What a Run. . .

What a run! We have for some time decided to get a new TV, a digital high definition version, yada, yada, yada. Now to do that is not so easy, first one must pick out the new furniture for the TV to rest upon. That alone took several weeks and a few different furniture stores. At long last the furniture from Haversty's made the grade and was ordered.

Then comes the process of getting a TV. Yes, we had looked around and pretty much settled on a Sony big screen - a 52 incher. That size, of course, had some input into the size of the new furniture, don't you know. But with measuring tape, all things were checked and rechecked, it fits.

Off to buy the big screen TV. Oops a significant price increase. Well to be honest, it is a newer version and considerably brighter than the one originally looked at. So what the hell, go for it, right. And we did. Took Best Buy the better part of an hour just to get the purchase order into their computer. A store manager charged by and gave us a screen cleaning kit, a nice $20.00 item. That was a snag, the store can not just give you something, so to circumvent all the computer road blocks, we were charged a whopping one cent for the kit. That allowed other things to occur such as transportation and installation as free. And to top that off, a flyer that said if the price is reduced in the next 60 days we could get the reduction credited to us.

Well the reduction arrived the following week. In a nut shell we did get several hundred dollars back. Still watching the ads, might just get more.

The credit card is groaning with the load we placed on it. The furniture and the TV went on the card, it was so much the credit card people pulled the plug on the card just make sure that there was no theft going on. Nice of them, but it screwed up some purchases that night. But we got that straightened out PDQ. After all, plastic is king, right?

We were on our way home from dining out and decided to take a look at David Beard's Catfish place. We had heard it had closed, abruptly. It was a left turn into the parking lot from Sante Fe Drive, just past the Iron Skillet truck stop. We were slowing, almost a crawl with left turn signals on, when kabam, a young lady plowed into the back of us. Not to serious, bent my back bumper pretty bad but that was all. It totalled the Geo that ran into us, albeit it already had bad signs like a bunge cord holding the hood down. This hit did it in and it was towed. That was April 17, 2008 about 6:30 PM.

Then the storms came about 6:30 PM on April 18, 2008 and totaled my truck. Looked like an eight year old boy with a ball peen hammer had a field day on my truck. There are several hundred dents in the hood, similar amount of dents in the roof and the poor camper shell is beat up so bad, it split in one place. There were dents in the front fenders, the doors and in the rear cargo side panels. The only place there were no dents was the tailgate. There were chuncks out of the side mirrors and grill. That was one awesome hail storm and I now believe, the worst zone of the entire storm was around our house. We have the trees to prove it (looks like some are dying too).

We have not gotten to the roof yet. The adjuster is coming. He is doing those places that need immediate attention, we don't - yet. Storm season is not over yet. But judging by the roofing trucks in the neighborhood, well ours is probably toast too. Just down the street, a new house, less than two years old has just gotten a new roof as a result of the storm. I know this, the wind turbines are going to be replace, and the covers over the vents will be replace and the smoke stacks on the heaters/hot water heaters will be replaced. Whether the roof itself will need replacement, well we will let the insurance people tell us.

Did I mention we have a 2% deductible on the roof. Yeah, that means a big out of pocket expense if we have to put a new roof on. That's Texas for you

And since the truck is a total loss, that means a new vehicle for me. It turns out to be a Mercury Mountaineer -2005 model with less than 16,000 miles on it. While it is a used vehicle it is practially new. The dealer had to fix the hail dents but that's okay, part of the deal. So he turned over a vehile in less than a week, that's inventory control.

No, we are not broke but sure feel like it. We have run through some money in just a couple of months. Who says the economy is in the doldrums, we been personally holding economy up! Hurry up the economy stimulus check from the IRS, we need to pay the gasoline bill!