White Lightning Axiom: Redux

Short, sweet and to the point. The new,new,new swim program director at the club has quit and that leaves the whole lesson plan in a tail-spin. The kids did not graduate to the next level which would have made our lives soooo much easier. Argh. I'm none to concerned about it, I just would like to pay the same amount for a 45 minute class instead of a 30 minute class where the kids are not learning anything. The reason: not being able to coordinate kicking with strokes and not being able to reverse direction while swimming. Whatever. All I know is that the kids both can now swim back and forth across the pool with no assist and ZERO fear. This artificial assumption of authority and a shoe-horned structure is just a bit south of nonsense given the chaos induced by the repeated schedule changes every 3-4 months. And yes, I'm cranky. Ptthhhhhttt.

When we arrived back at the Manor, I immediately noticed the Replacement Vehicle the Mrs had selected from Enterprise Car Rental. A big old while Chevy Trail-Blazer. Egads! I could faintly hear the money being siphoned out of my wallet as I considered how much gasoline we will need to fuel the thing for a week. One week. That is all we get. Since the Family Tank was officially totaled, they will only pay for 7 days of rental. If they could have it repaired, we would get 30 days. Argh. We will need to move quickly to find a new vehicle. The insurance company is working on determining fair market value but could not get power to the odometer to find the mileage. We are expecting around 15K (for a n '03 with 40K miles on it) and that will help cover the 11K I still owe on the damn thing. What is left (minus the 500$ deductible) will go towards the WWII German Half-track Sud Kampffahrzeug 251 I'll pressure the Mrs into selecting as Family Tank II.

Another odd thing to add on here ... when we got back from swimming, we also noticed a line of emergency and police vehicles lined up along the street in front of the neighbor's house. The Big Chuck and his Mrs are out of town a lot so I thought it could be a break-in or something. I then recalled that they had some guys working on their basement the other day and figured that someone had mucked up the security wiring. Indeed, it was only a police car, two fire-chief cars and a fire-police car. Of course, Jake, Alexis and I went to go sit at the curb and watch to see if some REAL fire trucks showed up. Fortunately, none did. One of the Fire Chief cars did pull up to us and handed 'trading' card to the kids who were THRILLED. Basically, they are profiles of some of the local fire-fighters and officers. Neat gimmick for kids and it gives a warm feeling to the parents that there are safety tips on the back. It's nice to have public service officials who understand that interactions with the community reap rewards far beyond a smile of a child.

# posted by mdmhvonpa @ 11:16 AM