I just got a bill for a loan I have through King College.

2 PROBLEMS:


1. They now have a website where I can pay online. NOW. After they have been losing the checks I've been mailing them for the past 5 AND A HALF YEARS.

2. My remaining loan balance is $38.19. My minimum payment due is $60

Thanks King. It's been real.

Kara, her daughter, and Z all came this weekend to hang out, go to Montpelier Wine Festival and do whatever Z did at the library for 10 hours.

At the wine festival we mostly tried the bizzare wines: Hot (HOT HOT) Pepper wine, Blueberry Muffin, Chilli Cheese "Dawg" (lick the cheese whiz the winery reps spray on your hand, take a sip of chilli dog wine, lick the cheese again) and Pomgranate from Peaks of Otter, Chocolate wine from Cooper Vineyards and wine from Stone Mountain that no one could remember the name of, but which everyone referred to as the "Pizza wine".

Like most neighborhoods in Charlottesville, my neighborhood is 30% redneck whackjobs, 30% rich white jerks, 30% rich white uva students (the latter not being followed with the term"jerk" to avoid repitition) and 10% whatever Andrew and I are.
This might cause a little tension, but tell me why, since I have move in here less than a year ago, we have had:

-our next door neighbors firing shotguns at our house in the middle of the day
-a police bust in the cul-de-sac by our house of who knows what or whom
-a complete shut down of our road due to 3 police cars, an ambulance, a fire truck and 2 police vans and a complete search of a house across the street

and now, for the last few days, a man that parks his mini van across our driveway BLOCKING IT and selling shoes out of his trunk.
Keith went down to him tonight and said "hey, do you mind not blocking my girlfriend's driveway? her housemates are coming home soon".
The man apparently felt that it was rude of us to ask him not to block our driveway and said something like "hey man- chillax! I'll leave in a little while after this guy finds the right pair of loafers."

My neighbors did come home, and said they will be calling the police the next time he comes over (which will be tomorrow, from the look of it). Which is awesome b/c the police are
A. jerks themselves
B. won't do anything but make the shoe guy mad
C. a pissed off shoe guy will then come back and join our next door neighbors in shooting up our house.

At least we aren't as trashy as Richmond (yet).

"Regardless of the extent of the loss, the adjuster must be able to articulate where the fire originated (known as the origin) and what caused the fire (known as the cause)."

are you freaking kidding me?

Travel writing story# 3 - Ireland, you piece of crap

( Póg Mo Thóin )

My small group leaders from church are supposed to be out of town this week, and just sent this email with instructions for all:

CL and I are going to head out of town to see her brother and family. Buckners, would you be up for hosting?  Dawn would you be up for leading the Romans discussion and being the time keeper?  Shirley, would you please lead prayer for one another?  Madeleine, would you bring some cool shoes?

sweet.

Travel writing story #2 - 500 word advertisement for Roatan Island...

( Roatan )

My trainer and I got a call today in the medical unit from a man who said his wife had strained her back and was going to the choir-practor for treatment.
Then we asked him about the passenger in his wife's car and he said
"yeah, that's George." My trainer asked him if George was a relative.
"Hold on." the guy said "Honey! What relation is George to me?"
He came back and said "He's m'nephew."
After a few minutes George, being injured, came up in the conversation again and my trainer tried to verify George's address. Finding it the same as the insured's she asked
him if George was a household resident. The man paused for a minute, then said,
"Yeah...he's engaged...to my...daughter."
My trainer, having not had a very interesting day, asked to speak with the wife, since she technically was the injured party, and verified George's status again.
"Yeah, he's my nephew." The man's wife said, "but he's not engaged to my daughter. They just have some kids together."
Unfortunately for George, he was also there and, being injured too, we asked to speak with him. My trainer couldn't resist verifying the status once more.
"We're married." George told us of he and the daughter. "But I'm trying to go to Georgia and get a job with a carwash."

travel writing Story #1 - Horseback riding with Charlie Izquierdo



( Diez )

Studying insurance is in many ways similar to smashing your face in with a large brick. For instance, my textbook spent the better part of a page describing to me what fire is. Not only that, I had to define "Fire" and answer
a few review questions about it, presumably to make sure I fully understand the concept. And look! Now I need to describe the difference between "Hostile fire" and "Friendly fire". I may need to cheat on the end of the chapter test. Right after I slit my own throat.

how dramatic movies get made in England:

"We've got a dramatic script here....yeah it's really tortured....brooding....doomed love affair...ends in death. Yeah it's great, but by British law we can't make it until Ralph Fiennes signs on.....ok, good- we'll call him tomorrow."

So this week on CNN.com they are inviting people to share stories from Ireland.
Now maybe time does heal all grudges because I went from

this

from when I first arrived back from Ireland, to

this

remarkably restrained sentence I just posted on iReport.

maybe all that Carribean sun in Honduras burned away some of my resentment.

I just signed up for another writing class, like a masochist. I hate English majors! I hate writers! Being around them makes my skin crawl! The last time I took a writing class a woman told me I hadn't moved on from my life in Asheville and I should have spent more time saying goodbye to the trees and giving them permission to change! Why why why why! I don't care if other people read my writing, I don't want anything published, I'm just too lazy to write an essay unless I'm motivated by class assignments or revenge. This class said it was about travel writing so I thought maybe it would help me process my last couple trips more clearly. I wrote journals on my trips but the Peru journal was me trying to write by campfire light about how exhausted I was, and my Ireland journal was literally all cursing and swearing.
Anyway, when I read the description of the class (AFTER I signed up for it), it said:
Explores the art of seeing, sensing, and writing about places and people. Includes the use of descriptive detail, painting a vivid atmosphere, and bringing significant people, neighborhoods, and communities to life.
*&$%^&^*!!!!!
Sounds like more talk-to-your-trees conversations are in store for me.

It was re-enactment time so we went to Gettysburg. Andrew and dad were confederates this time (dad was a yankee for awhile, but the ghosts of my two great-great-great confederate uncles visited him in a dream and he doesn't do that anymore).
We also visited Harper's Ferry which, without even trying, was weirder than anything in Gettysburg, including the lame ghost walk and the intersection where the two Robert E Lees met in the parade. It was horribly cold, snowy and windy, and more than once I envied Jennie Wade.




( tour my ridiculous photos... )

Me-

I handled a claim today where a woman thought Steven Spielberg was trying to kill her by putting anthrax in her car.

Andrew-

oh yeah? I handled a claim today where the person's thermostat caught on fire, and they couldn't figure out how it started until they opened the wall and found frayed wires and a bunch of charred cockroaches. Turns out the wires sparked and set the cockroaches on fire which burnt the house.

Me-

oh really? I handled a claim where an animal died inside someone's engine and rotted, and they couldn't do any repairs until the exterminator came because front door was filled with maggot larvae.

Andrew-

uh......Sam told me yesterday that when a rodent crawls into a bee hive the bees all beat their wings really fast until the hive reaches 116 degrees. Which kills the rodent. But if they get to 119 degrees the bees will die too.


Me-

I guess you win.





Oddly enough this last time we had a conversation like this the Comcast guy was installing our internet and gave us free cable. That was probably a coincidence.

So Keith and I were at Fellini's #9 for Thursday night antipasti and there was big group of people in the booth behind us. I didn't really notice until they stood up and one of the people was Sissy Spacek. I glanced at her and then tried not to look at her again. After they let the waiter came over and we had this conversation:

Waiter: "I didn't want to say before when they were here, but did you see-
Me: Sissy Spacek??!!!
Waiter: Actually I was going to say Jane Fonda
Me: Her too?
Waiter (to Keith): yeah- now you can say you've sat 10 inches away from Jane Fonda!
Keith: I don't really know who that is
Me: What about Sissy Spacek?
Keith: nope.
Waiter: well...tell your mother then.


Keith- we missed a perfect opportunity to sing that Mickey Avalon song.

Today we had an auto claim where some poor sap hit a deer in his car but didn't quite kill it. Instead of letting natural selection take its course, he loaded the deer into his backseat and started down the road to an animal hospital. After driving for a few minutes, the deer revived and kicked out the back windows and then started kicking Sap boy in the head. The guy pulled over, got out, let the deer out, the deer then ran in front of another car that hit it. Then that car got rear-ended.


I wasn't there, so I'm not sure exactly what the scene was like, but except for the last part, I imagine it went a lot like this

from now on, when you see the commercials for lawyers that will get you the injury settlement you deserve, think about this:

jon, one of my friends at work, called claimant (what we call a third party in an auto accident) to ask her about what had happened in her accident. she was in her 20s, and jon said she was fairly dull to begin with, and had trouble answering questions like "which way were you turning" or "what color traffic light did you have" (this might sound insensitive, but it was a fairly minor accident- it wasn't like she was thrown from the car and blacked out- most people can remember at least the basics of what happened). anyway, when he asked her if she was injured, which is a question we have to ask everyone, she put her phone over the mouth piece, and jon heard her say "hey dad- was i injured?" i don't know what her father said, but it must have been non-committal because she said she would let us know.
less than 5 minutes later the girl's mother called back and began listing off injuries her daughter sustained in the accident. nice.

and finally...





( underwater photos from the Caribbean Sea )

Roatan Island....



( join me in wishing you were there )