Caffeine Rush

Earlier this month, I received a postcard of coupons from McDonald's. Among the "Current Resident" mailer coupons was an especially sweet treat: a $1 Frappé. While I don't eat at Mickey D's on a regular basis, I occasionally drive through in the morning to treat myself to a hot breakfast, and a dose of caffeine sounded wonderful. So I stopped at McDonald's on my way to work last week with visions of a Friday morning caffeine rush in my head, but was quickly given a dose of reality--the machine was broken.

Fast forward to this morning, and I was especially excited about my dollar Frappé. I even decided to try a different McDonald's in case the machine was broken again. After making my purchases (you have to have something to go with the morning beverage!) I happily made room for the prized caramel frappé in my cup holder and prepared to zoom off to work since I was now running a little late...

The particular McDonald's I patronized this morning is on the corner of a busy intersection, and to turn right out of the parking lot, you have to cross through a long right-hand turn lane to get into the next lane over, which goes straight. I knew I should have driven through the shopping center to an exit farther up the road, but I thought I might get lucky and someone would be nice. Enter Mr. Big Truck (many thanks to Melanie for the naming inspiration!) As I try to find a hole through one lane of turning vehicles that happens to line up with a space in the lane I need to be in, Mr. Big Truck is honking at me. The light is green, and the cars aren't stopping. He honks again. I am getting frustrated with people not using turn signals and the lack of space to turn out, and he's still honking. I had to seriously fight the urge to toss him a good luck salute--my hand was raised and I had to take my attention away from the traffic flow to tell myself NO. I am not the sort of person to commit road rage; normally I call the person an idiot, maybe slap the steering wheel, and then move on. Mercifully, I finally spy a gap big enough for my little Mazda and move out in time to be stopped by the red light. Oh, well. That just means I get time to try my prized frappé while I wait for the light to turn!

I glance in the rearview mirror to see Mr. Big Truck behind me, shaking his head and mumbling to himself, and I again fight the urge to show him that he's number 1, but then I notice Junior Big Truck, who looks to be around 4 years old, in the passenger seat. I'm so relieved that I was able to restrain myself for the sake of Junior, but I have to wonder what kind of driver he will be in a decade or so with his father's stellar example to follow?

Now that I'm jittery on my caffeine high and bouncing off of the walls of my office, I have to ask myself, "Was my morning adventure worth it?" Probably not, but I've learned from today's mistakes, and in the future, I'll leave the house earlier and take the grandma way out the back entrance to avoid drivers like Mr. Big Truck on my rear. Instead, he'll be in front of me somewhere, blocking traffic and causing other drivers to rage!

Embrace Life

I know I have been posting a lot of videos lately, but this one is a pretty cool British commercial from the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership encouraging people to wear their seatbelt. Enjoy!

Friday Funny

I think I've gotten a ticket on this road before... it's in Dahlonega, right?

Paid!

I hold in my hands (well, when I'm not typing...) a small bank receipt for the pay-off amount on my car. Yes, despite all of the trials and tribulations earlier this year, I have now achieved my goal of paying off my car a year early.

YIPEE!!!!!

My Car on MythBusters?

My car is home again! Hopefully for more than a week this time...

Dave really wants to blow up my car after all the problems we've had with it lately. I told him that when he wins the lottery and buys me a better car, we can donate my car to MythBusters, and they can blow it up on television.

Not Again...

Dave and I became well-aquainted with Mall Security on Saturday evening when my car decided to spew gasoline instead of starting...

AAA refused to tow my car... apparently the gasoline makes it a fire hazard. So the nice men of the Alpharetta Fire Department came out to put some kitty-litter-like stuff over the spilled gas and helped determine that it was a problem with my fuel pump (and therefore related to the work I had done at the body shop).

Bye-bye nice fire guys! My car spent the rest of the weekend at the mall in the hopes that the body shop would come get her on Monday morning (which they did).

Look Who's Back!

After spending more time in the shop than with me the past two weeks, I finally have my car back! She even got washed when she got her bumper fixed, so she's all bright and shiny.


I did have to take her back to the family shop yesterday to check her alignment as a result of the spare tire incident, but they got her in and out in the same afternoon, so she should stay out of the shop until her next oil change! And now the steering wheel points up when I'm driving straight, which is always a good thing...

The Rental Boat... and Other Car Issues

Back in February, Dave and I were rear-ended in my car on our way out of town for a hockey game. The driver of the car that hit us insisted that she wanted to pay out of pocket, so I decided to be nice and got a couple of estimates and sent them to her. A couple weeks later, she finally calls back saying she was out of town, lost all of the numbers in her phone, yadda yadda yadda.

Again, I gave her the benefit of the doubt. After all, she wouldn't just be paying for the cosmetic damage (which really wasn't much IMHO), there was also something wrong with my fuel gauge as a result of the impact.

A couple more weeks pass by, so I call and leave her a message. She calls back and leaves me a message. Then I call her back and leave a final message, giving her till the end of the week to do *something*, or I will contact her insurance. At this point, six weeks had passed since the accident.

The following Monday morning, I call the insurance company on the police report and file a claim.

Two weeks later, I call her insurance again and leave a message to please contact me to let me know the status of my claim. When I get home from work that day, there is a letter in the mailbox denying payment for the claim. After pitching a fit (after all, how can it not be the other person's fault if *she* rear-ended *me*?), I noticed that the name on the policy didn't match... and that's where I brought in my insurance.

I am now pretty much on a first-name basis with the lady handling my insurance claim. She got to chat with the girl that hit me (who wasn't sure if she had auto insurance at the time of the accident--yeah, right), and insurance lady ended up getting the same lack of communication after the initial contact that I had already faced.

Finally, I opted to use my uninsured motorist policy so I could just get my car fixed (and my insurance could legally go after her later). I called the body shop so they could order parts, and the day they call to tell me they're ready for me, my car is at the family shop getting repaired after a freak accident.

So finally this week, I dropped my car off at the body shop to fix all of the damage from her rear-ending. That left me with the huge rental boat that my insurance lined up for me. Yes, it's a nice, shiny new Pontiac G6, but I miss my little car. Especially since I was supposed to get her back yesterday. It's not my fault that the body shop didn't understand that the fuel gauge wasn't working... I thought I had explained it clearly enough, even faxing them a copy of the estimate from the family shop with contact info if they needed further explanation from the shop guys (who are infinitely more technical than I am).

Today is three months since the original incident, and hopefully my $250 deductible will be money well spent to have a working fuel gauge again. I may just have to squeal when I get my keys back!

A bird did target practice with the rental boat while I was at work yesterday. I don't really care since the boat left oil spots on the floor of my garage.

Beware of Spares

This is what a wayward spare tire in the middle of the freeway can do to your tire (and your wheel...)

But at least I have my car back!

Murphy's Law

It was an overcast Sunday afternoon when Dave, JustJulie, and I set off for the Braves game. JustJulie and I were excited about our free birthday Braves tickets, and Dave tagged along.

Unfortunately, it started sprinkling on the way there, and then the unpredictable happened--a random spare tire appeared in our lane. Dave (who was driving my car) tried to miss it, but it took out the front driver's side tire. Fortunately, Dave is a good driver and got us to the shoulder of 85 in one piece and even managed to park under an overpass (in Spaghetti Junction) so we were somewhat sheltered from the rain as he figured out how to use the fancy wheel lock to unscrew my tire and put on the spare...

And with a donut on her front foot, my car drove the rest of the way to Turner field... where they were experiencing a rain delay.


While Dave and a few friends kept dry and chatted over beer, JustJulie and I decided to walk around and explore Turner Field. JustJulie noticed this sign... and the objects they were storing beneath it...

When we got back from our walk, they cancelled the game. :-(

On the way home, the pressure from the weather system was so bad that I thought my face would implode. Dave dropped me and Julie off at my parents' house and followed Dad to our family's favorite repair shop where he left my car for them to locate a new tire and wheel (the snazzy alloy wheel was torn up, too) for her the next morning. Driving Dad's car, Dave got me and alternate girlfriend #2 home.

The next day I called in sick to work. The high point in my day was the good dental check-up (yes, HistoryDiva--some people actually like the dentist). Oh, and I managed to get squeezed in for a doctor's appointment where they decided to go ahead and treat me for a possible sinus infection. So I got good drugs, too. And I can breathe through my nose today--what a novel idea!

But my poor car is still at the shop. They have found her a new tire, and replaced the bent strut (yet more damage...), but the wheel has proven to be quite elusive. It was supposed to be here for lunch today, but now it won't arrive till breakfast tomorrow. My poor car and her "special" parts...

Karen and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

It all started last Saturday evening when Dave and I were on our way to the bank before a Thrashers game. We were stopped at the light to the entrance to the shopping center where both of our banks are located when the car was suddenly jolted as if we had stopped short. We had been rear-ended, and the week just went downhill from there...

Fortunately, my car was not seriously damaged and therefore still drivable. So Sunday afternoon, Melba and I carpooled out to Winder for a jewelry party despite the threat of snow--the weathermen said that road conditions would be fine, and who seriously would expect more than flurries in Georgia in March?

The farther we got from home, the heavier the snow fell. When we arrived, there was already an inch or two of accumulation. When we went to leave, there were a couple more inches and a nice layer of ice underneath the packed snow that made driving impossible for a Californian with a Puerto Rican co-pilot. The worse news: our host's house had no power.

By morning, things had slowly started thawing, but the snow hadn't been bad enough for either WHHS nor SCC to cancel work for me and Melba. We finally braved our way home behind a tow truck. By the time we hit the county line, there was barely a trace of the snow that had trapped us overnight.

I headed in for a half-day at work on Monday, and that day (along with the rest of my work week) was spent stressing over an 1800+ piece bulk mailing that took over my area of the office. God bless Foster for finding the paper folder on Wednesday afternoon that allowed us to actually finish the mailing on Thursday!!! Then I had to get everything ready for the next (600+ piece) mailing so that the work study students would have something to do on Friday since I was going to be off. Why? So I could get estimates for repairs to my car due to the fender bender that kicked off my fantastically sucky week. Notice that I didn't mention anywhere in there that I was actually getting any of my *normal* work done while taking care of these mailings... it stacked up for two days before I had a moment to work on it.

Friday morning I found out that the dealership doesn't do body work, so they couldn't give me an estimate for my bumper repairs, but while I was there, I decided to have them try to figure out the source of the elusive rattling that began when I had my rear brakes replaced back in November. It turns out that my new brakes (left) are supposed to have a spring mechanism (right) that keeps them from making lots of noise and causing lots of damage while I'm driving around. In addition to new brakes, my car also needed another $500 worth of work.

Wait, wait--it gets better! I had started my day with a half-tank of gas. After picking up the accident report (after the potentially financially devastating trip to the dealership), I was almost home when I noticed my idiot light was on. I was convinced that someone had siphoned my gas while I was at police HQ. It turns out that the jolt from the accident may have damaged my fuel sensor, so now my car only reads half a tank when she should be full...

I could go on about some of the additional stressors from my week, but I believe that is enough suck for one post.

Illegal Activities

Two months ago, I was pulled over around midnight for going the wrong way on a one-way street in Dahlonega. The street used to be a two-way street way back when I was a college student, but now they have painted over the center line and stuck up a few randomly placed "One Way" and "Do Not Enter" signs. If I had been doing something illegal *intentionally,* I would have no problem paying the ticket the rude Lumpkin County PD officer gave me. However, it was dark, I did not see any of the signs (neither did my passenger), and the cop was incredibly rude. Did I mention that his car was blocking the only road I could have turned onto in order to be going the right way on the maze of one-way streets they've created in downtown Dahlonega?

Anyway, my court date was today, and I pled "Not Guilty." The judge said, "Okay, come back in a month. And you can bring a lawyer." That's when I started freaking out. Now I'm torn about what I should do--I can continue to fight the ticket and try not to be intimidated by the process, or I can call Dahlonega City Hall and try to change my plea to "Guilty" and pay the stupid fine.