Dave's PhotoJournal for Saturday, May 31st, 2008

First, I woke up to see that my car had gotten smashed at some point overnight. Thus began a multi-month odyssey of driving around rental cars and waiting for it to get fixed.

And, in a completely unrelated incident, Julie and I ended up at the ER today. From time to time, she gets this pain from a pinched nerve in her back, and over the past couple days, it came back, to the point where she could barely walk. So we had it checked out.

Later, Dan and Nina came over to hang out.

Found this note from Kendall when I woke up.

So here was the view from my bedroom. My first thought when I saw this was: Gosh, I sure hope I don't get a parking ticket, from being parked on the curb! On nice sunny weekends, we get a bunch of people parking on our street for the zoo, because they are too cheap to pay for zoo parking. Correspondingly, we also get an increased presence from parking enforcement folks. So, the LAST thing I wanted was to not only get my car smashed (I didn't know the damage yet, I thought it was just moved up onto the curb), but to get a parking ticket as well.

So I figured I'd better head down there to at least move it off the curb until I could figure out what else I needed to do.

Ah.. I see. hmm.

Yeah.. Umm. That's not going anywhere.

Clearly, they rammed into that corner. I see now.

Funny thing was, apparently this happened last night around 11pm. We were still up then, watching a movie. I ran into my neighbor later, and he told me all about it. From what I hear, there was a HUGE noise from when this happened. (Understandably.) That intersection is uncontrolled (no yield signs, nothing). Usually, that leads people to just go slow, and figure out what to do. However, last night, both cars decided to speed up to try and beat the other person through. So, they collided, and the collision sent one of the cars careening straight into mine. The noise was apparently loud enough that it brought out basically the whole neighborhood, and everyone was wondering who owned my car. Hmm. No clue why we didn't hear any of this. But, the fact that both drivers had insurance is.. well.. unheard of, if you ask me. Don't get me wrong though, I am absolutely not complaining.

So, after I had gotten the whole process started (called the insurance company, the crash shop, and the tow truck), Julie and I went for a walk. Beautiful day today, nice view of the Olympics.

Next, I went to go pick up a rental car. They offered to give me this Mustang for the price of a compact. Sure, I said, I'll take you up on that.

I got halfway around the block though, and HATED it. It drove like a boat. Nasty. And parking it would be a pain in the ass. So I took it back and traded it.

...For this Dodge thing. Not bad. Drove like any other rental car I've ever had in my life.

Then I got some breakfast, because I felt like I deserved a waffle.

Closeup of the damaged tire.

Tow trucks are amazing, really.

That's my neighbor Matt. He told me the whole story.

Julie at the ER at the UW hospital later.

Vending machine at the hospital. She was hungry, but showing her a picture of what they had was easier than trying to remember and iterate the list back to her.

Julie and Nina back at the house later.

Me and Dan.

A couple of pics from Dan and Nina's camera.

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