Altus, this and that

Kyle hasn't even been a Altus a whole 2 weeks yet and I miss him like crazy! They have kept him relatively busy with academics and SIMs since he's been there, and he is really enjoying learning a "big boy plane" as he calls it. So far, he has mainly been learning what all the buttons do, and learning the pre-start up check list. Apparently, there are a lot of things to check before you can even turn on the engines. And then, there is more stuff to check, but I don't think they have gotten quite that far yet; not proficiently anyway. Here is a picture of the cockpit (apparently many of those knobs serve dual purposes):

Like I said, just learning all this stuff has kept Kyle pretty busy. I think the Wii he got for his birthday helps out too ;)

Besides all the goings on with my car, things have been relatively calm for me. As I posted earlier, I went with my parents up to College Station last weekend to visit my brothers. That was fun. They have turned out to be pretty cool people, and it is so neat to see them go through the Corps and have some of the same experiences Kyle did. Some of the experiences we had at A&M are some of the most fun and treasured memories I have. Its nice to still have such a close connection to Aggieland, and I am so glad for my brothers that they are making their own memories up there.

Also, my mom and I are going to be taking a trip to Charleston in a few weeks. Since Kyle can't go with me to the design center to pick out some of the finishes for our house, my mom offered to accompany me. That's going to be a lot of fun. I'm so excited about having our own home and personalizing it! I can't wait until its done and we can move in!! After that trip, I get to go to my brothers' final review at A&M. They are going to be juniors next year (which means in a year they will be in their senior boots, which blows my mind). And then I am going up to Oklahoma to visit my guy and we will celebrate our 2 year wedding anniversary! I can't believe its been 2 years since our wedding (and we have been a couple for 7 1/2 years!). I'm really excited, not only that we have been married for 2 years, but that I will get to see him on our anniversary this year! (Last year, he was cross country and was gone for it). Plus, I miss him a ton and can't wait to see him.

That's about it for now; I will keep you updated as things happen around here.

I think I won't drive again for a while

Well, I picked up my car today, and it was fixed to my satisfaction this time. Its amazing what people will do for you when you tell their boss they aren't doing a very good job. I'm just glad that its fixed and I can put all this behind me. But on the way back from the repair shop I must have had a "hit me" sign on the passenger door or something b/c 3 people acted like they had the desire to hit me. I'm convinced that one of them would have if I hadn't hit my breaks. She decided that she wanted to be in my lane and didn't really care if I was there or not. Lets just say that all three of these drivers were not from around here (America) and probably don't have a valid drivers license or insurance. No big deal, I just felt like someone really wanted to send my car back to the shop after it had been out for a total of 2 minutes. Moving on...

I think my frustration has peaked...

If I have a piece of advice for anyone, at the moment, it would be to not get into any type of auto accident. Obviously, the word "accident" itself implies that you didn't do it on purpose, but if there were any way to avoid it, I certainly would.

If you haven't caught on by now, this is something that I am dealing with at the present moment. The short story is: on our drive from Del Rio to Houston, a car in front of me ran over a piece of sheet rock in the road, and having no way to change lanes (we were passing some trucks), I hit it with the front end of my car. I was fine, a little shaken up, and there was some damage to my car (obviously, I hit a piece of sheet rock going 75 miles an hour), but nothing internal. Should be no big deal to fix right? Wrong. For whatever reason , my particular service representative at the body shop is the most unhelpful person and is actually quite rude to me. Its like I am a nuisance to him. First off, there was a crack in my front bumper. They did not replace this despite my expressed desire for them to do so, they puttied it and painted over it AND I can still see the dimple where the crack is. Next, they tried to tell me that damage to my undercarriage was prior damage. Wrong again. My car is only a year old and I take care of it. Anything damage to that front end was done by the same piece of sheet rock. I am beyond frustrated at this point. We have contacted our insurance adjuster again, and he was going to contact my service rep, so maybe it will get done right this time. But if I ever have another problem with my car, I WILL NOT be taking it back to this place.

My beef is not that I had the accident, things like that just happen, but when I take my car somewhere to get fixed, and pay my deductible, I expect that things get done properly and not to be treated rudely when I say that the current state of repairs does not meet those expectations. To me, that is unacceptable.

Sorry to vent, but this has been what I have been dealing with since I have been back in Houston. And with Kyle in Altus, that makes things that much more complicated.

On a brighter note, I got to see my brothers this past weekend at A&M's parents weekend events and Kyle was able to visit with one of his very dear friends who is moving to Japan in a few days. So we both had a really good weekend. He has been in Oklahoma for a couple of weeks now, and that's going well thus far. Its mostly been academics but he has done a couple of sims as well. He'll actually get to fly the plane in July. I'll post more updates on that later.

Gotta give credit where credit is due...

I can't take credit for our little makeover here.... I got it from this blog. They have a bunch of really cute designs and they are free!