Everyday Randomness

Busy Beautiful Day

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I know I’m awful quiet today, but for once I’m enjoying the great outdoors. It’s so nice today. It’s currently 78, and we’ll be pushing towards a high of 83 today, so I’m taking advantage of the beautiful weather.

I helped my Grandma plant some flowers this morning, and then I helped her weed two flower beds. I’m pretty sure I ended up pulling up more than just weeds, but hey I’m learning. I don’t think this Miss black thumb messed things up too horribly bad.

Now I have to make a few phone calls. Yesterday we noticed oil leaking from the valve cover on the bike. We’re about 700 miles away from the 28,000 mile service, so I’ve got to call to make an appointment with the dealership. Thank goodness everything is still under warranty, so servicing it and repairing anything on the engine like that is still free.

Most of the time I’m anti-extended warranties, but I’m glad we bought the extended warranty and the pit pass for the bike. The pit pass is $900, but it covers all servicing for the life of the bike. It paid for itself in less than a year since it costs $150 just for a basic service. That’s not counting any parts we’d need or the various oil and lubricants.

The extended warranty paid for itself the first week it went into effect. That’s when we blew the transmission and needed a complete rebuild. I don’t know what I would have done if I’d had to pay for that out of pocket.

Anywho, I’m off to setup the appoint. Then I’ve got to get in touch with my aunt. We’re supposed to go shopping today for stuff for her new house. I know she wants my opinion on curtains for her kitchen. I’m just hoping she wants to go early enough for me to swing by the bank. I need to deposit all the change I rolled this weekend!

You Scratched It

Hubby just called me from the body shop. He’s in the office right now with the shop owner, and they were arguing over something we want fixed. When I was snapping photos night before last it might have been dark, but I noticed 2 huge scratches on the bumper. At first I thought it was just dirt, but when I went outside to inspect I proved myself right. Huge scratches! You may have to view the large version to see them clearly.

The owner was totally trying to bullshit hubby. He completely contradicted himself. At first he said there’s no way we left scratches on your bumper because we didn’t have to use the junkyard bumper. We were able to repair your old one, and then we painted it. We never even removed the old bumper from the car, so you must have scratched it. NICE TRY.

Remember those photos I shot while it was in the shop up on the lift?

I sure as hell don’t see a bumper.

As soon as hubby called me I not only txt him a copy of the photo, but I had him get the shop owner’s email addy, and I emailed him the high res copy.

Lie busted.

I told him dude you just don’t get it. I can bullshit with the best of them. You don’t know how many times I’ve bullshitted my way out of trouble.

You CAN’T bullshit a bullshitter!

Of course I asked if you didn’t use the junkyard bumper why does the paperwork say it does? He tried to give me more bs about how we didn’t have the amended copy of the paperwork. I said ok print out a copy and give it to my husband now. Oh, and while you’re out there taking the bumper off to repaint it go ahead and show my husband the inside of the bumper where you repaired it. Hubby didn’t give him a chance.

He crawled under the back of the Blazer to inspect for himself. No bondo, no beating, no nothing. There’s a perfectly intact bumper on there that has never had a dent in it. I don’t even understand why dude tried to bullshit us with that. You scratched it. You fixed it. Simple as that!

The bumper’s getting repainted this morning, the lift gate is getting adjusted, the roof paint is being touched up, and the bumper will be realigned in the right spots. As soon as that is finished the shop owner is going to take the Blazer to the detail shop himself, and it will be ready to pickup before they close at 4. Hubby had to miss about an hour of work this morning, and he’ll have to leave 2 hours early to get there in time to pick it up, but his boss is going to be nice. He’s not docking his pay for missing this time since hubby’s got 3 air compressors here he’s rebuilding for the boss.

Now that we’ve got that worked out this is starting to be a good day.

Blazer Going To The Shop Tomorrow

My internet is back, but I’m not sure for how long. I called tonight to order my DSL, and now I’m just waiting for my modem package to arrive. It should be here in about 10 days at the most, so I think I can deal with crappy Charter for that long. I’m canceling Charter the day the package arrives. We decided to keep their cable tv service because we’ve only had a few problems with it that were fixed promptly. It’s just the internet they can’t seem to handle, so they will never see another dime from me for that.

On another good note, hubby has to drop the Blazer off at the body shop in the morning. They originally wanted us to drop it off and pick it up after they could “get to it”. I had a fit over that, and after spending an hour on the phone today going over everything that’s wrong hubby is going to drop it off in the morning. If it’s not ready by tomorrow evening when he gets off work they are going to have a rental car waiting on us.

After I inspected the bumper again today I realized it really is a simple fix. What happened is you can tell they were rushing to put it on, so they installed it lopsided.

The other thing I’m still pissed about is the right corner. You can see it’s still all smashed up. That’s part of what happened when hubby fishtailed. That side brushed into the guardrail, but because most of the impact was taken on the left side our insurance company refused to fix that one little corner because they said it “isn’t consistent with a left side impact”. It is when you’re fishtailing! You can’t tell me it would have been any harder to Bondo, sand, and paint that little corner. Oh well that’s why I’m definitely switching insurance companies.

Anyway what really matters in the photo is how lopsided the bumper is. That’s not just the rubber/plastic/whatever it is top cover. The entire bumper is off like that.

After everything is finished they are paying for us to get it professionally cleaned at the detail shop we normally take it to because they left it a wreck. Not only is there still glass everywhere, but there’s dust from all the sanding and Bondo. I lifted up the cargo mat and found a huge mess of dust and fiberglass chips.

They also seem to think that the lift gate problem can be fixed with an adjustment. If not they’ll be ordering a new one. I don’t know exactly what’s happening with the roof paint yet. I asked our insurance agent if we could request a new adjuster, and he helped us get that taken care of. The new adjuster wanted the list of everything that was wrong, and he’s going to meet hubby at the shop in the morning.

You don’t know how much stress has been lifted off my shoulders knowing there’s someone finally who’s willing to help us get it fixed the correct way.

Blazer’s Back But Lookin’ Jacked Up

I’m so fucking pissed right now! Hubby couldn’t take off work this morning to pick up the Blazer, so my dad picked it up for us and met hubby in Cashiers this afternoon to trade vehicles. Hubby drove straight back to the job site, and then took a few minutes to inspect the Blazer. He called me pissed. The body shop did the shittiest job I’ve ever seen. The bumper is visibly lopsided, and there’s a 2″ gap on the left side of it. When he opened the back hatch, he had to slam it to make it latch. The roof wasn’t damaged in the wreck, but there’s big scratch marks from where they installed the back glass, and they didn’t bother to paint it.

When hubby went to load up his tools to come home, he laid the back seat down only to have a bunch of glass fall out. They didn’t even vacuum the glass out of the car! Our spare tire attaches inside the cargo hold, and the plastic piece behind it was completely missing. My dad did explain that. He said that the plastic piece hasn’t come in yet, so the shop owner said he’d call us to bring it back by so they can install that piece when it shows up. Still they should have ordered that part in December. It should have been here a long time ago!

I tried to call the shop, but by the time hubby got the Blazer from my dad it was after 4, so they were already closed. I called the insurance adjuster and left a message basically demanding he either come out or send someone else out to take photos of how it looks now because I’m not driving a car that came out of the shop looking like this.

I’ll take some photos tomorrow during the daylight. My camera was completely dead, so I didn’t get to snap any today. I also called my dad, and he wasn’t too happy either. He said when he picked it up it was right at lunchtime, so he paid the guy, got the keys, and they locked up and left the shop while he was giving his girlfriend the ok to leave. He didn’t even have a time to look at it before the guys at the shop were already gone.

And to think when hubby talked to the shop owner Friday about picking up the Blazer the owner had the nerve to tell him Nationwide would be calling us in a few days to find out how the shop’s service was, and they’d appreciate it if we gave them a 10.

There ain’t no way in hell I’m giving them a 10. They don’t even deserve a 2! They will be fixing this shit or they’ll be giving me my deductible back. I didn’t pay $500 to have my car sit in the shop over a month, then come out looking all jacked up. In the words of Rob Dyrdek my Blazer’s looking all “ghetto and shifty and shit”.

Good god this just means my Blazer’s going to spend even more time in the shop. 2008 is turning out to be the shittiest year ever!

Blazer’s Ready

Yay! My Blazer is finally ready to be picked up. We could have picked it up today, but the guy at the shop waited until 3:30 to call hubby. The shop closes at 4, and hubby was of course still an hour away in Cashiers. The guy wouldn’t wait on him, so hubby has to take some time off Monday to pick it up. I haven’t seen it since it look like this.

My main concern is the tailgate at this point. That’s the only thing I’m worried we might be arguing over when we go to pick it up. The push button lock that was installed on the new tailgate is not an original Blazer lock. It was some aftermarket lock installed on a junk yard tailgate. I called to make sure they were going to switch out the lock with our old one, and I was told they would, so they better have! The new one is ugly, and it takes a key. Our old one was just a push button with no key lock. The tailgate is unlocked from the key chain remote or inside the vehicle.

I’m just so happy to have my truck back! I’ve gotten used to having Daddy’s little tracker, but I know he’s wanting it back even though he just picked up another Jeep for himself last week. He really loves his little Tracker, and I really miss my Blazer!