Turkey, Chicken, Duck and other Fowl Words

 Living in a rural area comes with it's share of challenges. One of those challenges is crappy roads. Another challenge is crap left IN THE MIDDLE of the crappy roads. 

The Queen left home at 5:50AM early last week to head to her newish part time job. She was not gone five minutes before the phone rang, and she indicated she had a flat tire. I asked where she was; and, before I could get her location out of her, she indicated that all 4 tires were still inflated after all but that something was making a racket. I told her to come back home, and I'd meet her outside to see what's what. 

The road we live on is straight as an arrow, and I can see almost all the way down to the intersection with the main drag about a half mile away. I stood at the end of the driveway; and, from the time I could see her headlights, I could hear something smacking the asphalt rythymically all the way back to me. 

And what did I find my curious eyes behold when The Queen came to a stop?

Well...that's not good. I wasn't awake enough to deal with that before sunrise. So, The Queen took my truck, and I set about scratching my head, grumbling under my breath and breaking out my floor jack. Fortunately, I am a smart fart that knows to buy road hazard certificates on his tires. So, I loaded the wheel and tire into the back of my mother's car and dropped it off at Discount Tire during lunch. They had it fixed before I even made it back to the house. 

I went through the same area where The Queen got her "flat" later in the day. I say "flat" because it actually held air pretty well despite having a spark plug sticking out of it. THIS is what I found scattered around the main intersection in our little town. 

Knowing how things operate around here, someone left a box of junk in the bed of their truck or sitting in their bumper when it bounced out at just the right moment to land in the path of The Queen's Chariot. 

It wasn't even a few days later when I got another call from The Queen. It seems that The Queen had found herself another object in the middle of the road. This time it happened on her way to the store. Fortunately for me, it was after work and daylight still. Even more fortunately, the temperatures had dropped down into the high 90s instead of the mid 110s they were the previous week. So, I grab my floor jack, mechanic gloves and a few other odds and ends that I knew might be helpful before heading off to town to change a tire. I arrived to find this. 

Bugger. Fortunately for me (again) it was approaching sundown, and the truck was parked in the shade cast by a building to the west. There was a faint breeze that helped the temps just a little. It took a little bit of doing to find all the fiddly bits to get get the truck jacked up (the flat had dropped the front end so much that my floor jack would not clear the bumper), the spare dropped, etc. Another small blessing was that the spare still had plenty of air (70 PSI out of a max of 80 PSI) despite being the original spare (with a 2012 date code). I keep an air pump in the truck just in case. 

Now I just need to find my plug kit and remove whatever the Hell that is so I can put my good Michelin back where it belongs. I'm going to have to mount magnets in front of my tires if this keeps up. 

Public Service Announcement: Grill Safety

With Labor Day coming up, I just thought I would offer a friendly, neighborhood reminder to clean the grease trap and bottom end on the grill once in a while. 

I turned around for just a moment to put something down after loading the grill with 16 burgers and 8 hot dogs from a butcher nearby that specializes in high quality, grass fed beef. When I turned back to the grill, it was all literally in flames, the temp gauge was maxed out, the flames were reaching about 4 feet above the grill surface (threatening to ignite the siding on Mimi's house), and I felt like Shadrach, Mechach and Adednego trying to salvage anything edible out of the conflagration. 

It was not a happy making event. There might have been a singed arm fur hair or two. Close to a Code Brown moment.

How In The Heck...?

M&M and I were out walking the dogs this afternoon when we spotted this seriously abused Jeep Rubicon in the parking lot. No, it does not belong to me or anyone I know. I have no idea what the story is, but I'm intensely curious to know. It's too clean to be a 4 wheeling, hold my beer and watch this incident. The hood damage suggests that it got wedged underneath something, but the ride height on the Rubi with those wheels and the suspension upgrades rules out quite a few options. 

Sheering the front axle on a 4 wheel drive vehicle takes a fair bit of force and maybe a little air? Perhaps the driver was head down in a phone when the vehicle launched at speed from a dip in the road?

 Given the state of the new and used car market right now and the lack of damage to the rear, they might just try to repair that sucker. 

Shared Pain...Shared Joy

Once upon a time, I did a ride along with a Denton PD officer as part of a college project. During the ride along, one of the things I learned about were “Dear Chief” letters. Anytime an officer made a mistake that warranted the chief’s attention, the offending officer would write a letter to the Chief that started out “Dear Chief, much has transpired since last we spoke….” Also, one of my favorite quotes comes from the Callahan Cross Time Saloon series of books by Spider Robinson. That quote is in the side bar “Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased - thus do we refute entropy.” Well….Dear Readers, much has transpired since last we spoke. Entropy has been getting a workout.

It all started one fine Wednesday evening a month ago after we all thawed out from the great polar vortex event here in North Texas. It had been decided by The Queen and Princess M&M that Miss Tater Tot needed a companion to keep her company. Never mind the three cats, two dogs and multiple fish that were already in the house. I was informed Tater was lonely and needed a friend. The Queen had been in touch with a crazy bunny lady in a nearby suburb who had several varieties to choose from. After much deliberation and handling of many buns including a handsome Lop named Beast, a lovely blue otter colored, female, Netherland Dwarf rabbit came home to join our herd.

 

Thus began the naming saga. Many names were tried on for size and found to be lacking. At one point, M&M tossed out “Death” as a possible name. What ultimately stuck was “Graycie”. Now, you are supposed to keep bunnies quarantined from each other for a couple of weeks so they can get used to each other, make sure no illnesses are transferred, etc. Well, Graycie had other ideas. Despite our best efforts, we consistently found the little Houdini in Tater’s cage to the point we just threw up our hands in defeat and made one large bunny enclosure under M&M’s loft bed. They get along famously and are regularly seen flopped next to each other.

 

Two days later, I woke up Friday morning to an email from my niece and nephew from whom we have been renting/caretaking a house for the last several years. The email indicated that they had decided that they needed house back so that my niece and her friends could move in by early June. I had not had my morning caffeine injection by this point. It was a bit of an eyeopener to say the least. The Queen thought I was joking when I told her. I confirmed that I was indeed honest and true.

So, the hunt began for a house. We, by that I mean me, had been dead set against ever having a mortgage again. We had been making plans to build a house at Mimi’s property; however, that was a multi-step, multi-year project and we were barely in the planning stages due to the care and feeding of The Queen’s parents the last few years. Calls were made and we reached out to a realtor lady we had worked with a couple of years ago unsuccessfully when we were looking for an alternate situation. We quickly determined several key points in this process:

• In the course of two years, the North Texas real estate market went from bad to bat guano insane.
• Renting/leasing was not an option for several reasons
• Houses are staying on the market for less than a week and in some cases just hours.
• Agents are boldly stating “highest and best offer by Sunday”…and buyers are lining up to wave cash at them.
• It is not uncommon for houses to have multiple offers ABOVE asking price.
• As a single income family, our buying potential was limited which put us in a position of looking at the fringes of the market.

With God, all things are possible as they say.

Thanks, in part, to being a permanent remote worker now thanks to COVID, we literally looked at everything in our price range from the Oklahoma border south to Temple, and from Mineral Wells to Canton in a rough hour to an hour and a half circle around DFW Airport. The state of the market in that general area is crazy. Your choices within my budget are ugly small houses built in the 70s and 80s, sketchy neighborhoods, investor “lipstick on a pig” flip specials or fixer uppers. We agreed that, building not being an option, we wanted a house we could be happy with especially since we were going to have to bite the bullet and get a mortgage. So, we spent several late nights looking at the offerings on Zillow, Realtor.com, Craigslist, word of mouth, etc.

Our agent suggested we look at a house in Sherman, TX which was a fixer upper just on the other side of our pre-qual amount. It was in a nice, well established neighborhood that backed up to a wooded area with a creek running through it. The house was built in the 50s and was in desperate need of an update in addition to foundation work as the east wall was trying to separate from the rest of the house thanks to soil shifting. The current owner is an investor who bought it with the intent of doing a “lipstick on a pig” treatment for a quick turn around. The foundation issues put the kibosh on that thought. I was seeing the potential at the first showing, but The Queen was not. We dithered about whether or not to make an offer for a week or two, and we finally asked our agent to go have a second look at it a week ago today. The Queen finally started seeing what I was seeing as well as the potential financial upside. As we sat down to discuss with our agent what to do about making an offer, she called the listing agent who informed her that it was contingent. This was news to all of us as she had checked before we drove an hour and half to see the stupid thing. I said “I’m done” and walked straight out to the car. She apologized profusely for which there was no need on her part.

Anyway, back to the drawing board. Sunday evening and Monday, The Queen was staying up deep into night looking at houses all over North Texas. She located a few possibilities in Sulphur Springs which is an hour and half northeast of DFW. We made arrangements with our realtor to go see them on Tuesday.

The first house was immaculate. It was like a museum from the 1950s. The original owners of the house were a doctor and his wife who had the house built. They added a wing onto the house in 1960 when they started having kids. It had the original wool carpet. They had three sons who all grew up to be doctors. The original intercom/radio worked.  The original 1950 vintage electric range still worked. They had the old console TVs from the 1960s/1970s. They had the blue prints from when the house was originally built. The widow had moved out in 2015 to go to assisted living and died just last year. The surviving sons had kept the house just as she had left it for the last six years. It was jaw droppingly amazing for a one owner house of that vintage…but not for us.

The second house was nice but nothing special.

That brings us to the miracle house. We almost didn’t see if because there were already two contracts pending on it. The Queen and the realtor decided “why not?” and off we went. After a brief lunch stop, we made our scheduled showing time and stepped into the Twilight Zone. Imagine, if you will, a house originally built in Fort Worth in 1868, disassembled and rebuilt with the original lumber in Sulphur Springs in 1874. The house lives through several owners as a one-story farmhouse just a few hundred yards from the courthouse square for just over a hundred years before the current owner bought it. She and her husband decided that it needed full renovation. They added an entire second story including a grand, sweeping staircase. They gutted the walls, double insulated them, added Anderson double paned windows, rewired and replumbed the entire house, modernized the master suite and the kitchen. The house has over 3400 square feet and the asking price was right at the top end of my range. We loved the house. And we walked away deciding not to make an offer on it thinking we didn’t have a chance at it because of the pending offers.

Now, here is where Entropy really started to get a workout. First, at the miracle house, there is a bedroom upstairs that is pink. M&M immediately fell in love with the pink room and claimed it as her own. She then proceeded to have a great old time running around the upstairs playing. This will be important later in our story. Second, on our way home from Sulphur Springs, literally 1 minute from our house, The Queen’s chariot took one on the chin after a driver, whom I shall charitably call “clueless” made a sudden left turn from the middle lane smashing right into The Chariot.

The whole thing felt like it was happening in slow motion until things started flying everywhere. The Queen made a valiant effort to avoid the crash, but there was not much she could do. I was in the front passenger seat (since I was working remotely from the car). Disentangling myself from cords and cups and papers gave me enough time to chase the inner ogre down and put him back on a leash. I got out of the car to check the damage and ask the other driver if she was okay. Instead of answering that question, she said “I had my turn signal on.”  To which I replied, “That does not mean you can turn left from the middle lane.” “Oh”, she said. I got on the phone with 911 to get things rolling. Fortunately, there were three witnesses who stopped to give their information. All had the same story to tell. The Chariot still runs and drives and does not appear to be leaking any vital fluids. It just has the automotive equivalent of a shiner with a few scrapes. Hopefully, the insurance company won’t try to total it. I’ll be getting an estimate from the body shop for my carrier first thing Tuesday morning. The other driver’s carrier has called but not connected with us yet.

Ouch

Physically, we all have soft tissue aches and pains. M&M and I seem to have faired better than The Queen even though the impact happened on our side of the car. The Queen has taken it a little harder. She will heal though. That’s all that matters.

So, Tuesday evening after the accident, we were on the phone with our realtor about whether or not to make an offer on the miracle house. Our realtor told us that the Sherman house came back on the market as the contract that came in under the wire of our second showing had fallen through. The layout of the Sherman house actually works better for our current situation, and there are some other personal benefits to being in Sherman that are unimportant to our story. So, we told our realtor to make an offer.

Turns out that the owner on the Sherman house doesn’t really want to sell the house for what it’s really worth in its current condition and is convinced that someone will come along and pay him his asking price. That won’t be us.

So, I’ll skip the back and forth between the realtors on the Sherman house which took up all day Wednesday and most of Thursday. Thursday afternoon, I get a call from the realtor that the owner of the Sherman house countered our offer by increasing the price to effectively net the same amount as his asking price on clean contract. Our realtor also mentioned that she received a text from the listing agent for the miracle house. Word was that the owner had rejected the pending offers, was pulling it from the market for three weeks to do same minor repairs but that if we were still interested that we could do a deal.

Huh???

So, you’ve heard people say when one door closes another opens? This door not only opened, but it was taken off the hinges.

Our realtor had given feedback to the listing agent including the story about M&M loving the pink room, etc. Turns out the lady of the house, a woman in her early 70s with a serious health issue, decided she didn’t like the investors who had submitted low ball offers well below asking price (one of whom she called a “jerk”) and was tickled at the idea of a little girl playing up there. So, the listing agent told our agent to give them an offer as close to asking price as possible and they would see what could be done. I immediately told our agent to terminate the contract on the Sherman house, and we drafted up the contract on the Sulphur Springs house.

Friday passed with no word. Apparently, the owner was out of town visiting her children. Saturday evening, we got a call from our realtor that they executed our contract with no changes. We were floored.

But wait….there’s MORE!

Our agent says, “So, would you be interested in the washer, dryer and refrigerator that are there at the house?” I had been planning to ask about that as we do not currently have those appliances in our personal possession. So, we said, “Absolutely.” Then our agent drops the kicker. The owner is giving those appliances to us as her gift to us. These are practically new appliances.

Body…meet floor. Floor…body.

I was speechless for several minutes. The Queen and I could not stop tearing up. Our agent sent us a packet with the history of the house which we did not have prior to making the offer. The house is essentially a 153 year old house that was completely rebuilt from the inside in 1983. I can’t wait to share photos. All because a little girl made an elderly woman smile. 

An Insider's Guide To Claims Adjusting - Crazy Stuff

My best friend, Number One Follower, made the comment not too long ago that it would be good blog fodder to write about some of the more interesting things I deal with on a regular basis as a claims adjuster. Coincidentally, the company I work for (that has a very well known and popular ad campaign centered around..."interesting" claims) sent out a request for interesting claim stories from the casualty claims organization (think bodily injury as opposed to homeowner property claims) for consideration to be included in the ad campaign. There were several restrictions on things you could submit: Nothing involving severe bodily injury or death, it had to be "safe for work", etc.

After a 20 plus year career of handling high exposure and litigated third party liability claims, I've seen a lot of crazy stuff. When I stepped back and thought about the "interesting" claims I've handled, all of them would have been rejected for one reason or another. So, I'll just have to inflict some of that stuff on you poor souls here rather than have the glory of my claims being immortalized in a TV commercial.

How crazy is crazy you ask?

Well, let's start with the photos. The vast majority of claims files have photos in them. Most are pretty mundane....dented bumpers, wet floor signs and the like. But, some photos....hoooweeee...wow. They'd give a normal person nightmares. And, no, before you ask, I'm not going to post copies of them here...my mother reads this blog and I don't keep copies if I don't have to.

Back in the day, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and adjusters had actual paper files, we would get snail mail delivered to our desks. Depending on when the clerical staff got to your desk, it was better than even odds that you'd get your mail after lunch. Even if you did get your mail before lunch, chances were that you wouldn't get to it until after lunch.

Let me tell you...nothing quite makes the hair on the back of intestines stand up like dead body photos after a tasty lunch of pasta or barbecue (Brigid...I'm looking forward to your commentary from the secret squirrel forensic scientist gallery).

Nowadays, everyone has an electronic claims file and mail magically appears in your file after being scanned by some faceless clerical worker in another city (sometimes another country). Those documents show up sans description at all hours of the day and night. You have to go in and look at and label each one. One minute, you're looking at dry medical reports, and the next minute you're getting an eyeful of some guy's scrotum or some dearly departed's autopsy photos. Sometimes those are one and the same. 

Like I said, it'll get your attention. You don't last long in this business unless you develop a thick skin and a strong stomach.

So, what are some of the crazy photos I've seen?

The all time winner for "brain bleach" craziest photo award goes to the autopsy photo of the "gentleman" (and I'm using that term as loosely as possible in this case) who died in an auto accident. What made his autopsy photos unforgettable was his tattoo. Specifically, the location and subject matter of his tattoo. This grade A specimen of masculinity had tattooed his manhood to look like a candy cane.

Let that sink in for a moment. To this day, I am convinced he was a child molester.

Runner up for the "brain bleach" award was the scorching hot hoohah claim. Seems a lady was getting ready for her day; and, as many women are inclined to do, she flipped her freshly washed locks of hair in front of her body so she could blow dry her hair from the bottom up. Allegedly, her hair dryer suddenly turned into a flame thrower and she inflicted second degree burns upon her nether regions. Her attorney felt the need to send me unsolicited photos of her injuries. Call me a sexist pig if you wish, but she was not that attractive before she received second degree burns to her naughty bits.

The winner of the "how in the hell did that happen" award goes to the drunk driver who managed to incinerate himself and 2 of 3 closest friends while motoring down 410 in San Antonio (contestant number 4 got launched out of the pickup bed and died of blunt force trauma after he failed to learn how to fly before impacting the road about 100 yards away from the crash site), in a construction zone, at speeds in excess of 90 miles per hour. Apparently, a solid concrete construction barrier, in a clear attempt to commit suicide by drunk driver, jumped into the right lane of traffic when our intrepid Mario failed to zig when he was zagging. For the record, Dodge pickups will burst into flames when they are split in half down the middle of the engine block.

What made this claim a puzzler was the photos of the engine compartment. The fact that the engine block was severely damaged was not nearly as surprising as the charred leg that was nestled in amongst the remains of the heater hoses and other assorted engine components. What was even more surprising was that the leg was still attached to its owner who was still in the cab of the pickup. Somehow, superman had managed to put his foot and leg through the firewall of the truck into the engine compartment. We never did figure out how that happened exactly.

Most of the other photos that have found a permanent home in my memory are pretty gruesome. I'll save those memories for a dedicated gruesome post.

Crazy doesn't always come in the form of photos though.

Once upon a time, I had a copy of the driving record of a drunk that was pretty interesting. He had six DWIs in a pretty short period of time. What made it remarkable was the two DWIs in 1 day. We actually called him to clarify that one expecting it to be a mistake. Nope. He was arrested shortly after midnight for number 1, bailed out in the morning, got soused again and was arrested again before midnight.

To borrow Ron White's famous line: You can't fix stupid.

Deposition testimony is generally pretty boring. Every once in a great while, things get a little...um...racy. Once upon a time, I handled a car wreck claim involving a woman making claim for TMJ (temporomandibular joint disorder). Basically, she hurt her jaw. I'm not sure how since we never found bite marks on the steering wheel, but what do I know? Any way, the reason this claim earned a place in long term storage was the derivative claim for loss of consortium (the fancy legal term for loss of "family relationship") made by her husband.

When my defense attorney took her deposition, he asked her about the claim for loss of consortium. Now, loss of consortium generally, but not always, refers to the loss of intimacy between a married couple. So, in response to my attorney's question about how the accident and her injuries affected her marriage, the plaintiff testified that she could no longer "...give her husband [oral sex]...."

Her husband later showed up at my office, and he had to be escorted from the premises by the local police department after he exhibited some uncouth, demanding behavior.

That's all for now. More to follow as time and memory allows.

Well...Poop

Somewhere in the Dallas area, right now, a home inspector is yelling "I told you so."

When the buyer's inspection took place last week, the inspector noted a laundry list of things to take care of most of which was minor stuff like adding a rubber bushing to the holes in the circuit breaker box in the garage. One of the items he noted was to trim the trees back from the electric service drop line from the  pole to the house.

Here's the page out of his report I'm talking about.

Right under the service line next to the driveway is a line of crepe myrtle trees that I have let go unpruned because I like crepe myrtles and feel that God didn't intend for them to be hacked within an inch of their lives once a year. Also, near the pole in the side yard is an ugly tree that is tall, gnarly and in the middle of trying to die. It had a limb growing over the service drop line as well.

You can see where this is going, can't you?

Dead tree limb + service drop line = this:

+ this:

Daddy Hawk is not happy. An electrician is coming by today to let us know how bad the repair cost is going to be. I get to spend my second Father's Day working my butt off cleaning, clearing tree branches, etc. The thing that really chaps my hide the most is that the option period ended Sunday, and the buyer's realtor had said to hold off doing anything until after the option period was over. Naturally, the tree limb falls while I am at work the day after the option period ends.

I blame The Queen. She was just commenting about how smoothly the sale was going.

Idjit: Spring Break Edition

So, I'm in Houston for business. The Queen and Princess M&M came with me since it's within driving distance and doesn't cost the company anything extra. It costs ME extra, but that's balanced out by the pleasure I get from not being away from my girls for two and a half days. 

My business is taking place in southwest Houston near Beltway 8 and 288 for those of you who know the area. For those of you not in the know (you're not missing anything...trust me), there is not much in the way of "nice" places to stay in that area. So, we decided to stay in Kemah Boardwalk area which is right on Galveston Bay a little bit further south and east of where I'm spending my days. It's about 45 minutes away, but the extra drive time is worth it to us to have a nice, fun place for The Queen and M&M to hang out during the day while I am taking care of business.

Kemah is about halfway (more of less) between Houston and Galveston. As such, I thought it would be a good idea to take The Queen and M&M to the island yesterday evening for the purpose of giving M&M her first big water beach experience and having dinner. 

Bear in mind, this week is Spring Break for the majority of the world. 

As a side note, defective global warming made for some amusing people watching last night as scantily clad youngsters froze their kiesters off along Seawall Blvd. in 60 degree temps with a steady 20 MPH wind. 

Any stupid, before we made it to the beach area, we were minding our own business stopped at a stop light southbound on Broadway (which is what I-45 turns into after you get on the island from the causeway) in The Queen's chariot...a big, white, Lincoln Navigator. As The Queen and I chatted about something, there was a popping sound at which time we felt a slight bump. 

From long experience, I knew exactly what had happened which was easily confirmed by a check of the rearview mirror which revealed a white vehicle entirely too close to the rear of our vehicle. I prepared to hastily exit the vehicle to confront the other driver after a somewhat vexed utterance of "What the H...?" The Queen, in her infinite patience, admonished me to remain calm. She's compassionate that way.

I exited the Nav (as we call...we're lazy that way) and walked back to find a white Honda Accord sedan's front bumper kissing the hitch cover on the back bumper of the Nav. 

I approached the driver's door on the Honda which, much to my aggravation, was not already open and gave the driver a opened handed "what gives?" gesture. I couldn't see much through the tinted windows, but the door finally opened to reveal a young, 20 something female in a sundress. If pressed, I will guess that she was of Vietnamese descent.

I looked at her, looked at the Nav and looked back at her. Still not getting anything verbal from here yet much less an "are you okay?", I asked her "What happened?" 

20 Something replied, "I don't know what happened. I was just driving, and...." while waving her right hand in a vague, dismissive manner. 

I looked at her lap which contained a cell phone and inquired, "Were you on your phone?"

20 Something: "Yes." somewhat sheeplishly. At this point, she finally woke up out of her tech haze enough to exit the car and see if there was damage. 

We both examined the bumpers. I looked over and asked, "Are you all right?"

20 Something: "Yes."

"It doesn't look like there's any damage here.", I say. "Just drive more careful."

I turned and walked back to the car. I had more important things to do than exchange information with her over a scratch on the bumper. 

She never once asked if I was alright or if there was anyone else in the car. Hopefully, she will take the rather inexpensive lesson to heart. 

No Greater Love...

Editor's Note: This post was originally published on The GunDivas.

Since Friday when in first heard about the tragedy in Aurora, CO, I have probably started this post four or five times in my head, on the iPad and the laptop. It’s a serious topic, involving real people, suffering real pain inflicted by a mad man for reasons as yet fully unknown. Obviously, I want to avoid being my normal, snarky, smart alecky self.

At first, I started out thinking that I wanted to talk about the need to examine your core beliefs and establish a personal “rules of engagement” if you will for situations like this. That idea arose from a discussion I had with a friend from church Friday afternoon. He asked the question of what I would have done. Heck, I don’t know. I wasn’t there, and I’ve never been in a situation like that before. I would like to think that I would have the faith and strength of character to put myself between the shooter and those around me and use every tool at my disposal to protect them and get them to safety. Some who were there did just that while others did not. I don’t write that as praise or condemnation. It is merely a statement of fact based on reports I’ve heard so far.

I would like to think that I am ready and willing to die trying in the process. No less a person than Jesus Christ Himself said “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” (John 15:13) That’s not exactly Plan A, of course. My preference would be to make the other person die trying, but that’s a discussion for another time.

I thought about getting into a discussion of gun rights versus gun control; but, honestly, that horse has been run over by the cart after dropping dead from a thorough flogging. I am a member of the gun community. I believe in the right to own and bear arms. Not much is going to change that view. Others believe differently and have little interest in what I have to say on the subject. Though, for the record, I think that gun control advocates are kinda like Ray from Ghostbusters trying to choose the form of Gozer the Destructor. Ask Rahm Emanuel and Michael Bloomberg how well they have succeeded at controlling the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.

And here I was trying to avoid snark…I apologize.

So, what DO I really want to say about Friday’s events?

Go love someone.

Anyone. Right now. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Carry a gun. Don’t carry a gun. I don’t care, but go find someone you care about or really like a lot and love on them.

Why am I saying this?

Allow me to give a little back story first. Ever since my wife, The Queen, and I got married, I have gotten up, gotten dressed and left the house for work before she even wakes up (most of the time…there are exceptions). I have always made it a point to give her a kiss as she lies there sleeping and tell her I love her before walking out the door. Anger, sad, or happy, argument or no, I did this because I wanted to make sure that, if anything happened to me, the last thing between us was an act of love.

Until recently. I have gotten out of the habit. There are lots of excuses, but the bottom line is that I have gotten away from doing what is in my heart.

And then I came within about 2 seconds of dying on the way home from work today. A fool in a large, black pickup ran a red light right in front of me. I can’t say for sure how fast he was going, but I would guess at least 40 and probably 50 or more. I believe he was accelerating. He would have hit my comparatively small Nissan Maxima square in the driver’s side had I made the intersection just a second or two earlier. Honestly, I can’t say for certain that I would have died, but I have investigated enough car accidents to know that serious injury and a trip to the hospital was the bare minimum that I would have gotten away with had he hit me at that speed.

It has shaken me to my core that I might not have made it home to my wife and foster kids this evening. Fortunately, I did get to hug and kiss The Queen and baby M&M this morning before I left. The Queen woke up early, and we shared a little three way hug before I had to go.

12 people in that theater Friday morning didn’t get to go home to their families, and at least 50 or 60 others came close to sharing their fate. Those 12 will never be able to love or be loved again (except in memory). They are beyond the cares of this world now. If it were possible to resurrect them right now, my bet is that their one wish and desire would be for more time with their loved ones.

When the dust settles, no one cares about how good or bad we are with a pistol or a rifle. No one cares how many or how few training classes we’ve taken. What they care about and remember most are the times we were there for them, when we hugged them when they needed it most, when we listened to them, shared their joy, their pain and their lives.

Go. Love. Someone. Now.

Grumble, Grumble...

The Queen: Honey, I'm sorry to bother you, but I have a flat tire.

Me: Where are you? [location received...close by fortunately] Okay, I'll be there in a few minutes.

...frickin'...grumble, grumble...tire sized chunk of asphalt...$$*I&%$#$@!!...missing from the side of the road....grumble, grumble...and The Queen manages to hit it...[snort, spit]...at 50 miles per hour...D'oh....

Great. Just what we needed. I would have felt better about a nail or something like that because I keep a plug kit in the car.

Fortunately, The Queen was safe and close to home so that I could assist quickly. The bonus, see there is a silver lining, is that she was able to pull over in a very wide median cross over which gave me a safe place to work.

That Smarts

Well, I had hoped that my 200TH post would be a little more profound than this is likely to be; but, I figure if I don't start cranking out the free ice cream again soon, y'all just might go get your fix elsewhere. So, where has Waldo been lately? When we last checked in on our hero, he was overcome by the emotion of having been accepted to law school. Much, as they say, has transpired since last we spoke.

I spent the remainder of the week following receipt of my acceptance to law school in a giddy daze. I did go see my youngest niece's orchestra concert that evening which was enjoyable even though it resulted in one of those "When I was your age"/"Your tax dollars at work" moments. The concert was held in the cafeteria/auditorium of my niece's middle school. As I perused my surroundings while waiting for my niece's orchestra to get to the stage (her's was the last of four different groups), I noticed that the cafeteria was not the style of school cafeteria to which I was accustomed when I was in school. In fact, it looked more like the food court at the mall. You had separate counters for burgers, pizza, fried chicken, and plate lunches in addition to the candy/snacks/bakery counter. When did this start happening??? When I was in middle school, what they were serving in the SINGLE lunch line was IT. If you didn't like it, you were out of luck. Kids have it so easy today. No adversity to face. They don't have to learn how to suck it up and take it...whatever it is.

Moving on, two days later, my great uncle (mom's dad's younger brother) passed away at the age of 82. His health had been in decline for the last 10 years or so following a motorcycle accident. His memorial service took place over Memorial Day weekend in the central Texas town where he had lived most of his life. I went with mom and my sister...the devil to go to the service which was held at the church where my great uncle had attended since he was a boy with my great grandparents. Funerals and memorial services are generally not fun events, and this was no exception. I do have to say this was probably the least coherent funeral service to which I've been. I'm not sure what a normal Church of Christ funeral service is supposed to be like, but I'm pretty sure this wasn't even close.

The memorial service also happened to coincide with my grandfather's (mom's dad) 90TH birthday which is somehow appropriate. According to mom, he's extremely proud of the fact that I've been accepted to law school even though he made no mention of such feelings to my face while we were there. I think he's just waiting until the ink is dry on my bar card so that he can ask me to sue someone for him. Personally, his pride and approval mean less to me than a warm bucket of spit; however, I can't completely turn my back on him. I have learned things from him, both good and bad, that make me who I am today, and I must grudgingly admit that he is a necessary component of my existence whether I like it or not. One of these days, I will have to explain my feelings about him in more detail to give you, my faithful readers, some idea of why I want to be standing behind him when he stands before God. If I could sell tickets to that event, I would.

That brings us to the next reason why I've been AWOL the last week or two. A week ago Friday, I was snuggling up next to The Queen in bed pulling the covers up when the covers stopped and my left hand didn't. My hand flew straight back into my face and impacted my left eyeball. I clearly remember my eyeball compressing, and I saw a ring of pretty blue and yellow stars in a pitch black room. I yelled but, in a shining moment in the ongoing development of my Christian character, didn't cuss. The Queen asked what happened; and, after being told, she started laughing at me. I eventually had to laugh to and said "It's all fun and games until someone punches their own eye out."

Now, a normal person would expect to wake up the next day to a black eye in the eye that was hit. Nope. Not me. I woke up the next day, and both eyes were perfectly normal. The day after that...not so much. That day, I woke up to discover that my RIGHT eye was completely red, painful to the touch, photo sensitive and would hurt when looking in certain directions. And, when I say hurt, I mean "feels like being stuck in the eye with an ice pick" hurt. Before you ask, yes, I am quite certain that it was my LEFT eye that was hit.

After things didn't get better after a couple of days, I made an appointment with the eye doctor. He pronounced the problem to be "iritis" which is inflammation of the iris. Basically, I sprained the muscles that control my iris. I was relieved that I had not detached the retina of something catastrophic. The doctor said that it's possible that the shock wave from the hit to the left eye went through the tissue and inflamed the right eye. Apparently, this is not unheard of in sports injuries.

The almost constant headache that went with this was the easiest part to deal with. Never knowing when the phantom ice pick would strike...that really kinda sucked. I did figure out that the change between near vision and far vision was especially painful and have worked to avoid that as much as possible. You really have no idea how much you move your eyes, how much focusing you do until you do something stupid like this. It completely wears you out mentally and physically. I've spent the last week or so being almost constantly exhausted because of my eye.

So, there you have it. More or less. Free ice cream to continue as my eye improves.

Good News and Bad News

First, the good news. I still have NOT received a response from Texas Wesleyan regarding my law school application. Yes, you read that right. Things have to be bad when the GOOD news is that I've received no news about whether or not they think I'm fit to be trained as an attorney.

So, which do you want first? The bad news or the really bad news?

Since it's my blog and you all won't have an opportunity to express your preferences before I hit the "publish post" button, I think I will make you cry then laugh in the hopes of lessening the pain. Stop reading now, skip to the end and start reading from the bottom if you don't want to cry. 

Seriously. You've been warned. 

As you know from previous posts, The Queen's favorite subject, Kiki (aka The Yakmaster 5000 Projectile Vomit Cannon) has been ill of late. So ill that he has been steadily losing weight for several months. The first trip to the vet found nothing dreadfully out of the ordinary aside from slight anemia and slightly elevated white blood cell count, and it was suggested that he be put on probiotics and antibiotics. The probiotics seemed to be helping. He regained his appetite after we figured out his favorite foods were Fancy Feast and honey maple turkey deli meat. Until the last few days. He decided that now was the time to go on a starvation diet. Literally. By Saturday morning, he was wobbly, weak and generally looking pathetic. 

The Queen insisted that I do something about this situation immediately. You see, as I may have mentioned, The Queen has been suffering through some pretty severe health issues for the last several years. When she came down with these problems, we were living in Houston as I had just gotten a really good job there. Without a family support network, it was not possible for me to work and take care of her by myself. She didn't qualify for home health care, etc. So, we made the hard decision to have her move back to our house in the Dallas area (her parents were care taking it for us until we figured out what to do with it). The plan was that I would find a way to get a job back in Dallas...a process that ultimately took two years. Kiki was one of The Queen's major sources of comfort and affection while I was away down in Houston earning a living and generally going insane. 

By now, you can see where this is heading. Remember, I warned you. 

Saturday, as you would expect, our regular vet was closed, and their answering service put me on terminal hold. After an unsuccessful attempt to get Kiki into another vet, I was left with the only option available: The 24 hour emergency vet in Arlington. This is not really a bad thing as I used to live right down the street from there, and they were our regular vet until we moved away. So, they had records on us even if none of the staff remembered us. 

We got Kiki there Saturday evening, and the poking and prodding began. They reran some of the tests the regular vet had done and added a few more. The end result was not good. He had lost about 50% of his body weight in 5 months. He was septic, and the vet felt that was due to gastrointestinal cancer. That left us with two choices: 1) IV antibiotics and nutrition followed by more tests and probably chemo, or 2) put him to sleep.

The vet told us that he had seen a similar case a week or so ago, and the cat had died a day after going on the antibiotics and IV nutrition as the poor thing was just not strong enough to battle back. The vet told us that his recommendation based on the test results and the history we had reported was to put Kiki to sleep. The Queen was understandably heart broken, but she bravely made the decision to have Kiki put to sleep so that he wouldn't have to suffer. The Queen couldn't face holding him while it was done. The vet promised that it would be quick and painless; and, based on prior experience with this clinic, I had no doubt that would be the case. The Queen said her goodbye's to Kiki and he was taken away. They brought him back to us sealed in a box within minutes, and we left to go home. I can't say enough about the level of professionalism and courtesy the vet's office showed to us. If you are in the Dallas area, don't hesitate to use the I-20 Animal Medical Center. They are good people.

The Queen cried her heart out until late into the night when she passed out from shear exhaustion. The next day, of course, was Mother's Day. The Queen's uncle was in town from California, and a lunch was planned at her brother's place. I woke up as early as I could and attempted to bury Kiki in one of his favorite spots next to the driveway in the Monkey Grass. 

Unfortunately, the bedrock at Castle Erickson varies in depth from about 1 foot to 18 inches. Great for your home's foundation. Horrible for when it becomes necessary to take care of some unpleasantness. Short of dynamite, which the neighbors would find objectionable, Kiki was just not going to be able to rest in his favorite spot. Since The Queen's brother has 16 acres of land, we decided to bury Kiki in a wooded area on his property. The Queen placed a cactus flower she had found over his grave.

We had Kiki for about 11 years. He was a rescue from the sister of a friend who was not able to give him and his litter mate the care they needed. His brother had disappeared years ago, and Kiki became The Queen's all time favorite by giving her comfort during some of her darkest days. I was forever frustrated by his finickyness, his fondness for hunting and killing everything within reach, and his penchant for vomiting on everything in sight, but I am grateful for all the love and affection he gave The Queen in exchange for nothing more than a warm bed and a full food bowl.

Then, to add insult to injury so to speak, I managed to create a minor plumbing disaster this afternoon that absolutely ruined my work day. Allow me to back up a few moments. Castle Erickson has been without a weedeater since the beginning of the lawn season. There are two weedeaters on the premises. Neither of which worked. 

One was a Black & Decker Grass Hog electric which chewed up weeds and tall grass better than a lot of gas trimmers until it suddenly stopped working for no apparent reason. The reason, after disassembly, turned out to be the plastic drive cog had melted allowing the belt to come off making the powerful electric motor absolutely useless. Question for Black & Decker: Whose bright idea was it to use a plastic part in an application that would generate tons of heat from friction? Fire that dumbass. Please. Oh, and the person who decreed that you would not sell said plastic piece of garbage separate from the motor assembly which costs 3/4 of what a whole new unit would cost. Yeah, he needs to be fired too.

The other is a Ryobi SS26 gas trimmer. The Ryobi would start all day long, and it would even turn the trimmer head. Right up until you took it off choke. I suspect that it's my fault for not properly winterizing it. I gave it a complete tune up with a new spark plug, cleaning the muffler, cleaning the carb and replacing the fuel lines and filter. Still no go. The internet is overflowing with similar complaints for this model. To those of you who might have come here via a Google search: Yes, I know I should have bought a Stihl or an Echo. If I could afford a Stihl or an Echo, I would have bought one. No, I don't want to hear it. The problem seems to be localized in the carb as it will start with or without the muffler in place ruling out too much back pressure. The fact that it starts rules out spark leaving fuel as the only possible culprit. New fuel and fuel filter point squarely at the carb. I'm going to order a new carb, turn right around and sell it to someone else. Let them screw with it.

Anyway, The Queen decreed that a functioning weedeater must come home or else. So, we stopped at Wal Mart on our way home from taking mom out to dinner for mother's day yesterday and purchased a new Weedeater Featherlite. Again, all you brand fanboys: I DON"T CARE. 

This afternoon, The Queen entered my office and suggested that she might have the energy to do a little weedeating to make the Castle a little more presentable. I put the new tool together and sent her off to get the required gas since, of course, the Weedeater uses a different fuel/oil mixture than the Ryobi does (fortunately, the chainsaw is a match for the Ryobi meaning my mix won't go to waste). She returned. I filled the little tank and promptly flooded the stupid thing. Once I figured out the procedure for starting it flooded, we were off and running....for all of two minutes. Max. The trimmer works fine, but imagine my surprise when a .095 inch trimmer line split open a 3/4 inch Schedule 40 PVC pipe on one of our outdoor faucets. 

Water immediately started gushing a several gallons a minute, and I made a mad dash for the water shut off valves on the opposite corner of the house...which did exactly nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. Apparently, they only take care of the water INSIDE the house. After a fruitless 15 minute search for another water shut off valve that, you know, WOULD affect the OUTSIDE water faucets, I threw in the towel and called the city to come out and shut off the water at the meter. They were there in about 15 minutes, and then it was off to Home Depot to get some Schedule 40 PVC, coupling and a new faucet (might as well make it look pretty while I was at it, and the old one leaked). The repair too less than 15 minutes. I waited a few before calling the city, and they were back out in about 20 minutes to get us back on. No major leaks detected although the new faucet has a very minute leak from the threads despite a generous amount of teflon tape.

So, if you don't mind, I'm going to go swill some wine and pretend the last three days never happened.

Mistaken Identity

The phone here at Castle Erickson began ringing off the hook this morning bright and early around 8:45 AM. This, in itself, is not unusual; however, the fact that the same 800 number called three times in under five minutes was. Since I was already "at work" and live my life according to the 10 o'clock rule, I didn't answer it.

For those of you who don't know, the 10 o'clock rule is that you never call someone at home before 10:00 AM or after 10:00 PM unless there is death or serious bodily injury involved...because failure to abide by the 10:00 rule will result in death or serious bodily harm. My mother came up with that rule when my sister...the devil and I were growing up in the age before cell phones and the phone would ring, loudly I might add, at odd hours. She was working her butt off earning money, going to school and teaching. So, she rightfully did not like her precious few hours of blissful sleep to be interrupted by some idiot kid trying to find one of her idiot kids.

Anyway, back to our story. The Queen poked her head in the man cave/command center that doubles as one of many remote claims offices for my company around the country a little before 9:00 to tell me that there was a message for me on the house phone. A message from a claims adjuster alleging that I was responsible for a car accident...yesterday...in Houston.

This was news to me. It'd be a neat trick to be in two places at once, but I have no memory of ever having pulled it off myself.

So, I called the claims adjuster back here a few minutes ago. She thanked me for promptly returning her call, and I immediately told her that I had been in Dallas all day yesterday and asked what this was all about. She laughed a little and said, "So, that's why you called back so quickly." Well, actually, I called back so quickly  to find out if I had somehow managed to shed the physical limitations of my human body and become a being of pure light and energy capable of being anywhere and everywhere at once, but that would have made my alibi a little suspect. I wisely chose to respond with "Well, yeah."

After a brief explanation of what happened in Houston yesterday, it became apparent that the issue was that the adjuster's insured had written the license plate down wrong. It seems this unfortunate driver was the front car in a three car rear end chain accident. The driver of the rear car, who was supposedly me, got out and spoke to the driver of the middle vehicle before driving off having never spoken to the driver of the front vehicle. The adjuster for the driver of the front vehicle was forced to use the limited information at her disposal, consisting of a license plate number and not much else, to try and locate the at fault driver.

Swing and a miss.

The adjuster was very polite and promised to note the file that they did not need to bother me any further. I thanked her and decided this makes good blog fodder to get my mind off the waves of anxiety that are starting to develop now that it's four weeks to the day since Texas Wesleyan started their comprehensive review of my law school application. Seriously, I'm starting to feel like I need to be breathing through a paper bag.

So, without further adieu, here's another installment of the Insider's Guide For Outsider's To The World Of Claims Adjusting: What To Do In The Event Of An Accident.

Step One: Have an accident

Okay, this really isn't the first thing you do in the event of an accident, but it is a necessary prerequisite for everything that follows. So, that's where we're going to start. Oh, and this step should really be unintentional. Adjusters like to call intentional "accidents" things like "fraud" or "vehicular assault" which puts your insurance coverage in jeopardy.

Step Two: Yell/Scream coherent or incoherent expressions of shock and amazement (cursing optional)

It's okay. Really. We understand. Something unexpected (hopefully) has just happened, and it's natural and cathartic.

Step Three: Take a deep breath and give yourself a once over

The breath is necessary to clear your mind and replenish the oxygen you just used screaming your fool head off. Now that you can breathe again, take stock of your body's standard equipment. Check for leaks, dents and broker or missing parts. If your brain has gone through a hard reboot after an encounter with Mr. Steering Wheel or Mrs. Windshield, take a few extra moments with this step. You'll be glad you did. If you see red fluid leaking from skin or orifice, small quantities are nothing to panic about. Large quantities are cause for concern; however, the down side is that you will probably not be in a position to do much of anything about it and the problem will likely resolve itself in short order with help from someone else or through exhaustion of the supply. Yellow fluid, while embarrassing, is no cause for concern. Unless it's gasoline. If you find any dents or broken/missing parts, stay put. You're likely in pain varying from "that stings a bit" to "Dear God please let me die". It's best not to add to your troubles by moving. Unless the yellow fluid was gasoline.

Step Four: Assess your surroundings

Look around. Are you in the middle of an interstate highway or at the bottom of a cliff? Listen carefully. Is that a train horn I hear getting closer or a Mack truck? Take a sniff of the air. Is the yellow fluid urine or gasoline? Take the temperature. Is it warmer than you remember? Wetter? Is this the place you really want to be right now? If not, it's time to evacuate the premises. If your car is still operable, move it to the nearest safe location (usually the shoulder of the highway, but parking lots are better). The cops don't want you holding up traffic for a scratch on the bumper. They probably won't come out for 45 minutes to an hour for a scratch on the bumper in most major metropolitan areas, if at all, anyway. If your car is not operable, the cops will get there pretty quick because a 1000 people just called 911 to tell them that the interstate is shut down because some idiot had an accident. If the yellow fluid is on fire, you will probably make the news. Congratulations. If you are not operable, no worries. You can stop reading right here. The police and ambulance crew will take of the rest. 

From here on out, the steps assume you have no leaks, dents or broken/missing parts which prevent you from walking and talking like a normal person. Or at least as well as a fifth grader who's fallen off the monkey bars at school.

Step Five: Check on the welfare of others

This may not seem important now, but picture yourself two to five years from now, sitting on the witness stand testifying in front of a jury about why you were so cold hearted and uncaring that you didn't even ask the other person(s) how they were after the accident. It's a small thing, but it matters to some people a lot. This is one of those Golden Rule moments. You would want someone to check to make sure you weren't leaking, dented or missing parts. You should return the favor. Lather, rinse, repeat as often as necessary depending on the number of people involved or how bad your concussion is affecting your memory.

Step Six: Get Information

This is critically important to the claims adjuster. We rely on you to give us a good starting point. Write it down. Everything you can. Your on an adrenaline high right now, and you are doing good to be upright and remember your own name at this point. You want to get names, addresses, phone numbers, drivers license numbers, dates of birth (or ages) and descriptions of everyone involved including passengers (you'd be amazed how many empty buses involved in accidents suddenly have 47 passengers when there is insurance involved). Ditto for witnesses if you are fortunate to have anyone step forward and say they saw the whole thing. You need license plate numbers, make, model and color of any vehicles involved. "It was a white car" doesn't help your adjuster much. Write down everything you can remember seeing or doing in the moments leading up to the accident and after. You will not remember the little details later. Was it a blue car next to you or a red car? How long had you been sitting at the light when you were hit? If Officer Friendly writes a report, get the report number.

Step Seven: Don't Admit Fault

This may be difficult for some of us who are very personal responsibility oriented, but...just don't. Leave determination of fault to someone else. It's not your job.

Step Eight: Take Photos

Everyone, it seems, has a camera these days. Digital and video even. Take photos. Lots of them. Take video if you can. From every angle you safely can.

Step Nine: Call your insurance company

Go do it. Right now. While you are thinking about. Call them from the accident scene if you can.

Step Ten: Go Home Or Go To the ER

This is pretty self explanatory.

Step Eleven: Medicate as Directed By Medical Professionals or Self

This is also pretty self explanatory.

D'oh...[Face Palm]

I really, really hate it when I make a mistake. I really and truly loathe it when I make a mistake on something important. For instance, my law school application. I dutifully logged in to the super secret status check page thoughtfully provided by Texas Wesleyan this morning hoping for, but not expecting, an update since this is their first day back in the office after Spring Break. 

Lo and behold, there was a status update. At 8:30 something this morning no less. The status said:

we noted that your application had incomplete Character and Fitness information

They provided me with a person and a phone number to call (the same one that was listed last week) which I did immediately. The person answered the call on the second ring...at 8:30 something this morning no less. I was expecting her to tell me that they were waiting on the last of my letters of recommendation to come in. 

I was not expecting her to tell me that my college transcripts didn't match up with the info reported in my application. Question 10.(a) of the application reads thusly:

(a)  Has any college, university, or law school ever dropped, dismissed, disciplined, disqualified, or placed you on academic probation for academic or behavioral reasons or were you allowed to resign or withdraw in order to avoid academic or disciplinary action?  Are any disciplinary charges pending or expected to be brought against you at any college or university?  (The record of such action need not be retained in your file to require disclosure.)         

When I first submitted my application, I answered that question in the negative. 

Imagine my surprise this morning when I was informed that my college transcript reflected academic probation from fall of 1990 to spring of 1992.

D'oh!

I had completely forgotten about ever being on probation even though my college grade reports, which I have dutifully kept even after almost 20 years, clearly states that I was on probation during the time frame in question. I guess I should have taken a closer look at those grade reports before completing my application. I don't even have a good excuse for it like being in the middle of fraternity hazing or incapacitated by a horrible accident.

So anyway, the nice lady at Texas Wesleyan explained exactly what I needed to do which was submit an updated application page correcting 10.(a) from "no" to "yes" with a written explanation as to why that particular college felt the need to stick a dunce cap on my head for the better part of a year. I cobbled together what I feel is a plausible if somewhat vague explanation true to the best of my knowledge given the fact that it's been almost 20 years since and I have no specific memories of much of anything relating to the three courses that I failed leading to my probation. Much has transpired since then as you might imagine.

Hopefully they will have mercy on me given that: 1) it's been 20 years, 2) my GPA from my major courses was 3.15, 3) I did make the honor roll after being released from probation, and 4) I've spent the last 15 almost 16 years handling litigated insurance claims. That and 5 lawyers were willing to sign their names to letters stating that I know what the heck I'm doing and would make a good lawyer...without me paying them to say so.

A Chink In The Armor

Looking back on my previous posts, I note that I have not discussed my work in much detail. I’m not avoiding discussing my work. It’s just that, most of the time, there are much more interesting and amusing topics I’d rather write about. At least to me anyway. And my work is depressing sometimes. Like today.

In case I haven’t mentioned it previously, I am gainfully employed as a commercial liability claims adjuster for a top 10 property and casualty insurance company. My work involves handling complex, high exposure and litigated cases. I’ve been in the insurance business for almost 20 years now of which I’ve spent the last 15 years handling claims. The majority of that time has been spent in the commercial liability world; however, I’ve also handled what is called “non-standard personal auto”.

There’s not much difference between a commercial insured and a personal insured when it comes to claims. Businesses find creative ways to screw up and have accidents just like normal folks mainly because businesses employ normal folks like you and me. The main difference is in the amount of money involved. A typical personal auto policy in Texas has $25,000/$50,000 limits while a commercial policy generally has at least $500,000 and usually $1,000,000 in limits.

When people ask what an adjuster does, I usually tell them we are professional janitors who clean up other peoples’ messes. We are somewhat akin to police officers, fire fighters and EMS personnel in that we see the aftermath of a whole lot of disaster, and we tend to develop a jaded outlook on things to keep from going slightly mad. It takes a special kind of insanity to come back from lunch, open up your mail to find gruesome photos of someone’s head crushed, and then chat with your wife about what’s for dinner. We also tend to have a different reaction than most people to seeing accidents on the side of the road. Instead of feeling sorry for the accident victims…adjusters wonder who they’re insured with and whether we’re going to have to handle the claim. As you might imagine, adjusters tend to be a warped bunch of individuals generally speaking.

That’s not to say we are completely without feelings and sympathy. We see so much pain, suffering, heartache, lying, cheating and outright fraud, that it’s hard to get through the armor.

Today, something found a small chink in my armor.

I was reviewing a file involving a 4 year old drowning victim. A young girl whose life was cut short before it really even got started. The file contains a copy of her autopsy report. Autopsies are, in some ways, the final snapshot of a life (and death) in cold, hard, clinical detail.

This young girl’s autopsy tells a story like many others I’ve seen, but this story included chapters that struck me for reasons I’m still puzzling over.

“Evidence of Treatment” reads one such chapter. This young girl was underwater for an unknown amount of time but long enough to drown, stop breathing and cause irreparable brain damage. That’s not to say that efforts were not made to save her. She was revived for a time following her rescue from the shallow pool in which she met her fate. She was cared for in a hospital for a short time until it was clear that her brain had ceased being able to function without assistance. The medical examiner carefully noted the paraphernalia of treatment: the catheter, the tracheotomy tube, etc.

“Evidence of Organ Harvesting” reads another chapter. As gruesome as it sounds for the organs of a young girl to be harvested like a field of grain, this to me is actually the part of the story with hope. This young girl will be able to live on, at least in some small part, by helping others to live through the gift of her heart, kidneys and part of her spleen. She may not have been old enough to consciously make the decision to donate her organs and probably wasn’t even old enough to understand what it meant, but those who received her gifts will have the chance to know her generosity.

Autopsies do not accompany every death. They are normally reserved for unnatural deaths which are the only ones I generally see in my work. The medical examiners are thorough, professional and dryly clinical in their reporting, but no detail escapes notice or report. I have read mention of one accident fatality whose penis was tattooed to resemble a candy cane with alternating red and white strips. To this day, I am convinced he was a child molester although I have no way to prove it for sure.

Your every body part (internal and external), personal grooming habits, tattoos, piercings, body modifications, surgeries, breast augmentation, face lifts, tummy tucks, and more are all measured, commented and recorded for posterity to tell a story to someone or several someones investigating an untimely demise.

None of the stories are particularly pleasant given their subject matter.

All of them represent a once living and breathing human being who loved and/or was loved.

It’s sometimes hard for me to remember that simple fact given the amount of garbage I wade through day in and day out, but this little girl managed to find a way through her autopsy to remind me. Perhaps it was her final gift to a stranger she never met in life.

Until We Meet Again, My Friend

***Warning. The following post may be a bit of a downer compared to my usual cynically humorous outlook. If you're already depressed, go read old Calvin & Hobbes cartoons or something.***


My week got off to a very inauspicious start. I was on "vacation" last week taking care of the Queen while the inlaws went to the annual church festival without us, and I took Monday of this week "off" even though I was secretly trying to work in an effort to get caught up on the 168 emails, 91 edocs and 27 voicemail that had accumulated in my absence. I say trying to work because my DSL connection has been plotting a suicide attempt for several weeks now. Due to the DSL trying to convince me to shot it by crashing every few minutes, I was unable to get any real work done. Tuesday and Wednesday were not much better.


One of the few emails that I was able to read on Monday was from a friend and former co-worker, Barbi, informing me that another friend and former co-worker of mine, Mike, had been in a serious car accident on Friday. The email said he was in the hospital critical care unit. Mike was not quite 2 months older than me. So, I figured...how bad could it be? Right?

Then my Facebook account exploded. Not literally, of course, but relatively speaking. My Facebook activity has stabilized to the point where new requests, notes, messages, etc. are the exception rather than the norm. Barbi sent me a friend request on FB as well, and I got another friend request from another former co-worker. 2 friend requests in one day from the same day. Red flag. Then the urgent messages started showing up. Things aren't looking good.

How bad can it be? When I finally spoke to Barbi, I found out. Try "Mike hit an eighteen wheeler suffering severe head injuries and now on a ventilator" bad.

I spent the next few hours debating on whether or not I should go to the hospital to visit. Not necessarily for Mike, since he was out of it in a coma, but mostly to be there for friends and his family. And so that, later, I wouldn't hate myself for not going.

Despite my cynicism, I tend towards being more emotional than the average male of our species. So, it wasn't an easy decision. I cried. I prayed. I cried some more. In the end, I decided to go.

I got to the hospital shortly after the late visiting hours started. Barbi was there with her husband. Mike's wife Erica was there (on a side note, Erica was the one who printed the invitations for the Queen's and my wedding), and I had just missed seeing Mike's daughter.

Even though we weren't family, we were allowed to go back into CCU and see Mike. From what I understand, the hospital bent the rules at Erica's request given the situation. I was able to see Mike and spend some time with him. He was recognizable in a distorted kind of way due to the swelling from his injuries.

Mike was always a very fashionable guy, and he would have been mortified to receive visitors in a hospital gown not to mention all the tubes and wires. Then there was the fact that they had to shave part of his head. Fortunately, he didn't suffer any really grotesque injuries like some of the things you see with severe burn victims or amputees. He was whole, but he just looked like he had been in a bad fight.

By this time, Erica had already made the decision with the doctors to have the ventilator removed the next day and "let nature take its course". Apparently, Mike was not showing any brain activity and was not expected to improve. But, for reasons I didn't think about at the time, I stopped short of saying goodbye. The last thing I said to Mike was that he was a good friend and always would be.

I spent some time with Erica after I visited with Mike. She's holding up remarkably well under the circumstances even though she describes her current emotional state as "Craptacular" to any who ask. She talked about how difficult it was to get a hold of anyone at Mike's work. In this day of direct dial extensions, she only had Mike's direct number which wasn't much help. Mike's cell phone was not among his personal possessions when he was brought to the hospital. It surfaced a day or two later. Fortunately, people from his work got in touch with her and started the ball rolling on the workers compensation claim, insurance, etc. The president of Mike's company even flew in from Connecticut to visit.

It still chokes me up to think about Mike and what happened to him and his family. I sit here writing this with tears trying to fill my eyes. I still won't be saying goodbye to Mike here even though he died on Wednesday shortly after the ventilator was removed. Mike was not much on religion. But it doesn't matter. God believes in us whether we believe in him or not. I believe, and I know I will see him again.

Mike, I will remember your smug, knowing laugh. I will remember your sense of humor and your love of Hondas and Acuras. I will remember that you were a fan of The Cure. I will remember that the most prominent thing in your office was a picture of you holding your daughter on the day she was born. I will remember you until we meet again. Rest in peace and worry no more.