So Today I was 10 minutes into participating in one of Sunday's most time honored traditions, a nap. I was laying there all cozy in my bed when he heard a knocking on the door. Breanne goes and gets it and returns to tell me that it is a police officer! He was originally looking for her brother, Ben, and saying that he drove away from a gas station and didn't pay. He had recently sold a car so our immediate assumption was that whoever he had sold it to was the guilty party and they hadn't changed the license plates over to their own name yet. The officer then explains that it was a silver Honda SUV. We think... "well that's weird. Ben never owned a silver Honda SUV". Then it hit us. Wait a minute! WE own a silver Honda SUV! And we got gas a about 30 minutes ago!
I am used to pumps that only work if you prepay. Anymore, most gas pumps are this way. You pay inside first or you pay with your card at the pump. Or you don't get gas. That's the deal. Well apparently, when I swiped my card at the pump, it did not work. Maybe I didn't swipe it correctly. Who knows. However, the pump still gave me gas so I didn't realize this. And because I never get the receipt afterward I just didn't think about the fact that it didn't print one up for me. So I stole some gas and went about my merry way.
I guess the folks at Quick N Easy didn't appreciate this and and were all mad saying "you owe us $47". What a bunch of whiners. So Mr. Officer escorted me back to the scene of the crime and insisted on staying until my card was approved and I had officially made things right.
It's pretty embarrassing, but I survived. I will try and keep my run-ins with the law to a minimum for the rest of the day. Geez... I'm such a hooligan!
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
The Great Garage Door Mystery
On Sunday afternoon Breanne was getting ready to leave the house to go to a meeting. As she tried to open the garage door, she heard a loud clanging noise and realized that something had broken and the garage door was not going to open. I went out to investigate and one of the cables had completely snapped. Luckily, my car was already out of the garage so she could just take mine for now and be on her way. Now we had the problem of what to do to get her car out. I began the process of calling around to try and find someone who could come out on a Sunday and rescue our car from it's prison. I called a few numbers that didn't work,left a message at one place, and finally got a hold of one guy. Because it was a Sunday he wanted a whopping $140 per hour to come out and fix it! And he starts the time from when he leaves his house and doesn't stop it until he gets back home. With the cost of parts, this was going to be a $300 job. I told him to forget it. Luckily, my friend came by and we managed to lift the door and get the car out and then shut the door back. This was going to buy us a little time.
Then we thought to call an old coworker of Breeanne's to help. Her husband is a garage door repair man and has helped us before. He couldn't be out for a few days, but since we had the car out already, that wasn't a huge deal. He was just going to stop by when he had a chance.
So Monday, a repairman showed up at our house. Knowing that someone was supposed to stop by at some point to look at it, our babysitter let the man in. He investigated the door and realized he didn't have the right part to fix it and would be back the next day. Yesterday rolls around and he returns to fix our door. He does his job and then he leaves without saying a word about how much we owe him. Breanne texts her friend to find out how much we owe her husband and we discover that he had not been out to our house yet!
What!!! Who the heck was at our house? I called the two companies that I spoke with or left a message with and both of them said that they did not have any record of sending anyone out to our house. I am at a complete loss! At first, I was super pissed that someone would come and do work at my house without my approval. But now that I don't know who to be angry at, it has subsided. I suppose it will return once I get bill from this mystery company. Or... maybe it was the garage door fairy who stopped by! Although, he was much burlier that most faeries... as far as faeries go at least.
Then we thought to call an old coworker of Breeanne's to help. Her husband is a garage door repair man and has helped us before. He couldn't be out for a few days, but since we had the car out already, that wasn't a huge deal. He was just going to stop by when he had a chance.
So Monday, a repairman showed up at our house. Knowing that someone was supposed to stop by at some point to look at it, our babysitter let the man in. He investigated the door and realized he didn't have the right part to fix it and would be back the next day. Yesterday rolls around and he returns to fix our door. He does his job and then he leaves without saying a word about how much we owe him. Breanne texts her friend to find out how much we owe her husband and we discover that he had not been out to our house yet!
What!!! Who the heck was at our house? I called the two companies that I spoke with or left a message with and both of them said that they did not have any record of sending anyone out to our house. I am at a complete loss! At first, I was super pissed that someone would come and do work at my house without my approval. But now that I don't know who to be angry at, it has subsided. I suppose it will return once I get bill from this mystery company. Or... maybe it was the garage door fairy who stopped by! Although, he was much burlier that most faeries... as far as faeries go at least.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Losing My Mind
So apparently I have gone completely mad. Either that or I am just extremely susceptible to peer pressure. My brother Thomas has talked me into completing a "Warrior Dash". To get a better idea of what a Warrior Dash is, just check out their website at www.warriordash.com. It's a 3.23 mile race with various obstacles to complete. Such obstacles include a wall climb, trudging through waist deep water, jumping over fire, army crawling under barbed wire through mud, and several other devices of torture. Sounds fun right?
The funny thing is, is that two years ago I never would have even considered doing such a thing. I was not at all in shape and had no real desire to put forth any effort to become "in shape". Give me my couch and a bag of Doritos and I was set. And Oreos...mmmmm... oreos.
Anyway, fast forward to when my baby was born. Around the same time I was getting my cholesterol checked and it was a little high. And by a little high I mean "Cheech and Chong high". I figured it was time to do something about it. Especially since I am a daddy now. Six years ago I had open heart surgery due to a birth defect. I can't control that. However I can control what I eat and if/when I exercise. The odds are already stacked a little bit against me so I needed to make a change in my lifestyle.
So, out of peer pressure from my brother-in-law Ben, I started doing P90X. It kind of sucks and is super hard, but I got some pretty good results out of it. I don't have 6 pack abs or anything ridiculous like that, but I did lose 20-ish pounds over the course of a year. Yay me. In July I finished my most recent round of P90X and started to look for something else to start doing. I love Tony Horton and all, but I was getting a little tired of him. So I decided to try a different workout DVD called "Insanity". The title of this workout says it all. It's absurd! In my opinion its way harder that P90X ever thought about being. It's just a crazy amount of cardio and running and push ups and jumping... over and over and over again. By the time that I am finished I am completely drenched. I dread it every morning yet I feel somewhat accomplished when its over. It's a 60 day program and currently I am on day 16. So far I have already lost 5 pounds. I am 1.5 pounds away from my weight starting with a 1! I haven't done that in forever! (well, at least not in a healthy manner. I lost a bunch of weight when I had my surgery but I was super sick so it doesn't count).
I will be sure to give you a status update when my 60 days are over. Should be around October 8. In the mean time you can look forward to seeing if I survive my Warrior Dash. It's September 24th in Tulsa and I'm sure I will have lots to share about it.
Stupid peer pressure talking me into hard things!
The funny thing is, is that two years ago I never would have even considered doing such a thing. I was not at all in shape and had no real desire to put forth any effort to become "in shape". Give me my couch and a bag of Doritos and I was set. And Oreos...mmmmm... oreos.
Anyway, fast forward to when my baby was born. Around the same time I was getting my cholesterol checked and it was a little high. And by a little high I mean "Cheech and Chong high". I figured it was time to do something about it. Especially since I am a daddy now. Six years ago I had open heart surgery due to a birth defect. I can't control that. However I can control what I eat and if/when I exercise. The odds are already stacked a little bit against me so I needed to make a change in my lifestyle.
So, out of peer pressure from my brother-in-law Ben, I started doing P90X. It kind of sucks and is super hard, but I got some pretty good results out of it. I don't have 6 pack abs or anything ridiculous like that, but I did lose 20-ish pounds over the course of a year. Yay me. In July I finished my most recent round of P90X and started to look for something else to start doing. I love Tony Horton and all, but I was getting a little tired of him. So I decided to try a different workout DVD called "Insanity". The title of this workout says it all. It's absurd! In my opinion its way harder that P90X ever thought about being. It's just a crazy amount of cardio and running and push ups and jumping... over and over and over again. By the time that I am finished I am completely drenched. I dread it every morning yet I feel somewhat accomplished when its over. It's a 60 day program and currently I am on day 16. So far I have already lost 5 pounds. I am 1.5 pounds away from my weight starting with a 1! I haven't done that in forever! (well, at least not in a healthy manner. I lost a bunch of weight when I had my surgery but I was super sick so it doesn't count).
I will be sure to give you a status update when my 60 days are over. Should be around October 8. In the mean time you can look forward to seeing if I survive my Warrior Dash. It's September 24th in Tulsa and I'm sure I will have lots to share about it.
Stupid peer pressure talking me into hard things!
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Stick a Fork in Me
Well kids, it is time for another edition of "Insurance Lessons with Michael". This is where I take a portion of my day to share basic insurance principles with you as to prevent future distress on the part of yourself, and/or your insurance agent. Today's lesson involves the rules of liability. You carry liability on your policy to protect yourself for when you are at fault for an accident. It's basically coverage for everyone else on the road. You carry comprehensive and collision to protect yourself for when your own vehicle is damaged. Here is the important lesson for the day... You CANNOT be held liable for damaging your own property.
Here is an example. A husband and wife come into my office wanting to make a claim. Let's call them Mr. and Mrs. Angryton. Mrs. Angryton was backing out of the garage and she collided with their other car that was sitting in the driveway. Thus making Mr. Angryton a little angrier than usual. Now class, based on today's lesson... would this be one claim filed under one vehicle, or would this be two separate claims, one filed under each policy? ........ Yes! This would be TWO separate claims. One filed under each policy under the collision coverage.
Well, as you can imagine, this did not go over well with the Angrytons. They wanted the one car's liability coverage to cover their other car. They also wanted to avoid paying two separate deductibles and having two claims on their record. I certainly understand why they would want this, but this is just not how insurance works. They didn't believe me and insisted on coming in and having me pull out the policy and showing them where owned vehicles were excluded from liability coverage.
So why do we have this rule? I'm glad you asked! I proceeded to explain the following to the Angrytons. Without this rule, someone could decide that they wanted a new bumper on their car and instead of actually paying for one, they would just purposely hit it with their other car and get it paid for by insurance! Or, they could really want a new garage door and decide to just let insurance buy them one instead and back into accidentally on purpose. See what I mean?
"But we would never do that" Mr. Angryton exclaimed. I completely understand that, but that doesn't make you exempt from the rules. Do you expect me to apply this rule to some and not to others? That's why we have rules! They provide order! Without rules we might as well all be monkeys. And then we would just be throwing our poop at each other and the whole system begins to break down.
So the story ends with the Angrytons unhappily submitting to my authority. Upon leaving, a very big scary looking and unhappy Mr. Angryton asks this. "Is there anything ELSE in this policy that I need to know that is going to make me want to stab you in the face with a fork"? No smile. No hint of kidding. This dude was pissed.
Really sir? I understand you are frustrated but ridiculous threats will get you nowhere. He even went a little further and pointed out the fact that he had me cornered in my little cubicle. Straight up classy.
So if you happen to see a four pronged scar anywhere on my face, just know that it's been a bad day. One bonus lesson that I will leave you with... be nice to your insurance person. He/she is just the messenger and while we LOVE dealing with angry people all day, it is most definitely not the highlight of our day.
Here is an example. A husband and wife come into my office wanting to make a claim. Let's call them Mr. and Mrs. Angryton. Mrs. Angryton was backing out of the garage and she collided with their other car that was sitting in the driveway. Thus making Mr. Angryton a little angrier than usual. Now class, based on today's lesson... would this be one claim filed under one vehicle, or would this be two separate claims, one filed under each policy? ........ Yes! This would be TWO separate claims. One filed under each policy under the collision coverage.
Well, as you can imagine, this did not go over well with the Angrytons. They wanted the one car's liability coverage to cover their other car. They also wanted to avoid paying two separate deductibles and having two claims on their record. I certainly understand why they would want this, but this is just not how insurance works. They didn't believe me and insisted on coming in and having me pull out the policy and showing them where owned vehicles were excluded from liability coverage.
So why do we have this rule? I'm glad you asked! I proceeded to explain the following to the Angrytons. Without this rule, someone could decide that they wanted a new bumper on their car and instead of actually paying for one, they would just purposely hit it with their other car and get it paid for by insurance! Or, they could really want a new garage door and decide to just let insurance buy them one instead and back into accidentally on purpose. See what I mean?
"But we would never do that" Mr. Angryton exclaimed. I completely understand that, but that doesn't make you exempt from the rules. Do you expect me to apply this rule to some and not to others? That's why we have rules! They provide order! Without rules we might as well all be monkeys. And then we would just be throwing our poop at each other and the whole system begins to break down.
So the story ends with the Angrytons unhappily submitting to my authority. Upon leaving, a very big scary looking and unhappy Mr. Angryton asks this. "Is there anything ELSE in this policy that I need to know that is going to make me want to stab you in the face with a fork"? No smile. No hint of kidding. This dude was pissed.
Really sir? I understand you are frustrated but ridiculous threats will get you nowhere. He even went a little further and pointed out the fact that he had me cornered in my little cubicle. Straight up classy.
So if you happen to see a four pronged scar anywhere on my face, just know that it's been a bad day. One bonus lesson that I will leave you with... be nice to your insurance person. He/she is just the messenger and while we LOVE dealing with angry people all day, it is most definitely not the highlight of our day.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Secretly Longing for Fall
It's not a big secret that I am a huge fan of Fall. Summer is just not that fun for me anymore. It has lost all it's lustere. I still have to work... every day. No summer break for me. And I have no pool or beach to enjoy the summer heat in, so what's the point? It's just hot and nasty out for no good reason. I hate it. There I said it and I'm not sorry about it!
So it is about this time of year that I begin to long for all things Fall. As soon as August 1st hits I am officially done with Summer. It's an illness that I have. I get especially crabby when it is still 90 plus degrees outside. So this year, I have been forbidden by my lovely wife from expressing my disgruntledness until at least August 15th. She would prefer that I hold off until at least September 1st, but she was willing to compromise and split the difference with me. I'm sure by even writing this, I am breaking the rules, but this is me not caring. My mums at the house are blooming so I think I'm allowed.
I want it to be 65 degrees out! I want to wear a scarf while drinking a pumpkin latte! I want to roll around in a pile of red and orange leaves! I want to wear my sweaters! Lots and lots of sweaters! I want all of my food to be infused with the autumny goodness of pumpkin.
It's glorious and I can't wait for Fall. I'm done with Summer! So if you happen to see me anytime in the next month or so and it also happens to be over 90 degrees.... you may want to steer clear. That's a recipe for disaster!
So it is about this time of year that I begin to long for all things Fall. As soon as August 1st hits I am officially done with Summer. It's an illness that I have. I get especially crabby when it is still 90 plus degrees outside. So this year, I have been forbidden by my lovely wife from expressing my disgruntledness until at least August 15th. She would prefer that I hold off until at least September 1st, but she was willing to compromise and split the difference with me. I'm sure by even writing this, I am breaking the rules, but this is me not caring. My mums at the house are blooming so I think I'm allowed.
I want it to be 65 degrees out! I want to wear a scarf while drinking a pumpkin latte! I want to roll around in a pile of red and orange leaves! I want to wear my sweaters! Lots and lots of sweaters! I want all of my food to be infused with the autumny goodness of pumpkin.
It's glorious and I can't wait for Fall. I'm done with Summer! So if you happen to see me anytime in the next month or so and it also happens to be over 90 degrees.... you may want to steer clear. That's a recipe for disaster!
Monday, August 8, 2011
Back to Reality
It was with great disgruntledness that I had to return to life as usual today. After two weeks of being on another continent and then spending a few days with family, I was getting pretty used to a lack of routine.
I have had some trouble readjusting to life as usual and there are a few Venezuelan habits that I am having a hard time breaking.
1. They drive like maniacs down there! All laws regulating speed and vehicle occupancy capacity are merely suggestions and are not at all enforced. This has casued me to have an overwhelming desire to drive 100 mph down the interstate and to pass every car I see in town. I consciously have to tell myself to drive like a normal person.
2. Like many latin cultures, Venezuelans operate on their own time table. I'm usually a very prompt person, but I was kind of getting used to just showing up whenever I wanted. Getting out of bed and going this morning took an extra bit of effort to make sure I was on time.
3. Upon greeting, the women greet everyone, male or female, by pressing their right cheeks together and kissing the air. I have had to stop myself multiple times from awkwardly kissing the cheek of every female I come in contact with. If I happen to kiss you, please do me a favor and just move on by the moment. I promise I will try to control myself in the future.
Venezuela was a great experience and I am so thankful that I had the opportunity to go! I'm sure I will re-acclimate after a few more days.
I have had some trouble readjusting to life as usual and there are a few Venezuelan habits that I am having a hard time breaking.
1. They drive like maniacs down there! All laws regulating speed and vehicle occupancy capacity are merely suggestions and are not at all enforced. This has casued me to have an overwhelming desire to drive 100 mph down the interstate and to pass every car I see in town. I consciously have to tell myself to drive like a normal person.
2. Like many latin cultures, Venezuelans operate on their own time table. I'm usually a very prompt person, but I was kind of getting used to just showing up whenever I wanted. Getting out of bed and going this morning took an extra bit of effort to make sure I was on time.
3. Upon greeting, the women greet everyone, male or female, by pressing their right cheeks together and kissing the air. I have had to stop myself multiple times from awkwardly kissing the cheek of every female I come in contact with. If I happen to kiss you, please do me a favor and just move on by the moment. I promise I will try to control myself in the future.
Venezuela was a great experience and I am so thankful that I had the opportunity to go! I'm sure I will re-acclimate after a few more days.
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