Archive for July, 2008

Have you ever had a bunch of tasks that are all sequence-dependent and that never seem to get done?  For instance, I have this one that is a real bugger that is over a year old and still hasn’t reached fruition.  Another I just finished, but was only a little over a month old.

The former is my well at my house, the latter is my car.   The well went out July 13th or 14th of last year.  I had to get someone to come out and put me a new well in.  They finally showed up to do it in September and it cost me just shy of $8000 (this is a recurring amount in my life: the cost of the well, the loss value of my Jeep when it was wrecked, the amount we were defrauded, the insurance co-pay on my daughter’s birth, and the damage estimate to the Nissan were all between 7 and 8 grand.  So, I don’t exactly consider 7 lucky for me).  They then chlorinated the well and the health department came by to do a sample and it failed.  So, the health inspector called at least once a week since September to see if we got the well folks to come out and re-chlorinate it.  Last week, they finally did.  I had to run the water for like 12 hours, and when the health department guy showed up this morning, it was still too high in chlorine for him to test.  So, I am going to have to run the water overnight again and then he will be back Monday.  What a Charlie Foxtrot…

The car was a little more work, but thankfully was resolved a little faster (and is done).  My car finally had to be replaced, as it wasn’t holding a charge anymore.  So, I went to CarMax and bought a used 2007 Nissan Sentra.  Unfortunately, on the title of the old car the VIN was wrong, so I had to go to the MVA to change it.  Now, I bought the car in Laurel, MD, so it is like a 2+ hour drive back there (and time off work, as the MVA is not open on the weekends).  So, I got them to correct it and issue me a new title, and when I got back, they realized that their appraisal (the minimum purchase price for any car) had lapsed by a day.  So, I had to wait like an hour for them to re-appraise it.  Of course, they came back with the same price, which was both useless and annoying as it was still the same minimum amount…$500.  So then the MVA was closed, so I couldn’t change over the plates to my new car that day.  So I paid for a temporary tag and made plans to go into work early later in the week so I could hit the MVA before it closed.  Of course, I assumed they were open until 5, but it was 4:30 so it was closed.  And since this was a Friday, I would have to wait until the following week.  So, I went to work early on Monday, and got off early.  On the ride to the MVA, someone rear-ended me into the car in front and my car was committed to a month and almost $8000 in repairs.  So I finally got it back and yesterday I finally got the plates transferred (and could drop the insurance on the car that I had not owned for a month).  Of course, I could have transferred the plates while the car was in the shop, and that was the single lapse for which I feel responsible.

Have you ever had something like that?  Something that seems so easy, but takes way more time, money and energy to do than you think it is worth?