Thursday, December 22, 2011

The Drama Continues

Really...things are looking up. Daughter, after much effort, managed to get a police report on her accident, so that they are now in a nice rental car until a decision can be made on whether or not her car will be totaled. This was after the nice police officer giving them the wrong report and then being off work so the real report could not be gotten, stopping all insurance help. Eventually they were given an incomplete police report and eventually the opportunity to PAY for a new police report! All is well now though.

In the meantime, the insurance adjuster came to us on Tuesday and determined that our car did indeed need to be repaired. He issued us a check on the spot and told us to go get it fixed. We took it into the shop, thinking they could order the parts and then actually fix the car after Christmas as we have Christmas plans involving the car. To our surprise they told us they could have the part by the next morning and have the car all fixed by Thursday afternoon. We made it clear that we'd rather wait until next week if there was a chance it wouldn't be done in that time frame.

This afternoon they called. Our car looks beautiful! They just needed to run it down to the dealer to have the car computer reset. The reset worked....except for one little detail. One of the airbag sensors didn't work, rendering the car unusable until the reason for the sensor failure is found. It could be a result of the accident, or it could be something that happened when they had to unplug all the wires in order to fix the car. Happily, the company handling the repairs shares an office with Hertz. Thus, we will be driving a Toyota Rav4 until next week, when the car repairman comes back from his Christmas holiday.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Enough Already

OK...things have gotten just a bit out of hand the last few weeks. It is time for this to STOP! NOW!

You remember this :



And then this :



Now we add this:



Our son, who lives in southern California reported via facebook a few days ago that he and a bunch of other folks were locked into a conference room, waiting to be rescued and escorted out of the building where he was working due to a workplace shooting. He doesn't even actually work for the company where the shooting took place, but was there doing some sort of work for his actual employer. We were much relieved when he was finally out of the building. Later, one of our daughters found this picture on a website for the LA Times, I believe. That is him, right there in the blue and white shirt. His car and those of everyone else in the building were impounded overnight to be checked for signs of tampering, but he was able to return to get it the next day. His backpack and other possessions are still locked in the building though until police have a chance to process the entire crime scene.

Next up:



A daughter reports that as they were driving home after an expedition to view the Christmas lights, a wheel came off a pickup truck and flew into their car, probably totaling it. The accident managed to close a 5 lane road which I'm sure tied traffic up but good. Thankfully, other than some mental trauma, they are all ok. Probably inconvenient at any time, but certainly right in the middle of the holidays is not a great time to be dealing with police reports, insurance companies and coming up with some new transportation and car seats, while folks at those agencies are busy elsewhere with office Christmas parties and such...not to mention that the insurance companies are still swamped with claims from the recent windstorm. Have to figure out if the damage is enough to total the car or not...and the police officer neglected to turn in his report and now has the day off work, so that will be going nowhere today.

Enough already!

Friday, December 9, 2011

Father Christmas

Tonight was the first day of the 2 days of old-fashioned Christmas festivities at the living history farm. Of course Father Christmas was there as the guest of honor. Do you think those might be his real whiskers? You would be right!




Making candy canes was also a popular activity. We'll be making them 2 more times tomorrow.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Carved Christmas Ornaments

Tonight was the annual Christmas dinner for the local woodcarvers club. After the dinner, we adjourned to the home of one of the members in order to look at his Christmas tree. Every ornament on it is hand carved! The lighting was poor but I think you can get an idea of what it looked like. Many of the ornaments have a little ball carved inside of them. The chain is quite long. Such a tree, by itself, is astounding, but in addition to the things on the tree, this man carves a new ornament ever year for 36 family members as well!













SUV vs. minivan

The lesson for today involves an SUV (which I do NOT own) and a minivan (which I DO own). So if you are driving such an SUV and you are late to work. And if you think you can 'shoot the gap' between the traffic to cross the road....and if at the last minute you know you cannot make it, so slam on your brakes with your car edging out into the nearest traffic lane...and then if you should decide to back up without really looking to see if anyone else might have pulled up behind you at the stop sign....and if your SUV has a ball hitch hanging out the back, the result on the bumper of the minivan might look like this. Fortunately the SUV has insurance...and they will be hearing from us.


Friday, December 2, 2011

Windstorm

Today we spent some time at the home of my mother. In the neighboring yard, near the common fence, is a poplar tree. I'm sure it started as a small tree, but for the last 25 years, we have watched it grow and commented on how dangerous it was to have such a tree near 3 houses on city lots. The neighbors love the trees on their property and are loath to remove them.

Yesterday and the day before, the local weather forecasters all started to speak of high winds. It must have been like the perfect conditions for a wind storm with the county where Mom lives at the center of the storm. Yesterday while the wind was blowing, most folks sort of hunkered down and waited to see what was happening, watching from the windows as shingles, rocks, trees, siding, fences and other things flew past. Mom said a couple of her fence panels were gone as well as the fence across the street. Another neighbor had a fir tree leaning on her house.

Then there was a big thud. When Mom called to tell me the poplar tree had fallen, my first response was, "Which house did it hit?" I was surprised when she told me it had miraculously fallen in about the only place where no house was hit....Mom's garden. Although the roots of the tree are in the neighbor's yard, the majority of the 90 foot tall tree is in Mom's yard...where I think it will stay for a while until they decide what to do about it.

That tree is so big, I was not able to take a picture of the entire thing in one photo. Here you can see the roots in the neighbor's yard.





As you see, it was able to fall into Mom's yard by simply crushing two panels of the fence, along with Mom's favorite peach tree. Here is the other end of the tree. I goes almost the entire length of the yard. You can also see where the wind blew out two panels of the back fence.



It is a poplar...a tall, rather skinny tree. I had no idea how wide it really was! This is the middle part of the tree.



Next is a view looking east toward the roots of the tree. You can also see one of the missing fence panels.



This tree is just the most noticeable of several problems in the yard. The concrete retaining wall that holds the wooden fence also has some new issues. Before the fence post broke off and the panels actually fell, the fence wiggled enough to cause some good-sized cracks in the concrete.







Every fence post has cracked the concrete.

This picture is the next concern. The neighbor has yet another tree just over the fence. It is an old willow that has a number of limbs in poor shape. Whenever the wind blows, branches of the tree litter Mom's lawn.





We can't help wondering if this will be the next tree to fall...right onto the shed or house.

This morning we took a ride around the neighborhood. Almost every coniferous tree of any size in the neighborhood is down. Many homes are missing shingles. Some are missing siding. We saw a car with broken windows from rocks blowing into them. Many deciduous trees are also down. A small city further to the south estimated that they lost 1000 trees in the storm. Some homes were damaged by falling trees. I don't believe I saw a single fence without pieces missing. They said the storm was the equivalent of a category 2 hurricane. There were wind gusts over 100 mph.

I was impressed with what I saw in the neighborhood today though. Streets and yards were full of folks, helping one another. It was amazing how much cleaning up was done today...not by paid workers, but just by neighbors helping neighbors.