Bummer #3

While most people are having time off for Christmas and New Years vacation - I am and have been working every week day except Christmas and New Years day.

The reason for this is two-fold. 1) I am trying to catch up to my schedule on a particular task. 2) I'm gaining time off to use when child #3 is born.

So I'm glad to be able to (hopefully) catch up with my project and also to have more time off for a new baby. But it still sucks for now.

Bummer #2

No, this is not related to my accident (Big Bummer) in any way. I just had a cyst on the back of my head that I finally decided to have lanced on Monday morning. When they removed it, it was about the size of a plum pit.

Since your scalp has many capillaries and is thus prone to bleed a lot, the doctor requested/suggested that continuous pressure be applied to the wound in order to prevent bleeding. Thus the silly bandage.

You should have seen Amanda's face when I came home wearing it though - her eyes were as big as saucers. It figures that she would have already scheduled a few friends to come over that evening too. Welcome to the freak show!

The picture below is of the wound and the stitches. And I must warn you - it's not pretty!

Big Bummer

BAD -
As you can see from the pictures above - I wrecked my car last Friday.

It has been at least 10 years since my last accident, but I was hoping to make that record a bit longer (yes, I know most people go their whole lives without one).

Here's how it happened - I was driving in the rain and ended up breaking the back tires loose just after shifting from 2nd to 3rd gear. That hasn't phased me in the past and I would normally just straighten it out without any problem. But the road wasn't straight (curved to the right), or even level (slightly uphill), so I guess I was already slightly steered to the right and the weight of the car just pulled it farther and faster than I could counter, or something like that. I wish I could replay it and really see what went wrong, but oh well.

Anyway - I ended up up jumping a curb and over a small ditch, Dukes of Hazzard style, then down an otherwise unseen muddy little access road (cue Dixie car horn).

The bottom line is that while I wasn't hot dogging or driving foolishly, I wasn't cautious enough either. It definitely could have been avoided if I had respected the wet roads a little more...

... or maybe if I had all-wheel-drive. Maybe that's the solution instead - an Audi, an Evo, or a WRX! Then I could drive with reckless abandon worry-free! (yeeee - haw!)

WORSE -
Now here comes the really sucky part of the story. When I called my insurance company to request a tow and to report the accident, they informed me that I don't have either tow coverage or collision coverage on that car - only liability. I was completely dumfounded. There I was, sitting in my car, on the side of the road, with my cell phone in my hand, staring blankly with my mouth open like a psyche patient gone catatonic.

"What are you talking about?" I finally managed to say. "I have the tow card right here in my hand with my policy number on it." "That's for the coverage on your other car" the lady explained.

After talking with them further, the best I can figure is that shortly after purchasing my car I had it on jackstands in the garage for about a year while I replaced the clutch, fuel injectors, and made some upgrades while I was at it. During that time I reported the car to the DMV as not being driven and also reduced my insurance coverage to the bare minimal. And when it was road-worthy again I did remember to restore my registration, but I guess I forgot to increase the insurance coverage.

So I had to pay $300 for the tow. And now I have to determine a) if the car is even repairable or if it's relished to junkyard/parts car status (the frame may be bent), and b) if it is repairable how much more will it cost me to be able to drive it again. And all out of pocket.

The one small sliver of good news is that I calculated that we have saved about $800 in insurance fees over the last 4 years. So when combining that with the $500 deductible, if the repairs cost less than $1300 then I will have actually saved money in the long haul.

Work Christmas Parties

Last weekend (I know it's sad that I'm just now posting about it) were the Christmas parties for both my job, and Amanda's job (she works a few hours each week at our church). Both were memorable, but there were many highlights from my company's party, including...

• The food was absolutely excellent, with plenty of tasty appetizers, a great selection and quality for the main course, and scrumptious desserts as well.
  
  
• The open bar was nice, even if I don't take advantage of it as much as most guys did. I did enjoy a Whiskey Sour, a glass of wine, and a shot of Tequila (along with a dozen other employees, all at once). The drinks were spread out throughout the night though, so I didn't even feel any affect from them.
  
  
• The scavenger hunt was fun, but our table got robbed. We actually came in 2nd place on points, but the DJ used a dance off as a tiebreaker for 3rd place to somehow screw us over. Our theory is that my boss' table either wins or places every year, so the DJ just wanted to let someone else win for a change.
  
  
• They also had two raffle drawings - one for the employees and one for their guests. Well, Amanda and I won something from both of the drawings. Our prizes were a Happy Feet DVD (a kid's movie with penguins that we've never seen before), and a $25 gift card for Shell gas (which we used on the way home).

We don't get out much, let alone go places that give us a reason to dress up too, then prizes to boot! It was a fun and blessed evening.

Evacuation Complete

On Wednesday my company had an emergency evacuation drill - and the timing of it couldn't have been any worse, occurring just a few seconds after having sat down on the ceramic throne. And let me tell you, the alarm is freakin' loud in there! After finally finishing up my "task", I ended up being one of the last people to exit the building.

Oh, and did anyone get the reference to Austin Powers in the title?

Christmas Calculations

I read an interesting news article today about Jesus' birth. Using computer calculations, astronomers can track the exact location of the planets in our solar system at any point in the last several thousand years of time.

In doing so, it was realized that on June 17 in the year 2BC the planets were aligned such that both Venus and Jupiter were almost overlapping each other relevant to Earth's location. The two planets together would have shone with a great intensity and could very well be what was described in the Bible as the star representing Jesus' birth.

You can read the full article here.

Hard Core!?

I played basketball today in 40 degree weather, wearing just shorts and a double layer of t-shirts.

In addition to having numb hands and stiff muscles and joints from the cold, my legs were really sore from working out with weights yesterday too.

I wouldn't say that it was one of my better days of ballin', but all things considered it wasn't one of my worse ones either.