Posts Tagged ‘having to do with cars’

More car stuff

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

The thing with my car is still going on.  I got a letter from TWWTT’s insurance agency on Monday last week saying that they’d received word of the claim and had been trying to get a hold of me, which was ridiculous because I hadn’t heard one word from them before then.  But I called the number on the letter and left a message on the machine of a gentleman who was out on vacation until today, but whose voicemail assured me that one of his associates would call me back within 4 business hours.  If I didn’t hear back within that time, I should call his manager, and then he listed that phone number.

Tuesday, didn’t hear one word.  No messages left on my work phone while I was in meetings, no messages left on my cell phone.  When I got off work, I called the manager’s phone number and left a message saying that I was still waiting to hear back on the message I’d left the previous day.

Wednesday, I got a call.  On my cell phone.  Which doesn’t get service when I’m in my office and I said so expressly in all my messages.  So I called back and said “please call my work phone number,” gave that number again, and went back to waiting.  By the time I left, I still hadn’t received a call back.  So I called again, left another message on the phone of the gentleman who had called me back.  And another one on the phone for the manager.

Thursday, I finally spoke with someone.  He left a message on both of my phones when I was away from my desk, and when I went out to call him back, and actually hung up before I though it had gone through because I hadn’t checked my messages yet, he called me right back.  He apologized for the delay because they’re unusually short-staffed at the moment, and then asked me a couple of questions and recorded my statement for their files.  His interview wasn’t nearly as thorough as the one from my insurance company, but it was still good to have my side of the story taken down.

At the end, he said that they’d be sending someone out to look at my car and do that whole thing.  I mentioned that I’d encountered a man on the 13th who’d taken pictures already, but apparently it wasn’t in the file, so they had to do it again.  He told me that the person would call me before they came, but when I got out to my car after work, there was a piece of paper under my wipers from the insurance company, details about the damage and how much it would cost to fix it.  I was a little irritated that they didn’t call me to let me know, but impressed at their speed for that one aspect.  I mean, it took me 3½ days to get a hold of someone to take my statement, but it took them less than 4 hours to get someone to look at my car.

Still, it took less than 6 hours for my insurance to get the claim and have someone take my statement.  I took less than 24 hours after that to get someone to take photos of my car.  Everything with my own insurance was taken care of within 2 days of them getting the claim.  It took me 3 days to even speak with someone from her insurance once I got the letter from them, which was 5 days after I was called out to the parking lot.

So, quick recap of the timeline.

She notices the dent on the 6th.

Six days later, on Wednesday the 12th, I get called out to the parking lot to tell everybody that I ran into my mailbox.  Twice.

The next day, the 13th, I talk with people from my insurance (local rep, claims office, and a message from an inspector (who Justin called because my phone was dead)), a random guy from her insurance, security, the police, and HR.

Friday the 14th, I meet with a woman from my insurance who takes pictures of my car and my mailbox.  Everything I can do for my company is complete.  (Total time since being called out to the parking lot:  less than 55 hours.)

On Monday, the 17th, I get a letter from her insurance and leave a message. 

Tuesday, I leave another message. 

Wednesday, I finally get a call, call him back, leave a message, and don’t hear another word.

Thursday the 20th, I finally speak with someone and then they send someone out to take pictures of my car.  And now I’m finally done with everything for her insurance company.  (Total time since being called out to the parking lot:  8 days.)

I have to say, I’m pleased with my insurance company at the moment.  And kind of disgusted with hers.  But I’m still waiting to hear about the final decision and I am way past ready for this whole thing to be finished.

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Wonderful weekend recap

Monday, May 17th, 2010

It is always a difficult morning the morning after a really fantastic weekend.  And I had an absolutely wonderful weekend.

Update to the update to the thing with my car
Friday morning, I came home from work early so I could meet an insurance assessor (or something like that) who wanted to look at my car and our mailbox.  She was a lovely woman, very pleasant to work with, and she took measurements and photographs of the damage on my car and the damage on my mailbox.  I pulled my car out of the driveway and lined it up with my mailbox and she took photographs of that, too, so it’s obvious that the marks on my car line up perfectly with the damage on my mailbox.

She wasn’t terribly forthcoming about her opinion on the matter, but I got the impression that she understood that the damage to my car was fairly obviously done by encounters with my mailbox.  I asked if she’d be the one to go look at the Tahoe, but she said that the insurance company would probably send someone from the Georgia side of things.

And now I’ve done everything possible for me to do.  I gave a copy of the Security officer’s report to the assessor when she was at the house and she was going to forward that to my claims officer.  I spoke with an agent from my local insurance office this morning and he’s checking around to make sure that there aren’t any loose threads out there.  But as far as I know, there’s nothing more for me to do other than wait for information while the insurance companies duke it out.

Trip to Toccoa
After dealing with the insurance and then running into town to get my oil changed and pick up some supplies from Target, I packed up for our trip to northeast Georgia to go see my family for a handful of hours.  We left later than anticipated (my fault because things took a lot longer than I anticipated that they would) and we arrived slightly after 9:00.  But we all sat and chatted for a little while before heading off to bed.

We got a nice and early start to the morning and helped finish up projects that Mom and Dad had been working on completing.  Holes in walls filled in or created.  Shelves built and moved.  A trip to the post office in town.  Tools sorted out and packed away.  I had a fun morning, mostly just following one or the other of my parents around and helping however I could.  I know there was a lack of structure that was frustrating to other people, but I was just so tickled to be around my family that nothing was going to bother me.  Not humid weather.  Not random project progress.  Not spiders.  Nothing.  I had a good morning.

Mom and Dad left slightly after noon to start their long drive back to Wisconsin and we waved them off.  Justin and I helped Luke and Krista build one more shelf before getting cleaned up and packed up ourselves and ready to head off.  We sat and chatted for a little while before letting them have the house to themselves again.  After a long, hectic week, I understand how wonderful it can be to have a quiet house again.

Trip to Atlanta
Justin and I had planned to hit a mall outside of Atlanta to buy me some new dress pants, since all the pairs in my closet right now either are too big or are from back when I was slender enough to wear them, meaning they’re threadbare and stretched out.  The mall didn’t turn out quite like expected, though, (I’ve never been in a mall that had so many different shoe stores!) and we decided we’d go see a movie.

We found a theatre that was showing Iron Man 2 in Imax and How to Train Your Dragon in 3D and we were going there, when we passed an Atlanta Bread Company directly across from a Barnes and Noble bookstore.  Well, they closed down our Atlanta Bread Company a handful of months ago and it’s one of our very favorite restaurants.  And we love Barnes and Noble.  So we scratched our movie plans and spent an hour wandering around in the bookstore before heading across for sandwiches.  And we enjoyed our time much more than we would have in a movie theatre.

After spending a relaxing evening and morning at a hotel and breakfast at Dunkin’ Donuts, we set off for the Georgia Renaissance Festival. We got there probably close to 10:30 and wandered our way all the way around the faire, looking at booths and admiring the crafts and the spectacle.  We watched the joust.  We saw the Flying Debris juggling show.  We saw the Washing Well Wenches.  We saw the Tortuga Twins.  We missed a few acts that aren’t at the fair this year, like Dexter Tripp’s high wire.  I got some flowers stained onto my leg with henna.  I got to eat a turkey leg. We picked up another item from Bronze Age Studios to match the fountain that we bought from them previously.

It was a whole lot of fun.  And I caked on the sunscreen and wore a light cotton shirt with sleeves and a hat and came home without any sunburn.  I’m a little sun-kissed, but not at all burned.  With my complexion, I call that a win.

Plus, it was just so much fun wandering around the faire, looking at all the different things to look at – people and artwork and everything else.  I laughed at the shows, held my breath at the joust, drooled over everything in the Casta Diva shop.  And we left close to 4:00 to start our trek home, arriving at our front door a little after 9:30, I think.  We unpacked, showered, and got ready for bed.

And now it’s Monday and I wish I had another day in my weekend to recover from my weekend.  But no such luck.  Back to work with me!

I’ll try to put up a few pictures from our weekend later tonight or tomorrow.

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Update to the thing with my car yesterday.

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

This is an update to the previous post about the woman claiming that I ran into her car.  If you haven’t read the other one, this one might not make a lot of sense.

It’s been an interesting day, but in a wholly different way than yesterday.  I’m over being frustrated and scared about the whole car situation.  Now I’m upset, angry, and taking action.

There was a message on my work phone this morning when I came back from a meeting.  The Woman With The Tahoe (TWWTT) filed an insurance claim against my insurance company and they were calling to ask what was going on and get the information that they needed.  I called back, but the gentleman I was supposed to talk with wasn’t available, so I left a message and set out for lunch.

I had a lunch thing with my department today.  Normally for these things, I catch a ride with another couple women from my group.  But today, I drove myself.  As I was leaving the parking lot, I looked around for the Tahoe to see if maybe I could take down her plate numbers or something.  When I saw her car and started to drive up to it, I saw a gentleman with a clipboard taking notes.  I parked (a good ways away from her car) and asked if he was from my insurance company.  He said, no, he was from TWWTT’s company.  I introduced myself, said I was the one she was claiming had hit her, and that I hadn’t done it.  He asked if he could look at my car and take some photos and I said that would be fine.

He came over and took a look, took a handful of photographs, wrote some notes on his clipboard.  My agent called while the other gentleman was looking over my car, and he told me to expect a call from the claims department sometime later that day and that I should be sure to answer the phone when they called.  I said I would be sure to do so.

The agent from the other company was friendly and encouraging and said that, in his opinion, it really didn’t look like I had hit her.  He took my name and phone numbers in case he needed them, thanked me for letting him look at my car, and I went on my way to lunch.

When I arrived late to the restaurant, people asked what had made me so late.  So I told the situation to the group sitting around me.  A couple of them had already heard about it, but it was news to most of them.  And they were a wealth of information about what I should do.  And they were wonderfully encouraging.  It’s like having a bunch of helpful uncles.

When I got back to my desk, I called the local police to ask if I could get a copy of the report that had been written yesterday.  It turns out that there isn’t one.  I left a message for the officer who responded because he was out on the street at the time of my call and not available.  The woman who took the message suspected that because the claim was on private property and a week old, the officer probably gave TWWTT a form to fill out and file with her insurance.

After that, I contacted the security office at work and asked for a copy of the report that had been filed with that department.  That one I did get, complete with the name of the woman filing the complaint and photographs of the damage.  That’s right, I didn’t even know her name until I got the report from Security.  And can I say, there are some confusing discrepancies between reports – like when she says she saw me come into the parking lot and where she saw me park:  was it on the 6th or the 12th and was it beside her or just somewhere in the lot?  The whole thing is a mess.

I also went and spoke with the HR representative for my department.  She is a wonderfully pleasant woman and I told her everything that was happening.  She said that she would speak with Security, too, so she could get a good handle on what was happening and that I should be sure to keep her in the loop as things progress.  I mostly spoke with her to make sure that I’m not failing to do things like I should be with a situation this complicated and in a company this large.  And also so if things go badly and TWWTT gets nasty about it, I’ve already got someone who’s heard my side of the story.  I think that’s the first proactive thing I’ve done since this happened.  Everything else has been reactive, but this one, I’m stepping ahead of the game.

And since insurance is apparently one of the very few quickly moving things in the south, I got a call from the agent from the claims department from my insurance company.  He took a recorded statement about what had happened, with lots and lots of really wonderful questions.  Like, how big is the parking lot?  What color is your car?  How many blue cars are in the lot — more than one?  When were you informed of the incident?  What’s your understanding of the situation?  Were there any witnesses?

I feel good about my statement.  I answered all the questions clearly and honestly, trying to make it very clear where things were confusing to me and just didn’t make sense how she could be making this claim against me.  And at the very end, when he asked if there was anything else I’d like to add to the statement, I was able to explain where the paint on my car had come from.  He said, just from my statement, that they probably were going to deny her claim because it didn’t seem like she had any proof against me.  She can’t file a claim just based on her opinion.  It’s not the final call because someone still has to come out and look at my car and there are other things that have to happen, but he’s feeling good about it going in my favor.

Also, if TWWTT decides to argue against their findings and takes me to small claims court, my insurance will provide me with a lawyer, free of charge.

He did ask me to ask Security if there was security footage of the parking lot the day of the incident, so I contacted them again to ask if that was available.  Unfortunately, although there is a camera in that lot, it’s angled in such a way that it didn’t see either one of our cars that day.  When I called the claims group back to let them know that information, I missed the call from the woman from my insurance who wants to come out and look at my car and, amusingly, our mailbox.

Naturally, my cell phone had died by then and I don’t have the ability to call numbers that aren’t local from my work phone.  So, since Justin still has a cell phone with a Savannah area phone number, I called him and begged him to call her back.  He did and now I have an appointment with her tomorrow at 11:30.

It’s been a busy day.  But I’m feeling good about it.  I have a lot of support from the people in my department at work, all of them incredulous that TWWTT is trying to do this and several of them offering suggestions on what I should do next.  Justin, of course, is wonderfully supportive of me.  And all the insurance people I’ve spoken with today seem to agree that the claim just isn’t going to go through.  Why she didn’t just file a hit-and-run last week is absolutely beyond me.  But she can’t randomly accuse me of this and have the insurance just go along with it with no proof.

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The thing with my car yesterday

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

I had an interesting day yesterday.  And by “interesting” I mean I’d like to rip out parts of it, run them through a mulcher, and have the day go completely differently.

It was going okay.  I got up, got to work, started to settle into my morning.  And then a security officer called and asked if I could please go meet the officer standing by my car in the parking lot.  And when I got there, a woman was filing a complaint against me, accusing me of running into her Tahoe.

I didn’t do it, by the way.  Let’s get that one straight right there so at least you and I know the truth.  I never ran into her car.  I have not in my entire driving history done damage to another person’s vehicle.  My own car?   Yes, I’ve dented my own car a little bit.  And I’ve had someone back into me.  I did one time run into someone’s bumper, but it was made entirely of rubber so I bounced off with no damage done.  I have never damaged anyone else’s car.

So far as I know, the only evidence she has that connects me to the large dent on her bumper is that I have white paint on the passenger-side headlight of my car.  White paint that came from my mailbox when I ran into it back in October of 2008.

Yeah.  2008.  It was shortly after we’d moved into the townhouse and I was still learning how to park in our spot.  I’d had a rough day and was returning home in a bad mood and wasn’t paying much attention and slammed the front of my car into the mailbox pretty hard.  It scrapped across the headlight, leaving white paint, and I had to go put the mailbox back in place.

But the woman with the Tahoe made a statement to the security officer, and so I wrote down my statement, too.  At the time, I wasn’t even sure which paint spot she was talking about, so I wrote down on my statement that I ran into my mailbox twice, once in 2008 and again in 2010.  And then an officer from the county law enforcement showed up and took her statement again.  I was told to stay near my car, so I never spoke with the woman.  And the police officer came over and looked at my car briefly, but never really spoke with me before he left.

I stood by my car, waiting for someone to come back over and tell me what was going on, but everybody just took off and I stood there crying because I had no idea what was going on.  I didn’t run into her car!  I didn’t even know what damage had been done to her vehicle until after everybody had left and I very carefully, giving her car a wide berth, went around to look at what she was accusing me of having done.

I can see why she’s upset.  Someone left a basketball-sized dent in her back bumper.  But it wasn’t me.

I sat in my car and cried for a while before calling Justin back to let him know what had happened.  I’d called him while we were waiting for the police to show up and wanted to let him know what was going on.  He found the two dates here in my blog when I mentioned running into the mailbox, and told me to give that information to the officers.  So I made my way back into the building and snuck into a bathroom where I worked on trying to make my face less red and splotchy.  I am never going to be one of those girls who can cry and look fantastic doing it.  A lovely woman in the bathroom asked if I would be okay and I told her I was having a rough morning, but I’d be fine.

I got back to my desk and sent a message to security with the information from my website and asked if they could please add it to my statement about what happened to put white paint on my car.  And I asked them to please tell me more information about what it was that I’m being accused of having done to the woman’s Tahoe – what day and time she says it happened and what proof she’s offering that it was me other than the paint on my headlight.

So far, I haven’t heard anything back.

I have no idea what’s going on with the situation.  I assume it’s a good sign that I didn’t receive a ticket or anything from the officer.  But I’m not counting out the possibility that I’ll get a traffic court summons in the mail.  It’s extremely frustrating to me to not know what exactly to be expecting.  Did the police officer agree with the woman with the Tahoe about me hitting her car?  Would I know if he didn’t?

And do I have any pictures of my car that I can use to prove that the paint was pre-existing?  It’s been 19 months.  Do I have any pictures of the headlights of my car?

Is there any way at all that I can feel less powerless in this situation?

Around 1:30, I got a call back from the security officer who I emailed with my website evidence.  He was a little confused about my email and wanted to make sure that I understood that the security office wasn’t accusing me of anything.  The woman wanted to file a complaint, so they were letting her do that.  He wasn’t sure why she had involved the police—if she wanted to address insurance payments, then she could have worked with security to work out the situation.  And he was surprised that the police officer hadn’t spoken with me very much.  I assured him that the security officer who took my statement was pleasant and agreeable and that I just wanted to understand what was going on.  Was there more information I should know?  What was going to happen next?

To his knowledge, there is nothing else going to happen with this situation that would involve me.  Security isn’t interested in me because there’s no proof that I ran into the woman.  I said I didn’t do it.  That’s as far as they’re taking it.

The woman might file it with her insurance, but, again, since there’s no proof that I hit her vehicle, there’s no reason to expect that the situation will come back to me.

He also told me that the woman said that she was hit on the 6th.  That was last Thursday.  As in a week ago.  If she was going to involve the police, why did she wait until almost a week after the incident to call?  Does that confuse anyone other than me?

I was much less stressed out after talking with the gentleman from security.  At least I understood a little more about what was going on.

And then I was angry, something that I hadn’t been before, because I feel like the woman is looking for a scapegoat and grabbing the first one she can find.  She doesn’t care if she’s wrong about me or not, she’s just looking for someone to point to.  And it ticks me off that she can just point at me and accuse me of having done something and I had to get all worked up about how to defend myself and completely ruin my morning with worry and stress and frustration, instead of trying to think about how she was going to prove that I’d done what she was saying I had done.  She has nothing except paint and I bet it’s not even the same type of paint.  I bet the paint on my mailbox is a latex and car paint is definitely something else.

I’m not completely relaxed about it, though, because part of me still expects that I might get something in the mail, either regarding her insurance or going to traffic court or something.  Because that’s the way I am.  It’s not pessimism – it’s worst case scenario preparedness.  Right?  But I’m much less worried about this than I was yesterday.  And tomorrow I’ll probably be even less worried than I am today.  But yesterday, I was freaking out about it.

So, yeah.  That was my morning yesterday.  And most of my afternoon.  By the time I got off work, I’d had enough of dealing with people so I went home, put on work clothes, and completely took over the back yard.  I mowed the lawn.  I pulled out the weed whack and reclaimed the back tree-line.  I put down more mulch.  I moved everything that I could lift off the porch and swept it down.  I put everything away that was out of place and wiped down the table.  And when I was done, 2 hours later, the whole back yard looked amazing and I felt much better.  Justin came home halfway through and helped by working on tidying inside the house, so the inside looks great right now, too.  We had dinner on the back porch, enjoyed some time together, I watched an NCIS Los Angeles episode that made me cry, and I had some ice cream.

My evening turned out nice.  But my morning was awful.  And I’d really like to not have to do that again.

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Tire recap and stuff

Friday, March 19th, 2010

So I called AAA and they came out and changed the tire on my car for me.  Our AAA plan was a Christmas gift, so it didn’t cost us anything to have them do it and I felt more comfortable having someone more qualified than me putting a tire on my car.  The guys who changed it out suggested that I might need to buy a new tire and told me where I should go to get that done.  So I got into my car with the sad little doughnut tire and drove to Tire Kingdom.  There a lovely woman took my tire and my keys and said she’d have the guys look at it and see if it could be repaired.

I went and sat on the porch of a nearby empty building and read my book.  It’s a great building, completely open inside without even a finished floor or electrical or finished interior walls.  It makes my head go all kinds of crazy about what I would do with such a building.  Answer:  I would turn it into four different businesses.  The first would be a studio for yoga and Zumba classes and whatever else I could get in there–massage, weights, whatever.  Because, Mom, you’ve inspired me, and when I get down to weight, I want to be certified to teach fitness classes, specifically yoga and Zumba.  So the front of the building, that looks over a small pond with a fountain and a great patio, would be a fitness studio.  Next would be a bookstore.  At the end would be a small cafe with smoothies and healthy sandwiches and stuff like that.  And the other one I can’t talk about, but it would hold a small set of offices, too.

In the lot across the street from this building, I’d set up a play set for kids to play on and map out how far around it is so parents could let their kids play on the jungle gym while they walk or run laps.

I had a lot of fun thinking about what I could do with this building.  Trust me, what I’ve mentioned is only the tip of the iceberg.  I have a lot of thoughts about this.

Anyway, after getting splashed with pond water from the fountain for a while, I went and sat in the lawn and read my book some more until finally going to find out what the story was with my car.  It turns out that they were able to simply patch the tire, meaning it was only a $23 fix instead of a $100 replacement.  For the record:  Nails are stupid things to leave lying on the road.

So it all turned out well.  I still have to figure out what to do about the paint on my car, but I’m hopeful.  I just have to do some research and legwork.

In other news, completely unrelated, I’ve started up my LiveJournal account again where I used to write about my diet progress, frustrations, and successes.  It’s over here if you’re interested in reading it.  Because this site here isn’t really the place to write about everything I want to write about when it comes to my diet.  Feel free to pop in over there if you’d like to know how that’s going.  You should be able to leave comments without having a LiveJournal account, but it’s going to give you one of those funky word things to verify that you’re not a computer.

And, of course, if you don’t care about my weight-loss, you can just stick around here and I’ll continue to babble about whatever it is I babble about over here.

But right now I think I should go to bed.

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