthouse, he just cannot believe how he made it this far, literally. Some series of odd events happened when he just turned 21 after celebrating his birthday. A tourist named Alan McNabb from one of the luxury liners visited the island and happened to bump into him at the one and only pub in the settlement. Alan told Sean about his shampoo company out in California and offered Sean a job. Many years later, Sean found himself owning and running the company after the old man bequeathed it him.

Now in his late 30s, battling homesickness was becoming harder and harder. He wanted to take a hiatus and visit his old little island but he did not want to go alone, so he asked his friend Matt Lockhard, a California independent health insurance agent, to come and accompany him. But this time, instead of taking freight ships to the island, he planned to take his yacht.

“Thanks, but no thanks, Sean,” said Matt, declining Sean’s offer. “I heard that the seas are so rough down there that ships and freights sometimes cannot make it into the harbor, and there is always a chance that the volcano will erupt. It will be our luck!”

“So, are you saying that it’s a remote chance that you will go to the remotest island in the world with me, Matt?” Sean asked.

“Yup, you got that right!” Matt exclaimed.

“Hey, but at least you and I have great health insurance now. So live a little and hit the high seas with me!”

Matt and Sean found themselves on the island six months later chasing the infamous Northern Rockhopper Penguins.

The post A Remote Chance Of Visiting a Volcano first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Julia and Nadine Catch Something Important On Their Ice Fishing Trip

admin — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 21:07:47 +0000

It was not fair that the guys were able to go fishing in the Florida Keys and leave them with the kids, as they did periodically. This time, Julia and Nadine packed the children and took them to their grandparents in Santa Monica for the weekend, and decided to do something different and memorable for themselves for once.

They had secretly planned their trip and told their husbands that they were going to do a “girls’ weekend, too”. The husbands shrugged it off thinking that they were going to do typical girl stuff like shoe shopping or go to a spa. They were too busy planning for their big weekend to even wonder or even care. They were going to go with their mutual buddy, Matt Lockhard, a California independent health insurance agent.

Julia and Nadine were so tired of playing second fiddle to their husbands’ hobbies that they wanted to set off on an adventure, in a more subtle and quieter reckless abandon than the Thelma and Louise movie.

“Let’s go fishing, too!” Nadine said.

“What?” Julia exclaimed. “And be boring like them?”

“Our fishing trip is different, because we are going ice fishing. That’s tougher and cooler than fishing at the ‘Florida Keys!’ ” Nadine illustrated with finger quotes. “Plus, what would they say if we caught some pretty big fish? We would have big fish stories of our own!”

So they set off way up north to a lodge that sponsored ice-fishing groups. They braved the cold and sat out there on the ice like real troopers, but did not catch one fish. But what they did enjoy the most was sitting in front of the fireplace with the guys, eating venison stew and washing it down with some whiskey.

Both couples met up at Nadine’s house after their weekend getaway. The husbands howled over their blunders and all the mackerels and groupers that they caught. Finally the husbands asked Nadine and Julia what “spa” they went to as the conversation of their fishing trip finally ended in dead silence.

“Spa?” Julia asked. “Who said anything about going to a spa? More like a spa weekend ice fishing in Canada!” Julia and Nadine roared.

“We froze our butts off and did not catch one fish!” Nadine passed out the hilarious photos they took of each other to the group.

At that moment, a newsbreak came on TV that caught their attention.

“Two brave California women apprehended a man on an airplane who was threatening to do harm to the passengers last night,” said the news anchor.

Then the TV showed pictures of Nadine and Julia and the nabbed man. The husbands looked on with shock and disbelief.

“Oh yeah,” said Nadine, “but we did manage to catch a criminal!”

The post Julia and Nadine Catch Something Important On Their Ice Fishing Trip first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Taking It All into Account

admin — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 16:42:55 +0000

Everett Winslow, an accountant for many years, specialized doing tax returns for his clients. He did not particularly like to crunch numbers and deal with some of his sordid, shady clients, however. Instead, would sometimes retreat to playing basketball at the local military gymnasium for hours, which he had access to because he also was in the Navy Reserves.

Basketball at the base gym was like playing pick-up basketball at the yard – it was sometimes brutal and often ungraceful. There were guys who were totally inept, who swung elbows into faces, flailing about like a hurt chicken, bulldozing some guys over and sometimes injuring them severely.

But Everett knew the game well. He had played organized ball since high school and was MVP and a point guard, team captain, the go-to person, and he despised more than anything all the Frankensteinian frenzy that happened at the base gym. He only played there because he knew the people and it actually was the only good consistent spot to play ball.

Sometimes, as he was sitting at the sidelines waiting for his turn to play, after signing up his name on the roster and saying he got “next”, he would often think about work, and how funny or ridiculous some of his clients were.

One client kept insisting that her cocker spaniel’s treats should be tax deductible because Princess told her it was meals to benefit the employer, meaning her, for her happiness. Another woman who kept getting her child’s social security wrong finally got it right. She said about her continual mishap, “So, what’s the big deal? I was off by one number.”

Everett had been bringing Matt with him for years to play ball at the base gym – Matt Lockhard, the independent California health insurance agent, who checked in with him as he checked the ball in from the side line, “You are still covered, right?” Matt asked Everett.

“Of course! I have the best health insurance agent!” said Everret while defending Matt.

“Good!” Matt said exasperatingly after bypassing Matt and putting up a superb layup in his face.

Then he realized what it was all about after that. All the accounting and perfection really doesn’t amount to much, especially when Matt just scored on you.

To learn more please visit: http://www.mattsinsurance4ca.com

The post Taking It All into Account first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

It is a Spring Thing

admin — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 16:42:00 +0000

“The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.” – E.E. Cummings

“Stop this madness,” Willimina howled, as she accidentally stepped in a puddle with her new designer heels. Willimina Hayslett just flew into Los Angeles from New York City to visit her clients regarding her new fall line. Although it hardly ever rains in Los Angeles, she managed to find a muddy pool of water to step into. In the northeast, muddy puddles were just synonymous to the unpredictability of spring.

She was polished and dressed impeccably, for she was a walking symbol of ultimate fashion. But she was, on the other hand, never an optimist. Even as a baby she cried every time her mother tried to put her into her favorite fleece sweater. “Look at that thing, it’s hideous, you would cry too if you had to wear it,” she said to her boyfriend, who was looking with her through her old baby photos. She had a series of handsome boyfriends, but not one was ever suited or stylish enough for her.

“No, not the Willimina Hayslett heels!” exclaimed a man who just witnessed the event.

Willimina looked up to look at the most stylish and debonair man she had ever seen.

“How did you know that these were…?”

“Are you kidding me? Willimina Hayslett is my specialty! I have a store on Rodeo and I sell her stuff. You should come and visit since you are also a big fan of her and you can perhaps get a new pair of heels.”

Perhaps he didn’t recognize who she was with her big black shades, or maybe it was because her hair was up. But then again, she remembered that she didn’t care for photographers too much and avoided them all like a plague, so not too many pictures of her circulated, not even at fashion week in New York or Milan.

“Thank you,” said Willimina, “but I have too many of her stuff in my warehouse, too.”

“Would you care to join me at the café here, where I was sipping my coffee before I witnessed the tragedy?”

Willimina didn’t have to go anywhere until the next day, so she obliged. During the course of their encounter, she learned that his name was William Hatsfield and that he was originally from Powers Lake, South Dakota – not the hybrid of luxurious living that she hoped for but he, after all, was certainly a big fan of her work. As she looked down at her waterlogged heels, she wondered if she should tell him?

Then she remembered what Matt Lockhard, the independent California insurance agent said, “Don’t have to tell the whole story all the time in order for them to believe you!”

“I would love to see your store while I’m in California,” she said to William just short of being interrupted by her cell phone. “Excuse me for a moment, William. Hello, mother…yes, yes, I see… How is the weather in Powers Lake?”

At that moment, William forgot about his infatuation with Willimina Hayslett and fell in love with a hometown girl.

To learn more please visit: http://www.mattsinsurance4ca.com

The post It is a Spring Thing first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

A New Year UnResolution for Hillary

admin — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 16:40:54 +0000

This New Year, Hillary Lumpkin finally gave up on resolutions.

She and everyone that knows her can agree that she is so far from perfect. If a sign points to go one direction, she would go the other. This is not just pure rebellion, but total ignorance for not looking up at her surroundings, never noticing the way long weeds bend toward the breeze.

But this year is different. Her 2011 Zodiac yearly astrology forecast says she is bound for a bizarre year. Instead of fretting over the future, she called Matt Lockhard, a California independent health insurance agent that she just took out health insurance from, for his predictions. “I predict you will be protected in case you fall ill, or break a bone, or get trampled by Harry Potter fanatics, because you are insured now,” Matt said.

This year she will acknowledge all her imperfections and she will have a New Year’s Un-Resolution as she wrote her top 10 list:

1) I will decide not to try to be on time for anything

2) I will continue to mispronounce “documentary” as “Doc-you-men-TARY”

3) I will continue to eat carbs

4) I will weigh myself morning, noon or night, and accept the fact that I will always weigh less in the morning

5) I will never publish my great American novel and I will never win a Pulitzer prize

6) I am finally resolved that I will never win Powerball

7) That luck will continue to not happen to unlucky people

8) And that the power of The Secret is a farce

9) I will starve myself until I pass out to see if I can weigh less than 140 lbs. in my lifetime

10) I will continue to contribute to the total destruction of earth by participating in mass consumption, mass pollution and mass annihilation

And so she kept this list in her journal so that she could keep referring to it just in case she ever felt like she was even closely perfect or somewhat significant for a minute second.

Hillary also decided to blog her list with others on the Internet. To Hillary’s surprise, it grew into a massive movement. This movement finally prompted her to pen her novel and win the Pulitzer Prize, which resulted the power of The Secret to kick in, and she became a very lucky person to where she won the Powerball not just once, but twice!

She was able to afford a gourmet health-food chef and a personal trainer and she finally weighed below 140. With all that has happened to her, she finally felt good and so assured of herself that she set up organizations that helped address the world’s limited resources by investing heavily in alternative energy. She went on to establishing other organizations to help aid over-consumption and pollution, along with humanitarian organizations that helped the needy and the oppressed.

“With my un-resolution story, I impart you the greatness it bestowed upon my life,” she said to Matt, the independent California health insurance agent. “Thanks for keeping me covered throughout it all!”

The post A New Year UnResolution for Hillary first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

A Happy Birthday Gift to Me for my Valentine

admin — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:40:35 +0000

In his high-rise apartment, the dim light seeped through the crevices, tickling Juan Pablo’s nose, as if to say, “Wake up, Juan Pablito, you have a very important day!” He woke up confused, yet light-hearted, with butterflies in his stomach for no apparent reason.

He showered, shaved and got dressed for work as he normally does, but this time, instead of rushing blindly into the rush hour traffic, he floated over it. All the traffic lights were green; the traffic flowed like streams of contiguous energy, uninterrupted. The elevator door opened and closed as soon as he stepped up to it with no crowds to slither into and slather out of.

Juan Pablo stopped abruptly at the entranceway to his office to find a nicely wrapped package on his executive desk. He approached the scene cautiously while he put down his coffee and briefcase. A note on it said, “On your birthday, give this to your wife. Sincerely, Matt Lockhard,” which made him burst into laughter.

Was this a joke? Is this a silly gift from Matt Lockhard, the independent California health insurance agent? One of Matt’s typical jokes, but what about this wife thing, he thought? He knows I’m not married. I don’t even have a girlfriend! With that thought, he rushed to open the package and within he found a small card with a gold key. “Dear John Paul, you have been such a dear friend through all these years, I wanted to give you a lucky key for your birthday. Use this key when you want to open an opportunity of a lifetime. Remember, this is more than a symbol; it’s your health and life insurance. Matt”.

“That, Matt!” he thought. “Always giving me some puzzle”. But he placed the key in his pocket anyway, just in case.

The business day drew to a close and the late afternoon was drawing its shade over the city. Juan Pablo rubbed the key in his suit pocket as he was walking down the city block, and then up appeared a woman jogging, who just rounded the corner as he was. They both looked at each other so intently that the woman stopped jogging and stood before Juan Pablo for a moment. In a daze, without thinking, Juan Pablo reached into his suit pocket and gave it to the woman. She didn’t even look down to see what it was, still staring on at Juan Pablo. Then in a flash she turned around and began to jog again away from Juan Pablo, as if nothing ever happened.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Agnes,” a man’s voice said while placing a gold necklace with a gold key pendant over Agnes’s neck. “Thank God,” Agnes said to the man, “that your number was engraved on the back of this key. I wouldn’t have ever known your name, or see you again.”

“Yeah, that Matt is such a soothsayer, I tell ya!”

The post A Happy Birthday Gift to Me for my Valentine first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

In the Advent of Milagros’ Misfortune

admin — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 21:09:45 +0000

Milagros Mendez took to certain precautionary measures to prevent misgivings, miscalculations and misinformation. She was the administrative assistant at a state agency and she clocked in the hours as necessary to receive her weekly paycheck; took pride in what she did, and did what she was told. She always was careful, took many precautions and was a thorough researcher, maintaining and updating her records, her health insurance, keeping up with her pension plan.

But one day, she came into work and her boss point-blank berated her in front of her co-workers because she was one-second late coming into the door. He fired her on the spot. Milagros was stunned, bewildered and scared and was at a total loss, so she called California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard for some advice.

For once in her life this was something that was unexpected, even as good at predicting things and taking precautionary measures as she has been known to do, she found herself in a bind: unemployed and uninsured all at once!

The fall leaves were just turning their magnificent colors and the air was getting cooler as each day passed – ghouls, scarecrows, and pumpkin patches were cropping up everywhere; soon Christmas decorations. What in the world will she do now? Does she want to go back to a nine-to-five clocking in the hours, overworked and under-appreciated, or does she want to finally pursue her dream of being a Cantonese translator, take that trip to China, a place she so long wanted to go?

California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard reassured her at least she was covered in case of accidents and illnesses, so she set forth to forge her future, taking classes, freelancing here and there to pay her bills and what-not.

Matt Lockard contacted her after a year or so and found out that Milagros landed herself in rural California maintaining an apiary as well, with a fiancé and some land.

“We just came back from China,” Milagros told Matt. “I will e-mail you the pictures of us at the Great Wall!”

After California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard hung up the phone with Milagros, he smiled and thought to himself that dreams do come true.

The post In the Advent of Milagros’ Misfortune first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Thanksgiving is for Forgiving

admin — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 21:17:29 +0000

There were once two sisters, Melissa and Margie Carr, who were best of friends growing up. They did everything together; wore matching outfits. Everyone thought they were actually twins. But Melissa was really two years older than Margie, and it was Margie who always acted like she was older than Melissa, sometimes bossing her around.

But one day, along came Matt Lockard, the future California Health Insurance agent – a dapper man in his youth – who unknowingly stole the hearts of Melissa and Margie in high school. The sisters swooned and vied for his attention but Matt had his heart elsewhere. So lo and behold, the sisters grew up and did not speak to each other after their big fight over Matt Lockard. Melissa moved to Connecticut after getting out of the Army and Margie stayed in California, got married, raised a daughter and ended being a stay-at-home mom.

When Margie’s husband hurt his back from carrying a large package and couldn’t work his postal service job, Margie Carr decided to contact Matt Lockard because she heard through the grapevine that he became a superstar California Health Insurance agent.

Matt, who was elated to hear from his high school classmate, helped Margie with her predicament. Thanksgiving was right around the corner and Margie wanted so much to thank Matt, the California Health Insurance agent, for all that he did for her family by inviting him and his family over for Thanksgiving dinner.

Matt kindly and humbly accepted.

On Thanksgiving day, Margie answered the door to find Matt, his family, and a surprise that Matt brought along with him: her long, lost sister Melissa.

“Well, I decided to look up another classmate of mine, and I believe she actually belongs to you,” said Matt, the ever dapper California Health Insurance agent.

Melissa and Margie burst into tears and hugged one another.

“I can’t believe we fought over this guy!” Margie said, as she playfully and softly punched Matt’s shoulder.

“I brought you something, sis,” Melissa said after they all settled and found a place to sit in the Margie’s living room. “I got this when I was stationed in Korea and kept it just in case one day, you know, you’d come around.”

Margie opened up the present to find two tiny, identical Japanese dolls wearing the same kimonos, with one wearing a gold nametag engraved, “Melissa” on it, and the other “Margie”.

The post Thanksgiving is for Forgiving first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Flew, Flu, Fluey!

admin — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 21:08:42 +0000

Mr. Fluey never believed in getting his annual flu shot like everyone else. He believed the scare-tactic from the health industry was a hype just to boost pharmaceutical sales. He was always very healthy, took his Vitamin C and Echinacea; ate right and exercised daily, did his meditative Tai Chi every morning with the seniors. At 87 years old, he still had more than his wits about him. He still stood tall, made sure he had his best fedora on before he went out, and could still drive his car wherever he wanted to. So, what the heck? He escaped the swine flu or the various strains this year, so life is still great.

The next year, he went into his local pharmacy and ran into Matt Lockard, the California health insurance agent, teaming up with the store to promote their flu vaccination program.

“Hello, sir,” Matt greeted Mr. Fluey, “Have you gotten your flu shot yet?”

“Flew, flu, fluey!” Mr. Fluey replied, in the manner of, “Bah humbug!”

“I beg your pardon?” Matt asked.

“The flu shot are for sissies,” Mr. Fluey said. “I survived the Great Depression, Normandy, and Reagan; so certainly, the flu is nothing to me!”

“So you’re a veteran?” Matt asked with interest.

“Yeah, but I don’t go to the VA hospital, either. Don’t want to hang around vets in wheel chairs, talking about war wounds, and I don’t believe in the flu shot neither. I feel if you get something, you get it. That’s it. End of story!” Mr. Fluey said.

Matt Lockard, the California health insurance agent, looked perplexed. “So, what do you do if you get sick?”

“I just weather out the storm.”

“If you don’t believe that the flu shot can prevent you from getting the horrid flu, preventing you from seriously getting ill, and die, what is it that you do believe in, sir?”

“I believe in getting a beer,” Mr. Fluey said, shrugging his shoulders.

Later, Matt Lockard, the California health insurance agent, found himself at the local pub with Mr. Fluey.

“You know,” Matt said turning to Mr. Fluey with his beer mug. “I still get my shot every year, but here’s to your tenacity, fortitude and belief in beer!”

The post Flew, Flu, Fluey! first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Giants’ Baseball Fan Falls Over Catching Ball

admin — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 21:08:14 +0000

Scott Boroughs was always a gangly kid who felt out of place with his peers. He had only one best friend growing up who was practically as awkward as he was.

During baseball season and many years walking past the sandlot as a kid, always watching from a distance, he never knew the fascination of baseball. Every boy got it and now every girl in America, too. His father and grandfather, who were both life-long California health insurance agents, talked about it and obsessed about it – but it all sounded like a foreign language to him. Somehow it was supposed to mean something.

But there she was. In her baseball cap, sitting alone in the corner of the bar, watching her team intently and silently rooting for them. Scott felt his heart thump faster and didn’t know why. She looked up and smiled at him briefly, then looked back at the TV.

Scott was just going to grab a beer and leave since this was the only hotel bar around. Being that it was a sports bar, he wasn’t even going to go in, but was glad he did. Scott sat next to her in silence. Finally she asked him who his favorite team was.

“I don’t have one,” he said reluctantly.

A disappointed look went over her face.

Scott went to bathroom and hurriedly called his buddy, Matt Lockard, a California health insurance agent, to help him out. Matt told him what to say to her, play by play.

That was 10 years ago.

Since then she taught him baseball, and he taught her how to play a mean game of Scrabble, memorizing all the tough two-letter words, until she became his biggest contender.

For her birthday, he wanted to surprise her and actually wanted to take her to the game. But he didn’t want to take her to any game, so he planned it just right and got front-row tickets to see their team who made it to the playoffs!

The first hit was a foul ball that was coming their way. Scott, who never played a lick of baseball in all his life, stood up with his baseball mitt and dove like a pro after the ball like he saw those players do so many times.

However, when Scott caught the ball, he stood up for one brief moment to find that he was teetering at the edge of the railing and fell over the balcony with a big thud.

Matt Lockard, the California health insurance, always made sure Scott was up to par with his health insurance and Scott didn’t have to worry about a thing but to heal his broken leg and bruised body.

The cameras caught Scott’s heroic catch and blunder, and all of America saw Scott’s instant replay that even went viral on the Internet, that he became an overnight sensation.

Not bad for a gangly, awkward kid who never knew baseball!

“I think you need to stick to Scrabble,” his wife said.

The post Giants’ Baseball Fan Falls Over Catching Ball first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Back to School Bike Accident has Dorothy Reeling

admin — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 02:54:31 +0000

California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard did his best to cheer Dorothy up, but she still feels like “she’s in Oz” since crashing her 10-speed into her high school’s cement façade.

The first few days back in school felt like a pleasant dream to Dorothy. Each day that week, she rode her spiffy new 10-speed to her high school in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Her purple bike had been safely tethered to the crowded bike rack each day, the 12-mile freeway ride proving relatively uneventful. She was a junior now, on track in her college prep courses for UCLA, and she was caught up on her homework and having a blast. But on the Friday of that fateful first week, the health insurance plan that her beloved great-grandfather had purchased from California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard, proved fortuitous. Her great-grandfather, known in the neighborhood as a cowardly lion because of his pacifist views, had served as Dorothy’s guardian since she’d been in 7th grade and her parents had both died of “that rash.”

But on that fateful Friday, she suffered more than scrapes and bruises, more than mere contusions, when she smacked into the side wall of her school’s cement façade. She hadn’t been paying attention, she later admitted. Dorothy was knocked unconscious, but she’d recovered a bit by the time the ambulance came. Still, she was somewhat delirious and kept yelling: “Where art thou, great-grandfather, ye cowardly lion?” as if it were a mantra.

In her hospital room, the surroundings were unfamiliar, surreal, and in a word, strange. Even when her beloved great-grandfather came a calling, and brought along California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard, she kept referring to that stoic man from Ventura as “the Tin Man,” which was quite unfair as Matt does indeed have a heart, and it beats, yeah, it beats. Finally, he showed that heart, saying to Dorothy, “Your great-grandfather loves you, and besides, everything’s covered and I’ve brought your homework.” All the time, Matt smiled, pleasantly showing his teeth – including several molars of the type never before seen in the mythical land of Oz.

But at the mention of homework, Dorothy snapped out of her trance, sort of. “Thank you, Tin Man,” she said, smiling.

To learn more please visit: http://www.mattsinsurance4ca.com

The post Back to School Bike Accident has Dorothy Reeling first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Back to School Bike Accident has Dorothy Reeling

admin — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 15:02:22 +0000

California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard did his best to cheer Dorothy up, but she still feels like “she’s in Oz” since crashing her 10-speed into her high school’s cement façade.

But at the mention of homework, Dorothy snapped out of her trance, sort of. “Thank you, Tin Man,” she said, smiling.

To learn more please visit: http://www.mattsinsurance4ca.com

The post Back to School Bike Accident has Dorothy Reeling first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Mommy Spacek Goes Back to School

admin — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 15:01:01 +0000

Lizzie Spacek was 64 years old, but was determined to earn her GED. That said, she learned that being a pedestrian in the city was fraught with danger – just like Matt Lockard, her California Health Insurance agent, had duly warned her.

Mommy’s intentions had been good. She was walking into the city to her old high school, North South High, and felt all the enthusiasm of any crazed student. The left onto Highborn Street left her so excited, especially as she successfully dodged traffic. She opened the door to the high school, and what happened next seemed like slow motion. A bell rang. Mommy got trampled by the pitter-patter of younger feet, lots of them. She’d been smacked to the floor of the main hall next to the principal’s office, and it seemed nobody noticed, even though she’d screamed. When the crowd had finally sifted, she spotted a sign that said “GED Students,” and felt her eagerness try to return. But getting up was another story. Lizzie felt a sharp pain as she gazed at the long corridor, now emptied. What was it? Her tailbone hurt. Since the huge high school now seemed relatively silent, she screamed again.

Lizzie Spacek thought back to a conversation she’d had just last week with her California Health Insurance agent, that pleasant and goateed Matt Lockard. “You’ll be glad that you bought coverage,” he’d warned. She’d hardly been paying attention because she’d been so eager to finish high school after all these years. Her mind compass was pointing North South. But Matt turned out to be right. High schools can be dangerous places for a 64-year-old, yes indeed. Pedestrians can be so cruel when they’re young.

Finally somebody came. It was the assistant principal. “Why aren’t you in class, young lady?” he said. But when he looked again, he could see that she was older, like a student’s grandmother. “Are you okay? He asked, still sounding condescending.

“What do you think?” Lizzie shrieked. And then, in tears, “I’m GED.” But all she could do on that day was point at the sign.

An ER visit later, it turned out her tailbone was merely bruised. It still would have cost money, but Lizzie was covered, thanks to Matt. She called Matt at his Ventura office just to thank him.

“When are you going back to school?” he asked.

“Tomorrow evening instead of during the regular school day,” she said. “Would you like to be my escort?”

To learn more please visit: http://www.mattsinsurance4ca.com

The post Mommy Spacek Goes Back to School first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

First Day Jitters

admin — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 14:59:38 +0000

The first day of high school can be very scary indeed. Even more so when, not only is it your first day, but you are also the new kid in school. It also helps when a California Health Insurance agent has you covered.

After his 8th grade school year and its tagalong summer vacation, Justin and his family moved to California from Ohio. The move was bewildering to Justin, especially since he hadn’t had time to make any new friends yet.

As the big day at his California school arrived, Justin was both excited and anxious. What would the kids at his new school be like? He could hardly sleep the night before. “Justin, it’s time to get up!” his mom yelled. He still felt tired. “I’m up, mom,” he yelled back. This tricked her once, and then worked twice more before his snarling mom dragged him out of bed.

Still groggy, he managed to find his mouth to stuff his breakfast in, but a teenager doesn’t have to be conscious to do that. The bus stop beckoned.

When he got there, he was the only kid standing. Bewildered, he waited. “Where’s the bus?” Justin thought out loud. He decided to just go back home and ask his mom for a ride.

Justin was crossing the street to get to his house when he noticed a ten-dollar bill laying in the middle of the street. As he stopped to pick it up, a car came along much too fast. The driver, a man with huge pimples all over his face, slammed on his brakes and swerved, but still clipped the 14-year-old who was still clasping the ten dollar bill. Justin’s mom saw the accident and came running out.

At the hospital, doctors discovered no major injuries, except for a fractured pinky. “We’re lucky we saw the California Health Insurance agent last week,” Justin’s mom said, while looking at her son as he sat on a hospital bed. “How’s that pinky?” “It hurts, mommy,” he said. She glared at him. “You’re not a baby anymore. Stop your whining. If you’d gotten enough sleep, this accident never would have happened. Besides, you’re getting out in a half hour and I’m sending you to school tomorrow.” Justin knew he wasn’t likely to sleep better with the knowledge that his first day at his new school would now be everyone else’s second.

The post First Day Jitters first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

That Klutzy Stage

admin — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 14:58:04 +0000

Seventh grader Aaron B. Mason’s first day back at school featured an inevitable catastrophe. But thanks to the foresight of his parents and the family plan they purchased from a California Health Insurance agent in Long Beach, Aaron’s recuperation wasn’t also a financial catastrophe.

Aaron, a lanky 12-year-old about to begin 7th grade, was in the middle of his pubertal growth spurt. His wrists and ankles seemed barely attached by their tendons and sinews to his arms and legs, and like a lot of boys his age, he was at that klutzy stage. “Aaron, pick up your feet!” his loud-voiced mom would scream seeing her son stumble off, embarrassing him in front of his friend. He had only one, another young klutz named Ralph, but Aaron’s mom didn’t extend her nagging ear-piercing soprano to her neighbor’s kid. Miraculously, Aaron, who might have felt safer trapped during puberty in a mason jar, didn’t get seriously injured during that summer before entering 7th grade with the rest of his tween-aged peers. Other than a few cuts and bruises experienced as consequences received from clumsily falling over steps and tripping over obstacles of sundry description, Aaron managed to escape that summer unscathed.

But the first day of school was another story. During first period, right after homeroom, Aaron was already late. He started running to his algebra class in the hall, and by the time his gym teacher could finish yelling, “Hey Mason! Pick up your feet!” Aaron had become tangled up in his own legs. He tripped, falling flat on his chin and smacking his jaw against the middle school’s hardwood floor, just polished by the school janitor minutes before. Aaron was knocked cold and carried out of his school into a waiting ambulance on a stretcher.

Ralph went to see Aaron in the hospital, and was there when his friend woke up in his bed. So was a California Health Insurance agent, who happened to be courteously checking in on the Mason kid. He was a tall man with glasses whom neither Ralph nor Aaron immediately recognized. “Who is he?” Aaron whispered through clenched teeth to his friend, his jaw shot full of painkillers.

“I’m Clark Kent, a California Health Insurance agent,” the strange man replied. Oddly, he also spoke through clenched teeth – but in his case it was merely an idiosyncrasy.

The post That Klutzy Stage first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

California Health Insurance Agent Does His Utmost to Celebrate National Chocolate Chip Day

admin — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:51:44 +0000

Matt Lockard tried to make his Ventura office a place of cookies and milk on August 4th – to no avail.

He knew what day it was going to be on the morrow. Since boyhood, he’d eaten chocolate chip cookies of every variety, according to their kind – according to their chip. He liked them with milk as far as cookies went, he wasn’t that much into sweets, but tomorrow was an extraordinary holiday celebrated with panache that was definitely not Christmas, or even Halloween. What kind of milk would he serve for his clients as they made their appearances on that festive day? Last year he’d attempted goat’s milk, but it had strangely curdled before its time. He liked almond milk with cookies, or even coconut milk, but would never skimp by going skim. He’d be prepared on this 4th of August – a true feast day precisely a month beyond the anniversary of our nation’s birth.

Matt laid out the platters of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies, a Tollhouse variety that his daughter had lovingly baked, and she was going to come by the health insurance office around lunch time to see how things were going. This year Matt’s clients would understand, and grasp the holiday’s significance, without pigging out on the cookies.

When the first client appeared, a 74-year-old intent on Medigap coverage, it began. “Bet you can’t eat just one …” Matt hinted, nearly pleading. She couldn’t. Thirty-four cookies dwindled to twenty-six before she was gone just eight minutes later.

The cookies have to last all day this year, Matt mused, but such a well-intentioned hope was a pipedream.

By twelve minutes past ten in the morning, every last cookie was gone.

Around noon, Matt’s dutiful daughter came by, already a teenager with great intentions, hopes, and dreams, she was naïve, Matt thought, can’t she tell that the cookies have all been eaten, that National Chocolate Chip Day and California Health Insurance clients were unfortunately incompatible, all those prudent souls guided by that most basic of human impulses, an instinct popularly referred to as a “sweet tooth”? These scavengers had devoured all – leaving not even a crumb. What did this mean? It could mean only that Matt would try to celebrate the elusive August festive day again next year, for once to get the cookies to last through the precious day.

To learn more please visit: http://www.mattsinsurance4ca.com

The post California Health Insurance Agent Does His Utmost to Celebrate National Chocolate Chip Day first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

California Health Insurance Agent Tries to Have a Relaxing Work Day When It Really Matters

admin — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:50:27 +0000

Beware the Ides of August, National Relaxation Day, and as luck would have it, Matt worked right through it.

In lieu of a day off on that fateful August 15th, Matt Lockard wanted to at least have a relatively easy day. Most of his fondest memories in some way were involved with National Relaxation Day, or at least a degree of relaxation.

By 11 a.m., he’d seen seven clients, customers and prior policyholders march through his office door, families with their family plans, the elderly and the newlyweds, and even a llama that ambled in off the street and actually wasn’t a customer.

A woman from somewhere in the Middle East came by in a burka, and a pirate wanted one of those special policies to protect his interests on the high seas – as he was wary of other pirates with all that’d been going on lately in the Indian Ocean. They came in to make the day ultra-hectic and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet.

Cripes Matt Lockard whined (fortunately only in his mind’s eye), it’s National Relaxation Day and I can’t have a leisurely day just because my gig is California Health Insurance policies. It seems that everyone in California has some kind of health care concern that a policy can address.

Just then some college students came in, and they wanted a group policy that would protect them from potential injuries incurred at keg parties. Five of the six were young men, all enrolled in California schools getting in-state tuition and the straggler was an attractive young woman, unmarried but majoring in animal husbandry she soon revealed. Ten minutes later, Matt was at it again, part of a flurry of frenetic, attending to needs of people that had to be met.

More pirates in the afternoon, but these happened to be transplants to the Los Angeles environs from Pittsburgh. A bald-headed centenarian walked in preceded by his cane, and he wanted a policy that would somehow last to provide a legacy perhaps. Soon it was five of the clock and the sun was beginning to approach the horizon, and Matt Lockard, a man who had missed his chance to relax, was about to sit. The phone rang just then …

To learn more please visit: http://www.mattsinsurance4ca.com

The post California Health Insurance Agent Tries to Have a Relaxing Work Day When It Really Matters first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Riding the X2 Is Fun

admin — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:49:25 +0000

It was an excellent idea for 13-year-old Richie, a roller coaster fanatic, to ride everything Six Flags Magic Mountain had to offer, perhaps the most thrilling day of his life, as long as his parents stopped off at a California Health Insurance agent’s office a mere month before the big day.

Richie Montrose was an all American boy. The previous summer he’d been 12 and broken his foot while skateboarding down a steep hill. Mending the hairline fracture had been out-of-pocket, no insurance. This summer, his parents were better prepared, and went to see a California Health Insurance agent with Richie in tow.

“We’re covered,” his dad triumphantly said afterwards, “What would you like to do this summer?”

To Richie, that was a no-brainer. “August 16 is National Roller Coaster Day,” the boy said, a bit wistfully, “Why don’t we all go to Six Flags Magic Mountain?”

His Dad considered it, his mom was right there, and it was the family’s vacation week. The theme park was nearby in Valencia, only about twenty miles north of West Hollywood where the family lived. “There are neat roller coasters at Magic Mountain,” his mom offered, “and we can go there, on one condition: all three of us have to go on whatever ride you choose.”

Richie considered the embarrassment factor, he was actually a teenager, and whirred through his mind’s eye the park’s 100+ thrilling rides, including roller coasters like Tatsu, Goliath, the Riddler’s Revenge, and his all-time favorite, the revamped X2. Somehow he had to convince both of his parents to ride that. But he would do it. “It’s a deal,” Richie agreed.

That family fun day began within minutes of the park’s opening. By late afternoon, they’d ridden, as a family, five of Magic Mountain’s six looping coasters – but not the X2. Worse, with dusk approaching, both parents were balking. “Pretty please …” the boy finally said, with strategic tears starting in both eyes. His parents weren’t dummies when it came to coasters. They knew about the X2’s raven turns, its terrifying flips, how the individual coasters spin independently 360 degrees forward and backward on a separate axis. “No way,” Richie’s dad drew the line, or thought he did.

But a few moments later they were all strapped in and set for an unrelenting thrill, and after the ride, when Richie’s dad felt pain in his ribs, lots of it, Richie was philosophical on their way to the ER. “At least we’re covered dad,” he said, and his mom laughed, while his dad only tried to.

The post Riding the X2 Is Fun first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Celebrating Sea Serpent Day

admin — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:48:08 +0000

When some students from USC were off near Catalina Island celebrating Sea Serpent Day on August 7th, nobody expected their small boat to be capsized by what may have been a genuine sea serpent. A frantic call on their cell to a California Health Insurance agent was made just in time.

It had seemed like a lark. The four dorm buddies had just learned on the Internet that TODAY, August 7th – was National Sea Serpent Day. “That’s crazy,” said Jim Brewer, an astute but fun-loving 22-year-old, “Who ever heard of a sea serpent in southern California waters?” Sitting with Jim in his room were Mike, Dave, and Bill, surnamed Smith, Doe, and Jones respectively, all majors in marine sciences, and all had a good laugh. Something else they all had in common were health insurance policies provided by a California Health Insurance agent – which was to prove fortuitous.

One of the college students decided on an excursion as a way to celebrate the peculiar holiday – intended partly in jest but also because going out in Jim’s Aquasport was fun. A few hours later, Jim Brewer and his buddies were placidly perched in the 20-foot Aquasport when something, a sleek & sinuous serpentine shape, suddenly loomed over their boat in the fog, rising from the depths, and swiftly rammed them before any of them could blink.

“What the heck was that?” Dave Doe managed to say while bobbing in the ocean a mile off Catalina Island, as the Aquasport was capsized. Jim replied in emergency mode, “Everybody is okay, except for Mike, he’s swallowed a lot of water.”

Luckily Dave and Bill managed to right the boat, and they all headed back toward the city. Enroute, Jim put in a call via cell (amazingly it still functioned) to Mr. Tim Neptune, the kindly California Health Insurance agent who knew all their parents, and regarded these young men too as his clients.

“What can I do for you?”

“Our boat got swamped,” Jim blurted.

“What capsized you?”

“We don’t know. We think it was a sea serpent. But Mike Smith swallowed a lot of water and he’s barely conscious. What should we do?”

“Take him to the nearest ER,” advised Neptune, sounding like a sea god at that moment, “Don’t worry. You all have coverage and it’s current.”

Once their buddy Mike was taken in, he required hospitalization and an overnight stay. When he woke up in his hospital bed, Mike’s first words were peculiar. “It was a sea serpent,” he said, “I saw it.”

The post Celebrating Sea Serpent Day first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

4th of July Weekend Camping Trip Ends Relatively Happily

admin — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 15:10:33 +0000

Because the Olsens had purchased a family policy from California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard, medical care for a rambunctious Olsen son didn’t leave his parents stung.

The Olsens were headed from their village of Orange Hollow straight to Los Angeles to go camping in the nearby foothills for 4th of July weekend. But a wrong turn led Biff, the family’s patriarch, into East LA. A camping trailer couldn’t help but attract attention. It was inevitable when Biff and his lovely wife Beatrice, their sons Brian, Bill, and Bobby, only eleven – heard the first knock. “Who could that be?” whispered Beatrice. “It’s not Matt Lockard,” Biff said, “He doesn’t know we’re here.” The Olsens had recently purchased a family health insurance plan from Matt, a California Health Insurance agent if ever there was one. Once he’d invited the Olsens to the Los Angeles area, in a casual aside, but where their trailer was parked now was no place for tourists.

“Can I go outside?” said Bobby, being only eleven.

The knock came again. Fifteen-year-old Brian opened the door, and a youth gang poured into the family’s trailer en masse all wearing hockey shirts embossed with the logo of the Los Angeles Kings. The Olsen kids, after a childhood spent cooped up in Orange Hollow, were keen on adventure. When one of the Kings offered to “show them around,” it sounded like adventure.

When the Olsen boys went with the others, Beatrice became momentarily worried. “Where are they going?” she said.

“Boys will be boys, let them explore,” replied Biff.

A few hours later, another knock came. This time it was a SWAT team, armed with a search warrant. The police officers discovered a Bible with certain passages from the Book of Revelations clearly marked, and also brought news of their boys – Brian, Bill, and Bobby, who was only eleven. “They were involved in an altercation with a rival gang,” one officer said, “Your youngest was shot in the leg.”

“That’d be Bobby,” replied Beatrice, “He’s only eleven.”

“We’d better call Matt Lockard and go to that hospital,” Biff said to Beatrice, after the SWAT team left, “Sounds like their exploring got out of hand.”

To learn more please visit: http://www.mattsinsurance4ca.com

The post 4th of July Weekend Camping Trip Ends Relatively Happily first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Parent’s Day Disaster Averted

admin — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 15:09:01 +0000

California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard saved the Maxwell family’s son Dandy from financial disaster when Dandy’s parents became ill from the celebratory dinner he’d prepared.

Dandy Maxwell fancied himself a chef, but he should have been licensed as a poisoner. Still, he was quite passive-aggressive, and when he coerced his two frail and elderly parents, Dinah and Divine, to a celebratory supper for Parent’s Day on July 25th, they felt obligated to attend, although approached the obscure holiday with a sense of dread. The only precaution that the parents in question had taken was a Medigap policy, a prudent raft of supplemental insurance from California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard, who knew Dandy all too well – as he was a client too. “If they’d stuck to drinking coffee when visiting their son’s Maxwell house, they’d have been better off,” Matt opined in retrospect.

Dinah and Divine were also on a fixed income, a condition that being hospitalized even briefly can wreak havoc with. At least “food poisoning” was something that was covered insurance-wise – which unfortunately came to be pertinent.

To make a long story briefer, after all, its roots were anchored in both spite and an unrequited bite – Dinah and Divine had neglected to purchase braces many years before when Dandy had been a mere lad — but these were unconscious underpinnings, more like underpine-ings – Dandy prepared a concoction, some sort of East Indian curry with raw fish, and for their Parent’s Day feast, Dinah and Divine dutifully gulped it down. Immediately, a sense of nausea appeared, a bit like the Dickensonian ghost of Christmas Past, and this led to vomiting, and stomach cramps, and near-delirium.
Although passive-aggressive in the extreme, Dandy had the sense to ferry his forebears to the nearest ER, and after having their elderly stomachs pumped, a few days later Dinah and Divine were resting comfortably at home.

When the phone rang, it was their son, Dandy. “I just cooked a meal to make up for what happened,” he chirped sweetly, “It’s chicken divan, your favorite,” he said to his mother.

“Why don’t you invite Matt Lockard?” she suggested, not wanting to bruise her only son’s feelings,

“He loves chicken divan.”

When the invitation came, Matt had his excuse at the ready. “I was bitten by a termite,” he said, “and I don’t dare leave for fear of an infestation.”

Dandy sobbed into the phone, and Matt, unsure what to do next, quietly hung up.

To learn more please visit: http://www.mattsinsurance4ca.com

The post Parent’s Day Disaster Averted first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Medigap Coverage Rescues Pritella

admin — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 15:07:25 +0000

Seventy-six-year-old Pritella Pratt didn’t consider herself old until Bastille Day dawned. Her California Health Insurance agent, Mabel, provided coverage when all else failed.

Bastille Day falls on July 14th every year. Lately, septuagenarian Pritella Pratt felt like storming a few Bastilles herself, and she wasn’t even French. She did enjoy French salad dressing on her Romaine lettuce, and had eaten French fries, but that doesn’t count. But on Bastille Day, 2010, the French Independence Day, Pritella was in a hurry and tripped coming down some cement steps. She kept her balance, but it was Pritella’s pratfall nonetheless, as by evening of that day, several hours later, she felt a sharp nagging ache in her lower back. What was Pritella to do? She called Mabel, her beloved California Health Insurance agent (Mabel had also been her pinochle partner when her husband had been alive), to learn if her Medigap supplemental coverage was still in effect. “Yes indeedy,” Mabel said in her strange Irish brogue, “it is.” Medicare was great, but after Plan D of the Bush years, she didn’t know what to expect. She rushed out of her house, headed for her car, a Studebaker, and tripped, more seriously this time, a second pratfall. “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” she whispered as loudly as she could. Several more such vocalizations left Pritella feeling very old indeedy, and now her back was much worse.

It was still Bastille Day, but almost dusk. A crow was cawing. Finally a good Samaritan named Sam came by, and helped Pritella to her Studebaker. Deep down the seventy-six-year-old felt a sprig of hope, like a probing tendril, because of Mabel’s affirmative words “Yes indeedy.” Those precious words were all that mattered now. Three blocks later, the urgent care center came into view. She could have walked there if it weren’t for her pratfalls. It was now dusk and a second crow cawed. Her back was killing her, perhaps literally as she didn’t know what was wrong. Feeling a surge of “old lady” adrenalin, she managed to open the glass doors, and walked into the health care facility. “I’ve got Medicare, and Medigap supplemental,” she proudly said when asked by the receptionist, and promptly fainted.

It turned out that she’d “ruptured something,” and she needed to go the hospital for observation. Waking up in her hospital bed, her first thoughts were of Mabel – and not the bill.

The post Medigap Coverage Rescues Pritella first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

California Health Insurance Agent Aids Fireworks-Addicted Family

admin — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 15:06:26 +0000

They celebrated 4th of July with reckless abandon in the spirit of misguided patriotism. Until this year’s crazed private celebration, all had gone relatively well.

The Donegans, Bob, Mitzy, and their kids, Joey, Johnny, and Jimmy loved to light fireworks on their land near Eureka. They’d get it from Tijuana, and drive up past San Francisco with enough firepower every 4th of July to start their own preemptive war. Their family health insurance plan typically served for mundane family catastrophes that might occur at other times of the year. Except for this single idiosyncrasy, a well-intentioned rite for celebrating our nation’s birthday, the Donegans were pretty ordinary. Bob was a self-employed entrepreneur with a computer repair business. Mitzy did the company’s books, and the kids, already quite computer literate, did the troubleshooting if the trouble wasn’t too complicated.

Around June 29th the family drove off merrily humming. Their black hummer headed south for the border toward Tijuana’s fireworks stands, some with supermarket-like inventories, to stock up on Roman candles and bottle rockets, salutes and M-80s, blockbusters and cherry bombs, even sparklers and snakes for little Jimmy, who was only twelve and a bit more timid than his brothers and parents.
Once back home, preparation for festive explosions and “the lighting” always was a big production. Neighbors came from miles around. Bob and Mitzy were relatively safety-conscious, but their boys could be downright careless – especially Johnny, a sullen 14-year-old who loved to see just about anything “blow up.” He was about to stuff a live M-80 into the unsuspecting maw of Spritzy, the family’s beloved Dalmatian, when the explosive power of that quarter-stick of dynamite exploded prematurely and blew up near a horrified Jimmy, trying to save the dog. Mitzy dialed her family’s California Health Insurance agent in the nick of time. “Dial 911 – Stat!” he screamed over the phone. She did, and Jimmy was rushed to the nearest regional medical center via ambulance.

They all went to visit Jimmy after the surgery. He was bandaged up. “You look just like The Mummy from that movie,” remarked Johnny, displaying his usual contemptuous flair for the insensitive.
“How’s Spritzy?” Jimmy managed to ask, barely audible through his wrappings.

The post California Health Insurance Agent Aids Fireworks-Addicted Family first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Insurance Awareness Day Is the Sacred Day

admin — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 18:36:06 +0000

Matt Lockard pays homage to the June 28^th Holy Day like the very best California Health Insurance agents always do.

In the Roman Catholic Church, there are holy days of obligation when Catholics feel obliged to attend Mass. The Catholic holy days are significant to devout Catholics, but downright silly to Mormons and Moslems. Insurance Awareness Day, which has been celebrated (according to certain obscure calendars such as the Jivan—pronounced jive-an, for thousands of years) – is a sacred day to every California Health Insurance agent. “Most of us begin the sacred holy day with a ritual jog before heading into the office,” explains Matt Lockard, “or else we jump up and down for several minutes to get the blood going.”

Once in the office, a candle is lit. It’s usually purple and delivers a pungent odor, especially in a confined space like an office setting. “I usually light the candle with a customer, my first appointment of the day, already in the office. No matter what kind of policy they’re buying, the lighting of the candle on Insurance Awareness Day seldom fails to elicit a response,” Matt explains. It seems to remind many people of exotic dancers.

In fact, an exotic dancer is sometimes hired to heighten the festivities, but the dance performed, the “Insurance Dance,” is very protective in nature. “Just watching it performed gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling all over,” Matt asserts, “I also get kind of tingly.” By the time the ritualistic dance is completed, most customers also feel covered. “It doesn’t matter what kind of policy you’re buying. When someone is doing the Dance, and there’s a California Health Insurance agent in the room, who wouldn’t feel that they could withstand any medical emergency?” Matt argues.

After the dance, Matt typically recites “The Insurance Poem of Light,” always uttered in a reverent tone, and then refreshments are served. “I’ve been known to serve cookies and milk, or lemonade and pretzels if it’s hot,” Matt explains, “and everyone leaves happy.”

So is it like a party? About this sensitive subject, Matt Lockard appeared subdued. “It’s not anyone’s birthday,” Matt says abruptly, “It’s Insurance Awareness Day.”

To learn more please visit: http://www.mattsinsurance4ca.com

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Hug-A-Cat Day Reluctantly Celebrated

admin — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 18:35:14 +0000

Everyone in California enjoyed celebrating June 4 as Hug-A-Cat Day, except for California Health Insurance Agent Matt Lockard.

Matt Lockard, California Health Insurance agent extraordinaire, didn’t know. He was really clueless about National Hug-A-Cat Day being celebrated on the 4^th of June.

When the calls from cat-loving clients kept ringing him up on the 3^rd, a whole slew of them, Matt was puzzled and even wary. “I assumed it was some sort of practical joke,” Matt explained.

Matt was less than enthused, especially when clients such as Mrs. Bessie Morgenthau began texting him on his Smartphone. “After she texted me about a dozen times, I’d had enough,” Matt said, “When I texted her back, I told her that I didn’t even like cats.”

This did not go over well. During the remainder of Hug-a-Cat Day eve, the calls kept coming in, overwhelmingly pro-cat, increasingly irate.

“Why aren’t you out with your cat preparing for the hug-a-cat-a-thon?” a client who refused to be identified finally asked the exasperated Matt, hearing a distinct purring in the background. “I don’t have a cat,” Matt replied, but at that moment, he almost wished he did.

The next day, National Hug-A-Cat Day, dawned smoggy and putrid, as if a disgusting cat box had been left in Matt’s office. Matt opened the door like any dutiful and hardworking California Health Insurance agent might, and entered. “What’s that smell?” Matt immediately said. A few seconds later, he saw it, a real cat box, and several little cat houses made of hard plastic not far from where the litter would go if he had any. “Oh no!” Matt cried, and then, perhaps instinctively, “Here kitty?”

Suddenly, out from the cat houses came one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight of them, Matt counted. Matt sat down and began sobbing, and then a strange thing happened. The cats started coming up to him, nestling against his trouser shins which were soon covered in cat hairs. Matt reached out and started petting. “These animals just want to be fed,” Matt said aloud. Still, despite his best instincts, he picked one up, little more than a kitten, and hugged it.

To learn more please visit: http://www.mattsinsurance4ca.com

The post Hug-A-Cat Day Reluctantly Celebrated first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Just Another Waffle Iron Day

admin — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 18:34:37 +0000

Caleb and his wife Calin argued constantly and sometimes their fights became violent. Add a waffle iron to the mix and you’re just asking for trouble. Ask the couple’s California Health Insurance agent.

Waffle Iron Day, celebrated on the 29^th of June, held special significance for Caleb, 42, if not also for his wife Calin, 39. It was on that national holiday when the Merced couple decided to “really do up breakfast” as Caleb put it. The original menu that morning was deceptively simple. “Let’s just have bacon, eggs and whole wheat toast,” Calin suggested.

Unfortunately, Caleb wasn’t satisfied. He wanted waffles. “Today is Waffle Iron Day.” Caleb said, beginning to whine, “Did you know that National Waffle Iron Day has been a tradition in my family for more than a century?”

“I doubt it,” replied Calin, who was always willing to speak or even shout her mind, “It hasn’t been a holiday that long.”

“It has too,” Caleb shrieked, and he was close to tears, “My grandfather told us the whole story about how it came to be a national holiday on June 29^th.”

“Whatever,” Calin said, already disgusted.

Caleb removed the waffle iron from the convenient cabinet where it’d been stored, and put it within Calin’s easy reach.

“I want strawberries and blueberries and yams in my waffles,” Caleb said in a certifiably annoying tone.

“You want yams?” Calin screamed, “I’m allergic to yams! You knew that, too!”

Their argument escalated enough so that what happened next was predictable. Calin picked up the waffle iron, and conked her husband right on the noggin, knocking him cold.

She picked up the phone and called their California Health Insurance agent, who was also the tempestuous couple’s friend. “Caleb’s out cold this time,” Calin cried, “I hit him with a waffle iron.”

“Oh that’s right, today’s National Waffle Iron Day again, isn’t it?” the agent asked. “Don’t worry, you’re covered. But better call an ambulance.”

Calin did just that, and a few minutes later, all the neighbors heard the siren. Caleb was still unconscious when he was carried into the ambulance.

“She really must have conked him good,” remarked Mrs. Kravitz, a nosy neighbor.

“What do you expect?” said Mr. Kravitz, “Some people can’t be trusted with a waffle iron.”

The post Just Another Waffle Iron Day first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Father’s Day Reunion

admin — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 18:33:30 +0000

Daemon had been lost to the Smith family for more than a decade. But when John Smith’s mauling by the rarely seen wolverine had made the TV news, partly because of a California Health Insurance agent’s more than due diligence, Father’s Day 2010 became extra special.

John Smith and his wife Becca were preparing for their annual Father’s Day “cookout and fleshly barbeque” when the unthinkable happened. Usually the event drew the Smith’s three remaining children – Michael (named after the archangel), Mary (named after the mother of Jesus), and John Jr. (named after his Dad), ages 27, 29, and 31 respectively. Another Smith spawn was seldom spoken of. He’d left home at 18 for parts unknown, although rumors had surfaced that he’d become a Major League Baseball superstar for the Dodgers. Since the Smiths all hated baseball and none of them owned a television or radio, even if Daemon was playing shortstop with the Dodgers, his family wouldn’t have known. In fact, the family’s “black sheep” had become almost as famous as Manny Ramirez. Daemon was 32 now, and in fourteen years, there hadn’t been a single letter from the prodigal Smith son to any of his family members. Perhaps strangely, Daemon had become estranged.

The accident involved the elder Smith. He was on the far side of Beverly Hills, his musket in hand, searching for a main course for the family’s upcoming “cookout and fleshly barbeque.” If he’d been watching TV, he’d have known to avoid the far side of Beverly Hills. This nefarious region had become the lair of the infamous “Beverly Hills Wolverine.” It was on the news almost non-stop that day. The far side of Beverly Hills was like a ghost town. “It’s awful quiet in these parts. Just me and my blunderbuss,” John Smith managed to say aloud, before the wolverine pounced. Wolverines are quite vicious. Just ask anyone from Michigan.

A California Health Insurance agent living in the neighborhood discovered Mr. Smith, who had purchased a policy on a prudent whim a few months back. The agent called ‘911.’ His second call was to the TV news stations.

On Father’s Day, the Smiths settled for turkey as their main course. Becca, Michael, Mary, and John Jr. were sitting down at the family picnic table with the bandaged John Sr., everyone in a melancholy mood when guess who showed up, bringing half the Dodgers?

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Oh Christmas Tree

admin — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:48:11 +0000

Getting a Christmas tree and decorating it was a family tradition for Oxnard’s Dickensonian family, the Crachits – despite all that Mr. Scrooge might do to stop them. By golly, they’d get one, but they would need the advice of California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard to accomplish their festive task.

On the meager lucre Ebenezer C. Scrooge paid him, Bob Crachit was losing hope of getting a tree for Christmas. It was for Timothy’s sake. His youngest, a diminutive buck-toothed lad in dire need of a charitable orthodontist, was reduced to a limp and walked with an odd little cane. He was afflicted with Goober’s Palsy, a degenerative illness said to be nearly always fatal since the economic collapse of ’07, when the cure for it had supposedly been lost. “Tim,” an intuitive child of eight years, seemed to know he might die someday, but was constantly embarrassing the Crachits by blurting, “I got Goobers!” with the regularity of a metronome.

“Why must I work on Christmas Day this year?” asked Bob Crachit.

“Because it falls on a Friday, and that’s a weekday,” replied the irascible Scrooge.

But the next day, a neighbor, Mr. Alfred C. Nice to be precise, gave a tree to the Crachits after hearing of the family’s plight.

“It’s for you, Tiny Tim,” the generous benefactor told the usually mild-mannered youngest child in the privacy of the Crachit’s humble parlor.

“Don’t you ever call me that,” hissed the palsied boy.

Timothy was to rue those incongruously hostile words spoken on the eve of Christmas Eve. As the festive decorating of the tree advanced to its denouement, and Tim was hoisted up into the air above his father’s scrawny shoulders, the boy slipped while preparing to place the star, and was painfully, if not fatally, impaled through his tender belly. “Oh Christmas tree!” the buck-toothed boy screamed. At this point, with a trip to the nearest emergency room imminent, Bob Crachit needed reassurance and Christmas cheer in the worst way. So he called his California Health Insurance agent, Matt Lockard, to see if “Christmas tree impalings” were covered under his family plan. As the family eagerly listened, he received his answer.
“Oh yes they are!” he exclaimed upon hanging up the phone.

Later, after being stitched up, Tim Cratchit brought them all back to reality. “God bless everyone,” the palsied boy said with a cookie cutter elfish grin, followed by the inevitable, “I got Goobers.”

Go to Mattsinsurance4ca.com to get an instant health insurance quote and to learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes.

The post Oh Christmas Tree first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

The Death of Algernon

admin — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:40:52 +0000

Larry Kowalski had been a surfer and still enjoyed swimming in the Pacific. But when it wasn’t summer, the days were depressingly shorter, and Larry asked his California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard if his policy covered Freudian psychiatric care. As for the demise of his son’s pet turtle, that just wasn’t at the core of his sadness.

Larry loved summer. He preferred that halcyon season to last forever, an endless array of longest days spent frolicking in the California surf & sun. Every year was the same. The days grew shorter. He didn’t surf anymore now that he was approaching fifty and a friend of his had been eaten by a supposedly friendly great white shark down near San Diego. But he still swam in the Pacific, albeit cautiously. As summer waned this year, and with the death of Algernon, his son’s pet turtle, he felt especially saddened. At the turtle’s funeral in the cathedral amid a multitude of mourners, some of them prominent veterinarians and circus performers, Larry realized he needed help — a Freudian psychiatrist’s talk therapy. He knew at that moment that Algernon was the last thing on his mind, but he still cried.

That very afternoon, Larry phoned his California Health Insurance agent, Matt Lockard, who was also a friend. If anyone would understand, it was Matt. “Hi Matt, I was wondering if my policy covered my seeing a therapist for depression, preferably someone I can talk to in regular sessions, does it?”

Matt Lockard paused to ponder in his characteristic way. “You want to see a shrink?”

“Yes,” Larry admitted, “one of those Freudian guys.”

“I think so,” said Matt, “It’s under psychiatric services. Sure.”

Matt was also there to listen. “I heard about Algernon’s death,” the California Health Insurance agent consoled, “It was in the paper. Your family must be devastated.”

“Oh, it’s not that,” Larry admitted.

“What is it then?” Matt queried suspiciously, suddenly a bit perplexed and truth be, maybe a trifle angered at his friend’s obvious lack of empathy. How could Larry be so callous? Didn’t everyone in California love that amazing little reptile?

“I do miss Algernon, and I realize how much he meant to my son and to everyone else apparently, but I just realized that what’s making me sad is seasonal. I love summer, those long days spent frolicking in the Pacific surf, I still swim …”

“And now suddenly it’s over. Summer’s over. I understand completely,” Matt said, starting to grow misty-eyed himself when he realized the enormity of what had been lost.

“I still swim,” Larry repeated, and both men began sobbing.

Go to Mattsinsurance4ca.com to get an instant health insurance quote and to learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes.

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Mobry’s 2010 Medicare Advantage PPO

admin — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:37:08 +0000

Mabel Mobry, a hippie centenarian from San Francisco, wondered if she had the freedom to get a prescription for medical marijuana under her 2010 Medicare Advantage PPO plan, so she phoned her trusted California Health Insurance agent to find out.

Mabel Mobry, still spry after surviving for exactly a century, pined for the days when she could get high with reckless abandon before all those Draconian blue laws gummed things up. When she was younger, she’d gone to Woodstock and heard Jimmy Hendrix play the national anthem. She relished her infamous pot parties, toking up and going straight to the bong, and getting a buzz. She’d married a man named Buzz, her third husband, as a way to immortalize those halcyon days, but he’d died in the bicentennial year, 1976, and that was a while ago. But now, in 2009, the pendulum was swinging back. Downtown and in the suburbs, marijuana was alive again, quasi-legal, if you used it for medical purposes. Stores sold it openly, if you had a prescription from a doctor. But Mabel was quite healthy for a centenarian. “I don’t feel a day over 94,” Mabel said to her cat, Woodstock, a white Angora that liked to party. What could she do to get her bong out again, a relatively law abiding old lady’s simple pleasure?

Suddenly she had a brilliant idea, concerning her 2010 Medicare Advantage plan, the documents comprising it just sitting on the blue kitchen table getting dusty. Rock music started pounding in her head, Led Zeppelin playing some sort of anthem. She felt the freedom to act like Buzz’s warm caressing fingers remembered. He was her favorite husband when it came to physicality. Ring, once was all it took as her trusted California Health Insurance agent, a devout liberal thank God, picked up.

“Mrs. Mobry,” he said, sounding like a cherub although he had to be at least sixty, “What can I do you for?” A free spirit, the guy liked the freedom to juxtapose. He was humming the Star Spangled Banner, our national anthem.

She came straight to the point. Woodstock was listening and nodded his approval. “Can my 2010 Medicare Advantage plan incorporate a prescription for medical marijuana? Would such treatments be covered?”

“Do you have any medical conditions that might apply?” asked the cherubic California Health Insurance agent.

Mabel thought about it, but didn’t want to lie. “I might be going blue blind,” she said, shading the truth just a mite, as she could still see well enough to watch the Freedom Bowl parade on television, with its colorful anthem playing.

“That might do,” said the cherubic agent, “That just might do you.”

Matt Lockard – California Health Insurance agency offers health insurance plans for individuals, families, and children. Also available are California Medicare Supplement policies. Go to Mattsinsurance4ca.com to get an instant health insurance quote and to learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes.

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Alien Abductions: The Ultimate in Outsourced Medical Care?

admin — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:33:24 +0000

Geronimo Jones believed that he’d been abducted by aliens, but his delusions didn’t end there. He went so far as to call a California Health Insurance agent to see if he’d be charged for their “very thorough” probes.

Thirty-four year old Geronimo Jones, hypochondriac and confirmed cheapskate, was lying in bed painfully pondering. He’d been plagued by headaches and this one was a “doozy.” Tylenol hadn’t helped. Geronimo’s split-level ranch in Modesto recently had an alarm installed; he’d gotten a deal. Drifting off to an anguished sleep, Geronimo possibly awakened; he wasn’t sure, instead of a clanging alarm he heard only silence, and was taken, by what appeared to be silver-throated aliens, at least several – one wearing a funny extraterrestrial baker’s hat. Up to the mother ship he possibly went, he wasn’t sure exactly how, it didn’t involve diesel. He lay on a metallic table unable to move anything but his pinkies, staring at what appeared to be a photograph of a cat; it probably had fur.

The probing began. One alien seemed to have a medical background, and was evidently very thorough. It felt very good; whatever he was doing. But a weird voice oozing out of an orifice that might have been the creature’s mouth suddenly blasted Geronimo out of his reverie like a Buck Rogers laser beam. “Do you have Earthling coverage?”

The next morning, Geronimo Jones for the first time in a year didn’t have a headache but was having a panic attack. “Are those aliens crazy? I didn’t ask to be admitted to their mother ship. Are they going to charge me for treatment?”

Geronimo charged. Impulsively, he put in a frantic call to his California Health Insurance agent. Ring. Ring. Pick up, pick up. “Yes,” said the agent, a woman with a pleasant feline voice, akin to a human purr.

“This is Mr. Jones.”

“Geronimo from Modesto?”

“Yes. It happened last night.”

“What?”

“I was abducted by aliens.”

“Again?”

“This time they want to charge me for the medical care. Can they do that?”

The cat-like agent was quick on her feet. She pounced. “Yes, if they call me, they actually can. But they’ll have to call me.”

Geronimo felt calm again. Thinking it over, he felt like he’d made out like a bandit. More importantly, he didn’t have a headache.

The post Alien Abductions: The Ultimate in Outsourced Medical Care? first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Black Friday Shopping Spree Turns Dark

admin — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 20:05:35 +0000

Amelia Nosehart liked to fly through the malls to get a head start on Christmas. But a policy she’d purchased from California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard literally helped save her sight when “shopping” went horribly wrong.

Amelia Nosehart’s favorite day of the year was the day after Thanksgiving when Rancho Bernardo shoppers could get a head start on their Christmas shopping with early bird specials. Retail stores in neighboring burbs would open at two, three, four, five a.m. in efforts to woo obsessed shoppers just like Amelia. But at Ye Olde Pet Shoppe what should have been a touch exotic, as 3:37 a.m. sprees go, almost turned deadly.

The chain store’s “exotic reptile” section was selling “baby spitting cobras” for an amazing $1.99 each. As Amelia joined the crazed throng of “early birders” she knew she had to have two or three of the venomous little critters, assuming they’d been defanged of course, as pets for her nephews Josh and Andy, both notoriously difficult to buy for. As Amelia nearly “flew” through to the front of the frenzied crowd of typical Black Friday bargain hunters, a glass case accidentally cracked open in the madness and she heard a slight “hsst” and felt excruciating pain in her left eye, the one with astigmatism.

Rushed to the nearest hospital for obligatory anti-venom treatment and eye cleansing, Amelia was obliged to stay overnight as a precaution, and called Matt Lockard, her friendly California Health Insurance agent at his office in Ventura, just to let him know what had happened at Ye Olde Pet Shoppe.

“Matt. Guess who this is? It’s Amelia. I’m in the hospital,” she said.

He kind of recognized her. “Like the legend?”

“Yes, sort of,” she said, “Guess what happened to me on Black Friday.”

“What?” he asked, remembering the policy he’d sold her just a few months back, covering just about any kind of emergency.

She provided the gory details, about the crowds, the frenzy, the early morning madness, and the baby snakes for her nephews.

“You’re lucky you can still see out of that eye,” Matt opined.

“I can’t at the moment. They gave me a patch. It’s still light-sensitive.”

“Oh,” Matt said, “but you sound so happy.”

“Why shouldn’t I be happy?” explained Amelia, “Ye Olde Pet Shoppe not only gave me the baby cobras for free, they threw in an EXTRA pair. They’re all in my semi-private room with me now in a convenient ‘holiday’ Plexiglas case. Josh and Andy are going to be absolutely thrilled!”

“I hope they have been defanged,” Matt offered.

Amelia squinted, feeling a twinge.

Go to Mattsinsurance4ca.com to get an instant health insurance quote and to learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes.

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When Turkey Raising Turns Foul

admin — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:56:29 +0000

Twelve-year-old Gifford Sullivan was asked to raise a turkey for his family’s Thanksgiving dinner and … his turkey became a pet. Because of California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard, the disaster that ensued was not made infinitely worse.

Gifford loved his turkey. No, literally. Gifford loved his turkey. A Sullivan family tradition was to have the eldest child raise a wild turkey that would, at the appointed time, a few days prior to Thanksgiving, be sacrificed as the family’s dinner. “Don’t get too attached to that turkey, Giff,” his mom tried to tell him, but such an admonition was useless. The animal-loving twelve-year-old had come to consider Isabelle (yes, the boy had already secretly named the hen turkey purchased to be slaughtered) a member of their family and a cherished pet. Every morning before school he’d gone into the turkey’s pen in the backyard of the Sullivan’s Oxnard home to feed, clean up after, and otherwise nurture the growing fowl; he was conniving for a way to somehow save “Isabelle’s” life.

Gifford’s siblings Wayne and Toby were relatively indifferent to Gifford’s conflict. “That turkey is going to be the best Thanksgiving meal ever,” teased ten-year-old Wayne, “it’s better than any store-bought butterball.” Nine-year-old Toby was even worse in his way, tormenting his older brother while acting innocent as a sacrificial lamb. “Which part do you like best? I go for drumsticks,” he taunted. Gifford would run off sobbing to the sanctuary of Isabelle’s backyard pen, to hug the bewildered turkey.

Finally, the execution day came. Godfrey Sullivan raised the axe beside the chopping block which was also in the Sullivan’s backyard, and just as the horrific scene with the turkey caught in the vise …
Gifford ran headlong toward his father, his only thought to rescue Isabelle as the axe was raised at the proper angle and began descending …

The axe fell and the boy screamed. Blood gushed everywhere. The family headed toward the nearest hospital’s ER, protected only cost-wise by a convenient family health plan sold to them the previous year by California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard.

Gifford developed amnesia after the accident. “Did you get enough to eat?” his mom asked.

“Yeah, mom, but I got a question. How come I had to have veggie burgers instead of turkey like everybody else?”

Go to Mattsinsurance4ca.com to get an instant health insurance quote and to learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes.

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Cult of the Great Pumpkin

admin — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:48:45 +0000

California health insurance agents pay homage to Charlie Brown’s comic strip deity.

In the legendary comic strip “Peanuts,” created by the late Charles Schultz, Shultz’s young hero Charlie Brown celebrated Halloween in a pumpkin patch where The Great Pumpkin sat. The cartoon boy with an “every boy’s” persona would ask the Great Pumpkin arcane questions about life; and in a manner of being, the inanimate orange harvest veggie assumed the stature of an odd deity – or at least a sage in the tradition of certain gods transported from Greek Mythology.

As a religion, such a pumpkin cult has its merits, and in these days of strident calls for health care reform, certain California Health Insurance agents have taken to visiting pumpkin patches in search of their own personal Great Pumpkin that may exist in the nether regions between Visalia and Fresno. For days the search for this orange quasi-deity has continued unabated, but although some giant spheroids, many with black features painted on them like human faces, have been located, none as of yet can be considered sacred or wiser than others culled from among their brethren.

“Where this Great Pumpkin resides…” proclaimed an excitable agent from the environs around San Bernardino, speaking aloud but in very muted tones, “makes him liable to be an oracle able to speak in tongues, or to offer wisdom, perhaps possessing a fluency understandable only to those who sell policies for every conceivable need, including but necessarily limited to the occasional health-related whim.” This agent soon attracted a considerable following with such talk, and the second Cult of the Great Pumpkin was born.

Finally, as All Hallows Eve approached, a sacrifice was needed, and bands of gathering California Health Insurance agents began roaming the entire state like insurance-minded dervishes. Choosing a suitable Great Pumpkin, even for pie, proved to be a dangerous undertaking once the attention of the real Great Pumpkin was attracted, and soon chunks of familiar faces began turning up everywhere, during the night and especially once the sun was up. In fact, the most introspective California Health Insurance agents, imitating Charlie Brown in a wondrous reincarnation of animated perpetual boyhood, began sitting Buddha-like in sundry patches all over California. Finally, an unfortunate California Health Insurance agent was indeed mistaken for that very orange veggie he’d been searching for. It was bound to happen.

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Catching Colds When You Don’t Sleep

admin — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:43:47 +0000

A lack of sleep compromises our immune systems and makes us more susceptible to colds and flu. A California Health Insurance agent is there for you so that you can sleep better.

Autumn is not only holiday season, with year-end delights beckoning, it’s also “cold and flu” season, which fewer people choose to celebrate. Instead of Thanksgiving turkey and yams, and Halloween treats, think vitamin C and Echinacea. But what about sleep – not getting enough can suppress the immune system and create a likelihood of sickness.

As any California Health Insurance agent can tell you, poor sleep habits and susceptibility to colds and influenza go hand-in-hand – much like a germ-spreading handshake. Sleep, its quantity and especially its quality, can play a role in maintaining the body’s defenses.

In a recent study conducted by the Archives of Internal Medicine, scientists tracked 153 men and women for a fortnight (two weeks), monitoring the quality and duration of sleep that these experimental subjects experienced. Next, during a five-day follow-up, the subjects were quarantined and exposed to cold viruses. Those who slept an average of less than seven hours a night, it transpired, were three times more likely to become ill as those who slept for at least eight hours.

Sleep and immunity are apparently interrelated. Studies have found that mammals that require the most sleep also produce increased levels of disease-fighting white blood cells, but not red blood cells — even though both kinds of cells are produced in bone marrow and are derived from identical precursors.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have demonstrated that “good-sleeping” species resist pathogens (germs) with a special resilience.

California Health Insurance agents specialize in selling customized plans that allow their customers more sleep, as well as a better quality of REM sleep that facilitates dreams. If it’s known that you’re not sleeping enough, run; don’t walk, to the nearest office of a California Health Insurance agent before you catch a cold or flu bug. Celebrating the holidays is a lot more fun if you’re not sick – but if you do become ill, you’ll have the right coverage.

The post Catching Colds When You Don’t Sleep first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

A Lifeguard Can Only Do So Much

admin — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:36:59 +0000

Jimmy Malcolm, age 12, epitomized the word “brat.” He blithely ignored the lifeguard at the county pool. But when Jimmy’s mother and the repentant boy went in to thank California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard, he was as pleased as the Malcolm family that they’d purchased a suitable group policy.

The lifeguard, Freddy Feldspar, was getting really annoyed. This kid epitomized the word “brat,” a 12-year-old man-child in the promised land of the Oxnard Community Pool making the lifeguard screech and bark incessantly. “No running!” yelled Feldspar at the careless boy who kept dashing to and fro, along the sides of the pool, skidding on the wet surface in his bare feet, jumping in and quickly out again in some frenetic rabid dance of pubescent energy, “Can’t you see the signs?”

But Jimmy Malcolm wasn’t paying attention to the signs or to the clearly annoyed lifeguard, a college age red-haired man who made little impression on the energized boy. Jimmy looked at him once or twice, but his expression was one of indifference, perhaps even a mild disdain. Unfortunately, the signs were there for a reason, as such behavior on the part of errant boys is an accident waiting to happen. Jimmy kept it up at breakneck speed, his soles wet and slippery, running and dashing, diving into the crowded public pool, and then climbing out and beginning his mad dashes all over again. The 12-year-old escaped a mishap for perhaps longer than he should have, his feet barely in control along the wet tiles, but then the inevitable happened.

“No running!” Freddy Feldspar cried out one last time. The words had barely emerged from his lips when the inevitable transpired. Everyone at the pool saw Jimmy slip and fall, and scrape the skin off his right ankle when he did. Five stitches and an urgent care facility visit later, a more contrite Jimmy Malcolm and his mother Madge went to see California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard in his office a few days later, “My son and I just wanted to thank you for selling us that small business policy last year,” she said, “It came in very handy a few days ago.”

“Oh?” queried Matt spying a rather obvious protective bandage around young Jimmy’s sandal-cloaked right ankle. “So what happened?”

Jimmy spoke shyly, almost as if a tabby cat had gotten his tongue. “There was this lifeguard …”

Go to Mattsinsurance4ca.com to get an instant health insurance quote and to learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes.

The post A Lifeguard Can Only Do So Much first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Tale of the Wooden Gate

admin — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:31:47 +0000

Jack DeVries was an expert at making gates for fences, but erecting entire fences was beyond the scope of his expertise. For reasons peculiar, he felt the same way about health insurance, and California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard had a solution.

They were everywhere. Dotting the grasslands of California were vestigial gates, the beginnings of fences, thousands of such ethereal structures acting as portals to emptiness. These creations were made by one Jack DeVries, an artist hailing from Modesto. One day the quasi-celebrity strolled in to California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard’s office. “I was expecting you,” Matt said.

“I’ve heard of you,” DeVries said.

“And I of you,” countered perhaps the most celebrated California Health Insurance agent in all of Ventura.

The obvious question hung in the air. Why does DeVries do it? Leave so much to the imagination, unfenced, leave gates constructed that anyone could walk around in a few steps, and well, just enter.

The answers began pouring out of Jack DeVries’s gob, a trickle of words that grew into a torrent. DeVries spoke of a fixation, a fetish if you will, and perfection spent entirely with every detail tended to: To Jack DeVries, the Devil was indeed in the details, trapped in the gate. The artist’s only stipulation was that his gates be wooden.

It was then that Matt Lockard learned that the maker of stranded gates felt similarly about insurance. “I need a plan that is like my lovely gates,” the artist voiced in an odd creaking tenor that reminded Matt of a gate opening wide enough to let a health insurance salesman in.

Matt knew instantly what the man desired in his heart of hearts. “Oh, you must want a PPO Plan,” he said simply, a bit like Yoda in that movie.

Jack DeVries smiled a gate-like grin, and this time when he pursed his lips they made a creaking sound.

Matt Lockard had known immediately that a PPO bore a certain similitude to the gates. Although without accompanying fences, these unfinished structures were precisely perfect in every nuance, just as a PPO tailored to Jack DeVries would feature the masterpieces of physicians specializing in every aspect of a certain artist’s personal health care.

“That’s exactly what I need,” Jack DeVries croaked again, “How did you know?”

Go to Mattsinsurance4ca.com to get an instant health insurance quote and to learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes.

The post Tale of the Wooden Gate first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Blow Your Candles Out

admin — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:29:56 +0000

Centenarian David R. Morse’s family should have seen the birthday cake disaster coming. When Great-great-grandfather Morse tried blowing out all the candles on his birthday cake, the result was predictable. If it wasn’t for a California Health Insurance agent, it could have been financially tragic for his family as well.

He lived with his extended family instead of in a rest home. It was a big family living in a big house. Grandpa-pa-pa as he was known to all was loved and revered. Although he hated celebrating his own birthday once he’d attained his late nineties, his annual party had become a family tradition, and Grandpa-pa-pa Morse reluctantly went along. The worst part was blowing out his candles with a single exhaled breath, a perfectly timed gust expelled from his increasingly frail frame that could put out all the candles at once so that he might “get his wish.”

Last year at age 102 he’d wished for an end to this ordeal, but secretly of course, so as not to disappoint his younger kin. This year, the massive cake, with papaya-flavored frosting, was decorated with 103 candles, each like a tiny universe flickering. “Blow Grandpa-pa-pa,” shrieked eight-year-old Adam, already a little windbag who’d easily blown out his own candles, all eight of them, just two weeks before. The family’s beloved centenarian was gathering his remaining breath in a mighty storm at that very moment, but the task before him seemed immense. Could he still do it? Grand-pa-pa Morse huffed …. and blew with all the might he had. The result was strange. Instead of going out, the 103 candles suddenly blazed as one! Everyone in the room, a gaggle of Morses, gasped. Grandpa-pa-pa not only gasped, but began wheezing. “That’s never happened before!” exclaimed Mossy Morse, his family-values smitten granddaughter, age fifty-six, who already had grandchildren of her own, of which Adam was one. By the time Mossy’s husband Alexander realized there was an emergency, he’d begun putting the cake out with a nearby extinguisher. Adam screamed, “Grandpa-pa-pa!” when the boy saw their patriarch keel over. Moments later, they were all in the emergency room of a nearby facility, as Grandpa-pa-pa Morse was receiving urgent care.

Mossy Morse said out loud what most of the clan had been thinking. “Thank goodness we anticipated this when we purchased a policy for our beloved grandpa-pa-pa from that friendly California Health Insurance agent we met on the pier at Santa Monica,” she said.

“Will Grandpa-pa-pa be able to blow out his candles next year?” asked Adam with a touch of naiveté. All Adam got for asking the question was a big hug from everybody – including his now reinvigorated grandpa-pa-pa.

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Golfing Nightmare Ends Happily

admin — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:28:03 +0000

Thanks to an insurance policy provided by a California Health Insurance agent, the hospitalization of Bob Parr’s golfing buddy was covered.

Bob was kidded about his name whenever he played golf. “How come you never make pars?” his golfing buddies teased. The truth be known — Bob Parr was a lousy golfer. He shanked or hooked most drives, and popcorned his iron shots. He missed putts less than four inches in length. “I’ve never seen anybody do that,” remarked Bob’s friend John P. Knotworth. But on the 12th hole, a par-three dogleg, the unfortunate Knotworth was standing about fifty feet down the fairway when Bob Parr struck his fateful tee shot with an ancient driver. Knotworth was way off to the side and seemingly safely out of Bob’s line of fire. The golf ball, a brand new dimpled Titleist, had other ideas. Struck hard by big Bob, who stood six foot six and weighed close to 250 pounds without his cleats, the Titleist careened on a straight diagonal, striking John P. squarely on his forehead before he had a chance to duck, knocking him cold. Pete and Gary, two other members of the foursome, gazed upon the scene in horror. Bob was mortified by the accident he’d caused. “Oh no!” Bob screamed. John P. Knotworth resembled a dead sunfish lying by a golf course pond even by the time the paramedics arrived.

The next day when the foursome had gathered in John P.’s hospital room, the victim was conscious and smiling, although the raised welt on his forehead looked angrier than the sting of a hornet. Pete and Gary were grinning too, but big Bob was worried – perhaps because he’d been responsible. “I’ll pay your bill,” Bob offered graciously, “it’s the least I can do.”

John P. Knotworth laughed a hearty laugh that sounded a bit like a long drive struck correctly, straight as an arrow. The knot on his forehead must have still been hurting, but he didn’t let on. “Forget about it. My California Health Insurance agent sold me a policy a while back. We got you covered Bob.”

Pete and Gary joined John P. in a fit of manly laughter that must have lasted for two minutes while Bob just stood there, finally managing a sheepish grin of his own.

“I’ll practice more on the driving range,” Bob promised. “I’ll hit five hundred balls!”

Pete was a jokester right then. “Better make that a million!” he said. That line got everybody laughing.

The post Golfing Nightmare Ends Happily first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Father’s Day Barbeque Goes Awry

admin — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:26:29 +0000

When a Father’s Day traditional pig roast results in accidental burn injuries to a gentle boy’s hands, it’s fortunate that his parents had purchased a child’s policy from California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard.

The Smuckers of Visalia didn’t make jams and jellies, but for five generations the family had purchased a piglet during the previous December from a local pig farm for roasting on the upcoming Father’s Day. Always the eldest Smuckers child would be charged with raising the piglet to maturity in order for it to be slaughtered on its appointed day in June. This festive and delicious tradition was eagerly anticipated by one and all, although the boy or girl raising the piglet usually had harbored mixed feelings amid a sense of dread about the animal to be inevitably sacrificed. Dan J. Smuckers had told his son Jeffy, age 8, not to get too attached to his piglet. “It’s not a pet Jeffy. It’s just your job to raise him so he gets nice and plump with good meat on him,” he warned.

But Jeffy was unlike other Smuckers children preceding him. “Yes Daddy,” the boy said, but he already harbored forbidden feelings of affection for his piglet, having secretly named him “Spot” because of a small brown birthmark on its little pink hindquarters. Jeffy was a gentle kid and loved animals, but he’d never been allowed to have a pet.

“Spot” grew up at a normal pace and bonded with Jeffy, often letting the soft-hearted boy scratch him behind the ears. His eight-year-old mind tried frantically to devise a scheme to rescue his porcine friend from its looming encounter with the spit. The pig, for its part, grew big and fat. Finally, it was June, and time for “Spot” to be executed in the shed. Dan surmised his son’s misgivings, and performed the murderous deed when Jeffy was at a sleepover one Saturday. While Jeffy cried and screamed when he found out, he was quiet on Father’s Day until the festive time had arrived, and “Spot” was appropriately spitted. But Jeffy appeared like an avenging little angel when the party was in full swing and the cooking had commenced, and when the boy grabbed the red hot pig to wrench it off the spit ….

Jeffy really cried and screamed as both of his hands were badly burnt. As the family’s SUV raced along to the local hospital’s emergency room, Dan reassured himself with words that he hoped would calm his tender-hearted (and tender-handed) son. “Don’t worry Jeffy. I know you’re sad because of that pig. But at least treatment in the hospital burn unit will be covered because we purchased a child’s health insurance policy from our California agent, Matt Lockard.” But Jeffy just screamed all the louder.

Go to Mattsinsurance4ca.com to get an instant health insurance quote and to learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes.

The post Father’s Day Barbeque Goes Awry first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Leonard’s Parking Lot Accident

admin — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:24:54 +0000

Leonard was in a natural foods grocery store’s parking lot when a 94-year-old woman mistook his brand new Saab for a stop sign. It was a good thing his injuries were taken care of by a policy he bought from California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard.

Leonard Durban was proud of his brand new Saab. It was chartreuse with a gold trim. It had no flaw or blemish. While shopping one fine sunny day, he’d purchased his groceries two bags full and was preparing to exit the parking lot of Nice Foods where natural foods were sold.

His Saab was stopped. But another car, a 1965 Studebaker which was the color of phlegm had approached from within the parking lot as Leonard looked on with horror. The driver, one Agnes L. Penta, an irascible 94-year-old, was practiced in cutting corners as she approached stop signs. She’d been driving this way for what seemed like an eternity at least for any traffic she unfortunately encountered. As far as she was concerned, Leonard’s brand new Saab had no right to be where it was. Even its right to exist was questionable in her murky mind.

“I always stop at the stop sign when I shop at Nice Foods,” she told the police officer called to the scene, “I can’t help it if he was in my way. He hit my car. I had the right of way.”

Leonard had tensed his muscles when he saw the phlegm-colored Studebaker approach, and impact triggered a generalized pain almost immediately. But within minutes as Leonard’s sad Saab story was ending, he recalled California health insurance agent Matt Lockard and he managed a weak smile.

“You stupid ninny. Why are you smiling like a jackass?” Agnes screamed at Leonard while flashing what could only be described as her characteristic reptilian grin. At that precise instant, all Leonard could produce in response was an agonizing grimace accomplished while smiling because he now knew it annoyed the vicious woman.

When the phlegm-colored Studebaker and its despicable driver had begun to recede into Leonard’s memory, and after he’d been treated to alleviate the neck and back spasms caused by the accident, a more pleasant interlude occurred. Leonard found himself inside the office of California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard.

“You’re completely covered,” Matt said, “and your auto insurance covered the damage to your Saab. It’s fixed good as new. But that elderly driver …”

“I don’t blame her,” asserted Leonard, “Life’s too short.”

“Not for the woman who hit you,” replied Matt. “She’d take any moment she gets, and yours too.”

Go to Mattsinsurance4ca.com to get an instant health insurance quote and to learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes.

The post Leonard’s Parking Lot Accident first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Farm Boy Heads off to Big City College

admin — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:22:17 +0000

Parents purchase health insurance for their son while he’s enrolled in the Agriculture Program at UCLA — just in case.

Trevor Young came from a nice maggot-farming Mormon family just north of Pocatello. Blonde, Trevor was quite the handsome country boy, when he headed off to UCLA to study Agriculture. In his pocket was his “trick” for impressing young women, a sample from his Idaho farm. “Maybe I’ll meet somebody to marry up with,” he told his mother, a stout matronly sort. “Are you bringing your little box?” she asked sweetly. “Of course,” Trevor said, “It’s the best lure I got.” His mother nodded. “If she doesn’t like your little box, then she’s not good enough for my boy,” Trevor’s mother opined. She and her husband, Hyrum, had also gifted their son with health insurance coverage purchased from a California Health Insurance agent. “We won’t worry so much,” she told her ninth-born.

Once on campus, Trevor settled in. One of his roommates noticed the little box. Left unattended on a bureau top, it was oval, smelled of chocolate on the outside, and was purple. “What’s in this Farm Boy?” the guy asked. Max Weinart was a junior majoring in International Finance from the Bronx and guessed precious jewelry, like a ring, was in it.

“It’s for a special girl,” Trevor explained, implying to Max that the contents were none of his business. Max nodded, assuming he’d guessed right.

A few weeks later at a formal soiree, Trevor met that “special” girl, Karen. Big-boned but pretty, she hailed from Jersey. She later regretted popping the question. “What kind of farming does your family do?”

“Wait, I’ll show you.” Out came the box, the one that had so intrigued the girls from north of Pocatello. Karen gasped at the contents in horror, screamed and reflexively punched, smacking Trevor in the jaw and knocking him cold.

While recovering in the UCLA Medical Center, with his jaw expertly wired, Trevor spoke through clenched teeth. “I got insurance,” he told Max, who’d come to visit.

“I heard what happened,” he said, “But why did you show that girl a box of dead maggots?”

“It was my fault,” Trevor admitted, “the live ones are so pink and beautiful. I should have figured that when I’m home, they keep better.”

The post Farm Boy Heads off to Big City College first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

AIM and Income Disregard Programs Help Out California Expectant Moms

admin — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:20:51 +0000

Expectant moms unable to afford health insurance coverage may qualify for the Access for Infants and Mothers Program (AIM) or else the Medi-Cal Income Disregard Program, both administered by the State of California.

If the Terminator’s controversial budget cuts somehow spare them, two health insurance options that financially struggling expecting mothers might target is AIM – The Access for Infants and Mothers program, a health insurance program administered by the State of California that is not a Medi-Cal program, and one that is the Medi-Cal Income Disregard Program.

AIM provides full coverage private health insurance at low cost to pregnant women during pregnancy as well as a full two months into postnatal. To be eligible, the family’s income must fall between 200% and 300% of the Federal Poverty Level amount as configured by the size of the applicant’s family. Property limits do not apply. Applications are accepted at local Social Service Agency Intake offices where an appointment with an Information Supervisor is appropriate.

Although the Income Disregard Program has a lower income threshold for eligibility, it involves considerably more “red tape.” Pregnant women seeking “Income Disregard” coverage must apply in person by visiting one of the Social Service Agency Intake offices and filling it out an application or calling an Intake office and asking for a mail-in-Medi-Cal application. Again, the Information Supervisor is the key contact person. But to “disregard” your income, you first must prove that you don’t have any, more or less. Applicants must provide proof of identity, proof of pregnancy, proof of Social Security number, proof of immigration status, proof of California residency, and perhaps most crucially, proof of income. So expect to bring along a slew of documents to your interview.

Requirements are stringent because the Income Disregard Program is true to its name. To eligible pregnant women, this special Medi-Cal program provides prenatal and postnatal care to pregnant women at no cost. But pregnant women applying for this program must be fully evaluated by an Eligibility Worker (EW) at one of the Intake offices and determined to have a share of cost. A share of cost is roughly equivalent to a monthly deductible. It is the amount for medical expenses that a Medi-Cal beneficiary must pay or be obligated to pay prior to any reimbursement for medical expenses by Medi-Cal. Also, the net nonexempt family income must not exceed 200% of the Federal Poverty Level while eligibility can begin no earlier than the first day of the month the pregnancy is reported.

The post AIM and Income Disregard Programs Help Out California Expectant Moms first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Teens Need Their Beauty Sleep

admin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:36:55 +0000

When 15-year-old twins, Alexander and Penelope, began developing a myriad of symptoms, it was a mystery until a series of visits to a nearby hospital’s sleep clinic began to produce some answers. Their frantic parents would have been even more in a tizzy if the hospital bills hadn’t been covered – thanks to their California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard.

Alexander and Penelope were identical twins except for their gender. Blonde and blue-eyed, with perfect skin and on the cusp of being adults, the twins thrived during a marvelous summer. Tennis camp, sleepovers, surfing and swimming, camping, parachuting from 15,000 feet in their Dad’s twin-engine aircraft, the Smith kids played hard and slept hard, uninterrupted, for the months trailing the June solstice in the land of Ventura night. But when school began just before Labor Day, the teens began to change before their parent’s eyes.

Alexander developed a cyst under his left eye. Penelope began stumbling as if she were nearsighted although her vision had been tested in July at 20-10 left and right. Adolescence suddenly bred entire tribes of pus-filled pimples. Alexander became injury prone: When he tried to run he tripped most times, his perfectly proportioned legs no longer coordinated. “Something’s wrong,” Ashley, their mom, told Gary, their father, who was sure that there wasn’t. “It’s just the awkward stage,” he asserted.

“Are they both just being awkward?” Ashley Smith countered.

“They’re both teenagers,” Gary shrugged.

But the twins kept getting worse. Finally, because they did have a family plan purchased from California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard, Gary relented and took both 15-year-olds over to Dr. Nicole Tesla, the family’s trusted primary care physician. When she examined them, she knew the answer almost immediately. “How much are they sleeping?” she asked.

“They go up to their bedrooms,” Gary said. “The lights are out. Of course they’re sleeping.”

“How do you know?” asserted Dr. Tesla. When she spoke, electric sparks seemed to give a bluish tint to her waiting room’s tepid air. She suggested they find out for sure. Both twins were wired to biofeedback equipment on school nights to satisfy Dr. Tesla’s medically-based hunch.

Was this equipment covered? Gary called Matt Lockard to find out. It was.

The results were amazing. The kids weren’t getting their REM, the productive kind of rest signaled by rapid eye movements. “Teenagers need their beauty rest,” Dr. Tesla concluded.

“Alexander needs his too?” Ashley wondered.

“He sure does,” Dr. Tesla pronounced.

“But they have to go to school!” Gary said. The solution seemed simple: a modified school day built around later mornings and longer afternoons, a 9-5 adjustment. It was as if a solstice had returned to the land of Ventura night.

Go to Mattsinsurance4ca.com to get an instant health insurance quote and to learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes.

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Swine Flu Survival Guide

admin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:33:33 +0000

When Suzie Porcine went to the “swine flu” assembly she asked questions. Word got back to her dad what his daughter had asked. Mr. Albert Porcine kept stressing how lucky they were to already have a family plan purchased from California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard. But he was sensitive about certain matters.
Escondido High, where Suzie Porcine attended, held an assembly to educate students about H1N1 influenza, also called “swine flu.” Sample bottles of Purell and surgical masks were handed to each student as they entered the auditorium.

The Principal, Mrs. Viscera Wormwood, stood poised on the stage prepared to introduce the health official who would be discussing his “swine flu survival guide,” whatever that was. But Suzie raised her hand. “What is swine flu? I had nothing to do with it no matter what anybody says.”

“What do you mean you have nothing to do with it?” asked Mrs. Wormwood.

“Everyone says it’s my fault!” Suzie yelled back. Murmurs turned into snickers.

“Porcine means pig,” taunted Bill Roberts. He was a tenth grader with hairy arms.

Anticipating a potential legal crisis, Mrs. Wormwood asked Suzie to leave the auditorium. After the assembly had ended, Mrs. Wormwood called the Porcine home. Mr. Albert Porcine picked up. After Mrs. Wormwood explained, Mr. Porcine squealed with indignation. “I hate this politically correct anecdotal name for H1N1 influenza,” he ranted, “Is your school asking to be sued?”

This was the response Mrs. Wormwood had feared. “No,” the principal said. But she had no clue about how to contradict the man until … Suzie began sneezing and coughing, and phlegm started flying.

“What’s going on?” Mrs. Wormwood couldn’t help asking, “Is it Suzie?” The phlegm kept flying.
Mr. Porcine was speechless for a moment. “Yes,” he said, “she’s sick.”

“Could it be swine flu?” Mrs. Wormwood bleated in the manner of a sheep.

“Don’t call it that!” Mr. Porcine screamed into the receiver. He hung up immediately, but once he did, he headed off with his daughter to the nearest Urgent Care. “Don’t worry princess,” he said. Suddenly California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard crossed his mind. At least we have a policy for emergencies, he figured.
“I hope I don’t have swine flu, Daddy,” Suzie rasped, her throat clogged with unspent mucus.

Albert Porcine started to correct his beloved daughter, and then stopped. “Let’s hope you don’t,” he managed, on the verge of tears.

Go to Mattsinsurance4ca.com to get an instant health insurance quote and to learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes.

The post Swine Flu Survival Guide first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Maple Tree Allergy

admin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:30:50 +0000

All 13-year-old Billy Blalock wanted to do was rake his neighbor’s leaves to earn some spending money. When the sneezing fits began, the boy’s plans were threatened unless he could swallow a potent antihistamine prescribed by the family doctor. Thankfully, a California Health Insurance Agent had made the price of the pills a little easier for Billy’s parents to swallow.

Billy Blalock was eager to earn extra money. He needed a new skateboard and Playstation 3, but his parents were scrimping just to get by. His “job,” raking leaves at the Jones next door in their modest Rancho Bernardo ‘hood’, seemed like a no-brainer. When Sally Jones, a pert brunette thirty-something whom Billy considered “a second mom,” agreed to Billy’s raking after school, the teenager was elated.

“I can rake!” he exclaimed to Betty, his first mom, “I can rake!”

“Yes you can,” she replied deadpan, sort of like a 34-year-old feminine version of a Caucasian Barack Obama.

But a strange thing happened on the way to Billy’s raking. Underneath the Jones’s imported maple tree, an exotic from New England, Billy sneezed. He returned to raking. He sneezed again. He started raking again, a bit more tentatively this time. Suddenly he sneezed in a burst, once, twice, three times, perhaps a hundred times as he couldn’t stop sneezing. Billy was sneezing so hard he was crying. He ran away in tears from the poisonous tree straight to Sally’s ample bosom. “Second mom! Second mom!” Billy cried, “I can’t.”

“You can’t what?” Sally asked, noticing the tears in the eyes of her neighbor’s son.

“Rake,” Billy blurted, sobbing.

Billy’s real mom Betty decided to seek a medical solution since they’d purchased an individual child’s plan from a California Health Insurance agent. Dr. Quag was friendly to Billy at his office and patted his belly several times, which seemed a bit weird to the boy. The prescription, however, gave Billy hope. The doctor prescribed sixty milligrams twice a day of a drug called fexofenadine, also referred to as Allegra, and the funny thing was, Billy had even heard of it, having seen it recently on a TV commercial.

“Allegra,” Billy said, “I’ll be taking Allegra so I can rake by the maple tree!”

“Yes, you can,” said Dr. Quag, “if you remember to take your peach-colored pills!”

Betty was there too. “It’s peachy that Billy’s Allegra isn’t costing me out of pocket,” she said.

“Are they peach flavored?” Billy asked.

The post Maple Tree Allergy first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Sneaking Candy

admin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:26:57 +0000

Pamela Longbottom tried to sneak a jawbreaker from her eight-year-old’s bag after returning home from trick-or-treating. Biting into the hard candy provoked a scream of pain, however, and an unexpected trip to their dentist. Having purchased dental coverage from a California Health Insurance agent eventually allowed her to smile again.

Pamela Longbottom, a single mom, decided to go out trick-or treating with Morticia, her pale-looking eight-year-old. She was pleasantly surprised when the choice of her daughter’s name was greeted positively for once by one of the family’s more astute neighbors. “Oh, I see you’re out with little Morticia,” Mrs. Joan Doe observed brightly, “on All Hallow’s Eve that seems right somehow.” The Doe’s were related to another family of Does down the block, John and Jane and their children Jack, Jubilee, and Tittera, who was in Morticia’s class at school. Doe was such an unusual name, Pamela mused. It was at Joan Doe’s house when several jawbreakers were dropped blithely into Morticia’s bag, as the child flashed a jack o’ lantern smile through a forest of mixed fang-like teeth, baby and permanent.

The trouble began at home when Pamela started inspecting her daughter’s treats. When Morticia wasn’t looking, she stole a raspberry jawbreaker, hoping that her cherub wouldn’t notice. Pamela popped the hard candy into her gob, and stupidly bit down. “Owwh!” she screamed. Morticia was horrified. “You stole one of my candies!” she bawled. “You’re sick!”

Pamela shot her progeny a look of sheer pain.

The next morning she visited her dentist, and thanked her lucky stars (she was into astrology) that the dentist’s bill for $467.52 would be covered under the comprehensive dental plan she’d purchased a few months earlier from a California Health Insurance agent.

Back at home, Pamela was watching enviously as her daughter sucked the remaining jawbreakers, raspberry, strawberry, and peach, savoring them with her mouth partially open, each time, it seemed, just to irritate her mother as Pamela was preparing a grocery list. Morticia would draw out the sucking and mouth movements in the manner of a feeding spider, making obnoxious noises and tongue gestures simultaneously. The display was hideous and finally, Pamela who was very distracted lost her patience. “Stop it Morticia!” she screamed.

“I will Mommy,” Morticia said, “but don’t you wish that Halloween came more than once a year?”

The post Sneaking Candy first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Pork Chop Vultures

admin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:24:22 +0000

California Health Insurance Agent Matt Lockard was a pleasant voice to Mrs. Yakamora, but by the time they spoke, she’d had a close encounter with some undesirable avians.

Mrs. Tumera Yakamora, 87, weighed less than ninety pounds, but her Medigap coverage purchased from that bird-loving Matt Lockard was in effect if she ever needed it. Long-widowed, a single passion remained: Watching the birds that flocked to her Vallecito home.

Her mistake seemed innocent except when considered in retrospect. While stocking certain bird feeders, she began substituting small bits of pork chop instead of the recommended suet. “I think this will be a nice change of pace for my little friends,” Mrs. Yakamora said to no one in particular. She often engaged in lively banter with no one in particular.

Pork chop in any form is not recommended for bird feeding.

She first saw the vultures, an inquisitive pair that she tolerantly chose to name Judy and Punch, on a Tuesday afternoon. But by Wednesday dozens hovered in the increasingly fetid air. Several perched aggressively in her desert willows. “There’s too many,” Mrs. Yakamora said, before making a second mistake of getting a broom and attempting to shoo them.

She became frightened when a cadre of the scavengers, only slightly smaller than condors, began circling very low, hissing, and chasing her about. A particularly vicious one caused her to trip and fall. When she noticed several pieces of decaying pork chop protruding from its beak, she couldn’t suppress a scream. This sound bred of fear must have provoked the creature still further. Only barely did she manage to pick herself up and scurry back into her kitchen. Mrs. Yakamora couldn’t help wondering if she’d been vulture-nipped as she reflectively sipped a cup of her favorite jasmine. She chose that moment to call Matt Lockard at his office far away in Ventura. “Matt,” she managed, “it’s Tumera Yakamora.”

He had no idea what had been happening on the other end of the phone line when he said, “How’s the birding going? See any odd species lately?”

She began sobbing before she mentioned Judy or Punch.

“I saw a blue jay in my yard yesterday,” he said, “first one in a while.”

“Matt stop!” she shrieked, “I got vultures!”

“That’s okay,” he said without missing a beat, “You still have Medigap.”

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Mr. McElroy’s Gardening Project

admin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:21:53 +0000

Eighty-two-year-old Nelson J. McElroy took to their backyard garden like oil takes to water. But one day, his wife Patricia observed some alarming portents on the day he finally began a long overdue project. California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard knew exactly what to do.

Nelson J. McElroy’s golden hostas had been holding him hostage all summer long. It seemed like there were armies of hostas in their environs, a redundant beauty on the march. After tolerating the pervasive blooms from his recently purchased lawn chair for as long as he could stand it, while sipping on a glass of lemonade, he decided to get to work trimming the stems. His wife, Gertrude, ambled over. She watched as Nelson squatted on aged bent knees with pruning shears in hand. He mentioned he was feeling a little dizzy along with a twinge of nausea. “I should probably sit down,” he added. As he returned to his chair, Gertrude noticed his left leg having difficulty matching the stride of his right, the left step diminishing like a chimera with every stride.

Nelson collapsed, landing on his pruning shears which were fortunately positioned blades down. “Oh Nelson!” Gertrude heard herself exclaim. Fearing the possibility of a stroke, Gertrude recalled Matt Lockard, a pleasant semi-bearded California Health Insurance agent, the one who’d sold them their excellent Medicare Advantage plan just last year. She herself had utilized their coverage with a hospital stay as recently as May when her gallbladder had acted up. She decided immediately to ring Matt. Thank the insurance God he was there. “Yes,” he said. He always sounded so calm when she spoke to him. A moment later, the decisive Lockard had contacted the 911 operator and ordered an ambulance for the McElroys.
She watched him the entire way to the hospital, terrified but trying to be brave while sitting next to him as he reclined with the tubes already in him on the ambulance stretcher. Every bumpy jolt made her heart race.
Days later in recovery Matt Lockard came to see them both. “How are you doing?” he asked, the question directed at her as well as toward her now responsive husband.

“I had a stroke,” Nelson said, “because of those damned hostas.”

“Stop your cursing!” admonished Gertrude as Matt Lockard barely suppressed a grin.

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The Big Scooter Race

admin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:19:40 +0000

Scooter races can be dangerous, especially in a motor home park for seniors when the seniors are the ones doing the racing. A California health insurance agent prevented the worst carnage: the financial kind.
74-year-old Padraig O’Brien loved to watch those scooter commercials on TV. “You can have your scooter, with no out-of-pocket expense,” the announcer crooned. Like several of his friends at the Elysium Trailer Park in Oxnard, Padraig was otherwise confined to a wheelchair. One day Padraig and several peers purchased dandy electric-powered scooters using their Medicare Supplement insurance policies to help defray their cost. Visiting the Grand Canyon while maneuvering among crowds of tourists on their scooters didn’t appeal to anyone at Elysium, but once everyone had their scooters, something else became evident: the thrill of scooter speed.

“I think we should set up a race track,” suggested Tony Pilano, at 79, a near-octogenarian assumed to be Elysium’s resident sage. Mary Falafel, who spoke Arabic but wasn’t a 73-year-old terrorist, preferring to decorate or draw, agreed. “I can make banners,” she said. She loved to draw nude men.

The race track was set up along the trailer park’s wide walking paths. In preparation for the big scooter race, the “main drag” was clearly marked by Mary’s banners, a few of them rather lewd. Fourteen scooters set to race lined up. Someone had brought a starter’s pistol. The electric hum of racing scooters was vaguely reassuring to many in the crowd of geezer gawkers.

Tony and Padraig jousted for the lead, each rubbing the other like NASCAR drivers. Mary was running a strong third. As her scooter tipped, she reached for what she thought was a convenient handle …
Exactly what occurred in those next crucial two seconds will never be precisely known.

The aftermath featured the friendly California Health Insurance agent dutifully tying up loose ends after the participants had returned to Elysium. Mary brought up what was on everybody’s mind. “Let’s have another race,” she exclaimed. A silence ensued leaving her words hanging in the California air.

A tear formed in Padraig’s eye. “Tony would have liked that,” he concluded.

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The Night Rudy Played Tackle

admin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:16:07 +0000

He was the biggest-boned kid in the 16-member Pedroia clan. At age 14, Rudy was downright husky as Pedroias went, graced with good looks and a sturdy physical stature freshly bestowed upon him by puberty. But in the harsh glare of the stadium klieg lights, he weighed only 87 pounds fully dressed in pads and gear, and a California health insurance agent triumphantly emerged as the family’s hero.

Bakersfield’s Rudy Pedroia was a born athlete. At age ten, his father, Randy, first spied his son’s potential. When the kid pranced barefoot in the summer heat, “My boy has an athlete’s foot,” he casually remarked.
Rudy practiced. He knew every play. Fleet of athlete’s foot, the day came when he made the varsity squad. A freshman, the Pedroia’s little star sat on the bench on that fateful night. His wise parents had purchased a child’s individual plan for their son, just in case. Rudy was third-string; at four feet five and 87 pounds, no one beyond the Pedroia clan figured that Rudy would actually play. Still, the entire family watched as they always did. Randy was proud. “He has athlete’s feet!” he would brag to anyone within earshot while attracting looks of mild disdain. Finally Rudy’s big moment came. The home team’s first-string tackle broke an ankle and was carried off the field on a stretcher. The second-string tackle got clotheslined in the groin and nearly lost his tackle. When that unconscious 200-pounder was carted off, the coach looked at the bench and saw … “You!” he barked, “Get in there!” The crowd uttered a collective gasp. “He’s so shrimpy!” somebody’s grandmother screeched. But Rudy knew the plays.

It didn’t really matter. While attempting to trip up the touchdown sprint of a monstrous fullback, Rudy’s outstretched toes served as a launching pad for the opposing team’s end zone. The sound of a Pedroia metatarsal crunching could be heard at the fifty-yard line.

Gathered around Rudy’s bed in his semi-private room where all three of Bakersfield High’s wounded players were hospitalized, only Rudy’s family was smiling. “What?” Randy Pedroia said, “My son has athlete’s feet!” Since they had purchased a teenager’s plan from a California Health Insurance agent, they could afford to smile.

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A Lifeguard Can Only Do So Much

admin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:59:25 +0000

“Oh?” queried Matt spying a rather obvious protective bandage around young Jimmy’s sandal-cloaked right ankle. “So what happened?”

Jimmy spoke shyly, almost as if a tabby cat had gotten his tongue. “There was this lifeguard …”

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Tale of the Wooden Gate

admin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:58:25 +0000

“I’ve heard of you,” DeVries said.

“And I of you,” countered perhaps the most celebrated California Health Insurance agent in all of Ventura.

The obvious question hung in the air. Why does DeVries do it? Leave so much to the imagination, unfenced, leave gates constructed that anyone could walk around in a few steps, and well, just enter.

Matt knew instantly what the man desired in his heart of hearts. “Oh, you must want a PPO Plan,” he said simply, a bit like Yoda in that movie.

Jack DeVries smiled a gate-like grin, and this time when he pursed his lips they made a creaking sound.

“That’s exactly what I need,” Jack DeVries croaked again, “How did you know?”

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The post Tale of the Wooden Gate first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Blow Your Candles Out

admin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:57:21 +0000

The post Blow Your Candles Out first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Golfing Nightmare Ends Happily

admin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:56:14 +0000

Thanks to an insurance policy provided by a California Health Insurance agent, the hospitalization of Bob Parr’s golfing buddy was covered.

Pete and Gary joined John P. in a fit of manly laughter that must have lasted for two minutes while Bob just stood there, finally managing a sheepish grin of his own.

“I’ll practice more on the driving range,” Bob promised. “I’ll hit five hundred balls!”

Pete was a jokester right then. “Better make that a million!” he said. That line got everybody laughing.

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Father’s Day Barbeque Goes Awry

admin — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:49:57 +0000

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Leonard’s Parking Lot Accident

admin — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:48:08 +0000

“I always stop at the stop sign when I shop at Nice Foods,” she told the police officer called to the scene, “I can’t help it if he was in my way. He hit my car. I had the right of way.”

“You’re completely covered,” Matt said, “and your auto insurance covered the damage to your Saab. It’s fixed good as new. But that elderly driver …”

“I don’t blame her,” asserted Leonard, “Life’s too short.”

“Not for the woman who hit you,” replied Matt. “She’d take any moment she gets, and yours too.”

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Farm Boy Heads off to Big City College

admin — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:46:22 +0000

Parents purchase health insurance for their son while he’s enrolled in the Agriculture Program at UCLA — just in case.

“It’s for a special girl,” Trevor explained, implying to Max that the contents were none of his business. Max nodded, assuming he’d guessed right.

While recovering in the UCLA Medical Center, with his jaw expertly wired, Trevor spoke through clenched teeth. “I got insurance,” he told Max, who’d come to visit.

“I heard what happened,” he said, “But why did you show that girl a box of dead maggots?”

“It was my fault,” Trevor admitted, “the live ones are so pink and beautiful. I should have figured that when I’m home, they keep better.”

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AIM and Income Disregard Programs Help Out California Expectant Moms

admin — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:44:27 +0000

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Kidnapping and Ransom Insurance Has Become a Necessary Precaution

admin — Thu, 21 May 2009 18:00:26 +0000

California Health Insurance agent, Matt Lockard, is now offering kidnap and ransom insurance to shipping crews placed in harm’s way.

The man who entered Matt Lockard’s cheerful and tastefully decorated office on that Wednesday afternoon wore buckles on his shoes and a silk shirt dating from the 18th Century. He carried a sword of some kind quite visible in the scabbard he wore. He also wore a black patch over his right eye. His teeth were rotten and his skin was mottled and yellow. He caught Matt staring.

“What?” the man said. “Haven’t you ever seen scurvy a’fore?”
Matt Lockard is not a man to unsettle easily. “C-an I help you?” he said while flashing his own well-flossed pearly whites.

“I’ve heerd that you’s a sellin’ Kidnap and Ransom insurance to shipping crews,” the mysterious man said. “I’m prepared to set me sails off beyond the African continent next month.”

“You heard right,” Matt said with a bit more confidence.

“Better give me some,” said the mysterious man. He provided his name as Edward Teach, and demonstrated a clear vulnerability. “I want to feel safe. Heard tell that there’s pirates agin’ roamin’ the seven seas, making the waters treacherous. Can I pay with gold pieces, or do you require silver?”

“You’re a teacher?” Matt asked. Part of a syllable had evidently been made to walk the plank.

“Yes, something like that,” Teach said, his teeth giving off a slight stench as he opened his gob.

“You’re smart to purchase kidnap/ransom insurance,” Matt added, feeling more at ease with the man. “Gold or silver, it’s all the same to me. Just no doubloons. They don’t fit in the cash drawer properly.”

“What else does it cover?” Mr. Teach asked.

“The EPIC 1 plan covers illegal detention, extortion, home invasion, carjacking, and numerous other means of extorting money from you,” Matt explained.

“I see,” said the swashbuckler, suddenly grinning from ear to ear, “You are an honorable sort Lockard, an honorable sort indeed.”

“I’m a California Health Insurance agent sir. I be nothing more, nothing less.”

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California Health Insurance Agent Offers Trip Cancellation Policies

admin — Thu, 21 May 2009 17:59:13 +0000

California Health Insurance Agent Matt Lockard offers Patriot T.R.I.P. insurance coverage in the event of the unthinkable.

Stanford R. Doe and his wife Jane were about to board the plane, Southwest Flight 6754, at Gate 3 in LAX when they heard the news. Up until that tense moment, they’d figured that buying T.R.I.P. insurance had been one of those purchases performed out of prudence in case of the unthinkable. But in that instant, they knew.

“Mr. and Mrs. Doe wait!” the urgent voice had shouted.

Because of what had happened, the couple had no choice. They walked as if in a daze, but unassisted to the airlines ticket counter to cancel their flight to Tunisia, where Stanford and Jane had long dreamt of celebrating their second honeymoon, although their first one had occurred a mere six months earlier.

They drove the rental to inspect the ruins. A gas explosion had gutted their home and all their belongings. They stopped the rental, a Rambler station wagon, in front of what had been their front yard. “All that grass seed wasted,” Stanford told his grieving wife with tears pouring down his cheeks, “and the automatic sprinkler system, it’s b-broken,” he sobbed, his voice choked by emotion and by the odor of charred dandelions in the fetid air.

“What will the neighbors think?” Jane cried out, as if she were a wounded self-conscious beast without a split-level, which she now was.

They still had a cell phone that worked. It was purple, a sad color. She put in a call to homeless child she’d so suddenly become in her now infantile mind. He’d been expecting
a call from the forlorn Does, after reading about the explosion in yesterday’s news. Hearing Matt answer, all she could do was sob into the receiver.

“It’s activated. Don’t worry about your trip cancellation. You have full Patriot T.R.I.P. coverage. You and Stanford wouldn’t have enjoyed Tunisia under these circumstances. The travel agent will understand about losing his commission. He won’t be angry at you for canceling,” Matt spoke softly into the phone, realizing that a couple’s dreams had been shattered, both in the sense of where they were going, and where they’d been. But at least T.R.I.P. had saved them from what might have added insult to their injury.

“Thank you so much Matt,” Jane managed to blurt.
“Just doing my job as a California Health Insurance agent,” he replied self-effacingly. “I reacted instinctively when I sold you that policy. It’s what I do.” California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard, as if to be reassured like the small

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Wine Tasting Tour in Temecula Turns Terribly Tingly

admin — Thu, 21 May 2009 17:57:23 +0000

A pleasant afternoon of Temecula Valley wine tasting is ruined by killer bees, but Chris and Sally Sadhart were at least prepared for the stinging contingency by their California Health Insurance agent.

Chris and Sally would never have thought it. They were an amorous and amiable couple, married for the better part of three years, prudent in the extreme, and were headed out to Temecula for a pleasant sojourn of wine tasting. “The tour will be fun,” Sally said, “and the local wines are superb.”

But there were so many wineries to choose from. Finally, a fateful decision was made. They turned their 2007 Toyota Tundra into the driveway and parked.

The tour began pleasantly enough. Harry, their guide and waiter, brought over twin tasting glasses of Syrah. “It’s a dry red table wine,” he said, “very nice.”

“Very nice,” Chris and Sally echoed in unison. The afternoon was perfect. A cloudless sky, not excessively hot, a little breeze was blowing at low levels near the ground, like a miniature headwind. It felt good on the skin.

Next was a Cabernet Sauvignon. “This one is mild, note its deep red color, and its blackberry aroma,” the suave Harry said, dressed in a lavender Tuxedo, to accent certain flavors.

“Wow,” said Sally, “this is wonderful!”

“Indeed,” echoed Chris.

Harry interjected a factoid to make the couple’s experience yet more delicious. “Were you aware that this Sauvignon is aged in oak barrels for 18 months prior to bottling?”

He didn’t say that the particular oak tree on the premises used by the winery for bottling had been destroyed because it had been infested by killer bees.

“No, we weren’t aware,” Chris replied a little too loudly and emphatically.

The Zinfandel arrived next at their outdoor table. “This white dessert wine doesn’t age well, I’m afraid,” he spoke a second prior to the look of pure fear becoming apparent on his features.

At the worst possible moment, the Sadharts began arguing.

“It’s spicy,” said Sally.

“You’re wrong. It’s fruity!” Chris yelled with altogether too much emphasis.

The swarm of killer bees, guided to their table by the current of the micro-breeze and the vibrations of their arguing and possibly by Harry’s colorful if incongruous attire, began stinging the couple again and again. This did not feel good on the skin.

The Sadharts were fortunate that Harry had once been an ambulance driver and that an Urgent Care center was very close, and especially that the bills were taken care of.
“It was prudent of us to obtain emergency coverage from a California Health Insurance agent,” Sally purred through swollen lips a few days later. “We were extremely prudent, dear, although we’ll be in agony for the next few weeks.”

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Take Me Out of the Ballgame

admin — Thu, 21 May 2009 17:55:24 +0000

An 86-year-old cantankerous man’s worst fear is realized when he goes to his first Major League Baseball game and gets hit by a foul ball, but insurance obtained from a California Health Insurance agent softened the blow.

Mickey Moosaka’s nephews and nieces were at their wit’s end. What activity would their cantankerous grand-uncle agree to participate in that the entire family might attend? He’d turned down bowling. “It reminds me of pinheads,” old Mickey said. He avoided restaurants. “Flies and their eggs on every plate,” he said, sickening anyone within earshot. Miniature golf emphasized the codger’s recently shrunken stature. “Don’t belittle me by taking me to a place like that,” he’d said to his thrifty niece Sappy in his rather squeaky Buster Brown voice. It was decided that “Uncle Mickey” would take in a Dodger game at the Stadium. Above all else, he enjoyed baseball, despite his consummate fears. He finally relented but warned, “I’ll probably get bonked by a foul ball off the bat of Manny Ramirez.” The geezer was a lifelong Dodger fan but had never been to a game in person.

The Moosakas got a nice row of boxes not far from home plate, but well back in the upper deck. The seats seemed relatively safe. “These are great seats, huh Grumpa?” chirped twelve-year-old Matty to his beloved great-great-uncle. Matty was in his last year of Little League and played all-star caliber shortstop on a junior version of the resurgent Dodgers.

Fifty or sixty foul balls came and went, a few coming close, within a few rows, by the sixth inning, when the famous Dodger left fielder approached the batter’s box. “He’s going to conk me with a foul ball,” Mickey Moosaka predicted. The first pitch to Manny Ramirez was a fastball, which he took. The next two pitches were outside, so the count was 2-and-1 when the fateful pitch came. “This one hits me, I know it,” wailed old fearful Mickey. “No, it won’t,” said Sappy, fast becoming Mickey’s least favorite niece. “You worry too much.” But the next pitch, a curveball, was fouled back on an ominous trajectory. It seemed like the ball had eyes. Sure enough, it smacked old Mickey on the forehead with tremendous force, knocking him cold. Carried out of the ballgame on a stretcher, he was taken to the nearest hospital.

But Sappy was no sap. “Thank God we already had accidental coverage from a California Health Insurance agent,” she said. “It didn’t cost us a cent.”

“Thank God Grumpa Mickey didn’t die!” wailed Matty, placing priorities correctly.

“I guess,” Sappy was forced to agree.

The post Take Me Out of the Ballgame first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

California Health Insurance Agent Matt Lockard Provides Plans for Disability Income

admin — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:21:48 +0000

When Johnson Mandingo was disabled and had to take a leave of absence from his Oxnard-based job as a high-priced male escort, California Health Insurance Agent Matt Lockard had his disability plan ready for him when he needed it most.

The narcissistic bachelor, Johnson Mandingo, resembled George Clooney and Brad Pitt rolled into one handsome thirty-seven year old. His Adonis-like physique was also striking. Although he’d been an occasional stripper at parties in his younger days, a recent stint with “Guys ‘R Us,” the Oxnard-based and borderline-legal escort service, was steadier. His favorite pastime had been staring at himself in mirrors, often for hours, sometimes while clothed. But since the unfortunate penile injury he’d lacked confidence and performed poorly in the workplace, even shying away from familiar mirrors, so they’d laid him off. Employment at a Gold’s Gym hadn’t worked out either. He’d been caught trying to escort well-heeled lady members, and lacking his former confidence, drew complaints, so he’d gotten himself fired. He needed income fast or else he’d lose his Malibu digs. If he became gaunt and underfed, he’d lose his treasured physique to boot. Suddenly he realized that about a year previously, he’d purchased something from a one-time lodge brother named Matt Lockard. Was that insurance still in effect? Johnson picked up the phone, a tiny bit hopeful.

“C’mon over,” Matt told him upon realizing that a grown man was on the verge of tears after telling his sad story, “I think I can help.”

Johnson drove to Matt’s office cautiously, ignoring his reflection wherever his glances landed. Maybe, just maybe.

“Hi Matt,” he said with a hangdog look, brushing Pitt-like bangs out of his eyes, and staring at the innovative and resourceful California Health Insurance agent; all the while flashing his deep-set “Ocean Eleven” baby blues that made even cynical women swoon. Matt wasn’t swooning, although he found the guy’s stare disconcerting. Once again, the agent listened patiently. Matt’s uptake seemed miraculous to Johnson a few minutes later when “the plan” was actually in force, effective, and viable. “Yup, you’re enrolled,” Matt explained, “So you’ll get your first disability insurance check next week sometime.”

“You’re a lifesaver man,” Johnson said, his confidence returning. “Is there a mirror around here?” he asked.

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California Health & Life Insurance Agent Matt Lockard Comes to Terms

admin — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:19:12 +0000

Term life insurance didn’t seem in the cards for old Silas, but resourceful Matt Lockard found a way to come to terms with the oldest life insurance customer he’d ever heard of.

Silas Behrens was still working full-time at 96, but he wanted to find a way to provide for his great-great grandsons, Pete and Troy, ages 13 and 16 respectively, who now lived with him. Their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents had passed on, but their great-great grandfather Silas was like the Energizer Bunny. He kept going, and going. The perceptive teens and the man they deceptively called “Grampy Gramps” were having a conversation around the kitchen table. Grampy Gramps seemed no different than he’d ever been, but other kids at school had placed doubt in Pete’s heart, as well as in Troy’s, about their relative’s long-term future.

Pete was speaking through his anxiety, which had so far been unwarranted. “Grampy gramps, it’s just that you’re older than most of the other parents of kids at our school,” he said in his still pre-pubertal voice, “What if something happens and you get laid off, and can’t find another job?”

Troy, already through puberty as was his Grampy Gramps, put it more succinctly, “What if you d-die?” The idea wasn’t so far-fetched, especially in their family, which had been one of the Grim Reaper’s favored destinations.

Silas tried to nip such fears in the bud. “I won’t get laid off. I’ve been at Brown Sod for seventy-five years, and the boss recently reassured me about that, my dear great-great grandson. Besides, I’m still fit as ever. Even if this economy were to put me out of a job, experienced diddlers don’t grow on trees.” Neither teen was quite sure about what their Grampy Gramps actually did at work, but he played tackle football with them out in the field by the Escondido creek and could still outrun them both – as well as most of their friends.

“What if you have a heart attack and d-die?” Troy repeated, tears in his eyes.

“Okay, I’ll go see that nice young man Matt Lockard at his insurance agency. My health insurance and the kid plans for you guys we bought from him. I’ll see about some term life.” His great-great-grandsons smiled, as both liked Mr. Lockard. Their “Grampy Gramps” always knew what to do.

To make this story shorter, Matt proved as resourceful as Silas Behrens. He took his teens with him to Matt’s office, after the long drive in the immaculate Rambler wagon. After a half-hour meeting, Mr. Lockard had improvised a plan that would re-assure Pete and Troy until they were well into adulthood, until their beloved Grampy Gramps’s turned 118.

Go to Mattsinsurance4ca.com to get an instant health insurance quote and to learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes.

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California Health Insurance Agents Offer Medigap Coverage

admin — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:15:49 +0000

Evelyn Saguaro had a gallbladder issue that needed surgery, but her Medicare coverage wouldn’t pay for the procedure. But once she realized that she already had visited a California Health Insurance Agent to deal with what she called “her delicate matter,” she felt enormously relieved.

Sixty-seven-year-old Evelyn Saguaro had the same problem her late mother had been afflicted with. Besides her real gallbladder, she’d been born with a vestigial secondary one in which three cactus-like gallstones, each about the size of a quarter, had formed. Late in life, the vestigial gallbladder’s gallstones were starting to act up. Sharp pains would erupt beneath her breastbone immediately after she ate even a tiny serving of anything, and the acute pain made her sick to her stomach. When her doctor ordered tests to identify where the symptoms were originating from, he told Evelyn that her Medicare Plan only covered her original gallbladder, and since the stones had formed in the vestigial one, any procedure to remove them in “her unique case” would not be reimbursed. Her primary care physician kidded with her. “I suggest you refrain from eating,” he said. “Are you serious?” she asked. “No, a better idea might be to seek out a California Health Insurance agent.”

That’s when she realized she had done just that, two years previously. Was her Medigaps supplemental still in force? She headed on a beeline to the Visalia office, where she’d purchased the Medigap coverage. Was the office still there? It was. The same agent, Glenda, was at her familiar desk. During their previous conversation, which she’d somehow forgotten, Glenda had shared with her that she too had a “vestigial gallbladder,” with its associated symptoms not yet evident. Glenda had even belonged to an online organization, a regular support group called VGB Sufferers International.”

“Glenda, I’m so glad to see you,” Evelyn began. “Is my Medigaps policy still in effect?”

“Why wouldn’t it be, dear? Let me check.”

Evelyn waited expectantly. Suddenly her gallstone pain returned with a vengeance. “Is it? She asked, almost gasping.

“Of course it is, my dear Mrs. Saguaro.”

A month later, Evelyn’s surgery was successful and her cacti-shaped stones were displayed on her mantle, and on the VGB Sufferers website as a digital photo – for all to see.

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A Difficult Term Life Insurance Decision

admin — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:12:50 +0000

Andy was four years old, but because of his progeria he looked around seventy-eight. It was a little like that Brad Pitt movie.

Andy’s parents, Don and Jane, were a little opportunistic, some might say exploitative. Andy was diagnosed with progeria at three and by the time he was four, the condition was in full swing. The little boy only three feet tall looked around seventy-eight. He was cute as most toddlers go, but not in the traditional sense. His little wispy growth of hair was beyond gray, more a fading white, like old man snow. It was a little like that Brad Pitt movie. Wrinkles lined his face like detour lines, directing the traffic of his experience in the wrong direction. But his curse was not the rare, incurable disease, but was instead Andy’s parents. They not only failed to love their son, they weren’t above exploiting him for personal gain, if they could find an angle.

Don had once been a carnival barker traveling state to state. “It’s too bad this wasn’t forty years ago,” he told Jane, “We could have sold Andy to a freak show.” Andy was out of earshot reading a Bugs Bunny book up in his room when this particularly callous remark was uttered. The boy was perceptive well beyond his years and already learned to read more than cartoonish rabbit stories. Did he know the history of P.T. Barnum? It was within the realm of possibility.

Jane voiced her own cruel suggestion in a whisper, out of consideration for her son, she said. “We could go on Oprah,” she said, “and maybe cash in.”

Finally they learned about term life insurance policies and how some California insurance agents sold it. They picked the California insurance agent straight out of a brand new phone book, Pacific Bell ding-ring-a-ling. The next day they were at the agent’s door, little Andy in tow. He was quite inured to being paraded in front of strangers. For him it was normal. He knew that his parents didn’t love him. Kids can sense such things. He was a quiet child though, and extremely polite.

At first the agent was polite, not realizing the parents’ intentions. “How can I help you?” he asked, naïve to this particular nuance of greed. His Thousand Oaks office brought in a motley crew of potential customers, though few of this ilk. The California insurance agent sized up the couple quickly; but the child, why was he so old? He vaguely guessed the illness he had; feeling a wave of compassion, but the name … it didn’t come to mind. The little boy smiled, melting the agent’s heart.

“We want a term life insurance policy on our son,” Don said nonchalantly, as if he were merely sneezing. It was at that moment when the agent understood the enormity of it all.

“Get out,” he said, “Get out of my office.” He felt like calling a social worker, or maybe a cop. But the boy emphasized to the agent; that marvelous little boy, “Don’t worry, sir,” he said in his little pipsqueak voice, “I’m like that movie.”

The post A Difficult Term Life Insurance Decision first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

A Can of Tuna

admin — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:55:43 +0000

Sam Rollins was uninsured and never thought much about it until he gouged his thumb opening a can of tuna.

Sam had a decent job, was engaged to be married to a beautiful girl, and watched college basketball’s annual March Madness on his newly purchased 50 inch Sharp brand flat screen as if the games were all that mattered. His favorite team was Fresno State, but he also liked Pepperdine and Gonzaga, the latter because NBA great John Stockton had once played there. In fact, he was in the kitchen, opening a can of tuna, when Pepperdine was playing Gonzaga in an exciting Elite 8 match up. It had been halftime, but now the second half was just starting. The commentary was fierce, and he was missing the game. The tuna can was stubborn and the can opener was like the television, sharp; sharper than most knives. Sam wasn’t paying enough attention. The way he held the opener, and the angle of the can, and the force he was mustering. He slipped, felt a sudden surge of pain, also sharp. Was that blood gushing out of a wound in the webbing between his index finger and his thumb? It was. The can of tuna crashed to the floor. “What a mess,” Sam said, while gritting his teeth, and he wasn’t referring only to the spilled tuna.

He called 911. “My hand,” he whispered, “There’s blood everywhere.”

The operator got his vital information, especially address, after he repeated his situation several times. “I’ll send an ambulance,” the operator finally said.

Sam thought again. “Do I have health insurance?” he asked himself. “Am I covered?” Fighting back the pain and able to create a makeshift tourniquet out of his fiancée’s blouse that was lying around the kitchen, he managed to stop the bleeding, if only enough to make a second call, to Matt Lockard, a friendly California health insurance agent he’d once considered purchasing a policy from. Sam and Matt went way back. His parents were long-time Lockard customers. “Hi Matt. This is Sam Rollins. Remember me?”

“Yeah.”

“An ambulance is coming for me. I cut my hand real bad. Do I have insurance? Am I covered?”

Matt unfortunately knew the answer. “You considered purchasing a policy Sam.”

“So I’m not covered?”

“Nope.”

“So this ambulance and the emergency room visit is really going to cost me?”

“Yup.”

“It’s going to cost me an arm and a leg?”

“At least a hand, financially speaking; emergency room care isn’t cheap.”

To learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes visit Mattsinsurance4ca.com.

The post A Can of Tuna first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

The Spendthrifts Were Uninsured

admin — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:54:19 +0000

Four of the estimated forty-seven million uninsured Americans comprised this quartet. “Perhaps there are others hiding behind their profligate ways,” asserts California health insurance agent, Matt Lockard.

Chauncey McBride earned $75K per year as a top salesman for an Oxnard-based copy machine chain. His attractive fiancée Irene earned almost as much from the Thousand Oaks bagel shop she owned. Their friends Rick and Brianca each earned six figures as rising attorneys specializing in Elderly Law. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays they’d dress to the max and “do lunch” at Diamond Jim’s, where a lamb chop swimming in mint gravy cost fifty bucks. Irene and Brianca liked to wear designer jewelry; earrings, broaches, even anklets if the truth be known. Chauncey and Rick looked liked the male models gracing the pages of GQ. One night, these four successful twenty-somethings chanced to meet an acquaintance of their parents, Matt Lockard – successful in his own right as a California health insurance agent. The restaurant’s owner was a sensible man, even if he catered to expensive tastes.

“Howdy Jim,” Matt said, “I brought over that change in your policy you wanted.”

“Howdy Matt,” said Diamond Jim, “We’re still busy from the lunch crowd. Why don’t you take a seat next to those two couples waiting for a table? It’ll just be a few minutes.”

“Okay,” Matt said, sitting down alongside Rick and Brianca. He sat still for a few seconds, until he was recognized.

“Hey,” said Brianca, “I know you. We all know you. You’re Matt Lockard.”

“Still shilling health insurance?” asked Chauncey, with his slightly abrasive tone.

“Yeah,” echoed the others, their voices merging in a kind of yuppie meld, “you’re that health insurance guy.”

Matt had been put off guard, but he soon recovered. “Do any of you have health insurance?” he said. It was then that he discovered their secret. None of them did. “Why don’t you?” Matt asked, nobly taking the offensive.

“We can’t afford it,” came the trill of a quartet harmonious only in their will to remain oblivious. Matt knew that a low cost policy would probably cost each of them less than the price of their lunch. But he was tactful to the last. “Oh,” Matt said.

Diamond Jim intervened, ending an uncomfortable tension. “Come into my office Matt.”

To learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes visit Mattsinsurance4ca.com.

The post The Spendthrifts Were Uninsured first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

First Time Health Insurance Buyer Impresses His Parents

admin — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:52:46 +0000

Stian had never been considered especially responsible by his parents – until he “popped the question” to a helpful California health insurance agent.

He was blonde, tall, handsome and invincible according to his peers, a group of fellow 24-year-olds considered equally invincible by each other. All of them were recent college graduates prone to taking incredible risks. Bryan, a heavy-set version of Stian, liked to hang glide off the steepest California cliff faces, catching the first thermal while shouting madly in his counterfeit Dylanesque twang, “You don’t need a weatherman to see which way the wind blows.” Angela, an emaciated version of Bryan, did roulette drugs by needle just “for the thrill of it.” Carrie, a Gothic version of Angela, enjoyed being buried alive and popping up unexpectedly in the manner of her cinematic namesake.

Stian would run barefoot through rattlesnake pits with one of his friends holding a stopwatch as he raced to and fro. “Do it again,” Angela would trill, “You’re so funny.” Carrie would pop up like a tart and sometimes Bryan would glide into view, usually with a beer in his left hand, the sinister one.

“Where did he come from?” they’d all ask, except for Stian, who was concentrating on the pit vipers.

But one day Stian’s parents Joe and Flo came by to bring their son a latte. “What do you think you’re doing?” asked a horrified Joe.

“He’s twenty-four and still doesn’t have the sense of a pet rock,” murmured Flo.

“You’d think he’d at least have health insurance when he pulls these stunts.” Joe told his wife, still in a state of shock for the moment instead of The Golden State, “But no-o, not our irresponsible son.”

Stian gingerly stopped his antics with the snakes and stepped out of the pit as if he’d been bitten. He’d overheard what his parents had been saying about him. He was sobbing as he walked past an incredulous Angela, Carrie, and Bryan straight to his parents, also incredulous. “Here’s your latte,” his mother said, attempting to hand it to him.

“Hold onto that,” Stian said, still teary-eyed, “just hand me your cell.” Flo’s cell phone was pink, with black crocodiles on the receiver.

“Who are you going to call?” Joe asked softly.

Through a drizzle of tears, came the answer, rather defiantly, “Your California health insurance agent. I’ll bet she has a low cost plan for people my age.”

“That’s my boy,” said Flo, her own tears forming.

“He’s a man, not a boy anymore,” Joe replied, choking up too. “Stian knows what he’s doing.”

Matt Lockard – California Health Insurance agency offers health insurance plans for individuals, families, and children. Also available are California Medicare Supplement policies. To learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes visit Mattsinsurance4ca.com.

The post First Time Health Insurance Buyer Impresses His Parents first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

Alaskan Girls Spend Spring Break in Sunny California

admin — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:50:36 +0000

When the pretty girls from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks spent spring break in sunny California, only a California health insurance agent could ease their pain.

Thirteen relatively pretty girls traveled down for spring break on February 2nd from their familiar territory on the beautiful, frigid campus of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, completing the first leg of their economical journey by dogsled. From Spokane where each said mournful goodbyes to their sled dogs, “Bye Blitzen, Bye Rudolph, Bye Lassie,” the emptied sled pulled by the canine trio trudged back valiantly through the Canadian wilderness, while the baker’s dozen of vacationing Alaskan girls boarded a 747 to LAX. Once they had deplaned, the delicate skin of the relatively pretty girls began to redden. “We’re way too pale,” said Irwoota, in her pronounced valley girl accent, albeit an Arctic Circle valley, voicing the first warning. By the time they’d all stripped down to their bikinis on the gray-sand beach in Santa Monica, and had soaked up about fifteen seconds worth of brilliant California sunshine, the astute Ig voiced a remark that included them all. “I’m really starting to blister now,” she cried mournfully through sun-cracked lips. Back in Fairbanks, they got two hours of very dim diurnal sunshine this time of year, if that. A few minutes later, the chastened group of relatively pretty Alaskans had acquired a hue bordering on crustacean. Collectively thumbing through a local Yellow Book, the baked baker’s dozen had decided to head en masse for the nearest hospital emergency room, when Irwoota suddenly considered the huge bills they’d be bestowing upon their parents back home. “Wait,” said the so sunburned Valley Girl, “let me call a California Health Insurance Agent I know who used to live in Fairbanks. He’ll know what to do.” He did. Instead of the nearest emergency room, the sunburned girls were re-directed to an urgent care facility as a cost savings measure.

A week later, they were able to leave their darkened motel suite, the drapes closed the entire time, in relative comfort. Luckily they met gray skies and a pleasant cold rain upon their return to LAX.

Matt Lockard – California Health Insurance agency offers health insurance plans for individuals, families, and children. Also available are California Medicare Supplement policies. To learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes visit Mattsinsurance4ca.com.

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Mona Vie Blends Now Available From California Health Insurance Agent

admin — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:41:32 +0000

Matt Lockard, health insurance agent extraordinaire, knows healthy when he sells it. Mona Vie acai berry juice is known for its remarkable healthful benefits, a super-food bursting with vitality.

California Health Insurance Agent Matt Lockard, always concerned with the health of his customers, has taken a giant step metaphorically — to lush Amazonian Brazilian forests where the acai berry is grown. Like thousands of other entrepreneurial and health-conscious Americans, he’s become a MonaVie distributor.

It wasn’t easy. He had to learn about the MonaVie blends and the remarkable health promoting qualities of the delicious acai berry. “I think it grows on trees,” Matt explains. He didn’t know at first about the acai’s unparalleled antioxidant levels and extraordinary nutrient content. “It’s more nutritious than capybara flesh,” states Matt, adding an obscure factoid about the South American rodent. “They’re like giant rats,” he says with a hint of wonder, but he’s referring to the rodent, not the berry.

One of the world’s premier super-foods, the acai berry is rich not only in antioxidants, but also phytonutrients, amino acids, vitamins, and trace minerals.

While the acai berry serves as the foundation for each of MonaVie’s vital formulas, each nutritious and delicious blend provides tastes of other body-beneficial fruits, including cupuacu, camu camu (no stranger to Albert Camus, it even rhymes with his famous name), aronia, acerola, blueberry, bilberry, and pomegranate, a cornucopia totaling eighteen fruits in all. Balance. Variety. Moderation. Each of MonaVie’s health-minded products feature an exclusive acai berry blend. Each one tastes subtly different, distinct, unique. For countless centuries, the people of the Amazon Basin have treasured this spectacular fruit as a source of health and vitality. The health benefits of acai are continuing to be documented by aggressive teams of scientists. Balance. Variety. Moderation. MonaVie’s approach to nutrition helps Matt’s health insurance clients and anyone else to fight free radicals and to maintain overall physical health.

Matt also recommends MonaVie Active that features the added benefit of plant-derived glucosamine, which enhances skin elasticity and joint mobility. He’s also still learning. “This stuff is a lot tastier than capybara milk,” he says.

To learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes visit, Mattsinsurance4ca.com.

The post Mona Vie Blends Now Available From California Health Insurance Agent first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

When COBRA Gets Poisonous

admin — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:39:23 +0000

Johnny Klinger and his wife, Marissa, each had great jobs at the same plastics plant with excellent benefits. But when each of them was laid off within weeks of each other, their joint COBRA grew fangs and Marissa called in Matt Lockard, a California Health Insurance Agent.

Johnny and Marissa had been an item long before they’d been married. They met at the Amalgamated Plastics factory in Merced and began dating almost immediately. She started as an assistant floor walker and he began his Amalgamated career as a trainee mold pourer. She’d learned to crawl before she walked, and he’d poured pudding as a boy, primarily butterscotch which had been his favorite. Sixteen years later, they both were in management; she as a chief floor walker and he as a mold taster. While both were still wage-earners instead of salaried personnel, their employer did pick up 90% of their health insurance premiums.

The layoffs caught the Klingers by surprise. “It’s the economy,” their boss Mr. Dykstra first told Marissa, and then her man. The withdrawal was painful from an emotional perspective as well as from a financial one. “I hate the taste of butterscotch now,” he opined. Marissa knew the plastic had something to do with it, it only looked like butterscotch, but she kept quiet. Discretion is the better part of valor, she mused. Worse, besides the sudden lack of cash flow and the drain on their accumulated savings, there was something called COBRA to consider. It cost 102% of their policy at Amalgamated, but now they were laid off and …

“I’m going to make some pudding. You can pour it dear,” Johnny said. She now knew something was wrong. This was a crisis. He never lets me pour the pudding, she thought. “I’m going to make butterscotch,” he said. Those ominous words spurred her into action. “I’m calling Matt Lockard,” she said, “the California Health Insurance Agent who’s never been on TV.”

“Why?” Johnny queried.

“Because,” and she wanted to break it to her husband gently, “our COBRA has grown fangs.” She added almost in a whisper, “Matt will know what to do.”

“It’s not like it used to be at Amalgamated,” he said in a genuine whisper.

She dialed. “Is this Matt Lockard, the California Health Insurance Agent with the reputation for solving COBRA matters?”

“Yes, I solve COBRA matters,” said Matt, simply being declarative. “I can help.”

By the next week, Johnny and Marissa had health insurance again, and the price was reasonable.

To learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes visit, Mattsinsurance4ca.com.

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Buying Fresh Produce at Your Nearest Farmer’s Market

admin — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:36:37 +0000

It’s not only a cost saving measure in these tough economic times, it’s also a health tip recommended by California Health Insurance Agents.

Sam Mason had recently been laid off from Escondido’s Hog Heaven pig farm. “Working there saved my bacon,” the somewhat virile father of seventeen often said as he reminisced. His wife, Alicia, had lost her job too, at the nearby Rude Awakening Agnostic Pre-School, where she’d worked part-time Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, sans benefits. Sam had also lost his health insurance, which had been part of the pig farm’s benefit package. He’d had a PPO with a $50.00 deductible. The premium was $1,460.00 a month under the pig farm’s rather demeaning “runt plan,” but Hog Heaven picked up all but 10% so he’d allowed the unintended slight to pass. Being laid off meant COBRA if he wanted it, but he didn’t because 102% in his case would soon turn into a rather odious piggyback.

Anyway, other challenges beckoned. Putting food on the table, especially healthy food, for his newly poverty-stricken spouse and brood, the eldest eighteen and male but also unemployed, seemed daunting. Sitting on the family’s prized “cozying up” couch agonizing about “taking his brood down to the trough” as he put it (a cheap group meal served for nineteen featuring cholesterol-laden cheeseburgers and fries) seemed like cruel fate until he recalled a tip he’d gotten from a visiting California Health Insurance Agent, when he’d still been slopping at Hog Heaven. A huge Farmer’s Market had opened roadside on I-15 down toward San Diego. He didn’t have a fortune in cash on hand, but “Maybe we can work something out,” he told Alicia. “I’ll say a p-prayer,” she said, committing to religiosity as much any laid-off agnostic can.

It must have worked. The Mason adults and some of their older kids wound up “working for food” and came home with a carload of fresh fruits and vegetables and even a year’s supply of tofu. The tofu prompted the Mason’s articulate twelve-year-old, Timothy, a tiny boy for his age, to invent a pun. “They’ll be calling us “Curd Nerds,” he kept on saying, in his own peculiar and also irritating fashion.

Matt Lockard – California Health Insurance agency offers health insurance plans for individuals, families, and children. Also available are California Medicare Supplement policies. To learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes visit, Mattsinsurance4ca.com.

The post Buying Fresh Produce at Your Nearest Farmer’s Market first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.

RV Sightseeing Trip Jeopardized by Avoidable Mishap

admin — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:33:59 +0000

Pete Klodhoppian and his wife, Esmeralda, had a close encounter of the worst kind, only it ends with a Blue Card reprieve.

Peter C. “Pete” Klodhoppian and his beloved wife of 63 years, Esmeralda, had always dreamed of using their recreational vehicle, which they considered a spacious fourteen-footer, for a sightseeing trip through the American West. “Maybe we’ll get all the way to California,” Esmeralda told Pete one day, when their dream still seemed unattainable.

It was unattainable, mainly because Esmeralda had never driven a vehicle, and Pete’s license had been suspended for twelve years, when he’d been caught with an open case of NyQuil in their Buick Electra, and been charged with a DUI; as he put it, “just like a school kid.” Being a confirmed procrastinator, he’d missed numerous court dates when it had happened, and fearing the “red tape” that retired people surely must face in order to reinstate driver’s licenses, he’d “never gotten around to it.”

But one day he did and off they went. One thing Pete suddenly noticed about Esmeralda was her curiosity. Every place they stopped along the way, she would get out and stretch her legs, and peek under every rock within reach. These obsessive Esmeraldan activities were engaged in without incident until they reached Arizona’s Painted Desert. While lifting a two-pound rock, she’d begun poking around when Pete heard a scream. Is that a bobcat? Pete mused, his natural tendency to procrastinate kicking in. Nope. Lumbering over to where his wife was standing behind their RV, he saw in the glare of his flashlight a blotchy lizard holding on to her outstretched hand, his wife’s face contorted in pain.

“It won’t let go!” she yelled, in a surprisingly hostile manner.

“I can see that,” he said, “Looks like you caught yourself a Gila monster.” Fortunately, Pete had a cell phone. He did procrastinate, but eventually called the BlueCard Worldwide Service Center, attempting to find the nearest hospital.

“Good thing we’re BlueCard members,” he told her later in the hospital, drooling as he kissed her grossly swollen left hand and forearm.

“Stop it you old fool,” she said, still grimacing.

Matt Lockard – California Health Insurance agency offers health insurance plans for individuals, families, and children. Also available are California Medicare Supplement policies. To learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes visit, Mattsinsurance4ca.com.

The post RV Sightseeing Trip Jeopardized by Avoidable Mishap first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.