Flash forward a few years. Now, Mackenzie is the 4-year-old and Tristan has outgrown the Power-wheels.

I’m actually amazed the battery has lasted this long!

Businesses are jumping on the bandwagon as well.  Hotels don’t want to wash your towels and sheets every night, but again, that’s probably more for financial reasons than for environmental reasons.  Other business decisions, such as recycling are practical and noble. There is, however, one place where businesses should not “go green”: the restroom.

My biggest pet-peeve about the whole thing is when paper towels are eliminated in favor of the air dryers in restrooms. The paper towels that most public restrooms have are the brown ones anyway, made from previously-recycled materials.  So by providing them, you aren’t completely anti-Earth.

First of all, they are loud and they scare the crap out of small kids.  Trust me, I know.  If the kids were to dry their hands before using the restroom, it would make them wet their pants.  It’s a good thing they wash their hands afterward.

Yesterday, we visited Stone Mountain and Tristan had an accident.  I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say that the accident was so bad that I lost my lunch during the clean-up process.  That is not an exaggeration.  Some messes can not be cleaned up with cheap toilet paper.  When we left, that restroom stall was thoroughly violated.  I honestly would have cleaned up the mess had paper towels been around.  Unfortunately, some minimum-wage employee had to do it.

I was once, in my grocery store days, the guy who had to clean up comparable messes.  I always wondered how someone could “violate” a restroom like that.  Now I know.  In this case, it’s because someone tried to go green.

Although he was dead, I did attempt to locate the owner after my run.  I must say that it is strange ringing someone’s doorbell at 7:00 on a Sunday morning.  I didn’t find the owner, but I did find the neighbors who had been caring for the cat.

After that, I went home and told Kimberlie that Sunday wasn’t going to be a good day.

Tristan has been being a great kid lately behavior wise.  He earned most of his magnets on his responsibility chart, so we decided to take him bowling as a reward.

We headed south on 41 towards the much-nicer-than-Macon bowling alley in Warner Robins.  As I was stopped at a red light, some idiot rear-ended me and knocked me into the car in front of me.  Once again, my CR-V (which is not even two years old) is All Boomed Up.  The at-fault driver didn’t even have a driver’s license.  Let’s hope he has insurance.

I may post damage pictures later.

You’ll have to watch the video to see how the car did on the track, but I will tell you we won Peoples Choice, which was a $100 gift card to Ingleside Village Pizza!

That truck, by the way, is the largest thing I have ever driven in my life.

I had learned a few weeks before that she was filming a show here and that only her biggest fans were going to be selected.  I could care less about her and her propaganda, but Kimberlie watches her every chance she gets.  Of course I wrote in to try to convince them to let me surprise her with tickets.  Some how, we got picked.  

Long story short, it ended up being her Oprah’s Favorite Things episode.  She chose her Macon viewers to shower with gifts because more TV sets are tuned to her show in Macon than in any other place.  Sad statistic for Macon — good for us.  We each left with about $10,000 worth of stuff each.

One year later, I have sold most of the duplicate items on eBay, Amazon, etc. and used the cash to buy and pay down the CR-V.  Yes, the same CR-V that got “boomed up” (but I have it back now).  The Target gift cards and overpriced (but really good) cupcakes are long gone.  The KitchenAid Mixers are in my closet, because we don’t have enough counter space in our kitchen.  We love our refrigerator and High Definition Camcorder.  We have watched some of the DVDs and occasionally Kimberlie will wear the fancy boots.

A lot of people say that something big like that will change your life.  It gave us some things that we wouldn’t normally have bought, but other than that and maybe a little bit of attention, it really didn’t impact us that much.  Don’t get me wrong.  I am extremely thankful.  I don’t even bash Oprah anymore, but maybe I’ll win the lottery one day.

I didn’t have very good days at work on Monday and Tuesday.  Actually, they were the worst days I have ever had at Mercer.  In a conscious effort to not ruin my professional career by blogging negatively about my job and/or colleagues, I shall spare you the details.

Tuesday, I finally received the police report with the other guy’s insurance, thinking that things would start moving along.  On the police report, the officer noted that the bike that hit me was a 2008 Harley Davidson.  I looked up the model number online and learned that it was a $20,000 motorcycle.

Wednesday, I stopped by a body shop to get an estimate on the amount of damage to the CR-V.  It came up to right under $6,000 worth of damage.  If that wasn’t enough, Mackenzie had another ear infection so we had to take her to the after hours pediatrician.  Only 3 more weeks to her surgery.

Yesterday, the director of employee wellness stopped by to let our department know about employee fitness and wellness programs offered by Mercer.  During her talk, my phone rang.  I could see that it was Progressive so I left the meeting to take the call.  They informed me that the other driver’s coverage had lapsed and that the claim would be filed under my policy (causing me to owe a nice deductible).  I told her I would call her back and re-entered the meeting — just in time for blood pressure, weight, and BMI screenings.  Of course, my blood pressure was sky high — right into the hypertension range on the chart.  Clearly those numbers were inflated due to stress.  I’ve never had anything but normal blood pressure in my life and I’ve actually exercised (ran) more in the last few months than ever before.

Why would you buy a $20,000 Harley, act like a hotshot on it, and let your insurance lapse?

I finally got a rental car yesterday.  It’s a black 2009 Buick Lacrosse.  If you can imagine a funeral, this would be the minister’s car at the beginning of the line.  I feel like I am 70 years old driving it.  The car is pretty nice — leather seats and all of the bells and whistles that an old man would need.  I can even crank it and warm it up by pushing a button without going outside.  It’s so new that Enterprise doesn’t even have a tag for it.  My cop friend’s wife says that I’m bound to get pulled over — not because of the tag, but because people my age don’t usually drive cars like that.

Today I am chasing the lions.  I am going to make this be a better day no matter what.  After all, it’s Halloween, Friday, payday, etc.  My biggest dilemma is whether to take the kids Trick or Treating or hit up another festival or two tonight.  I have a 10K in the morning, which should help my blood pressure.

Happy Halloween!

Here is the damage to my CR-V . . .

This is the bottom of my door. After the incident, I had to thrust all of my body weight against it to get it open and get out.

Another shot of the door and damage to the wheel/tire.

Here is where the guy’s helmet hit my door. Another two inches and glass would have been all over me. Another three feet and glass would have rained all over Mackenzie.

Another shot of the helmet damage to my door. The guy was bleeding from the face when the ambulance took him away. The EMT told me was extremely lucky and that he would likely be fine. That’s good news!

More damage.

My power mirror isn’t looking so powerful now.

Technically, the car is drivable, but the door doesn’t shut all the way and I have no rear-view mirror. The sheriff said I should only drive it home and to a repair facility. Looks like Kimberlie will be my chauffer for now.

Tristan says that my car is “All Boomed Up” and he actually woke up last night having nightmares about the whole ordeal.  Mackenzie keeps saying “that man break daddy car”.  The kids are fine though.  I’m sure they have some great stories to tell at school today.

I don’t know how, but somehow we are going to reduce the stress and drama in our lives in 2009.  That’s my first new years resolution.  This year has been full of disaster and I don’t know why its happening to us all this year.  So far this year, I have had to file claims with travel insurance (trip cancelled due to my mom’s death), life insurance (Mom’s death), and now auto insurance and health insurance (Mackenzie’s upcoming surgery).  The only thing left is homeowner’s insurance.  Let’s just pray my house doesn’t burn down or blow away.

I guess if we didn’t have bad days we wouldn’t appreciate the good ones.