Some things are looking up

Mardi Gras week is winding down with Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras) tomorrow. We have attended a few over-the-top parties, and I have been able to eschew every parade this year. Galvestonians have succeeded in putting aside the rebuilding distractions and shown they can still party well.

The island has a long way to go, but the beach restoration is really beginning to look good. This picture was taken today along the seawall. This is a penninsula of sand that has been trucked out. As you can see, it's a couple of hundred feet out into the water. It is currently about thirty feet wide and as sand is added, it will spread laterally, all up and down the seawall. In other words, the beach will extend out into the Gulf that much farther. What is now the end of that peninsula will be the end of the ocean's shore. About 25% of the beach has already been done, leaving a beautiful sandy beach where Ike's erosion had been. All this sand is coming from the east end of the island where sand naturally accumulates.

The Strand is also coming back as more and more stores open. The hope is to have a semblance of normalcy by Spring Break.

More good news is the positive responses from both the Board of Regents of UT and the Texas Legislature to further financial commitments to bring UTMB back to its previous levels of high functioning sooner rather than later. There are still political hurdles to broach, but optimism is beginning to take hold.

Our house remains a mess. We continue to deal with insurance adjusters over the storm damage and now the looting. We will be returning to Crested Butte next week, never having slept in our house. Ah well, things should be much better when we return next. Right?

A Confederacy of Dunces

If John Kennedy Toole hadn’t commited suicide, he’d be 71 today. I look around and think, as we all have done from time to time, “We’ll laugh about this someday.”

I feel like Ignatius Reilly, looking out at those surrounding me:

The gas company is here. They’ve been here all day. They said they were going to replace my gas meter since it was covered with sea water. They said it would take two hours. It’s been six hours, and they’ve dug four holes in my yard. They told me that four of them would be back tomorrow. The old meter is still in place.

The electrical contractors estimated it would take the good part of a week to rewire my house after the flood permeated all the old wiring. This is the third week. They’ve cracked the plaster around most of the old switch plates but assure me they have a ‘craftsman’ who can make them look ‘just like new’. That’s what I want, all right – an eighty year-old house with paint patches that look new. They think they might be finished by the end of the week. “Next week at the latest,” they said. We’re living in the only electrified portion of our house, our game room, on an inflatable bed, between the pool table and the bar.

The police were here again today. I showed them a footprint, two windows the creeps tried to open after cutting the screen, and a soda can, contents half-finished. The two detectives scratched their chins and told me they weren’t ‘the I.D. guy’ so they couldn’t say whether additional fingerprints or other evidence would be wanted. After a collective shrug and an affirmative nod at each other, they left. So I’ve walked all over the footprint and will pour out the unfinished Sprite and recycle the aluminum.

Comcast sent out a technician to hook up my internet connection. He told me how underpaid he was, then pulled on a few wires and asked me to initial a piece of paper in three places. He said if I had any trouble with my internet connection I should call the number at the top of the receipt. Surprise. The internet didn’t work. I called the number and a guy named Chad answered. He asked me my name and I gave it to him. He called me Mr. Clifton. (You have to remember in most of Asia the surname comes first.) Chad politely told me I had several things wrong and that they would need to send out a technician. I told him the technician had just left. Chad laughed. “Mr. Charles, we’ll send out an even better technician next week.”

I was on the phone with my insurance adjuster for about an hour about the robbery. It's obvious our losses will exceed the deductible. Of course it was all recorded. I tried not to sound paranoid as she feigned interest in my plight and prodded for details about our absence from the house. I'm pretty sure she's going to try to establish that the house was temporarily abandoned. Quickly, my recollection of details began to resemble the memory Alberto Gonzales under Congressional inquiry.

So as it was with Ignatius Reilly, and with Jonathan Swift before him, I must confess, today I share their epigraph: “When genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."

Cheers

Kick me while I'm down

Last night somebody broke into our Galveston house. We're in Crested Butte. It was probably more than one guy, and they seemed to know what they were doing. They managed to get every flat screen TV, my liquor, our jewelry and watches, all 6 of my guns, etc. They went through every pocket of every jacket and pair of pants. They even took a break (after breaking into my game room) to drink my Jack Daniels and shoot some pool. Then they went next door and broke into my neighbors' home.

For those of you who have yet to deal with filing a claim on your homeowner's policy, here's an eye opener. You have, I'm certain, 'replacement value' insurance. In other words, the insurance company should pay you what it costs to replace something rather than its depreciated value. Good, right? But wait -- first you have to pony up a deductible that's 1% of the value of your house. That's going to be thousands of dollars. Then, and here's the good part, you make a list of what's gone and provide receipts and photos to prove you own them. No receipts or photos? Could well mean you aren't covered. Do you have photos of the sterling silverware you got thirty years ago? I don't. How about the watch you bought after your last foray through the house taking pictures?

Next you file your claim and they pay you. But hold on: here's how they pay you - They pay you the depreciated value. Then you have to go repurchase exactly what was stolen. You give them the receipt, then they give you the rest of the money. Nice, huh?

We were going back to Galveston this weekend anyway for a break from the cold for a few weeks. Now we get to go through our house and try to first identify everything that's gone, then go through old records to see if we can prove up what got ripped off.

As Kathy always says, "It's only stuff." She's right, of course. But it's more than 'only stuff'. It's that godawful feeling of being violated. When Mother Nature does it, you can at least shrug it off to natural forces. When people do it, it inevitably tarnishes whatever faith in your fellow man you've managed to retain.