Headway

Entering into the 6th week of recovery from my accident. I am happy to report I can again walk to work, I have a truck and my back is at 100%. I have a few appointments left for follow-up mostly. My ankle still gives me an irk of pain every so often, when I step funny. Still I can be without the brace for around the house just fine.

World Of Warcraft

I am a MMORPG vetran in quite a number of ways. Starting out in beta of UO I have played or playtested or demo'd several of the genre.

• Ultima Online (beta tested)
• Asherons Call (beta tested, played)
• Asherons Call 2 (beta tested, played)
• Anarchy Online (beta tested, demo'd)
• Dark Age of Camalot (demo'd)
• Dungeons and Dragons Online (beta tested)
• Matrix Online (beta)
• Linage (demo'd)
• Clan Lords (demo'd)
• City of Heroes (played)
• Ryzoms (beta)
• Some space ship one {cannot recall the name but it was cancelled} (beta)
• World of Warcraft (played)

Currently I am playing World of Warcraft (WoW) along with several million others. From my viewpoint they did thier homework and put together a very well done game.

The races and classes are very diverse. You can play solo or with groups. They have very little 'down time' and eliminated alot of repitition. Most of all it has a wide range of entertainment.

There are standard recognized fantasy elements. Plenty of quests lore and background depth as well.

Doctor Who

I remember watching Doctor who around age 14. It was bad special effects, sets that looked like sets and some great writing and actors who could overcome the lower then Hollywood budget.

Now that the BBC has relaunched the series and Sci-Fi network has been broadcasting the show I find myself in anticipation of the next installment. This is some tight written scripts and characters of depth and charm.

The last broadcast was titled "The Girl in the Fireplace" It revolved around a broken spaceship over 3000 years in the future and the 18th century historical figure Madame de Pompadour. This single episode delt with so many different themes and revelations it was almost dizzying to me. It also prompted me to to look up Madame de Pompadour as well, she was a quite remarkable woman who's contribution to France is still apparent. No wonder the Stevan Moffet (writer) wanted to write something around her.

The most satisfying ending was the final shot which was a great "Oh so THATS the reason" that tied everything together in a great way that in retrospect made it so obvious.

I actually had to watch a second time (thank you tivo) to take it all in.

I really like being able to stand up from watching a show on TV and say, 'now THAT was a good show'

Quantum musings

So either my consciousness affects the behaviour of subatomic particles

- or -

Particles move backwards as well as forwards in time and appear in all possible places at once

- or -

The universe is splitting, every Planck-time into billions of parallel universes

- or -

The universe is interconnected with faster-than-light transfers of information

And by deciding which one it is or isnt I fundamentally change the universe??

John Harrington NOT Thomas Crappers iinvention

My brand new toilet doesnt flush correctly. I bought American Standard because, according to my pop, they are the best at making shitters...

My pop installed this particular toilet so I know for a fact the installation was professionally done. My pops plumbing prowess is one of those things that are beyond any reproach. Its an absolute.

Anywho, every third flush would evacuate the bowel with that chugging sound. First thing I did was go through the 'trouble shooting' guide cleaverly attached to the inside of the lid. I adjusted the float, the valve, checked for obstructions and verified the water pressure.

Still, the loads would not pass. Okay, next to call tech support... Not exactly the tech support I picture, but, waste removal is something you can get a degree in, so its technology, just too commonplace for us to consider tech over our DVD players and Plazma TV's.

The tech support guy was very nice and we went over various tests and attempts to make the poo go bye bye. Finally he concluded that there was a manufacture defect in the bowl and gave me a RMA number to take back to Lowes.

Toilets are cast and sometimes the casting goes awry and this is undecteable from the exterior. So the flow of water is not maximized for Fecal Removal. So today I pulled up the old John and took it to Lowes got a replacement and installed the new one.

Guess what? Five out of five for flushing. Now I just have to build up a massive bowel movement to give it one final test. So fiber and ex-lax here I come!!

Love this choreogeaphy

White and Nerdy

Life is tee jus aint it?

August and September sucked (to paraphrase the succint philosophical uttering of Tom Moore "Sucked Donkey Dick")

Between loosing a close respected teen friend of the kids. Wrecking my truck, school starting, insurance not covering something they said they would, my company forgetting a part of our taxes, Injuring myself and falling a month behind on building the extra bathroom, the cost of said bathroom, auto-insurance suckage its just not been the best of times.

October has been better. I got the news yesterday from my orthopedic doctor, I have sprained three ligaments on the right side of my ankle and should have 100% recovery given time. He okayed me to start walking again, slowly at first. My back physician has made sleeping a much more pleasant experience (1hr massage roxor). I got the insurance check for my truck and the tow truck guys said I did good. We are putting the finishing touches on the shower. The new Doctor Who season has begun and so far our German exchange student seems to be getting along okay. Finally my job is attempting to do the four ten hour shift thingy.

This means three days off and a good chance of actually getting more done around the yard now that I can walk again.

First priority is getting a truck...

Ensurants Foibles

Okay, so my accident is on the 15th and on the 25th they assigned someone to the case. The liabililty was established on the 19th. The agent on my case left a vm on the 26th telling me we needed to release the truck so he can assess the damage. Okay, I want him to assess the damage. So Tina takes a long lunch drives down to the Tow place. They are used to seeing insurance 'games' and hand her a list of the laws around insurance and tell her that WE are responsible for the towing and storage ($100.00 towing $40.00 a day storage). Tina and I formulate a plan to have it towed to our house to stop the daily $ding! .

Then I find out that the 'release' needed will allow the insurance company to tow my truck wherever they want and they want to do that because THEY are liable for the towing and storage fee's at this point. Further, without the $40.00 a day they can take thier damn sweet time about issuing me a check.


you get that?.... The agent implied that he could not do the assessment without us releasing the truck into his possession. When in fact he can assess the damage at anytime. This is just a loss of leverage.


Now I had THOUGHT my wife had gone down to the storage yard and granted the agent access to our vehicle. I had called the agent and left a message that she was heading down there and he would be able to inspect the vehicle. The agent arranged for his tow truck to come down 80 miles to tow my truck away. The tow truck had to turn around and go back. The agent was pissed off.

He calls me up telling me that Farmers Insurance will no longer be paying the storage and towing fees on my truck. Which is now nearing $1000.00.

Lawyer time... I called and got a free consultation found out some very interesting things. Turns out they need to send some official notification before they can remove thier liablity. That notification is only good for a certain date onward. Still, having admitted liability they can still be held to re-imburse any towing and storage depending on the 'why'.
I also got a bunch of advise on looking at the assessment of Fair Market value and things to look for. With all this knowledge in hand the next agent in line called me.

To date I have had many heated exchanges over the length of time involved, the flagrant lies, the strong arm tactics and the lack of notification of my rights required by law.

Anyways, I finally got a settlement for $2714.00 and they went out the paperwork to sign my truck over to them. When that DHL letter showed up the paperwork shows. 2174.00....


Umkay... back into the Breech!!!

Honey do.

Well it took some doing but the insurance company coughed up $2700 for my truck and about a grand in towing and storage fees. The tow truck guys said I did good, so I guess I did good.

Still I am not able to walk very far and that may take awhile to recover. I am going to make an appointment with an orthopedic doctor to see what needs doing to get back to walking and running.

The bathroom shower is my Thursday project and then just the trim needs doing and that’s done. It came out pretty nice.

Left to do is:
Shower installed
Caulk the heck out of everything
Trim around Pullman
Trim around floor and doors
Purchase and install cupboard above the john
Purchase a second towel rack and install both.
Purchase a larger faceplate for the GFCI plug.
Figure out a shelf hook holder for our electrical stuff.

Then it’s on to the next project. Getting a truck I think...