I HAVE GOGOL BORDELLO TICKETS FOR NEW YEARS EVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

it's just a matter of time

Not much, besides curry and jars of half-eaten Nutella that I've left there. Luckily those are all awesome things.

( Kingsport/JC in Novemeber (photo journal)...... )

Bibby and I went to the Haunted Trail Walk in Scottsville on Friday, hoping to recapture this experience from 2005.
Since it was Scottsville (a tiny, creepily cheerful block of buldings with the-middle-of-nowhere on both sides) we didn't hold a lot of hope, and spent Friday afternoon imagining that an insane serial killer dressed up as one of the zombies on the trail and began killing people. It didn't help much. The trail was 3 miles outside Scottsville in the woods, and there was a trail that looped around starting and ending at an old graveyard covered half with real graves and half with styrofoam ones. Mostly you walked through the woods in the dark, and people dressed up like zombies would jump out and scream at you. There were a couple mad doctors "eating" people's breains, a girl lying in a bath of intestines, and an outhouse that a zombie with a chainsaw burst out of. He ran toward us with the chainsaw, but I can't hear a chainsaw without breaking into a run, so I didn't see what happened after that. The scariest part was the number of times I nearly grabbed a nearby redneck guy at the sound of zombies screaming. The trail ended with our zombie slayer guide getting taken by zombies.
But the night got gorier.
On the way home we rounded a corner in the woods to find a large siamese cat sitting in the middle of the road. Having handled hundreds of claims where the driver said "Well there was a cat/groundhog/squirrel/dog/deer/moose/elk/horse/cow/chicken/crow in the road and I didn't want to hurt it so I swerved, and that's when I flipped my car" I knew better than the swerve. I tried the veer slightly so as to straddle the cat (and hope it had the sense to duck) but it bolted right as I got to it and I ran right over it. Bibby and I debated about going back, but realized that the nearest vet was 45 minutes away in Charlottesville and we had already seen more intestines than we had wanted to that night. We consoled ourselves with the knowledge that it probably died quickly, and that siamese are a hateful breed.
We were so depressed when we got back to Charlottesville that we went for a hefeweizen at Applebee's. We and a group of guys in their 20s and 30s were the only people at the bar, and they watched had us spend an hour and a half drinking 1 beer they decided to buy us jagerbombs (which I have never had and, God willing, will never have again).
"What should we toast to?" They asked.
"Can we toast to the cat we killed on the way over?" I asked.
Everyone stared at me and after a moment of silence Bibby quickly explained that it was an accident. Everyone drank their drink, but as if they felt that I should pay for my drink in insults, the whole group of them started asking me questions like,
"Were you asleep?"
"Were you aiming for it?"
"Did you go back and try to help it?"
"Did you actually kill it or just maim it?"
Things actually got worse when a girl who had not only been on the trail that night but had actually been in our group AND recognized us even though it had been pitch black out there, came in and knew the group and said "hey I just saw you guys in Scottsville!"
They immediately asked her if she had seen a cat in the road. "Oh yeah," She said, "It was just sitting in the middle of the road. We went around it."
"How did you get around it?" I asked her. "We ran right into it."
"It's called steering." one of the guys said.

Yesterday my manager saw the Jump to Conclusions board on my wall and asked what it was. When I told her it was from Office Space, she said "Oh yes- I watched that in business class!" She then went on to tell me that, as part of one of her final exams, the class had had to watch Office Space all the way through and then, using quotes and examples from the movie, illustrate different types of business theory.
ack! ack! Who would do such a thing??

I went to see Harry Potter with Andrew and Bryan today and Bryan said when one of his friend first read this paticular Harry Potter book (the day after it had been released) he wrote the major spoiler at the end of the book on the hood of his car and drove around town. In addition to the random vandalism he received to the car from people who had not finished the book, he apparently returned to his car at one point in the day to find a dent on his fender in the shape of a broomstick.

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.