Since U Been Gone

The last post was one month ago. The Christmas break was also a break in the kids activities, so it was good for April and me as well.

On December 13th, while driving to the airport to pick up April, a lady in the middle lane tried to break for a slow traffic around an accident on I-15 in Clearfield, spins her car around to the right lane and directly in front of me. The collision was low speed, so fortunately no one was hurt. She had insurance, so no worries there. The left fender of the van was smashed, and the yellow-green liquid pooling under the van told me the radiator was broken. I called April, and she got the toll free number for our insurance company, and I filed the claim. The lady on the phone told me where the van needed to go, and assured me the a case manager would talk to me on Monday. Not so. I called the autobody place, and they had already talked to our insurance company. They would need to subcontract the engine work, but the body work would be done by Friday at the latest. By Wednesday, April called the local office of the insurance company because we had not heard from them. She was reamed because we had taken the van to a shop, and told the adjuster should have been out to see the van before anything was done. She told them we followed what their company rep told us to do that day. One good peice of advice April got was to call the other lady's insurance company and make sure she filed a claim. April did, and yes, they did know about it, it appeared to be thier claimants fault, and they would be happy to reimburse us for a car rental, towing, and other expenses. The receipts where faxed to them, but I haven't seen anything yet.

The van was ready on Friday. April and I picked it up after the shop closed, and I noticed the transmission was not right. We called the adjuster, who called back and told us to take it to whereever we liked to have it looked at. We went to our regular service place, and he told us the transmission fluid did not look good, but he didn't have the tools to do much else. He recommended a place in West Haven. I dropped the van off, and told them it had been in an accident but didn't give any details. The guy told us it would be a day or so before he could get to it. On Wednesday, he called me to asked if I know the radiator had been replaced. Yes. Well, the transmission fluid was almost gone from the van, and there is a hose that would have to have been disconnected for the radiator to be replaced. He thinks the fluild drained out, and was not replaced. He's going to talk to the adjusted about it.

On Monday as well, I was almost finished shoveling the driveway that night and slipped on a patch of ice at the end of the driveway. I landed on the point of my right elbow, and wrenched my shoulder. I am able to raise my arm all the way up once, but not twice. Rachel slipped on the ice at school and cut her leg up. Patrick also slipped on the ice at school and has a big bruise on his left knee. Topping that off, he lost one lens in his glasses. The winter is not going well.

On the bright side, Rachel got her top braces off, and her teeth look great.

End of Entry