You can’t Escape Karma

Posted on January 28, 2014January 28, 2014 by Dusty Roads

The pictures from my phone camera finally got here so now I have a story to tell.

First, a little background. In a way I think it’s payback for something that happened 30-40 years ago. I had a chance to go to a seminar in Vancouver , BC and they let us bring a guest. I invited my mother.

Now my mother is a feisty little thing and when we were returning to the hotel one night she walked into a wall. Let me explain. The hotel had a large wall of glass. The doors were also glass and opened in the center. My Mom wears glasses and in the dark it was hard to see where the glass wall stopped and the glass door began. The doors opened for me but my Mom walked into the glass wall…and bounced! Like a cartoon character she bounced backward several steps. I should have said.. “Are you all right?” but instead I laughed. I laughed so hard I thought I’d cry. Bad daughter!

With that history I think the universe caught up to me on this San Diego trip.

As many of you know, New England had a “blizzard” Tuesday night. (It kind of fizzled but they still called it a blizzard). My Southwest flight was out of Providence on Wednesday morning. Not knowing what the driving would be like I left home very early for the 30 minute drive.

I witnessed a 3 car accident right in Providence but other than that the drive was uneventful. I was in the gate area by 9:30 am for an 11:30 flight which was then delayed to 12:15 and then 12:45 and then 1:15. About then the desk attendants began rebooking connections for Fort Myers, Fort Lauderdale, Salt Lake City, Denver, every destination except San Diego.

When I was asked I was told the San Diego connection was running behind so I’d have 30 minutes to get to my gate after landing in Baltimore. No need to rebook a new connection.

Except when we landed in Baltimore I was being paged. I was the last passenger and they were holding my flight. I was stuck in a middle seat for a 5 hour plus flight. Just what I didn’t want. Luckily my seatmates were very nice and the flight passed pleasantly.

Arriving in San Diego I had to let everyone off ahead of me before I could make it to the rear of the plane for my carry-on. Finally, Back pack on and carry-on in front of me I made my way down the aisle and out the plane door to the jetway except something snagged my backpack and I was stopped dead. My momentum wanted to carry me forward and as I tried to catch myself my foot slammed into the crack between the plane and the jetway and it was all over.

I landed flat on my face.

Southwest employees came running. One had my sneaker, one had my arm and helped me sit down. They wanted to know if I’d hit my head, was I hurt and so on. I’m sure they saw lawsuit floating above my head. All I wanted to do was get on my way.

When the dust settled and I recovered from my embarrassment and took stock of my injuries I did have a bump on my head, floor burns and bruises on my left arm and right knee, a wrenched back and a groin pull. Walking was quite a challenge for a few days.

I’m happy to report that I am on the mend and moving a bit better. And I feel this should have paid off any bad karma for laughing at my mother’s mishap all those years ago.

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. 🙂

Moderation

Posted on January 24, 2014January 24, 2014 by Dusty Roads

One of my blogging friends recently wrote a post about her annual goals. She goes Birthday to Birthday instead of New Year to New Year. That’s a good idea too that I never even considered. But anyway… this year she chose a word to be her inspiration and guide for the year. She chose a great word…Balance. I’m sure she will enjoy success with a great word like balance. http://learnmoreeveryday.wordpress.com/2014/01/12/another-year-older-a-balancing-act/

If you can find a balance in life or a balance in all things or however you want to think about it, then surely you will have a roadmap for a nice year.

Not wanting to be a total copycat I wondered what would be a word for me if I were to use the same idea. My birthday is right around the corner and although Balance is something I could certainly use I felt another word might be even more appropriate for me. That word is MODERATION.

I go overboard on almost everything I do. Oh my choices and decisions start out good enough. I plot and I plan and then I implement and that’s when everything gets out of hand. I once described my life as feeling like I was on a run away train going 90 miles an hour and all I could do was HANG ON!

I always have more on my plate than I know what to do with.

A perfect example..my blog. I don’t have just one. I have this one which is my main baby, then I have www.dustyroadsphotos.com a companion photoblog, then I have my professional photo web page dustyroadsphotos.zenfolio.com, and my photo card shop, dustyroadsphotos.etsy.com and mustn’t forget flickr.com. Updating all of them takes a lot of time.

Then there’s the posting frequency. I see the traffic drop off dramatically when I miss a day so I set a goal for myself to write a post every day and to post a photo every day. So now I have to try to be creative both in writing and in photography and do it over and over and over again all while working full time and trying to get housework done. Cat hair piles up quickly.

Obviously there’s no moderation in that! 🙂

The other big area that needs moderation is food. Remember the line, I think from the movie Field of Dreams, “If you build it they will come”. Well, in my case it’s “if I cook it I will eat it” and I never mastered the trick of cooking for one. It’s just easier to cook in “bulk”. Of course then it can’t go to waste so it goes to my waist instead.