San Diego Still a Mystery

Posted on January 27, 2014January 27, 2014 by Dusty Roads

I have a few things to share but the photos are on my phone and they seem to be taking a long time to get sent to my computer. So I’m going to jump ahead and give you a brief description of San Diego.

That’s it. 🙂

I was quite excited to learn that the annual company meeting was going to be held in San Diego. There’s so much to see and do around there. I even had a VIP pass to ride the Olde Town Trolley Tour.

But, alas, it was not to be.

My first surprise was the cold. I was expecting 70’s..maybe mid 60’s but it was in the 40’s and 50’s.

I arrived late the first night just as dinner was finishing up so there wasn’t any time to explore then. I was in the Hyatt. The conference and most meals were at the Paradise Point Resort. To get between the 2 locations we had a shuttle. The problem was the shuttle only ran on a limited schedule and once the conference started or meals were over, it shut down again. For example, the morning schedule was every 20 minutes from 7 – 9am . Then nothing until it started again at 5pm to shuttle us back to the Hyatt and then back for dinner at Paradise Point.

That didn’t leave much time for exploring or getting around.

The other reason I never got to see anything in San Diego was that we had meetings all day and then scheduled events all evening so there was no real free time. Now don’t misunderstand. The program was really outstanding but it wasn’t an 8 hour day.

So it looks like I will have to make a return trip to San Diego to see the sights.

A Little Housekeeping

Posted on January 26, 2014January 26, 2014 by Dusty Roads

Good Morning World!

I am home. I arrived in Providence last night at 11:09 PM. By the time I retrieved a bag, yes I checked one going home, got picked up by the parking shuttle and retrieved my car, I finally walked into the house at 12:30 am. 3 little furry faces met me at the door.

Coming home is such fun.

Today, in addition to work I plan to get caught up with my cross country adventures right here. The only problem is…I can’t tell you much about San Diego. I’ll explain shortly when I update this space on my adventures and misadventures.

I got behind on my photos of the day because I couldn’t post them from my camera since I only had the company laptop. I have remedied that. The missing pictures are on www.dustyroadsphotos.com. Be sure to share your favorite and leave comments so it will get counted. I think I’ll delay the scoring tally to give everyone time to make their selection.

That’s all for now but the stories will be coming soon. 🙂

The Insurance Jungle

Posted on January 25, 2014January 25, 2014 by Dusty Roads

About a week ago we had the 2013 wrap up meeting in Somerville at the main Boston Office. What that means is I get to drive 51 miles each way to hear how we did and hope for some insights on what’s to come in 2014. Being a work from home employee, my attendance is optional but I am a nosy employee. I want to hear from the horses mouth what’s projected for the coming year. I don’t want to hear all the speculation and innuendo when the meeting results gets rehashed over the email water cooler.

So as a dutiful, nosey employee I made my way (1.5 hours) to the Somerville office via the central artery, the expressway, the “distressway” , Route 93, or any and all of the above, They are all names for the same stretch of highway H_ _ L.

Following the meeting and a nice lunch (I really go for the free food)

I headed back to repeat the process. It was about 2:15-2:30 when I left. That’s slightly ahead of rush hour. (in theory) . Traffic wasn’t too bad as I entered the tunnel to the southern side of the artery but it was filling in fast. I’d almost made it to what they call the Braintree Split when it happened.

I have no idea what actually triggered the accident.

There was a large truck to my right with a brown SUV behind it. I was in the next lane, a travel lane with cars in front and in back and the next lane to my left was also filled with cars.

Traffic was moving probably 30-40 miles per hour. A good clip for the volume. A lot of jockeying goes on here as the right hand lanes try to get to the left side for RT 3 and those on the left try to cross to the right for Rt. 128.

Suddenly I heard things flying and then something shook my car. I didn’t know if I had damage or not but plastic stuff was still flying around so I pulled over. The Brown SUV had hit the left rear of the box truck and the force of that hit bounced him into my car. His SUV was a mess. The truck had only slight damage. My car has a superficial scrape and the passenger mirror was knocked off. It will still cost a bundle to be repainted.

I called 911 and the state police responded right away.

My car was drivable so after an exchange of insurance cards I was on my way, “collateral damage” to the main even between the SUV and the truck. Thus entering the INSURANCE JUNGLE.

My first call was to my insurance carrier to put them on notice. My intention was to go through the SUV’s carrier. First I got a call from the “adjuster” from my company. Then I got a call from the “Liability Adjuster” from my insurance carrier. He took a statement and told me they would pay the whole claim and to go ahead and get the ball rolling with the body shop.

The body shop said “Whoa, not so fast. They won’t pay the deductible.” I said yes, the adjuster said they would because it wasn’t my fault. Then I got another call from someone else …again from my company…who confirmed that they would pay the deductible and “subrogate” from the other carrier.

Today I took my car for an estimate. The body shop will send the estimate in to the company and then we’ll wait for approval to go forward. I still haven’t heard from the other insurance company. In the meantime, duct tape fixes anything. 🙂

Dreaming the Hawaiian Life

Posted on January 23, 2014January 23, 2014 by Dusty Roads

Since my 2 vacations in Hawaii the idea of living there is never far from my mind. Lately I’ve been missing Hawaii even more because there’s a great show about Hawaiian Real Estate on HGTV.

Hawaii is known to be an expensive place to live. As an island everything has to be brought in from the mainland. One of the largest and oldest cattle ranches in the United States is located on the Big Island. Known as the Parker Ranch is was founded in 1847, almost 30 years before most of the southwestern ranches on the mainland.

The ranch is a working cattle ranch even today and is now run by a charitable trust. The Ranch owns approximately 26,000 head of cattle, mostly Angus and Charolais breeds, with 17,000 pastured on the Ranch at any given time. The rest are in pasture or feedlots on the mainland. With about 300 breeding bulls, the cowherd is divided into two breeding seasons, winter and summer, with about 50% of the herd in each season.

When we visited the Big Island we drove past sections of the Parker Ranch but we didn’t take time for the tours.

One night we stopped at a local grocery and bought a steak to grill. Since we were on vacation I didn’t hesitate to buy it but I did notice it was expensive. It surprised me since we’d just heard about how big the Parker Ranch was and how much cattle was raised there.

Never being shy, we asked about the high price of beef and milk and were told that the Parker Ranch sends just about all of it’s beef cattle to the mainland for slaughter and then the butchered meat is shipped back. That extra step is the added cost but I will tell you it was one of the best steaks I have had in a long time. Well worth the extra money.

Back to the show, Hawaii Life, I was surprised that they show case many affordable homes less than $500,000. It looks like the real estate market is comparable to the Boston market. Of course , there are the million dollar homes too. 🙂

Anyway, in our meeting yesterday at work, our manager said the company is planning to expand into Hawaii. Of course that is on the drawing board and no one knows how soon it will actually happen, but maybe my dream of living there isn’t so far fetched after all!

Blue Skies

Posted on January 22, 2014January 22, 2014 by Dusty Roads

Talk about coincidence. I recently started reading Robyn Carr Books. I got hooked on her novels with a series called Virgin River Series.

I have been trying to track down all of the novels in that series. She’s a little bit of a departure from my usual reading. The Virgin River Series follows the lives of the residents of Virgin River. A little rural town in the mountains near Oregon. The series is a little like a soap opera in a book but there’s no infidelity, rather mishaps like a lost hunter, a forest fire, a school bus crash and so on. Things that could happen in any small town. The same characters are in each novel and you can follow their lives. Things like how they met their spouses, their births of their children, and how little misunderstanding an get twisted around until , in the end, it all works out.

While browsing in a used book store for another of her novels I ran across a book titled Blue Skies. It was by Robyn Carr but it wasn’t part of her Virgin River Series. When I couldn’t find any of those that I hadn’t read, I decided to pick up this book.

Little did I know that it would be a great supplement to what was going on with Southwest. Southwest Airlines is currently dealing with the embarrassment of having one of their passenger jets land at the wrong airport. Blue Skies is about the start up of a low cost airline as the other larger carriers struggle with the changes and realities of air travel since 9/11.

As I was reading I thought that one of the airlines in the book reminded me of Southwest. It had been a start-up not that many years ago and was dealing with the issues of growing into a major carrier. It had gone from a tiny local carrier to a much larger one and with the growth came the employee unrest, budget issues and all of the other headaches.

The principal characters leave the struggling Aries Airline to join another start-up. Of course the book is about the characters and the airline is just the back drop but it’s a fun read. At one point Nikki reminisces with her friend Dixie about how air travel has changed, how back in the day the crew were like “rock stars” and treated with respect and people dressed in their Sunday best and were polite. (I remember traveling like that)