$3500

That’s what my car apparently is worth.  The cost to repair the car from the accident is $5100 so the insurance company is considering it a ‘write off’ and will buy my car for $3500 from me.  I have mixed emotions about the whole thing.  As much as my car frustrated me (only 1 fan speed worked, the gas gauge made up numbers, the abs makes a funny rumble and I should of gotten power locks and windows) we have been through a lot.  It was the first new car I ever bought.

With Heidi currently on Mat leave, car shopping right now is probably not in our best interest.  It looks like I may just buy a bit of a beater and pound it back and forth to work.  The lease on Heidi’s fancy truck is up next January and she is ready to convert to a Mini-Van like all good mothers so maybe someone can strike us a deal then on 2 cars.

Pop Dukes (my Dad) has a bit of a car fleet over at his place.  He has a vehicle from work, he has a Ford F150 that he uses to pull his trailer and he has his pimpin’ good Olde’ Man Caddy.  He has mentioned that the Cadillac is available if I need it for a while.  This may be the smart choice, I can spend the insurance money on a nice suit, cane and fedora.

Not So Super Weekend

It is starting to feel a bit like a doctor’s waiting room around the house these days.  Last week Heidi was diagnosed with bronchitis and was prescribed antibiotics and steroids.  (This is your only warning, do not try to fight her, she may have superhuman strength.)  Then by the end of the week Travis seemed to be coming down with a cold.  Finally on Saturday it seemed like Heidi had the same cold that Travis has (a nice side order to the bronchitis).

When T-Dogg is sick, no one sleeps well in the house, it is just the way things are.  But when Mommy and T-Dogg are sick it makes for some exhausting nights.  None the less, the Super Bowl bash was canceled.  There has been talk of transforming it into a Survivor bash on Thursday but we will see how the patients are doing then.  You should see me in my sexy nurse outfit.

I did manage to watch the Superbowl though through the miracle of DVR.  I was a little disappointed by the commercials there were a couple of good ones but certainly not enough to live up to the hype.  Kevin Rose being the in GoDaddy.com commercial (Alex Albrecht is supposed to be in there as well but I didn’t see him … and I watched it over and over and over again … for research purposes) was a little ‘inside geek’ action.  The game recovered pretty well after the first period.  After the kickoff TD I thought to myself ‘This game is really going to suck’.  Poor Rex Grossman … he spent all year trying to prove that he was a capable QB but then proves all the nay-sayers right in a couple of hours.  I could smell his stench all the way to my house from Miami.  I would put him on suicide watch.

You may be asking, hey Mike how is that fight against your belt going?  Well go F yourself.  How dare you judge me.  In all seriousness January was a pretty rough month.  Being away for a week for work (which apparently means – eating out and drinking beer every night) didn’t help.  I am up a little less then a pound (251.6) but there is no more kidding anymore (which I know I have said before … I mean it this time).  I have a fancy little plugin that charts my progress and makes suggestions for me.  Like right now it is telling me that I currently can will not meet my goal of 199.9 by 1/1/2008 and suggesting I cut 588 calories out of my diet.  The stress of this plugin makes me want to eat …

Super Weekend

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday …

It’s the Superbowl this weekend.  Is everyone fired up?  I don’t really care too much about either team but I still am excited about the game.  Colts vs Bears in a classic Offensive VS Defense scenario.  In nature I would definitely go with a Bear over a Horse but I think the Colts will win this game.  Hopefully it is a good game all around.

If you happen to reading this you are certainly welcome to come by for the game.  There may or may not be Punch and Pie.  It will be displayed in glorious HD (and the HD channels are from the US feeds so we should get the US commercials that everyone talks about).  Afternoon to be full of Madden and other XBOX mayhem.

Come see Matty P do his superbowl shuffle … it’s worth the price of admission.

A Close Call

Well yesterday I was in a car accident on my way to work.  Someone tried to change lanes into the side of my car and swerved into the shoulder but lost control in the snow/slush build up.  My car spun around almost 180 degrees and I crossed back through 3 lanes of traffic backwards colliding with 2 cars in the slow lane, finally coming to rest on the shoulder of the other side.

I feel pretty lucky.  We were moving pretty slow (I guess around 35 km/h), the centre lane was empty and I managed to finish up out of the way of oncoming traffic.  It could of been easily worse.  Two years ago I was driving Heidi’s SUV and was tapped in the side by a swerving tractor-trailer and sent spinning off into a guard rail but came out in good condition.  Last year Heidi and I were rear ended while sitting dead stopped in bumper to bumper traffic on the highway.

To make things short … I am pretty sick of commuting.  During the Christmas holiday’s ‘someone’ smashed up Heidi’s truck while we were in Arizona.  That makes 2 accidents for each of our 2 vehicles in the last 2 years.  The body shop loves us.  Next time we need to renew our insurance … I don’t know if we can afford to drive anymore, better look into some bikes.

The body shop guy doesn’t think my car is going to make it through this one.  There looks to be damage to the rear section of the frame.  In a car that is almost 8 years old with 230,000 KMs on it and a resale value less the stereo equipment in it, it probably will be written off.  And when you are 10 months through single salary/mat leave car shopping isn’t very high on the ‘to-do’ list.

Through all of this, getting home (the tow truck driver dropped me off) and seeing Heidi and Travis seemed to make things better.