You know, whenever Amy will let me at Quarto, there will be a whole category entitled the “Darlene Saga”. I keep wondering if I should have taken my grandmother up on her offer of $5000 the Friday after the accident … I’d have a perfectly good working 2002 Subaru WRX sedan and a broke-ass electrical system in my secondary vehicle, Darlene.

Oh well, at least she runs mechanically well, has been perfectly aligned, and still loves me.

I sat down last night with my Haynes book and troubleshooted what all could be wrong with. It comes down to two things: fuses, or bad wiring. I finally got the 10A fuse for my turn signals pulled, and sure enough, it was blown. Since fuses are cheap and I was pissed, I decieded to replace the fuse with the spare 10A that I had and see what would happen. I got about a blink and a half before the system went kaput again.

Yep, folks there be a short in my eeeelecktrickle system. There wasn’t one before the wreck. You do the math. I’ve called USAA ["take it back", duh] and the collision shop ["Mark isn't in at the moment"]. I wonder what car I can finagle from Enterprise this time … I’m really tempted to rent a convertible or something, since it’ll be on the collision shop’s bill.

Grrrrr.

I went and got the truck back this afternoon.

All was fine until I was driving down University and went to change lanes. I signaled … but there wasn’t the familiar mechanical sound that goes with my blinkers being engaged. At the next stop light, I checked my blinkers in the chrome bumper of the car in front of me. They don’t work.

It was about that time that I also noticed that my air conditioning, which is normally slow to cool on a hot day when the truck’s been sitting for a while, wasn’t cooling at all.

Mechanically, the truck is in great shape. However, that is not a complete repair.

At present, I’m too pissed off to think rationally, so I’m going to sit here for about half an hour and occupy my mind with something else before I set about to getting this straightened out.

Well, the truck is almost ready [they're adding the last part now, but they've already done all the cleaning and aligning ... poor bastards having to clean my truck, muahahahahhahahaahah!]. I’m not. I’m stuck in meeting hell with Boeing people.

That’s not entirely true, though, because I am posting. They finally got my new office up and going. Only took two weeks!

Now, I need to get Microsoft Project on this machine, and all will be truly, truly well.

Well, I’ll get the truck tomorrow.

Yeah.

They hadn’t looked at the aftermarket grille they’d ordered until today; found out it was crap. Ordered a new one from a local dealership just to get it ASAP [waiting on an aftermarket one would have caused a three-day slip, and the rental car company is now charging the collision shop for what the insurance was covering], so they should have it tomorrow.

What is nice is that they’re going to clean the truck out for me. If you’ve ever seen my truck, you’re laughing and/or cringing at that thought. They’re going to put it all in a box and leave it all nice and clean. For what it’s worth, that’s worth a day’s wait.

The whole waiting saga reminds me of work, where I rip off the Hokey Pokey: “I put a task in / I pull a task out / I put a task in / and I slip the schedule out / I do the Hokey Pokey and I slip the schedule out / that’s what it’s all about.”

…and then I’ll have the truck back.

I go to pick up Darlene at 4:00 p.m. tomorrow. Yay.

This weekend, I’ve not been good for much. Headaches [freaking sinuses], just generally tired. I’ve gotten some stuff read for class, which is good, because the weekends are going to be prime studying time, but still … I just feel like I’ve been next to useless. Oh well, maybe I just needed to recharge the batteries a bit.

I do hope to have my truck back tomorrow. The manager of the collision shop and I are on a first name basis, and I swear, the receptionist knows my voice when I call on the phone. She’s kinda cute, actually, but she’s married. -chuckle-

Anyhow, the truck went into their paint shop Friday. Provided that nothing weird happened there, it was going to cure over the weekend and then have the stripe kit applied in the morning. Hopefully I will leave for work in the Focus and return with Darlene.

You want to know how ready I am for this? Between the two rentals, I’ve put 2000 miles on cars that are not mine. It’s been painful to drive an automatic that long.

Well, that’s enough rambling for a night. I think I’m going to sit here and read a little bit, enjoy these spiffy spiral headphones from Sony that I’ve had but not used for a couple of weeks, and then mosey off to bed. Work looms in the distance, awaiting me with big, nasty, pointy teeth. -ffffth-

Well, here I am a month and a couple of days after my incident with the tree, and my truck is still in the shop. -sigh- Because these guys are trying to get it perfect, it will be no earlier than Friday when it’s ready. This is disappointing, when you consider that I originally should have had the vehicle back last Wednesday.

My rental coverage from my insurance company runs out tomorrow. The collision shop said that their deal with USAA involves them covering the same amount that the rental has been running USAA when their delays have been slowing up resolution of the claim. I have to verify that today, but I’m at least glad that I won’t be paying $23/day to drive an absolute piece of crap [i.e., a Ford Focus].

Now I get to make a wonderful call to New Jersey and find out if our vendor has gotten their story straight on these dad-blasted relief valves. I hope that they have. If not, my manager is going to be on them like white on rice on a paper plate in a glass of milk in a snowstorm, and frankly, that’s not any fun [not that I'd know; I've just seen it happen before]. I’m now pretty sure that these valves aren’t up to the needs of our customer, but that blame can be spread among all three companies. Fun.

Thanks, Sean, for lunch. Heather, I hope you liked my voicemail.

Again, m4d pr0pz to Todd, without whom I’d be wholly screwed on the moving front. Damn, I miss my truck. Of course, the Semi is so big that we got two loads’ worth of my truck in his.

I really need to repair my bed. The bottom frame’s cross-piece is starting to get stripped out. A couple wooden golf tees, some wood glue, and a drill will fix that up quite quickly. Tonight, however, it’s getting the last few bits of stuff out of the apartment and to the new place for all of us [mostly me, but Blake has a few things there] and cleaning it. Todd’s done the bulk of the cleaning already, and I’ll get the vacuuming on my end done and mop up the hall bath, and we should be good. Sure, I’m on about five hours’ sleep, but when you play Mr. Last MInute …

Todd has started calling me “wonton”, because as he says, “You have wonton of stuff.” Well, not really, but I do have a lot of stuff. And it was crammed into a very small bedroom. Here, I got lotsa lotsa room! Verra nice.

Mmmmm … I better go think about getting the laundry out over at the house and getting to work. I so want to call in sick or something like that, but that’s unethical and painful, especially considering that someone else who does Boeing Status Tuesday was out sick last week, which made it hard on the rest of us. I can’t do that to them guilt-free.

I swear, it’s not enough to tell some people what you need them to do in order for you to help them with their job. I think you need to write it on their hands and their foreheads [in reverse] in permanent ink so they can’t help but realize what you’re asking.

Because of that, the time I spent up here yesterday is pretty much for naught, because the party in question isn’t ready to meet with me today so we can work towards resolving the situation that’s causing everyone up here to have a lot of frustration and me to be up here and working on this stuff rather than being at the apartment helping Todd get my stuff out the door [or, hell, get the kitchen cleaned up or any of the other things that Todd did while I was at work this weekend].

I’ve just about done all I can do today, and unless my boss strenuously objects, I’m going to take off in a little bit and go grab a few loads of stuff and dump them off at the Outhouse. I can’t get the remaining big furniture into the car, but I can get it disassembled and into the living room where I can find some truck [Todd's or a rental] to put it in and cart it home.

Last night, as I was heading home in the rental chariot, the radio quit working. Just … dead. Nothing on the LCD at all. No sound out of the speakers. The rest of the car was running okay, though, so I kept on driving it.

I got to a stop sign and stopped, and the car just … died. Nothing. I tried to re-start it, and it was like the starter had been pulled from the car. A passer-by–a nice black man, going against all hearsay that there are problems with race relations in the northern parts of Madison County–helped to push me off to the side. I called Todd, who was home, and asked him to come get me if he could. I got back in the car and, on a lark, tried to start it. It worked, so I called Todd and told him I’d keep on coming.

As I drove the last mile home, I called the rental company. They said, “Can you come bring it in?” When I consider that it was 5:30 p.m., I was halfway across the county, and they closed at 6:00, I said, “I’ll just come in tomorrow morning.” I did, but when I woke up this morning, I had a phone call from the boss-man … so this little post is made from work. Who knows how late I’ll be here today? Oh well, they pay me to be here …

-sigh- This whole saga is really beginning to frustrate me. I think my biggest frustration is with the rental car I’m driving, which I patently do not like. But hey, it’s a temporary solution, and really is just a thorn in my side.

My insurance company is convinced that my truck is worth $6000. Kelly Blue Book agrees with them. The collision repair shop and I do not, but they’re not interested in our opinion, really. So, Darlene isn’t a total loss like we thought it would be. Still, it is $3200 worth of damage, and that’s an awfully high number, in my mind.

I just talked it over with my parents [well, mainly with Dad--Mom, for the first time in living memory, said, "I don't have any advice"--causing me to nearly have a seizure from pure shock], and Dad counseled me that, even with his proclivities towards trucks, he would go ahead and authorize the repairs, hold on to the truck, and see what happens. Maybe there’s more damage than originally considered–who knows, until you really begin to tear the thing apart and check it out?
(more…)

“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 …

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.”