June 27, 1996
Dear Everyone:
A couple of weeks
ago, I got into my car one morning to discover that there appeared to be
something on my windshield besides paw prints.
("Valley Terrace" has a very strict no pets rule, which doesn’t
seem to deter either the pets or their owners.)
What looked like a funny line turned out to be a distinct
crack in the windshield.
I vaguely recalled hearing a bang outside the car while driving
home on the freeway the night before, probably a rock thrown up by
another vehicle.
So, I called the
dealer to find out if this was covered by the “bumper-to-bumper”
warranty that they’d talked me into buying.
Answer: The warranty
only applies if you can’t find a rock chip in the windshield.
Question number two:
How much to replace the windshield if we did find a rock chip?
Answer: $312, plus
labor ($90).
I went out and
checked the car. There was a
definite rock chip. Ouch.
But then I got the
clever idea to call my insurance company and it turns out I only have to
pay the $100 deductible, provided I take it to a repair shop that meets
the insurance company’s approval.
And wouldn’t you know it, there’s a preferred repair shop in
“Livermore” just around the corner (literally) from the warehouse where
I work 60% of the time. It
was only a matter of finding a good “Livermore” day to take the car in
and walk back to the office.
I now have a shiny
new windshield and I saved over $300.
Things have been
relatively quiet at work.
We’re still putting the finishing touches on our Web Site, getting it
ready to go out into the wonderful world of
Intranet.
I’m trying to get my Information Inventory Management Project
(IIMP) team together so we can get started on that.
It being almost July (time flies when you don’t keep a gun to its
head), we need to get started if we want to finish by 12/31/97.
“Jeannie” and I went
to the movies last Saturday and saw
Eraser,
the latest
Arnold Schwarzenegger contribution to modern culture.
During our post-mortem, we had to admit that, of the summer
movies so far, Arnold’s is actually better than many of the others, even
Sean Connery’s
The Rock.
It’s still ridiculous, of course, but it has more plot than
Twister,
and makes more sense than
Mission:
Impossible.
Connery and
Nicholas Cage can act circles around Arnold, but then, Arnold can
jump out of jet planes with the best of them.
Part of the problem
here, is that each movie tries to outmatch the one before, with bigger
and flashier special effects and stunts.
Even Arnold’s leaving the plane in mid-air,
sans parachute, is old hat.
James
Bond and Keanu
Reeves both did it before.
So Arnold has to come up with something more, like getting into a
shoot-out with an airliner.
By the way, reptiles
are big this season. We’ve
seen two movies (so far) that involve either an alligator or a crocodile
as part of an action sequence.
Now, there are thousands of stuntmen and stunt-women and even
stunt-children. But how many
trained stunt-alligator/crocodiles do you suppose they have in
Hollywood?
And speaking of
critters, my new windshield already has paw prints on it.
Love, as always,
Pete
PS.
I’m off most of next week, so there won’t be a Letter.
Have a Happy Birthday, Mom!!!
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