Blog Number 292

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Today we made the 80 mile round trip back to Dallas to yet another clinic appointment.  Today's was to the hand doctor to see about getting a shorter cast (on that allowed my wife's elbow to bend).  We decided to take an alternate route and take a side road for 2.5 miles to cut out our time on 35E North.  Our last trip was quite frustrating since we spent about 40 minutes on 35E North (and we only had to go 4 miles).  This time I was determined to avoid that road but since the hospital clinic is just off that highway that presented a problem.  I really like the new google maps, specifically the way you can drag your route to include side roads and Google will automatically find the best route including that road.  I found a promised east/west road and made sure my route included it and not 35E North.  This cut down on the total miles but increased our estimated travel time.  There was only one problem though and we did not know about it until we took the exit for this road.  The problem was that the road was closed and I mean closed for 2 of the 2.5 miles that I wanted to take it.  So we meandered north and south and west until we got past the closed part and all was well.  We still made great time compared to our last trip.  Sadly, the wife had to keep her splint on that they had installed during her 2nd day at the hospital.  They did add a layer of hardened material so instead of a smaller, lighter cast we ended up with the same cast only heavier and harder.  We are supposed to go back in 2 weeks for a follow up.  Her neck doctor appointment is next week so it is possible she will have her neck brace off before her cast.

Yesterday I wanted to run to the Frisco library as the (4) movies I had checked out were due and we had watched them all (or at least enough of the bad ones to know we did not want to continue - who would have known the original "Cheaper By The Dozen" really sucked?).  I also needed to buy some stamps for my once a month mailing of our lease check.  I headed down the road to the Frisco library.  It happens to be located directly across from Pizza Hut Park.  Yesterday happened to be the date of Edgefest 17 which is an all day festival of hard rock music sponsored by a local radio station.  Tickets were like 50 bucks and it started at 10 AM.  By the time I got to the library around 2 PM, the parking lots were full, the side street parking up to 3/4 miles away was full as well.  I was quite committed to bring home some different movies so I parked a long way off and made my way to the library amongst throngs of beer toting young people who seemed quite indifferent to the parking situation.  The music was quite loud despite the distance and you could hear it pretty well inside the library even.  I picked out some movies quickly and jogged back to the car and was on my way to my 2nd errand.

I needed cash in order to buy stamps at the Frisco USPS and seeing as how I usually get cash at the ATM inside my place of work I had to find another ATM that would not hit me with a surcharge.  There happened to be one down the street from where the USPS was located so I stopped in there first and got a $20 bill.  I briefly thought about buying a coke or candy bar to make change just in case but thought it would be rather fun to pay the kid's allowance in Sacagawea dollars.  I exited the 7-eleven and headed down the street for my stamps.  The postage vending machine was easily found and took my $20 bill on the first try.  The LED screen stated that I had $20 in credit and then it said that no more than $5 would be given in change.  I quickly figured in my head that this would mean that I would need to buy 2 books of stamps (at $8.40 each) and then one single stamp.  They were forever stamps so I thought, "Why not?"  Well let me tell you why not, it is because you cannot buy more than quantity one of a book of stamps at a time.  When I punched in the code for the book of stamps it just reiterated the $5 max change message and then spit my 20 back out.  This begs the question, 'If you will not give more than $5 change and if the highest price item is $8.40 then why would your vending machine even take $20 bills?"  Since it was Sunday, there was no handy US Postal worker to ask this question to so I took my 20 and headed back to the 7-eleven.  By the time I arrived back, there was some sort of great Slurpee rush or something going on as the line to the register was quite long.  I bought a 2 liter of Coke for just under $2 leaving me with a $10, $5 and (3) $1's.  I got back to the postal vending machine and try as I might (and I tried around 10 times) the machine would not take my $10.  No problem I thought, I have 40 cents in my pocket and a 5 and three 1's so I will just get a book of stamps.  However, after taking my $5 bill, the machine would take no more bills.  It would not even suck them in!  My only option then was to buy some 41 cent stamps and some 1 cent stamps.  I bought 10 each and got out of there and made the 5 mile trip back home.

Life should not be this hard folks.  I just wanted to rent some movies and buy some stamps.  Well, the kids are bathed and awaiting me to come into the living room to watch one of those hard fought for movies.  Until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 291

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

On Thursday is was time to get a new cell phone.  My old cell phone still worked as well as it ever did (that is to day, it locked up every few days requiring the physical removal of the battery in order to get it running again).  Every time you renew your cellular policy, you can get a new phone.  My wife's phone was destroyed in the crash and has been sitting on top of the mantle in 2 pieces since the accident.  When I was digging through the van for anything salvageable, I found the top of the phone in the front of the van and the bottom of the phone way in the back.  My mother had dropped her phone in the toilet some time ago and was actually using someone else's old phone in the mean time.  Anyway, even though I did not need a new phone, I figured I might as well get one since it was free.  I was pleasantly surprised when the Verizon person did not try to talk us into higher priced (e.g. not free) phones but once we said "show us the free ones" we were quickly directed to our choices.  The wife and I selected the Model: VX8350 Bluetooth Music Phone (mine was gray, hers was burgundy) and my mother selected another model (in pink).  They transferred out contacts from our old phones to our new ones (except for the wife's as it was non functional) and we were in and out in probably 30 minutes.  I stop by Chick-fil-A on the way home and we were good to go.

One thing that I could not do on my old phone was to get any pictures off of the phone without paying a fee to email them to myself.  The picture quality was not that good (and given that it was not free) so I never bothered taking pictures with the phone except to change my wallpaper.  I am sure there was some sort of cable that I could have bought to transfer the pictures buy I never looked into it.  This new phone has a slot for a micro SD card and will take one up to 2 GB in size.  The picture quality is 1.3 megapixels (which is not too shabby for such a little device).  The Verizon person did try to sell us a micro SD card in the store but I knew that I could get one for a better price elsewhere and seeing as how I had survived this long without having the ability to transfer pictures, a few more days would not hurt me.

I have a card reader that will read 8 different kinds of memory cards and one of them is SD so all I needed was a micro SD card with a SD adapter.  My mother, on the other hand, does not have a reader so she would need one.  After searching around a little, I found the Kington's MBLY/2GBKR model kit which as a 2 GB micro SD card (the max my phone will take), a mini SD adapter, an SD adapter, and a USB reader as well.  It was not much more money than getting just a micro SD and SD adapter so I opted to get 2 of those (one for me and the wife and one for my mother).  Newegg has these for $13.49 each (retail is $21 per Kingtons's site).  Originally I was going to purchase 3 but there was the matter of shipping.

When I added (1) of these to my cart, my cheapest shipping option was $2.14 for standard USPS.  However, when I bumped the quantity up to 3, the lowest cost shipping was USPS Priority for $10.50.  I tried lowering the quantity to 2 and low and behold, my standard USPS option was back (for $2.50).  This seemed odd to me.  I mean, the box this comes in cannot weigh that much so why couldn't I get these shipped standard USPS if I ordered 3?  Not willing to give up just yet I clicked on the Live Help link and had the following (very useful) conversation with "Stephen"...

info: Thank you for contacting Newegg. My name is Stephen. How may I assist you today?
Jon: Looking to buy (3) of Item # N82E16820134545
Jon: shipping options for (2) include USPA (2-4 days) for $2.50
Jon: When I update to qty, (3), that option disappears and lowest shipping cost is $10.50
Stephen: Let me take a look into that. One moment please . . .
Jon: other than place 2 separate orders (for 1 then 2) is there a way to keep shipping option?
Jon: zip code is 75070 if that matters at all
Stephen: Unfortunately, USPS shipping is not available for this if 3 or more are ordered.
Jon: interesting
Jon: thanks for checking for me
Jon: likely will place 2 separate orders to save $6-$8

Now, I was hoping that "Stephen" could shed some light on this mysterious shipping issue but he provided a phenomenal lack of information about this.  In the end I decided only to order 2 and got out for $29.48 ($13.49 x 2 + $2.50 shipping).  I will have to let you know how well this works.

Well, I can smell the muffins coming out of the oven so until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 290

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

A few weeks ago when we first learned that my friends from Argentina were coming to Plano, TX for 3 weeks, we had invited them over to our house for a home-cooked American meal.  The first week they were here I was scheduled for my eye surgery so that lest the last 2 weeks.  Then the accident happened and changed everything.  Last night however, we were able to have them over for a truly American meal: take out pizza, potato chips and (actually homemade) brownies.  At the same time, another person I know from Hungary was also in Plano (for the same reason as the Argentineans) so she came over as well.  Though they have been in America for 2 1/2 weeks and had to eat out for every meal, they had only had pizza one time (and that was from Pizza Hut - a not so pleasant experience for them from what I could tell).

Yesterday was the first day that I could head to GEICO headquarters and pick up the insurance check for the van.  I decided to go there, head to the Plano office and work for about an hour and then pick up my dinner guests when they were through working for the day.  Then we would order the pizza and pick it up on the way home to my house.  Everything went well and we arrived home around 7.  My mom (with a little help from the wife) had made the front room and kitchen look very nice.  When guests come over from our church or neighborhood I usually say, "Sorry about the mess, my housekeeper called in sick."  Needless to say, it was a lot of work to get the house in order (thanks Mom!).  We sat at the dining room table the entire time and talked.  I could tell the wife was pushing the limit on how long she could sit upright but she was a trooper.  Around 8:30 as we prepared to leave I gave her the combo of one muscle relaxer and one happy blue pill.  She woke up when I returned home around 10 but went right back to sleep and is still there now at the time of this writing (7 AM).  I gotta get me some of those happy blue pills!

Well, it is about time to get the household up and going.  Until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 289

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I had a great night's sleep last night and so the the wife.  Actually, I should word that the other way - the wife had a great night's sleep last night and as a result so did I.  Mind you, I was still up at midnight (happy blue pill time) and 4 (small muscle relaxer pill time) but all in all a great night's sleep in comparison to the last week and a half.  Things are not even close to being back to normal but I can now see Normalville in the distant horizon whereas before I thought it a fabled land that I would never venture to again.

Speaking of "normal", I was driving home from the Frisco library yesterday and thinking about the concept of normal.  My life is not like it was 15 years ago of course.  My normal back then would not even recognize my normal of now if it passed it on the street.  But still, I have a normal that every day is compared to.  Certain life events throw you off and eventually change your normal since there is no way to get back to it.  Getting married, having children, moving to Texas: these are the major events that redefined my normal.  These are events that are a line in the sand in my life, the events that you refer to when you think back (we did this or that before our son was born, we did this or that before we moved to Texas, etc.).  The terrible car accident my wife and kids were involved in 12 days ago will likely be another one of those events.

Unlike marriage, kids, or moving across the country, we did not get to pick this event or the timing of it.  In this way, the new normal will be unlike other new normals in my life.  Also, due to the wife's injuries in her neck and shoulders, I have no way of knowing if this normal will resemble our normal of 2 weeks ago.  I have hopes that it will but there is just no way of knowing at this time.  Normally, I would be getting ready for church but the wife is still not able to sit up straight in a chair for more than about 20 minutes.  Also, due to the size of our church and how busy it is with the throngs of people going from room to room, there is just no way that we could attend church or our ABF class.  We are hopeful for next week but we will have to wait and see.  For now, I am going to go sit on the couch with the wife, enjoy our coffee (which is normal) and pass the time until my mother returns from church with our kids.

I do know that blogging (a relatively new normal thing for me - approx. 22 months) will remain in the new normal.  Until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 288

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Today was supposed to be "Panera Saturday".  It was duly marked as such on our calendar that we keep on the wall in our kitchen.  We started marking planned outings last month.  We set aside $80 for eating out each month and split it up into 4 outings: 1st Sunday lunch, Panera Saturday, Family Fun Night, and Ice Cream Social.  For Panera and Ice Cream, we allow $10 and for the 1s Sunday and Family Night, we allow $30.  If we are under for some reason then we can throw in an extra treat.  The 1st Sunday Lunch is something that our ABF does.  Basically on the 1st Sunday of the month the entire class (or as many of us as can) go out to dinner after church.  We have a few favorite spots as the choices are limited based on our class size.  Our family really looks forward to this each month.  Panera Saturday is self explanatory as we basically go to Panera on the predefined Saturday and have bagels and coffee (water for the kids).  This rarely comes to the $10 allotted.  Family Fun Night usually happens in the 3rd week of the month and we try to make it on a Thursday to avoid the crowds.  Depending on how much under budget we were for the first 2 outings we can go to a nicer restaurant.  The Ice Cream Social is usually on the last Friday of the month and we head to Braum's for a scoop (or in my case, two scoops) of ice cream.  Planning the outings in this way has helped us stay in budget and when once of us gets the desire to go out to eat, we can usually pacify ourselves by knowing that we have a planned outing coming up soon.

The wife is still going through the slow and drawn out healing process.  Yesterday was her best day so far.  She is able to sleep in her bed for about 4 hours a night before she needs to return to the couch / recliner.  Our couch reclines on both ends and since her left arm is in a cast she preferred to sit on the right side of the couch.  That is until the recliner lever broke and that side would no longer recline.  She then migrated to the left side whose lever was already a little suspect.  This morning the lever broke off in my hand while the couch was in a non reclined position.  I was able to get a screwdriver wedged into the lever and get it reclined.  So now we are in a race.  Can the wife's need to be reclined be over before our one good side of the couch gives out?  Stay tuned to this channel to here the results.

I was IM'ing with a friend the other day about how much the traffic has increased on this blog since the accident.  Over the past 20+ months, I have averaged about 15-20 hits per day and now I am up into the 30's easily.  Of course it is mostly people checking on the status of my wife but still I feel the pressure to perform well on my blog entries.  Once the "excitement" of the crash settles, I will have to rely on new material everyday and not merely updates.  I can tell you that the insurance company is going to give us $8400 for our van.  I am not super excited about this amount but it is probably fair based on the model, features and mileage.  I was joking with the insurance adjuster yesterday explaining to her that we had recently made a commitment to keep the van and "drive it until it was no longer driveable."  Well, we kept our commitment as it is truly no longer driveable!

Well I gotta get into the shower as we have some visitors coming over today.  Until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 287

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

My mother arrived last night after making the 900+ mile drive by herself (over 2 days).  I am hoping now that I can get some sympathy since mostly the sympathy is falling toward the wife (go figure).  Today we drove back to Parkland Hospital to de-staple my wife's head.  I still cannot get used to the idea of having staples in your head.  Somehow the phrase "let's remove those staples from your head" just does not sound right in any context that I can think of (other than maybe in an episode of The King of Queens).  After a frustrating 35 mile drive (that took us every bit of 90 minutes topped off by taking 20 minutes to do the last 3 miles - ironically due to a car crash) we arrived at the hospital.  My mother (who came with us) had to secure a wheelchair as the wife isn't walking to well still.  90 minutes after that we were back in the car (only 50 minutes to get home).  All told, the excursion took over 4 hours but we are staple free now.

The wife is still living pain pill to pain pill (with some Ben-Gay tiding us over for the last 30 minutes or so of each pill cycle) but she is getting better (albeit at a pace much slower than she would prefer).  We have 3 weeks left with the neck brace and a few doctor's appoints to follow up with her various ailments scheduled in the coming weeks as well (most of which are at the same location as the de-stapling).

I have called the insurance dude a few times asking about the van.  When I went to retrieve our belongings from the van from the wrecking yard, I neglected to grab the car keys.  They are not much good of course but on that keychain was our house key.  The keychain itself is from my trip to Argentina so it would be nice to have that as well.  They were supposed to call me when they had the van hauled to their place.  Every time that I get ahold of the insurance dude, he always leads by asking me if I have a preference of body shops.  I then remind him (every time) that the van is totaled and they just need to pick up the van to avoid the $20 / day fee the wrecking yard is charging them (emphasizing that I am not paying for their delays).  Anyway, I am hoping that I can eventually get my house key, the keychain and our only garage door opener (it was on the side of the van that took the hit so I did not find it anywhere)..

Well, I gotta get some family time in before my 8:30 PM meeting with Malaysia tonight.  Until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 286

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

As I was getting ready to take the son to school this morning around 8:40 I noticed that my rear passenger tire was flat.  A few weeks ago my rear driver side one was flat, but repairable.  I borrowed the sister-in-law's rental and drove him to school but knew that the jack and the joke tire awaiting me when I returned.  I did not get a chance to get to it until early afternoon (18 minutes total replace time (I hope Jimmy Johnson is looking for pit crew help) and when I got to the tire place I found out it just needed replaced.  The tire is the original that came with the car (which is pushing 7 years old) so I guess it had a good life.  I had just replaced the front 2 tires a few months ago so I opted to replace both rear tires with the same model as was on the front of the car.  $240 later and I was good to go.  As I recall, I just spent $800 on the van last weekend and 3 days later it was totaled.  I am hoping this money invested lasts a little longer.

Picking up where I left off of in the last blog, I had arrived at the hospital where the wife was at 8:30 PM.  I went up to the trauma ward (floor 5) only to be told she was still in the emergency room so I headed back downstairs.  Some friends from church were there waiting for me (only one person was allowed to be with the wife at a time).  They double checked with the person at the desk and we found out she was on her way to her room.  I was happy not to have to spend too much time in the emergency room as the crowd there looked a little scary.  Another friend had warned me not to bring the kids since he was already at the hospital and the emergency room would be enough to scare them.  I was afraid that a fight was about to ensue between the Bloods and the Crips.  Anyway, I went back upstairs and finally saw my wife.  She looked awful.  She had a head bandage wrapped around her entire head and she was wearing a neck brace.  I was able to spend about an hour with her and fill her in on the kids conditions and try to let her in on what happened as she did not have a very good idea of the specifics of the crash.  I had to get some cash from the ATM in order to pay the $4 for hospital parking.  You paid for parking by sliding ones and fives into a machine as there was no person working the parking garage.  I bought a large coke at the McDonald's in the hospital so I would have change (standing in line between a Blood and a Crip).  The ATM hit me with a $1.50 charge as well.  All told, I spent over $3 for a coke just to get change.  When I got to the exit of the garage, they had just left the gate up so evidently there was only charges during normal hours.  Around 10 PM I left her and picked up my daughter from a friend's house.  I let the son stay at another friend's house but I did want to be alone so I selfishly picked up the daughter.  I took care of emailing everyone that I could (along with making a blog entry) and also called my insurance company to get the ball rolling.  I got to sleep around 1 AM but was woken up by my faithful cat at 5 AM.  I forgave him and got up anyway as I knew that the day ahead would be just as long and tiring as the previous one.

It took a while to get the son home, get some breakfast and get the kids to (yet another) friend's house and I did not arrive in my wife's room until 10 AM and I was able to stay until around 4 PM before leaving to fetch my kids.  The wife was living pain pill to pain pill that day and survived various specialists poking and prodding here.  Eventually she got a splint put on her left wrist and was sent down for even more x-rays.  We had hoped that she could be released but they wanted to keep her for observation since she also had a bruised lung along with concern over her neck specifically the C6 cervical vertebrae where there was a crack.  I got home around 6 and we ate some dinner that someone had made for us and then we all went to bed early and slept so deep that we missed the almost tornado like winds (we could see the damage caused as we drove the next morning).

Well that is enough for now.  The wife is still living pain pill to pain pill but the last 2 days were her best.  Her family is leaving Thursday but my mother is on the road as I type this and should be here Wednesday evening.  Until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon