Cory, you jinxed me. 🙃
You said you were happy I wasn’t working today so that I could have a day that was much less likely to be stressful right before I leave on my trip.
Ugh.
Wednesday was supposed to be my last day of work as I try and get everything buttoned up for the year both with my business and here in Arkansas since I’m flying out to Utah tomorrow night. It made sense not only for those reasons, but also because it was supposed to rain today… which it did.
But first thing in the morning, even though I haven’t had a warranty claim issue to deal with since August, of course I would have two people call today with warranty claims.
🙄
It was raining through the night, sometimes super strongly, and it rained pretty much the entire morning, I think.
I really didn’t want to do the warranty claim, and oftentimes I show up because they say there’s an issue that’s under warranty, and it turns out to be a completely different issue, and this first one was all the way down in Southeast Fayetteville, pretty much the farthest I go as a mobile mechanic.
So I had that brewing, trying to figure out what to do there, as I didn’t want to leave them hanging the entire time I was out of town, and I didn’t want to work out in the rain, and I had so many things on my schedule to do…
One of the things that I’ve been putting off yet again, was trying to get all the information that I need to submit the EGD stuff for reimbursement for my health insurance company. It’s been an absolute nightmare, even after spending probably 2 hours or whatever at the hospital trying to get all the records I needed. I went online to try and submit everything, and I needed more records, even though the hospital assured me that I didn’t need any more. The ones that I needed were ones that they couldn’t even figure out how to get me.
But I have to get this all submitted within 6 months, and I’m not that far away from 6 months, so I need to get it taken care of. But it’s a pain in the butt, so I’ve been procrastinating, and today was exactly the perfect demonstration of why I was putting it off and putting it off. I probably made 15 or 20 phone calls, was on the phone with different entities and organizations and people for I don’t know how many hours today, and nobody yet has been able to get me the proper information for being able to get an itemized bill from the pathology lab that did the workout on the biopsy that they still haven’t told me the results of over 4 months later, nor can they find the information for the anesthesiology people for the itemized bill from them.
It just boggles my mind how these organizations can be designed the way that they are, how they can build the way they do, and how nobody seems to know what anyone else is doing.
Our health care system is So ridiculously broken.
Anyway, after I don’t know how many hours of trying to figure things out, I finally got what I hope will be the piece of information that will be able to get me the rest of the information that I need, as I still don’t have any of it. I have a little four digit alphanumeric code that I need to give the company that I paid all the money to. So after I was able to figure out that code, which I’m praying is the right code, I called them back, waited on hold for over an hour, only to then have an answering machine pick up and ask me to leave a message.
Can I just say I don’t wonder why some people “go postal”?
I confess to some very unfriendly thoughts toward the people who perpetuate these broken systems and ridiculous business structures and insanely priced medical treatments and services and what not.
I wish I could start my own little country. 😅
Maybe Elon can give me a ride to Mars.
Anyway, so that was super frustrating. The other warranty claim that called today was about front brakes. Apparently the rotors that I installed have already warped, possibly because she’s heavy on her brake pedal, but fortunately for me, that one was out of labor warranty. It was within parts warranty, but out of labor warranty, so she already had her car at another shop, so I just had to orchestrate the replacement of the parts for her so that she could get what she needed.
That was all able to be taken care of over the phone, which was really nice.
The other job, unfortunately, wasn’t that easy. So I told him that I was going to go ahead and come this evening to get it figured out. I had a few errands I needed to take care of on the hill first come after giving up with all the health stuff for at least the next few days until after Christmas.
I took the diesel cans down to my truck, filled up the mini excavator with one of the cans, and just put the other two cans in the bed of the pickup truck. Then I drove up to the big barn to put the pitchfork and metal rake back where the sheep and goats are kept.
Then I went over to Jim and stuff’s place because I finished my final transfer from being a dual DeWalt Milwaukee guy to being only Milwaukee. Now I won’t have to deal with multiple chargers and multiple battery types and all that. I went over to Jim’s, because he bought all my DeWalt tools from me.
I also needed to drop off a spare key for the house.
Once I got that taken care of, I headed off the hill to a place in East Lowell where I grabbed some more things for Haven Hill Creek Park. They didn’t have all that I wanted, but they had some, so I got about half of what I wanted.
The people are going to get more of the same stuff for me when I get back, so that’ll be good. Our little park is taking shape, little by little.
After that, I headed down to Fayetteville to do the warranty job on the 2010 Scion tC. It did indeed turn out to be an alternator that had gone bad after only 5 months. 😶
Good for them… not so great for me.
But that’s fine.
I drove over to the auto parts place to exchange the alternator, and the new one that they had for me had damaged threads. Gratefully, they happen to have two of the same alternator, being the only store in the entire area, I think that it had more than one of that particular alternator. So gratefully, I was able to use that one without having to Jimmy rig the other one.
That said, unfortunately, when I got all the way back to the car and started installing it, I found that some of the threads on the other one were also damaged. Three bad alternators in a row.
Gratefully, I was able to get the threads cleaned up and workable, so the alternator is now installed and good to go.
Good gravy.
I’m finally on my way home, and I’ll get there probably about 7:45 p.m., which will give me enough time to eat some dinner and crash. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get everything else that needs to be buttoned up buttoned up quickly tomorrow, so I can get packed for my flight to salt Lake.
Thank you to Jim for taking me to XNA tomorrow, and thank you to Cory for picking me up at 1:00 in the morning, and then driving me all the way to Highland, which you’ll mean he probably won’t get to bed until 3:00 a.m. or later. 😅
Thank you, Saint Cory. 😊
In other news, I’ve been able to stay on top of this heartburn issue relatively well. As crazy as it sounds, I think It really is actually related to my back issues… somehow.
Gratefully, the issues with both my back and my stomach stuff have been much better lately, as I’ve learned how to manage them, I think. That puts them squarely in the camp of uncomfortable and painful, but not super stressful, and not so painful and worrisome that I’m both physically and emotionally exhausted all the time and where it’s hard to focus on anything else but the pain and anxiety.
So that’s nice.
What else… I’m struggling with some things that I really would like answers to right now… Lots I just don’t understand… unless I do. And if I do, then… that’s really painful. 😞
I feel thrown away… discarded… again… because I wasn’t worth it.
…
Well, folks, it’s time to eat dinner and to try and veggie myself a bit without being stupid.
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 