Author Archives: SeanMcTex

Sandfest 2008

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This year we decided to do Sandfest properly. I went prowling for places to stay a couple months ago, and somehow managed to secure a wonderful house right on the beach, an easy stroll from Sandfest itself. The big, open house with lots of places to sleep worked out great for our mob, which numbered as many as 18 at times (not including the dogs). We had a magnificent time playing in the water, building castles, eating too much, playing cards, fishing, and generally enjoying time with family.

A few of the highlights for me:

  • Saw what I’m pretty sure was a Rutan VariEze or Beechcraft Starship fly over.
  • Spent hours in the water, splashing around with kids, body-surfing, doing wave flips, and generally having a great time.
  • Saw an enormous number of brilliantly done sand sculptures.
  • Got together with Greg Pierce, his wife Katie, and their awesome boys.
  • Played music into the night with friends.
  • Got to visit with various bits of the extended family that we don’t get to visit with as much as we’d like, including Betty, my sister-in-law’s mum who was over from England.
  • Flew my birthday kite.
  • Having our stealth Chihuahua kicked out of the restaurant where we ate lunch on Sunday.

It was a wonderful trip; several people suggested that we make an annual thing of renting that place for Sandfest so that we can all enjoy it together again.

You can see some of our photos here on Facebook.

Bo Jon’s Surf & Gifts: Beware

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Sunday, April 20, 2008

This past weekend, the family was down in Port Aransas for Sandfest. As we were leaving town, we decided to stop by Bo Jon’s Surf & Gifts, a big gift shop near one of the central intersections with an entrance made up to look like a shark’s mouth, about 2:00pm. While we were there, Kathy decided to visit the restroom. As she was coming out of the restroom, a large stepladder which had been left propped against the wall fell over and struck Kathy on the head.

I saw the ladder falling, but wasn’t close enough to catch it before it hit her. Kathy immediately sat down on the floor, stunned and hurt. I put the ladder back upright, making sure it was propped far enough from the wall that it wouldn’t fall again. I told the workers at the front desk that the ladder had fallen and struck my wife, and asked for ice. They poured some ice from a drink into a ziploc bag and gave it to us, and Kathy applied it to her head.

One of the counter workers, who turned out to be the owner’s daughter, then called the owner. She then came back over to where Kathy was still sitting on the floor with her head in her hands and, instead of asking after Kathy’s welfare or offering to help, asked us to start filling out an incident report. I grew angry at her, at which point she offered to put the owner (who later identified herself as Christie Maxwell) on the phone. Once on the phone, Ms. Maxwell was immediately hostile, and told me that I was out of line to want to speak with her about the situation. She told me that they always kept the ladder there, and that they had never had an accident before. She eventually agreed to give me the name of the person who handled their insurance, and I told her I would complete the incident report, which I then did.

Kathy was finally feeling well enough to stand up, so we took her out to the car and headed for a medical center that our friend Will had gotten directions to from the store staff. Unfortunately, the directions turned out to be unfollowable, so we ended up asking at convenience stores until we finally found out where the nearest hospital was — about 30 miles from the gift store. We made it there and checked Kathy, who was still in pain, disoriented, and nauseated, in to the Emergency Room.

With the kids all stationed out in the waiting room with our friends Will and April, we ended up staying there for about three hours. The doctor was concerned because of the nausea, and ordered a CAT scan for Kathy. Fortunately, the physical examination and the CAT scans all eventually came back OK, and the doctor discharged us with instructions not to leave Kathy alone for the next 24-48 hours and to wake her periodically during the night to be sure she was still lucid. We lit off for home, finally arriving back in San Marcos around 10:00pm.

Monday, April 21, 2008

8:30am: Called the subrogation department of Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Texas, our health insurance company. They were attentive, polite and helpful, and opened a file on the incident.

8:45am: Called Kathy Estep, the individual who the owner had said was handling their insurance. She was initially cordial, asking after Kathy’s welfare and telling me that she had the form and was filing it with their insurance company. I asked the name of the insurance company, figuring that, like with a car accident, exchanging insurance information was a reasonable thing to do. She said that their procedure was to let the insurance company contact me. I asked again, and she rebuffed me again. “So, to be clear, you’re refusing to give me the name of your insurance company?” I asked. “I’m not refusing anything,” she said, launched into a long verbal tirade during which she wouldn’t allow me to speak and concluded by hanging up on me.

8:53am: Called the City of Port Aransas Building Inspection Department to let them know what had happened and ask if they would mind dropping by and making sure the ladder had been moved someplace safer. The secretary seemed nonplused, but offered to take my number and to call back if she had any further questions.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Our Kathy is nearly back to normal, though she’s still having some headaches, which the Emergency Room doctor told her to expect for a few days.

In spite of Kathy Estep’s assurances, we have heard nothing from the shop’s insurance company. I’ve also heard nothing back from the city’s building inspector.

UPDATE: Monday, April 28, 2008

We still haven’t heard anything from Bo Jon’s insurance company. I called Blue Cross this morning to see if they had, but only ended up mired in their voice mail system. I also sent an email to Joe Lamb, the building inspector in Port Aransas, to ask if his department had an opportunity to check on the safety of the gift shop yet. Waiting on responses from all quarters.

UPDATE: August 2008

Blue Cross eventually must have reached them, because we got a letter from Columbia Insurance Group — the mystery insurance company revealed! — saying that they had been trying to contact us, but had been unsuccessful. (Presumably their efforts were carrier-pigeon based, as we never received any phone messages.) I sent them an email asking what information they needed. Rather than answering that question, they asked for a phone number where we could be reached. I sent them one, then sent them a follow-up email a week later when I heard nothing, then another follow up another week later.

UPDATE: September 5, 2008

I finally got a call from the Insurance company two weeks after sending them my number. Unfortunately, I missed it, and they only left a voice mail with their phone number (which, of course, I already had). I called them back again and got voice mail on their end. Sigh.

UPDATE: December 8, 2008

We’ve been in touch with the insurance company several times, given statements, provided documentation of the hospital visit, and finally got an offer to cover the hospital costs plus a small pain and suffering allowance. (We hadn’t asked for the latter, but it was nice of them to offer it.) We accepted the offer, and have been waiting for several weeks now. We still haven’t received the reimbursement check, but it seems that we’re finally getting close to the end of this.

Interestingly, some friends of the shop’s owner have apparently found this page. We have received several profane comments containing assertions that we never went to the hospital, ad hominem attacks against Kathy and me, and other unpleasantness. (I’ve not posted them, for obvious reasons.)

UPDATE: March 2009

We finally received our settlement check, and were able to reimburse our own insurance company for their costs. (They definitely benefited from the settlement more than we did!) I’m very glad to finally have this done, even though it took nearly a year to sort through it.

Conclusion

I have been deeply disappointed by the response of the shop’s employees, owners, and insurance representative. Their concern at every turn has seemed to be more with protecting themselves than with making their shop safe or helping people hurt because they failed to do so. I understand for the first time in my life the temptation to hire a slimy personal injury lawyer and to try to get something out of a miserable situation like this. (We haven’t succumbed, however.)

Will and April were a tremendous help during this time. Thanks a bunch, you guys.

I will keep updating this post as events warrant. In the meantime, I recommend steering well clear of Bo Jon’s whenever you’re in Port Aransas. We will certainly be doing so from now on.

2 Jokes

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Some original jokes to recently come* out of the humor mines where we mercilessly work our children night and day:

From Liam:

Q: Where do you get cold, hard cash?

A: At Frost Bank! (Note: this may be only regionally funny; I’m not sure how far away the aforementioned financial institution has branches.)

From Maggie:

Q: What does a crow say when it needs to go to the bathroom?

A: Caw-caw! (This is funnier if you say it out loud and know a bit of semi-naughty Spanish.)

One of the great joys of parenting is getting to see your kids begin to come up with stuff that surprises you, to see them reach beyond what you’ve given them. Terrible jokes are a respected tradition within our family, so it’s great to see them take the reins and begin to create groaners of their own.

* Yes, I split an infinitive. Bite me, grammarians.

Gambling More Reliable Than Voting

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Over at his weblog, my friend Jim Roepcke posts an interesting comparison of the regulations governing slot machines and those over electronic voting machines. It’s pretty sobering, and makes The Onion’s story on the election results being released in advance look alarmingly plausible.

It’s absolutely ridiculous that software that does something as straightforward as polling should be a trade secret. As a software engineer who has worked extensively with both software that is kept a closely guarded secret and that which has its source code open and available for anybody to look at, I would certainly be much more comfortable with the latter being used in a process that needs to be open and accountable. There is an army of interested geeks who would be combing through the voting machine code, making sure everything worked properly and was secure, if only they were able.

Sundries

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A few goings-on of late that bear mentioning:

  • Liam has started playing Little League baseball. It’s a load of fun, and significantly more action-packed than Major League, since stealing bases is allowed and the boys aren’t so hot at catching the ball. During the last game, which due to time limits was only 4 innings long, the final score was 13-15. I got drafted to do scorekeeping, so got to learn what those little sheets that my friend Robert Leahey used to have around the house are actually for. The worst moment in the recent game, however, was when a stray foul ball from an adjacent field abruptly appeared and whacked Liam in the face. He was OK after a 15 minute sit-down and some ice, and his enthusiasm for the game continues unabated.
  • Daniel Priest and I got together for a visit this weekend. After much dithering over what we would do, we eventually decided to watch Nick Cage’s movie Next. Not, mind you, because it looked particularly good, but because it was one of the titles for which there was a download available on RiffTrax. “What,” I (for rhetorical purposes) hear you asking, “are RiffTrax?” Well, consider that Mike Nelson, who spearheads the site, was the host of Mystery Science Theater 3000 for many a year, and you can take a pretty good guess. They’re basically MP3s you can buy to play along with a movie and thereby provide a steady stream of jokes at the movie’s expense. I hadn’t tried one before, but found it great fun. Mike still has a razor wit, and is complemented nicely by different foils for various movies. (Weird Al Yankovic is a guest for Jurassic Park.) Great fun, and heartily recommended.

Waving Hands

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Last night, Kathy and I went to see Keith Wann, a stand-up comic, at the Texas State student center. The interesting thing about Keith is that, though he himself is able to hear, he was born to deaf parents and has lived a fair portion of his life in deaf culture. He performs using American Sign Language with his wife providing a spoken translation for those in the audience who aren’t fluent in that form of communication.

It was fascinating to watch how this played out for this crowd. They greeted him by holding their hands up and shaking them — the applause of the deaf community. He then went on for 90 energetic minutes, running around the stage, recounting stories of his childhood with deaf parents, his straddling of the hearing and deaf world, and making affectionate fun of ASL students. It was great to see how he blended together the signed and brief spoken bits of his monologue and how both the deaf and hearing portions of the audience responded to him. Here’s a representative bit that gives a good idea of his schtick:

The show was lots of fun; I do recommend going to see him if you happen to have an opportunity.

Goings-On

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“I’ve been one poor correspondent, I’ve been too too hard to find…”

Sorry about the scant posting of late, my little chickadees. Lots of life going on, and the A Photo A Day project was sucking up a bit of time in February, even though I didn’t manage to totally complete the challenge I set myself.

Here are a few of the things that have been going on:

  • I accidentally found myself at the Barack Obama rally when he was in town. (Was at a recital with friends, and they decided to stop by on the way home.) Excellent speaker, and I like a lot of his policy ideas. I’m not yet sure how he plans to fund all of those potentially expensive ideas, but generally like what I’ve seen of him thus far.
  • Went to Baylor’s All-University Sing, for which Jason Young did the music for 14 of the 16 acts this year and where Barry Brake played in the pit band. It was, as always, a great show, and a wonderful time to hang out at Taco Cabana afterward, talking about the various acts and causing mischief with a liberated chunk of dry ice. (We didn’t manage to get kicked out this year, though.)
  • Played a fun show at Cheatham Street last weekend. My favorite part was when, without warning, a guy who none of us had ever seen before leaped onto the stage with a trumpet in the middle of a song and played a scorching solo. It turned out that his name was Robert Ortiz, and he was so good we had him up for another song! I love the unpredictability of live shows — one gets to see some great stuff at times. (I once saw a 5 foot nothing female bartender chase several inebriated bikers out of a bar because they were being so noisy that other patrons couldn’t hear the music.)
  • Enjoyed a thoroughly delightful birthday lunch with much of the nearby extended family on Saturday. It was great to get to catch up with some of these dear people with whom we don’t get to visit as often as we’d like.

My New Favorite Book

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Last week, Liam brought home a small book that he had created in school. I thought it was great, so am posting its entire text verbatim here. Enjoy!

Playdate with my dad pg 1

“OOOOOOH” this is going to be fun I said gleefuly on an early summer morning.  I am going on a very long play date with my dad. “It is going to be so fun” I said. First we went to a place called Peter Pan’s Mini Golf. I got a black putter with shiny new ornge ball. My dad got an ornge putter with a Shiny yellow ball. I got almost every hole a hole in one but two of them got hole in twos and one hole in three. one of the holes had a hill and I got a hole it two on that one. It was so fun at the mini golf place. Next we went to a very fun place called kid town. they have more mini golf, basketball, three playgrounds and a singing area (which you know I did not go on). First I played basket-ball. It made me so tird that I had to drink almost a gallon of water. Then I went back and played some more. Next I went and played on the playground for a very long time. my dad look lots of pictures of me.

Playdate with my dad pg 2

Next we went to a resaruant called the Alamo Steak house. I found a gum-ball machine and if you got a black gum ball you got a free meal and guess what!? I got one of the black ball’s so we got a free meal and I chose the all you can eat buffett. I nearly barfed because I ate so many fries! Next we went to go swim in the San marcos river. I was collecting rocks for my collection. I found a heart Shaped one and gave it to my dad. Next we played with water guns and water balloons up in the grass. I acidentaly knocked my dads glasses of his head but luckily he found them in the tall green grass. next we went to mr. gatties and ate pizzia. It tasted very good. Next we went to the game Room. I had one hundred tokens and i bet you can’t guest how many tickets I got!? four thousand eight hundred thirty seven. i got a pool table, lava lamp, glow in the dark things, a pretend samiri sord and too-tsie Rolls. Next we went home wathch pirates of the caribean and went to bed.

Two Heroes

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Two people that I have found myself looking up to lately:

  • There’s an 91 year old woman who volunteers at the Hays County Food Bank. While I will likely consider it a fairly major accomplishment to keep my nose hair well groomed and those darn kids off my lawn when I’m that age, she’s out there mixing it up with college-aged volunteers, schlepping around 30 pound boxes of food with the best of them. I am in awe of this beautiful, leathery lady.
  • Yahoo posted a piece on Jonathan Coulton, who quit his job as a software engineer at age 36 to write and perform music. I already loved his songs, and now I love his story, though I’d best be careful not to read too many articles of this sort lest I be tempted to go do something downright irresponsible. Be sure to catch the video.

Thanks for the inspiration, folks.