Voting is powerful, perhaps one of the most powerful things we have in this Country. It’s right up there with Knowledge, Kindness, and Compassion as some of the most underused things in the public sphere. Tomorrow, in quiet Jackson, Michigan we will reduce the field of three candidates into a field of two. Well, minus any write-in candidates, there could be any number of those before Election day in November.
After a lot of Facebook interaction with at least one candidate last week, I’ve been quiet for the last day or two. I suppose, I’ve done what I can to ‘clean my own house’ in this pre-primary season, and I hope all the other interested citizens have been doing the same with their own preferred candidates. Whether my points of view are shared by Mr. Wilson, I do feel that I have his respect in our discussions: hence again, I find him to be a qualified candidate for mayor, and likely the one I’ll be voting for tomorrow (if I don’t write my own name in.) To the extent that anyone else in the City reads this, I would encourage anyone to follow my lead.
I have no doubt that our current Mayor will have one of the two top spots, yet it’s that second-place race that is often tight. Depending on how it goes, may certainly affect how I feel about the race for Mayor this year. This is one of the last few non-partisan, odd-year elections. Soon, if something doesn’t change in the composition of the Mayor’s office (not necessarily to say the Mayor,) I’m beginning to think Jackson may never have a non-partisan mayor again. Yes, it would always be kept off from the straight-party portions of the ballot, yet with even-year elections, I fear the very concept of a non-partisan council would be dead.
Slept well again last night, this has been quite routine for a while. The ocean sounds to tell me when it’s time to stay in bed- and prevent me from checking my phone for the same information, has helped the most I think. Secondly, I’ve been considering the possibility of the Vyvanse. CVS finally came through with their supplier and sent me the text this morning. Without the Vyvanse and its energy uplift, I’ve been left trying to follow a routine and the lists to maintain any semblance of productivity.
For me, that is the hard part- keeping moving on the same list for more than a few days, rather than always just writing a new list of what I need to do that day. Things that don’t get done, well they need to stay on the list and possibly be promoted in priority for the following days. Being Monday, I took a good look at the list I’d been working on. Well, two I have. The first on the whiteboard, well, I’ll guess I’ll call those goals, or maybe areas of interest at the moment: Skydive, College, Income, Write, Work.
If those are my big items, I’m trying to figure out how they fit together (and result in my mortgage being paid.) Then, on a small legal pad on my writing desk, actually, I’m keeping two there- one as a scratch pad to keep myself from scribbling on the nice list. I had a numbered list up to 14 last week, and I actually got half of them done. This week, I tore off that page and recopied onto a fresh page, now 1 through 8. Number 7 is to follow up and finish with my car insurance claim resulting from being hit in Jal, NM.
At the time, wow- at the moment- what a disaster! I remember seeing the big white truck for a quarter second, just long enough to breathe and relax, not enough time to dodge it fully. Maybe even that was lucky too- if I would have been able to brake more, he might have gotten in front of me and I would have hit him! As it is, the damage was repairable, and I had everything I needed to give my front bumper a set of stitches to hold it together.
I’d gotten the police report a week or two ago after prodding from Lacey at State Farm. Then, it slipped my mind last week until this morning looking at the list, and I finally emailed it over to her. No immediate reply, so I called over an hour or two later, yet she was on another line and I left a message. Half an hour later, another person from the local office called to let me know I would need to call another number to submit a claim. So, taking down the number (and really trying to get this item scratched off today,) I called it immediately as I got off the phone.
An automated operator, three levels deep of some pretty specific prompts, and I was delivered into a queue that announced I had fourteen minutes to wait or press 1 to receive a call back when my turn came up. I went that route (and went back to watching the last half of the “Jury Duty” season.) Once called back, I was quickly connected with a person. This person was pretty good, I explained I’d already emailed in the police report to the local office, and she said she had just a few more questions.
Well, she had a lot of questions as she took down my details, the other driver’s details, and the other driver’s insurance info (all from the police report,) and then told me she’d handle the rest of process. Well, kinda. After a few seconds of tapping she announced she was done, and that I now had a claim number and an agent assigned to my claim. After giving me my claim number and my agent’s direct dial number, she asked if I’d like to be connected directly to their voicemail. That saved some time.
I received a call a few minutes later from Emily, that explained the process again (her entire process, not mine…) and said she’d be submitting my claim to Progressive (the other driver’s company,) and would contact me later once she knew how they would handle it. Another call maybe an hour later to tell me the other company had “accepted liability” and I’d be in line for the quicker process she’d described. Another hour later and she called me again to let me know that progressive had assigned an agent, and she had contacted him already and had him three-wayed on our call to introduce me to him. Then she told me her process was done and wished me well.
The next gentleman, now Progressive, gave me a few ways to detail that damage, the first and easiest being with their app to take photos and upload them automatically to my claim with them. That is now done, and I’m just waiting 3 to 5 days he said (usually 24 hours or so,) for him to call me back with their adjuster’s valuation of my damage. Essentially, if the damage is bad enough, they will pay up to 70% of my cars total value (according to them- according to KBB it’s 3-5k.) If I don’t think their valuation of the damage is enough, then I can take some paperwork to a shop of my choice for a second opinion.
We’ll see how this goes, yet from the timeline spelled out to me, if I accept their first offer, I could have some amount of cash as soon as two or three days. That makes me feel a whole lot better about the accident when it happened- if I would have been stranded in Jal, had the car not been drivable. Especially exciting now is the math, 70% of 5,000 is $3,500. That is an amount that will almost catch my mortgage completely up to date. This, combined with how my leg has been feeling the last week or so, makes me feel a lot of hope that the direness of my situation may now be waning.
It’s been a good day, almost productive enough to make me wonder if I need the Vyvanse. Hmm, good thing I’ll have some documentation on the effects of it at least. Pulled out my TENS unit for the first time in forever. Litterally just been sitting the end-table drawer since last year. With its pads I could electrify and workout my thigh muscles while sitting, there are some points for productivity.
Also, got shopping done today- just a quick trip over to Kroger, and stopped at the bank to pull out some cash so I’ll be ready to go downtown and pay my water bill tomorrow. Yeah, a pretty productive day today, without Vyvanse.
Time to rest.