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Yup, moving out soon! The situation here is becoming untenable.
Fortunately I have a place lined up with one of the guys I trained during the winter who has his own company now with his twin brother (who I also trained during the winter).
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Wishing nothing but the best for you, CY.
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OK, wow. The used car market has exploded. Progressive just called and told me they'd pay me $6800 to total the Celica. Not bad when their very first offer is 36% higher than what you were hoping to get.
So now it's just a question of whether it can be fixed, and if so, whether I total it.
EDIT: And it's funny how other people are so desperate to tell you how you SHOULD live your life and what you SHOULD do, even if it's something they'd never do themselves (and you KNOW that because they've been in the situation before and they didn't do it).
Long story short, if I were a sue-happy guy, I could get the $6800 for the Celica by totaling it, pay back the salvage fee (probably $1500-$2000), pay for the repairs, then sue the other driver for the costs not covered by her insurance (the $160 tow and a rental car for the duration of the Celica being in the shop, or around $4000). So, if I go to court to maximize my income I get somewhere around $9000 and a totaled car.
OR I can NOT sue, have the insurance company pay the rental and tow, leave the other driver the heck alone, and get $4000 for a non-totaled car.
Yes, $5000 is a significant difference. But not totaling the car and avoiding suing people is worth a lot to me, and honestly until the kids start school we don't need the rental at all, so that $5000 is an absolute maximum.
OK, wow. The used car market has exploded. Progressive just called and told me they'd pay me $6800 to total the Celica. Not bad when their very first offer is 36% higher than what you were hoping to get.
So now it's just a question of whether it can be fixed, and if so, whether I total it.
EDIT: And it's funny how other people are so desperate to tell you how you SHOULD live your life and what you SHOULD do, even if it's something they'd never do themselves (and you KNOW that because they've been in the situation before and they didn't do it).
Long story short, if I were a sue-happy guy, I could get the $6800 for the Celica by totaling it, pay back the salvage fee (probably $1500-$2000), pay for the repairs, then sue the other driver for the costs not covered by her insurance (the $160 tow and a rental car for the duration of the Celica being in the shop, or around $4000). So, if I go to court to maximize my income I get somewhere around $9000 and a totaled car.
OR I can NOT sue, have the insurance company pay the rental and tow, leave the other driver the heck alone, and get $4000 for a non-totaled car.Yes, $5000 is a significant difference. But not totaling the car and avoiding suing people is worth a lot to me, and honestly until the kids start school we don't need the rental at all, so that $5000 is an absolute maximum.
I wouldn't sue over it. It was an accident. There was no (obvious) malicious intent behind their actions and it wasn't even so much negligence (IANAL, IMO, etc) as it was just a dumbass thing that happens kinda traffic accident.
...I wouldn't sue over it. It was an accident. There was no (obvious) malicious intent behind their actions and it wasn't even so much negligence (IANAL, IMO, etc) as it was just a dumbass thing that happens kinda traffic accident.
It all boils down to how much you're willing to go out-of-pocket and out of your way to be a decent human being.
Progressive has impressed me through every step of this process. The woman was insured at the state minimum ($5000), so I got a call from the rep offering me $5000 straight-up. No totaling the car, no paperwork, just sign a waiver that we're done and I get $5000, but I waive the right to sue either Progressive or the driver.
So, given the $6800 value of the car (which is fair) and the $160 tow, I'm out $1960, and I'm willing to eat that to be a decent person.
*BUT* it also means we're a single-car family until the Celica gets repaired or replaced (no word on that yet), so we're also foregoing a rental car to be decent people.
And yes, she made an honest mistake, but she also chose to have the absolute minimum possible insurance on a 2022 vehicle. I carry $100,000 in property damage on my cars and it only runs me $105/year; insuring damage against OTHER people's cars is cheap.
So there's "an honest mistake" and there's "intentionally underinsuring your car, then making an honest mistake and making the other person eat the costs". There's definitely a difference in my mind there.
Still very unlikely to sue, but it is an important point.
Yep. I called the body shop and he's not done yet, but his rough guesstimate is $10k to get it running as it was before the accident. So suddenly it's, "Am I willing to eat $5k to get it fixed?", which starts being significant for us.
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I have no idea whether or not this is political, since everyone hates lawyers, but could they ever, possibly, once in their lifetimes, give a straight answer?
NobodysHome: So, the insurance company is paying $5000, the car is worth $6800, and the repairs cost $10,000. If I sue the other driver, do I sue her for $1800 or $5000?
Lawyer: Well, you really shouldn't be discussing this at all. First we need to meet, and go over all the details of the case. Then we want to see the insurance company's offer. Then we want to see the itemized estimate from the body shop. Then we can discuss next steps.
NH: All I want to know is what the law says.
L: I'm not comfortable with that. We should meet.
As far as I know we only get the car's value, and we're not going to sue for $1960. And now that it's a seriously poor financial decision to get the Celica repaired, we may be saying goodbye to it.
*SNIFF*
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I have no idea whether or not this is political, since everyone hates lawyers, but could they ever, possibly, once in their lifetimes, give a straight answer?
NobodysHome: So, the insurance company is paying $5000, the car is worth $6800, and the repairs cost $10,000. If I sue the other driver, do I sue her for $1800 or $5000?
Lawyer: Well, you really shouldn't be discussing this at all. First we need to meet, and go over all the details of the case. Then we want to see the insurance company's offer. Then we want to see the itemized estimate from the body shop. Then we can discuss next steps.
NH: All I want to know is what the law says.
L: I'm not comfortable with that. We should meet.As far as I know we only get the car's value, and we're not going to sue for $1960. And now that it's a seriously poor financial decision to get the Celica repaired, we may be saying goodbye to it.
*SNIFF*
Loss of revenue because of limited mobility (it's harder for Impuses to look for work without use of car!). Significant drop of living standard because you don't have a second car in household of four. Potentially punitive payments if she is found to have been particularly negligent. Dozens of unspecified precedents on state or local level that might impact the situation. And so on and on.
I don't say that you should go for it, but I understand why lawyers don't want to make any declarations until they learned more about the situation because they can be held responsible for what they say. Each case has too many variables for simple answer.
Misleading others is fine, but misleading the client, even unintentionally, is a big no-no when it comes to lawyer ethics. Yes. Lawyers have ethics. It's just that not all of them stick to them. Definitely not all ethic stick to lawyers...
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Well, GothBard had the best take on it: The woman lives in an apartment in a not-so-great area of Oakland. She's in her 60s or 70s. She's paying for minimal insurance from a discount insurance company. Going after her could seriously ruin her life. Not going after her causes us mild economic pain.
From a moral viewpoint, it's a no-brainer. So I don't need a lawyer, because they don't do moral viewpoints.
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As I'm sure you're all astonished to know, I'm a, "Hope for the best, plan for the worst," kind of guy. When Shiro was doing his legendary garage emptying, he found three cases of emergency earthquake supplies.
Shiro: I'm going to throw these out. They're ancient and I've never used any of them.
NobodysHome: I'll take them.
So last night the family sat down and we discussed the future of our vehicles. We set a concrete number for when we're going to let the Celica go ($10k, which is WAY too high, but we love that car). We have a plan B (buy Shiro's Honda off of him, since it's useless at his new place). We have a plan C (lease a new car because we can't afford to buy one and we don't do financing).
Everything's in place, all waiting for the call from the shop. And once the call comes in, I'll likely call Progressive as well and sign their stupid paperwork and get my $5k. I can't imagine any reason I'd sue the poor woman, but never sign anything until all the pieces are fully in your sight.
EDIT: And for those of you wondering, "Why aren't you considering a used car from someone else?", it's from a lifetime of negative experiences. In my 40 years of driving, I've seen my friends and family members buy over a dozen used cars. Probably more than two dozen. And in that entire history, not a single used car lasted more than 3 years without needing a major repair. I consider it a self-fulfilling prophecy: People who are planning on eventually selling their cars don't see value in maintaining them, so they are driven harder and get far less maintenance than people who plan on keeping their cars forever. It's just a theory, but given everyone I know's long and storied history with terrible used cars, am not a fan.
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See, if you sued Apple for emotional distress done by the wonky alert system of your brother's phone last month, you could have money and the moral high ground in the court!
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See, if you sued Apple for emotional distress done by the wonky alert system of your brother's phone last month, you could have money and the moral high ground in the court!
I should be allowed to sue Apple for emotional distress every time that, "Why haven't you signed in to iCloud?" warning pops up on my screen.
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I do wonder what sort of demographic enjoys krav maga AND Jesus Life Deliverance Kingdom Prophecy Ministries AND 'Bottom' supplements, which, taken regularly, will let you 'Bottom' like a proper old champ. The Algorithm thinks it's me, but I'm not sure I'm ready for all three at once.
From a moral viewpoint, it's a no-brainer. So I don't need a lawyer, because they don't do moral viewpoints.
they do it's just not a view you ever want to see.
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Super weird week!
Juggling a project using a prototype material, looking at apartments and filling out lease forms, switching over all my banking stuff into my own account, and at the very least finding a friend on Eharmony, she seems pretty cool, doesn't want to take things fast, which is fine with me at this point in my life and has a gaming group in need of a new member. While everything is still weird (and getting weirder) at home, at least everything else seems to be working out so far.
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they do it's just not a view you ever want to see.From a moral viewpoint, it's a no-brainer. So I don't need a lawyer, because they don't do moral viewpoints.
Years ago we had a corporate lawyer in our LAN group. I'll never forget her quote (though I'm sure this is paraphrased after so many years):
"The law has nothing to do with right or wrong. The law is about what's written down, and how it can be interpreted."| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
they do it's just not a view you ever want to see.From a moral viewpoint, it's a no-brainer. So I don't need a lawyer, because they don't do moral viewpoints.
Years ago we had a corporate lawyer in our LAN group. I'll never forget her quote (though I'm sure this is paraphrased after so many years):
"The law has nothing to do with right or wrong. The law is about what's written down, and how it can be interpreted."
Just like IT...
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There really is nothing like in-person communication. It's been a week since the Celica got towed to the body shop, and the manager has been very obviously sitting on his hands refusing to generate a quote. So I headed in this morning to find out what was up.
(1) No one told him insurance was no longer involved, so he didn't have to get every single replacement part approved by Progressive. He was happy to hear this.
(2) As I suspected, what he took away from his conversation with Impus Major was that we wanted a quote on a full rebuild of the car. Once he was over $20,000, he knew he was wasting his time and stopped working. When I came in and said, "Just fix this one spot that's broken and don't worry about the rest," he was ecstatic.
So it sounds like our quote just dropped by thousands, and we're going to be able to get the Celica fixed after all.
Communication is king.
EDIT: And holy carp. Speaking of Impus Major's inability to communicate, just yesterday he, Impus Minor, and I had a conversation about how impacted the Prius would be over the next couple of days. This morning he got a text from a friend, "Hey, I'm in town! Want to get together?" and Impus Major agreed to meet him in the Berkeley Hills without for a moment thinking about the fact that he's not going to have a car.
Frustrating is an understatement.
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Logistics manager (via text): is there anything you need I can get for you?
Me (getting tired of these texts): Yes! A box of washable crayons
Logistics manager (sarcastically I suspect): You want a coloring book with that?
Me: Yes! Transformers or Power Rangers, your choice!
So yeah, now every hardscape crew has it's own box of crayons and transformers coloring book.
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Logistics manager (via text): is there anything you need I can get for you?
Me (getting tired of these texts): Yes! A box of washable crayons
Logistics manager (sarcastically I suspect): You want a coloring book with that?
Me: Yes! Transformers or Power Rangers, your choice!
So yeah, now every hardscape crew has it's own box of crayons and transformers coloring book.
That is just plain awesome.
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Sometimes I wonder whether I'm a little too jaded.
Progressive called again today (they've really been amazing) and asked me whether I'd sign the document today. I pointed out that they want me to sign a document stating that I won't sue them or the other driver, but they're not making her sign any such document, which hardly seems fair to me.
So I said, "All I need is a piece of paper from you that says you found her 100% liable for the crash, or that you found me 0% liable. Then I'll happily sign away my right to sue and we'll be good."
And apparently nobody asks for that. The agent had to go to her supervisor to find out whether they could do that.
How do you sign away your right to sue without ensuring the other person has done likewise?
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That is just plain awesome.Logistics manager (via text): is there anything you need I can get for you?
Me (getting tired of these texts): Yes! A box of washable crayons
Logistics manager (sarcastically I suspect): You want a coloring book with that?
Me: Yes! Transformers or Power Rangers, your choice!
So yeah, now every hardscape crew has it's own box of crayons and transformers coloring book.
We decided we'd pool our coloring books and crayons together and cut out all the pages and have a company wide coloring contest with 3 randomly chosen for gift cards.
We figured it would be better for morale with it getting towards the end of the summer.
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We've gotten kind of addicted to this guy's videos. He's a professional horror artist and he buys kids' coloring books and does horrible, horrible things to them.
It's pretty awesome, and he's quite talented.
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Well, this is an unfortunate development. One of GothBard's friends was planning on doing some kind of wedding thingie on Maui in October (renewal of vows or some such), so they rented a huge place and invited a bunch of friends to come stay rent-free on Maui for a week...
...in a house in Lahaina.
Reading about the tragedy there and all the locals' statements that in addition to the human tragedy, it was going to devastate them financially because they rely on tourist dollars to get by:
NobodysHome: I want to go anyway. I don't care if it smells like smoke. I don't care if I'm sleeping on someone's living room floor. I want to go there and pay someone rent and pay someone to feed me and spend tourist money to help.
GothBard: You're a wonderful person. And a terrible person.
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GothBard: You're a wonderful person. And a terrible person.
Paladin. *shrug*
It's sad how much other people's cluelessness can impact your life. Lots of our California wildfires are started by adults who should never be allowed near matches.
This morning it was in the 50s and foggy again, so someone started up their fireplace... and burned a lot of plastic, so the whole neighborhood reeks of burnt plastic and I can't open my windows.
It's sad how much other people's cluelessness can impact your life. Lots of our California wildfires are started by adults who should never be allowed near matches.
This morning it was in the 50s and foggy again, so someone started up their fireplace... and burned a lot of plastic, so the whole neighborhood reeks of burnt plastic and I can't open my windows.
Ugh. Burning plastic and old tires, or, as Gorbacz tells it "dead beavers" was a massive problem around here. Finally, any furnaces that can burn trash were prohibited a few years ago, a co-financing became available for replacement of old furnaces with gas ones.
The fall-winter smog got somewhat better.
36 people died, a town was obliterated. They aren't going to be ready for tourists to come save their economy any time soon.
I doubt that your friend's plans will go ahead without significant adjustments. October is only 6 weeks away.
How you can help right now
Help Maui Fire Victims
Thanks for the list. I was looking for something like that.
And yes, Maui is massively smaller than California, but when Santa Rosa "burned to the ground" (as reported by the news) and lost 3000+ homes, it recovered extremely quickly and the businesses were desperate to re-open as soon as possible, many within a couple weeks of the fire. So I want to wait and hear what the people who are actually there have to say, rather than listening to the news' doomslinging.
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Sometimes I wonder whether I'm a little too jaded.
Progressive called again today (they've really been amazing) and asked me whether I'd sign the document today. I pointed out that they want me to sign a document stating that I won't sue them or the other driver, but they're not making her sign any such document, which hardly seems fair to me.
So I said, "All I need is a piece of paper from you that says you found her 100% liable for the crash, or that you found me 0% liable. Then I'll happily sign away my right to sue and we'll be good."
And apparently nobody asks for that. The agent had to go to her supervisor to find out whether they could do that.
How do you sign away your right to sue without ensuring the other person has done likewise?
You? Jaded? No way.
The wildfires are still not under control; they're still pulling dead bodies from the water.
Remember that everything for rebuilding has to be brought in on ships. At substantial shipping cost along with the cost of goods. There are no highways to Hawai'i.
I'm aware of what's happening -- it's far more like the Paradise fire (that town was literally obliterated) than the Santa Rosa fire.
But I'm also aware of the news' unfortunate tendency to exaggerate and go for the worst possible stories, from CNN's infamous, "Both bridges are in the water, and we estimate 60,000 dead," after the 1989 quake, to interviews with my (in-law) aunt-and-uncle (dropped because their home was spared in the Santa Rosa fire) and their friend (aired because he lost his home).
I can send monetary help now, but in the decision as to whether or not to go, I'm leaving that 100% in the hands of the people who live there, because they are best-suited to telling me whether my presence would be a welcome influx of cash or an undue burden on them.
In lighter news, ah, teenagers.
They've had literally 12 weeks of summer already -- Since DVC got rid of its finals week it has an amazingly long summer. And they've done astonishingly little in the way of socializing...
...until Impus Major's collision took out the Celica with only two weeks to go before school starts.
Suddenly every friend of theirs they know is coming out of the woodwork trying to get them to drive them places. Impus Major's been to Castro Valley, downtown Berkeley, downtown Berkeley again without a car because he forgot we only had one, and Martinez. All this week since Monday. Impus Minor did an overnight near Tilden last night (right by your old place, PM), and he's doing another overnight tonight at Stinson beach. I finally had to tell Impus Minor, "No, you may not take our only car on two consecutive overnight trips," but apparently one of the other families heard about the crash and will be letting Ryan drive their car instead.
So at least there's that.
But I don't think they've had more than a dozen outings between the two of them since the summer began, and suddenly this week they've had half a dozen so far, and it's only Thursday.
My ex-wife belongs to Fox News now.
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My ex-wife belongs to Fox News now.
Oh no. Oh no. I'm so sorry.
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Speaking of "built different", this month's "animals in your food" story is a Detroit woman finding a live frog in her spinach.
I would personally be delighted to find a live animal in my food. It would mean:
(1) The food was packed gently enough so as not to kill the animal.
(2) The food was shipped quickly enough that the animal did not die of suffocation/starvation/dehydration.
(3) The food was packed cleanly enough and so free of pesticides that it did not kill an extraordinarily pesticide-sensitive amphibian.
It would make me happy.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Speaking of "built different", this month's "animals in your food" story is a Detroit woman finding a live frog in her spinach.
I would personally be delighted to find a live animal in my food. It would mean:
(1) The food was packed gently enough so as not to kill the animal.
(2) The food was shipped quickly enough that the animal did not die of suffocation/starvation/dehydration.
(3) The food was packed cleanly enough and so free of pesticides that it did not kill an extraordinarily pesticide-sensitive amphibian.It would make me happy.
I would be happy if a woman popped out of a cake and began singing to me, too.
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I went over to my old house to tidy up the garden last week, and there were loads of little frogs hopping about the garden. I'd always wanted frogs, so it was great to seem them there; what I should do is make a little pond at the new place, then scoop a few up and take them over.
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Greetings from sunny northern Wisconsin. And by sunny, I mean pouring rain.
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Greetings from sunny northern Wisconsin. And by sunny, I mean pouring rain.
Hello from southern Wisconsin where it's approximately about to start pouring rain!
Rain at my house too. It’s a good thing.
It's too hot today.