Happy New Day 2014!

Well, here we are…the end of another year.

2013.

For me, there were highs and lows, ups and downs, and lefts and rights. (For the record, I think I took more lefts than rights.) There were things I would like to forget, and there were things I always want to remember. There were things I’m proud of, and others not-so-much. I was able to do some new things and see some new places, and I was able to revisit some old favorites and relive some old times.  I lost some new friends and renewed some old friends. There were happy times and sad times, laughs and tears, wines and beers, cheers and jeers; good news and bad news and scenic views and rhythm and blues…and jazz.

But here we are…at a natural milestone…a new year. (Or in the finance world, year-end.)

There are times where I enjoy natural milestones…a time where it’s seemingly fitting to take a moment and reflect and review and reset…to put a combination of events into a context, in an effort to determine which road to take, and which direction to go.

Except that as I think about what I wrote above, 2013 at some level really wasn’t much different than 2012, or 2011, or 2010, etc. Every year will have highs and lows, ups and downs, and lefts and rights. (Although, just to shake things up, maybe I’ll take more rights than lefts?) And, more likely than not, 2014 will be the same as well.

The End Of The Road (The End Of This Journey)

Yes, on the second anniversary of my blog, I’ve decided that this is the end of the road; the end of this journey. 

When I started this two years ago, I didn’t have a plan of what I wanted to do, or how long I wanted to do this. I had a voice that I wanted to put out there and I was inspired by two other people specifically; one who had already started blogging and one who wanted to start blogging herself.  My first post immediately jumped into travelling/journey metaphor that has ended up being a central theme to a lot of my posts; but that wasn’t even planned - it just kinda happened.  And as with a lot of the literal road trips that I take, and as with life itself, a lot of this is all about taking into view what is happening to you at a particular moment; what you are seeing through your windshield, and taking what you think is the best fork in the road at that particular junction. 

136 posts later, in looking back at what this journey has been, I am proud, and to some extent, a little surprised. At the beginning, I honestly didn’t think I’d be writing posts for two years. But I’m proud of what I’ve done, and in particular, I’m proud of the topics that I have written about. Part of this blog hosting site allows each post to be labeled with keywords, and there have been some themes along the way that seems to be applicable to most of my posts. First, there is driving (7) and traveling (14). OK, there’s no surprise there. But, here are the most interesting ones: 

• Current events (11)
• In memory (10)
• Inspiration (35)
• Interpersonal connections (23)
• Just for fun (22)
• Provoking thought (59)
• Society (11)
• Support (17)
• Thanks (10)

I tried to make this fun, but I know there were times that I was probably a little heavy-handed.  But I’ve discovered some core beliefs here that I don’t think I was able to put into words before this blog.  I now have 136 posts of words to boil down into this one long thought:

We live in a fast-paced society, where the pace seems to be increasing before our very eyes.  There aren’t enough hours in the day, and the pressures of life and society seem to be increasing as well.  I think we’re all suffering in one way or another, but there isn’t any time to admit it. Without actually going back and re-reading my posts, I know I’ve written several times that we all need to SLOW DOWN. We need to take a back road every now and then and reconnect with a simpler time, a simpler place. But more importantly, we need to slow down and say hi to each other. Face-to-face, or voice-to-voice. We’re human and we need human interaction, human connection. Reading a thought on a screen is nice but so much gets lost when it’s digitized to a series of 0s and 1s. We need to SLOW DOWN and take the time to be appreciative and thankful for what, and WHO, we have.  We can’t let that fall to assumption; we can’t think that “they know I appreciate” them. Stress and pressure tend to distort the way we think and assumptions get twisted and then we all become one big mass of confusion.  Technology is good on one level; we get to “stay in touch” more. But we need to truly in touch, and that can’t happen without looking someone in the eye, or listening to a tone in their voice, that tells us without a doubt in the world that we’re important to each other. Because, as I almost painfully learned two months ago; it could all be taken away in the blink of an eye. One minute, you’re listening to “Bold Changes” in your car, and the next minute a truck, and your world, is turned upside down. And it’s time to make some bold changes.

   

I put a lot of myself in my blog. I’ve gotten a lot out of this blog. I hope that I have had an impact on anyone who had read. I’ve gotten some feedback over these two years – most of my feedback came from my two sources of blog inspiration. There’s something about writing that is empty or hollow without feedback. There’s something about writing where the writer is trying to make a connection, and without knowledge of that connection, what is written becomes just a bunch of words and letters on paper – or in this context, on a screen.  So, it’s also no surprise that one of my most used themes, in addition to the above, was:  Who am I? (27).

This is the end of this journey, but every end is a new beginning.  The destination of yesterday is the starting point of today. My next journey is going to be more inward, and upward, than outward. As I ended with “Who am I?”, I am starting with “Who am I?” And I have some changes to make - some bold changes.   What those changes will be, I’ll find out along the way; along the journey. 

I still may post from time to time, but if and when I do, it will probably be under a different blog “umbrella.” There are a couple of web services that can import blogs and create printed books out of them, and I plan on doing that here. This is something that I want to save in a permanent, real, tangible sense. 

Thank you all for your support and inspiration; thank you for your connection. Keep your eyes open on the road of life – you never know when you may come across something beautiful around the next bend.

January 2013: The Month Without A Journey (Update, and Thoughts, and Thoughts, and...)

I'll start this with an update from my last post:  no progress was made with either my insurance company, or with the PA State Police. At this point, I had spent $800 in car rentals out-of-pocket:  $450 one-way from PA to NY plus 6 days, and then $350 local for a week. In attempting to limit my out-of-pocket expenses, and therefore limit that amount I’d have to eat if the insurance process determined that I was not reimbursable, or limit the amount that I would have to hand over (and pay) a lawyer to try to get reimbursed, I went car-less for two weeks. (From my last post:  Mon 1/7/13, 7AM:  I turned in my car rental. For the sake of managing my cash flow, I decided to not rent another car until it’s absolutely needed. Instead, I have to go out of my comfort zone and ask for help; ask for favors from friends, which I have a hard time doing.) 

By the end of last week, I had gotten to my point of no return:  I couldn’t continue to remain car-less. The weekend before 1/7, I bought three weeks-worth of groceries. At that time, I had hoped this would be resolved.  Each weekend during that stretch, the weather ended up being nice, so I was able to walk two blocks to a 7-11 down the street to pick up small essentials (milk, eggs, etc.) I did get a ride back-and-forth to work; but I also had the bus as an option – lucky for me that the bus option only meant an extra 15 minutes on my commute and only costs $1 one-way. I’ll come back to all of this later…

…anyway, by the end of last week, I had gotten to my point of no return. It was time to accept that fact that I would have to find a way to “eat” the $4,400 difference on my car loan, and have that amount included in any financing on a newer car. My plan:  start at my original dealer, ask for a new 2012 leftover or used 2011 car, and pull out all of the negotiating stops to try to keep my monthly payment the same as I had been paying before. Again, in my mind and in the “general” theory, since this accident wasn’t my fault, I shouldn’t be out anything financially. And to me, that means I should not have a higher monthly payment. But that also means that I am not necessarily entitled to a NEW car, since I had been driving a 2011. SO, it was time to rent another car so I could start wheeling and dealing (pun intended). 

Tue 1/22:  after work, I took a bus to the airport to pick up my rental car. (In my experience, airport-based car rental offices are much better equipped to deal with the rental process and offer much more flexibility, compared to local offices. Since I live only 15 minutes from the airport, I generally rent my cars from the airport.)  I drove from the airport to my original car dealer, where I walked in and put it all on the line. I told the salesperson that basically, I bought my 2011 from them, it was totaled (here’s the picture), I’m fighting with insurance, I want a 2012 for the same monthly payment or less, I have a $4,400 leftover loan balance, I’m eligible for dealer and manufacturer loyalty discounts AND Xerox corporate discount, I have online pricing already reviewed and three other dealers in mind if you can’t come up with something. He said he’d be back in a second, and he came back with a major surprise:  the bank that I had my loan through automatically includes gap insurance in their loans. 

HUH? 

That meant that the $4,400 was no longer an issue. So, to make a long story short, I was able to get a new 2013 Subaru, with a cheaper monthly payment, which I picked up on Friday 1/25. And that sounds like the end of the story. It’s not – although, it is the end of the biggest piece of the story, which I’ll come back to in a second.

That same day, I returned my rental car; another $350 tacked onto the insurance fight.  So, even though we reached the climax of this drama, the epilogue has yet to be written:  how, if, and when, will I be reimbursed the $500 deductible and $1,050 in car rentals that I have paid out-of-pocket?

____ 

My Response to Progressive's Customer Satisfaction Survey

On January 14, I posted an update about my car accident, and the resulting insurance claim process. Within a day or two of that post, I received an automated e-mail, asking me to complete a survey about my satisfaction of the processing and closing of my claim.

A claim which, by the way, was and still is open and unresolved.

After marking my survey with "Strongly Disagree" for just about all of the answers, the below is what I submitted as write-in comments:
_____

When I filed the claim, I asked that my cell phone be used as my primary phone, as I was going to be out of town and away from work for the next 5 days.  The only phone number that anyone has used has been my work number. So even though my claim rep's initial call was made that day, along with an e-mail to my work e-mail, I did not receive that message until my return to work.

At that point, I had left 2 other messages with my cell phone number before finally receiving a call from a back-up claim rep, who did answer the general questions that I had at that point.  Over the 3 weeks after that, I left at least 4 messages before getting a return call with a status.  I then left another 5 messages stating that I had general questions, and only had those questions answered when my 6th call was answered.

I also placed 4 phone calls to the medical claim rep, who has yet to return any calls.  I did get my questions answered by calling a general 1-800 number myself, so at this point, I do not need a return call.

My car loan was paid off relatively quickly.  I do have other outstanding bills that are pending receipt of the accident report so that the party-at-fault can be identified, but to be honest, I can't be sure how hard anyone is working to get the report in order to resolve the rest of my claim.

In addition, I did have a policy renewal fall in the middle of this.  I did renew my policy, as I felt that a cancel of the policy with an open claim would further delay the processing of my claim.

As my claim is not resolved, I do not believe I should be receiving a survey asking my opinion about how satisfied I am with the handling of your claim, in past tense.

I have had to deal with 4 different departments during this process, which I do not believe falls under the category of "easy".

Finally, with all of the advertising that is done on TV, radio, and the Internet, I feel that my claim experience is far worse than what is portrayed in that advertising.

I was not injured in my accident, fortunately.  The worst part of my accident at this point has been my experience with Progressive.  At this point, I cannot and will not recommend Progressive to friends, family, or colleagues, and in fact, I am recommending to those who have Progressive to change their insurance company.

My Thoughts (And Digressions) On The Manti Te'o Situation

I spent the morning watching ESPN SportsCenter, and one of their lead stories was that they were able to interview Manti Te’o about his role in this now infamous hoax. (As with any other major mainstream media story, I refuse to put a spiffy, catchy title on it.)  Was Te’o purely a victim? Was he a knowing part of the hoax? Was he initially a victim who didn’t come clean? As usual, when the initial story broke on Wednesday, those questions was raised, and then society began to come up with the quickest opinions, then answers, and then reactions, as soon as possible, before finding out the story from all sides. (I normally would have written “facts” instead of “story”, but I have a feeling we will never know what all of the facts are.)  I was initially confused about what happened, and as the week went on, my confusion increased more than it cleared. The ESPN interview was not taped, as requested by Te’o, so what I saw was the interviewer’s (Jeremy Schaap’s) careful take on the interview. For me, some of the confusion cleared up, enough so that I could place this situation into a context that could end any additional curiosity on my part.

That context is this:  regardless of what else we may learn; regardless of whatever other facts, sides, stories, spins, etc., comes out of there from here forward; I find the process of the hoax intriguing.

My Thoughts On The Lance Armstrong Situation

Well, here’s the next big trial in the Court Of Public Opinion:  Lance Armstrong.

My thoughts?

I’m not going to attempt to judge the man. I’m not going to attempt to speculate on what he was thinking, or what he meant. I’ll point this out in a few places as I go along. But this is a complicated story. It seems to me that in the Court of Public Opinion, too many times, we try to summarize our opinions, judgments, and feelings about the topic at hand as a singular statement. I think the reality of most of these situations is that if I attempt to come up with a single thought, I have to disproportionately weigh an aspect, and I think that starts to distort the situation. So, I usually choose to keep distinctly-different aspects of a situation separate, and not fall into the trap of trying to make my opinion fit some kind of acceptable mold or length.

Also, just as a quick note, I’m writing this before the airing of his interview with Oprah Winfrey, and I am not at all interested in watching the interview. I am also not interested in hearing all of the opinions and analysis that is going to come after the interview. In my opinion, in the course of these public “come clean” interviews, the focus turns into judging what was said, what wasn’t said, how it was said, etc., and as I said above, I am not interested in judging. I’m not interested in the person, I’m interested in the impact.

So, with that said:

January 2013: The Month Without A Journey

Yes, this is another one of those posts that is going to start with the following sentence:  “Well, I haven’t written in a while…” 

Why? Well, I’ve had no journeys since my last post – the post about my accident which totaled my car. When I last wrote, I ended the post with my arrival back home on the day of the accident:  Friday December 21, 2012, at 11:30PM. So, what has happened since then?