| Just wanted to post a picture of a house a couple of blocks away from me after the recent rainstorms. It's amazing to me considering what might have happened had it fallen at any other angle. Fortunately I didn't hear of anyone getting injured as a result of this.
 |
| |
| I took a food allergy test today and here are some of the products I had a reaction to:
- String Bean
- Beef (!!!)
- Cantaloupe
- Carrot
- Celery
- Coffee
- Corn
- Honeydew
- Lemon
- Mushroom
- Onion
- Pear
- Pineapple
- Potato
- Pumpkin
- Rice (!!!)
- Shrimp
- Squash
- Strawberry
- Tomato
- Turkey (!!!)
- Vanilla
Hope you all have a lovely Thanksgiving. I will too. What do doctors know anyway?
|
| |
| Edit: I decided to keep my car.
----
Sunday night I had a near-death experience. I was driving home with my mom on a dark stretch of the freeway when all of a sudden I saw piles of blankets/clothes/fabrics strewn across my lane. Because we were driving in a rural area, there weren't any lamp posts, so they basically came out of nowhere. I tried to avoid the debris by moving to the right shoulder, but my car started swerving and I ran off the road. We ended up running into some wooden fencing and bushes on the side, and came to a stop. Fortunately no one was hurt, and the car only sustained some minor dings and scratches, but still ran totally fine. I was pretty shaken up, but glad that the damage was minimal. Imagine if other cars were nearby, or if the side barrier had been a concrete wall or a cliff. Thank you Lord for protecting us from any greater harm.
Unfortunately this means that I had to file a police report and a claim with my insurance company. I took the car in for an estimate this morning and found out that the cost of repair exceeds the estimated value of my car. Thus my car was deemed a "total loss." The estimated cost to repair my car was about $7,000, which is about how much my insurance company said my car was worth. They gave me the following options:
1. They buy the car from me for salvage for a settlement of about $7,500.
2. I keep the car, but get a reduced settlement of about $5,400.
Considerations for Option 1: My car is a 2000 Honda Accord with about 165,000 miles on it. It's unclear how many more years I could use it, so why not use that $7,500 toward a down payment for a new/used car? However, I have no idea what kind of car to get. Basically I want something that's reliable, good fuel economy, suitable style for someone of my age, but not something that will make me feel self-conscious when I pull into the church parking lot on Sundays.
Considerations for Option 2: Even though my car has a lot of miles on it, it still runs perfectly fine. In fact, its fuel economy is surprisingly better today than when I first bought it. Also, the damage appears to be purely cosmetic, so I could use that $5,400 toward the auto body shop repairs and kick in an extra $2,000 or so, or look around for a less expensive body shop. However, the costs could spiral if they find other problems during the repair process. If I buy a replacement car, I'd probably need to throw in $10,000, if not more, for anything decent that will last me a while. Also, I have a ton of school loans to pay off, and possibly a mortgage in the future. Do I want this extra, albeit manageable, financial burden? In addition, keeping the car will result in the DMV changing my car's title type to a salvage title, greatly diminishing its resale value.
Please share with me your thoughts (and car suggestions if you think I should get a new one).
|
| |
| Edit: GO BEARS!!!!
Here's a comparison between the Michigan-Appalachian St. debacle and Stanford-UC Davis, courtesy of my old workplace, MercuryNews.com (thanks Lulu): Click to read
--
Totally embarrassing. Now I no longer have any business making fun of my Stanford friends for losing to UC Davis. The shame of it all.
|
| |
| Last week at church I had an opportunity to share about how God is working amid my mother's cancer. I found out today that the audio is posted online. If you'd like, you can listen to it here.
|
| |
