Well, the kick-ass installers for Mediacom got us hooked up today. Those two kick serious butt.

Big kudos to Todd for crawling his ass up in the attic and getting those wires laid. Dude, I owe you more than that damn pizza.

Of course, the hilarity of this message is that I’ve had a working network connection at the Outhouse since, oh, 6:00, and I haven’t been on that part of the property at all … hell, this is posted from the SGA Office. Quite sad, if you ask me.

No, it’s my shoulders that hurt [the left in sympathy pain for the right], but there’s someone at work [unfortunately, very high up in the management structure] that’s being a significant pain in my butt. Oh well, like a big kidney stone, this too shall eventually pass.

Let me tell you, DirecTV kicks major butt. DirecTV + nice new TV = Geof sitting, mouth agape, in slack-jawed wonderment. Hopefully work won’t keep me from going home at 4:00 today to get the cable guy in the door and let him do the cable and modem installation at the house.

Several things have gone sub-optimally today: the Three Hour Meeting from Hell, my shoulder hurting like a sonofagun, my insurance company vastly overvaluing my truck. But, at least, I will have DirecTV install my system today. Yay, TV at my place.

“USAA Loss Department.”

“Hi, this is Geof Morris, policy number #######, and I’m checking on the status of my July 13th claim.”

“Hold on one minute, Mr. Morris, while I pull that up.”

(pause)

“Well, it seems that we don’t have all the information we need. Judy has a call in to the collision shop.”

“That’s funny … he told me on Friday that he had all the information in to you and to expect a call today.”

“Well, it’s only a 54% loss, so we’re trying to figure out why he wrote it up as a total loss.”

“Oh, okay. Well, I’ll call back later.”

“Okay, Mr. Morris. Have a nice day, and thanks for using USAA.”

They think my truck is worth $6000? These people are on crack. The collision shop and I put it at more like $4500; it’d be up near $5500 if it wasn’t a high-mileage vehicle.

And so the saga drags on …

Wow, what an odd weekend.

Friday night, Anthony and I hit the Jello Room. [No, there wasn't any jello wrestling that night. Alas.] I was miffed at a place that didn’t serve beers on tap [hell, I'll serve beer on tap at home as soon as I can find an old refrigerator, a CO2 cylinder, and the necessary drill bits...], but I lived. I have decided that Labatt Blue, from a bottle, is okay by me. [Molson is for crap, though.]

Saturday morning, I had another freaking migraine. [Yes, I have an appointment at the end of the week. Stop kvetching, all of you.] It wasn’t bad, and I got over it. I snagged a pressure washer so the houses could get cleaned off, which was about as much fun as you would imagine. Anthony and Todd are two pressure-washing fools, I tell you. I think Anthony actually enjoys it.

Saturday evening, rather than hitting Sammy T’s, I stayed home with Todd to do some stuff on the house. He was gracious enough to help me install the air conditioner on the Fourth but hadn’t installed. Then we went back to the main house and started roughing in the cable and Ethernet drops. Roughing in drops with a handsaw blade without a handle sucks, but not nearly as much as crawling around the attic at midnight with hockey shin guards on–right, Todd?

Yesterday was church, then pressure washing, then more church–lots and lots of water balloon wars–and more attic wiring. I was going to offer to hit the attic for Todd, but when I got home, he was already up there, and it’s a one-butt attic that mine won’t fit. Todd and I bitched and futzed and got most everything wired up by, oh, 1:15 this morning. There’s a reason that both of us were a little slow to get to work. Sucks for Todd that his workload increases this week, while mine has decreased significantly with my buddy Allan’s return.

Gah, my shoulder is acting up again. It took seven Advil to get it to stop this morning, and that only after two hours. Oh well, it’ll only hurt one more day, and it’s not like I subluxed it or anything. The pain was actually good, because it kept me awake during the Three Hour Status Meeting from Hell. I’ve been back in my office for an hour, just staring at the CRT and randomly talking to people. I so need to figure out what I have to do this afternoon, because I’m behind the ball already thanks to that meeting. Grrr.

Well, I spoke this morning with the dealership … they have approved my loan and want $NNNN in a down payment and they’ll be happy. I don’t have $NNNN to give them at present, because the claims process is moving about as swiftly as molasses in January in da UP. When I made the phone call on Sunday, the nice guy I spoke with on the phone thought we’d be done by Friday. Ha!

Okay, so I’ll admit that I’m antsy and want to go ahead and have the new vehicle now that it’s going to happen. I am patient about many things, but when it comes to driving a piece of crap Ford Focus with an automatic transmission as a rental car, this is not something that provides patience. Not in the bloody slightest!

I’m about to head out of here for the day and go drop off a $NNN check to hold the little WRX for the weekend so some ninny doesn’t come out and buy it away from me. If I knew how much the valuation of my dearly departed truck would be, I could give them an idea on that and maybe talk them into letting me drive off the lot with it today, but that’s not going to happen, because my insurance company doesn’t even have the knowledge yet that it will be a total loss. -grrr-

In other news, I found out that an old friend from high school [Willie Mauldin, for Rick's benefit] is working as a beat reporter mainly covering the NYPD for the New York Sun. Going into college, Willie and I were two of the biggest physics foofs of our class, and now we’re both in the liberal arts spectra. Go fig.

Okay, well, tomorrow promises to be fun. I just have three hours left in this work week; while I may have work to do, I’ll be happy to come in and do it on Saturday when I can get paid for it rather than stay here tomorrow when I’ll be donating my time past, oh, 11:00 a.m. So I’ve got my DirecTV installer set up to come on out and get me hooked up with DirecTV. I’ll also head out to the collision shop to get all my junk out of the truck before they take her wherever they take totaled vehicles.

Tomorrow night, I’ll try to catch up with the kids from church and see a movie with them. If USAA gets off their duff and gets their paperwork processed, I have an outside chance of having a vehicle tomorrow, but I figure I’m looking at early next week before I get anything.

Now, I’ve got to go chase a couple documents down, tape up this box, ship it out, and head to the house. I have things to do at home …

Okay, so when you wreck your old vehicle and get to contemplate a new one, you start looking. Blessedly, I started the drool^H^H^H^H^Hlooking process back in March or April, back when I thought that buying a new car and letting Darlene go was a Good Idea™. I had done a lot of looking and had narrowed myself down to a few choices:

– Yet Another Nissan Truck

– A Mini [because I'm silly]

– A Subaru Impreza WRX

Some folks have said, “Look at a used car.” Well, I’ve thought about that, and I figure that this is the only time in my life when I can afford a new car [good-paying job, low rent, no wife or kids], so screw it … I’m not going to buy a house, so buying a new car is the next best thing. [You may think I'm silly. I think you're right.]

When I got to thinking about it, I didn’t want another truck. Yes, I love the utility of a truck. If I’d never wrecked Darlene, I was gleefully looking to the day when her odometer read over 300,000 miles–a decade or so down the road. While a Mini would be fun, it’s not very feasible–and I’d have to go to Nashville to even test-drive one.

So, I set out on Monday with Sean to go look at a WRX. We drove a used one, which means that the engine was broken in and had full use of the turbo. I let rip with it once, and that pretty much sold me on the car. They’ve got good crash ratings, they’re fun to drive, it’s a well-built car, and it’ll zoom.

I just got back from the local Subaru dealer. I wanted an ‘02 wagon, but they’re out of them and are having a very hard time finding them. They’ll do some looking–another customer was in there today looking for one–but the ’03’s are due out in two more months, so the supply lines are drying up. I found a very nice sedan, and a sedan will do just fine.

Say it with me now: “She will be mine; oh yes, she will be mine.”

Man, I don’t know how to take the news that Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton have split. Do I:

– Hope that she could snap to her senses and find me to be Mr. Wonderful, as I’m sure half of the under-17 white male demographic would dream?

– Revel in two really weird people being repulsed by their weirdness?

– Grieve for yet another marriage gone awry?

Oh hell, I just blog indecision and go on with my life. Jolie is quite beautiful and yet still very, very disturbing…

With used parts, the repair would have run about $3000. The guy asked me if I wanted him to try and save it.

God, this feels like telling a vet to put a dog to sleep. Dammit. Just too many memories wrapped up in that little truck, a lot of long drives down a lot of dusty roads here in Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Always reliable. Always a little fun to drive.

Shit.

The mind boggles at how much insane stuff I would come up with for the Blogathon. Can’t you just see me hopped up on Diet Mountain Dew, hunkered down in the Outhouse posting all sorts of random things on IJSM and taking NHL2002 breaks?

Yeah, and I have to do the video at church that Sunday, so there’s no way I’d make it.

Alan Schwarz does a great job in this article on ESPN.com of explaining why the problem of baseball players being juiced up is such a problem.

It’s about integrity.

Geofro, Geofro of C-T
Geofro, Geofro of C-T
Geofro, Geofro of C-T
Watch out for that tree!

Hell, it was one of my MSMS roommates who reminds me of Brendan Fraser [of George of the Jungle fame], not me. Unfortunately, Drake didn’t pass that message on to me, and like an idiot, I did run into that damned tree, and I have photographic proof.

Mind you, these photos are very hard for me to post. It’s not that I won’t admit my stupidity–while I have indeed been infected with New Car Fever�, I love my truck very much, despite my father’s entreaties that you should never love something that can’t love you back.

But, you can see that I did a fair amount of damage to the vehicle.

Go around to the side of the vehicle and you get a better feel for it.

I took a photo under the hood just to see what I could see.

This is what the tree saw. I fought the tree; the tree won.

Addendum: Oh, and last night, Anthony and I went to Wally-World. He pulled into the driveway and did the same three-point turn on the way out. He told me this morning, “Man, I can see just how you did that. I nearly hit the damn thing, and I was on the look out for it. I’m all for chopping that tree down.” My reply is unprintable on this site.

Well, I’ve gotten a rental car through my insurance company. Yay!

Not exactly.

I have to get out to their place on University at 5:00 or so. I have to find a victim^H^H^H^H^H^Hfriend nice enough to run me out there.

The truck should have been picked up by the wrecker by now, and I hope the verdict will be in today on whether or not it’s totaled. If not, I’m inclined to keep it, despite Dad’s urgings to get me to sell him the truck. I know you want the truck, Dad, but you just spent money on that piece-of-Toyota you doggedly insist on driving.

This comes courtesy of my friend Howard Berkowitz, who said in alt.books.tom-clancy:

“Although one can argue that with cybersex, carpal tunnel syndrome becomes a sexually transmitted disease.”

Never mind how the discussion came up in a.b.t-c … if you’re looking at the group’s title and wondering, “Why are they talking about that in a Tom Clancy newsgroup?”–you’ve obviously never visited a.b.t-c in your life. It’s a very … interesting … place.