D minus ten

10 days to Deutschland!!

Newcomers, be sure to watch my TravelBlog for exciting and insightful posts throughout my journey to Old Europe. It'll update to my Facebook feed as well.

I do travel blogging over there, rather than here, because there's extra mapping and social networking and stuff. It's cool. Čech it out!

See y'all in August....

Gemini FTW!

Loyal readers will recall that a few years ago, I got run over by a lying, scene-of-accident-fleeing sack of shit in a blue Ford Taurus.

Back then, I said I would be investigating options as to dealing with the miscreant. Investigate I did... my lawyer advised that no good lawyer would help me sue (I'd win, but miscreant has no money to pay my lawyers any percentage of)... but my lawyer also advised me to check with my own auto insurance company, because I had about 50-50 odds that my own Uninsured Motorist policy would cover my accident, a pedestrian hit-and-run.

Sure enough, mine did!

Thanks to my aforementioned lawyer, whom I adore, I was able to negotiate a nice little cash settlement from my own insurance company. Unexpected and pretty sweet.

Oh, but that's not all.

Tonight, I get a letter from my own insurance company, roughly along these lines:

Hi, as you know, we recently paid you a nice little cash settlement. It is our intention now to go after the miscreant who hit you, to try to recover for ourselves some of the money we just paid you. This letter is to advise you that we might ask you to come testify against the lying sack of shit if it ever comes to that; hope you don't mind. Love, State Farm.

Let the happy dance, on my skillfully repaired and rehabilitated knee, commence.

On the meaning of life

Last weekend there was a bad apartment fire in Burien... 1.5 complexes were destroyed, 3 people died, 70-some are homeless, and arson is suspected (Blaze that killed 3 people was arson).

I hadn't been able to figure out where the apartments were located in Burien, and it bugs me to not know things about Burien. I had heard something about them being generally on SW 155th, and yesterday I happened to be driving on SW 156th... so... yeah. I wanted to check it out*. SW 155th isn't very long, so it didn't take much time to find the place.

LG & I cruised by and looked at the two burned-out buildings and the "ARSON" signs. As we passed, I noticed a memorial set up for the victims of the fire, and I mentioned to her, by way of imparting how bad a deal this fire really was, that a 7-year-old boy was one of the ones killed.

LG thought for a moment and said: "He didn't even have a chance to live his life."

Then: "He didn't even get to live as much of a life as I have."

Something about that, from an 8-year-old, struck me as really profound. That is all.

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* Not trying to be disrespectful, but... yeah, I know. I did it anyway.