Commencement

It's been an odd couple of weeks and I apologize for not posting something.  I reference two major starts as "commencement".  The first, the beginning of a driving history after an accident and the second a post-high school life.

Alex Reiger, He's NOT
On the Tuesday after Memorial Day, T was asked to play taxicab for his brother.  C had a lacrosse game in Canby at 6, but his lacrosse equipment was in Beaverton and they both had been over-nighting at their mom's house in Lake Oswego.  This meant T had a couple of hours of driving to do in rush hour traffic, ending in the confusing street-design around Canby High School.  Not a good set-up.  They almost made it without incident, but while trying to navigate the weird streets off and around the high school and 99E, he got into a fender-bender with a local.

27 8x10 Color Glossy Pictures with Circles and Arrows and a Paragraph on the Back of Each One
The "local" was a brash and unpleasant 20-something woman driving a relatively new, but woefully uninsured Kia.  While T was found mostly at fault because he was turning left as she was trying to go straight at an intersection, the way the scene went down has me wondering if we got the full story.  Flash had his front corner on the driver's side folded in, damaging the front fender, bumper and hood.  The left-turn signal doesn't work correctly.  Her car got a dented driver's door.  T had already crossed the first of the 2 oncoming lanes and was driving quite slowly.  She accelerated into the intersection.  Did she think she was going to be able to dodge around him?  When T and C drew the scene, and played it out with matchbox cars, things didn't add up quite right.  Lesson learned here: immediately after impact, start snapping pictures with a cell phone of the damage, the intersection and parts of the cars which were not involved.

Show Me Yours, I'll Show You Mine
After the impact, both cars drove to the side to exchange information, but she had no insurance to share.  Just a phone number.  Multiple witnesses saw that and heard everyone say they were unhurt.  Yet, a couple of days later, the other driver was claiming her car was undrivable and she intended to make medical claims against our insurance.  I guess she saw an opportunity to get 6 months of free massages and a full body paint job on her car.  Multiple phone calls, phone tree navigations and conference calls later, T was assigned more than half of the blame, but not sole responsibility.  The other driver tried to get insurance after the accident and then filed a claim with them too.  Hilarious.  That was shot down, and now the insurance folks have put the sheriff onto her case for driving without insurance.  So much for those free massages; instead she gets SR22 insurance (read: more expensive) and possible license suspension.  Neat.  Then, there's the attempted fraud.  If she had realized she was driving illegally, maybe both sides could have just walked away without reporting to insurance.  Now, everyone loses.

We have had good happenings too.

K-ommencement
Yes, that's plain awful.  Sue me.  K attended a challenging high school and prioritized an after-school driving job over studying during his sophomore year, digging for himself a deep grade hole he almost couldn't climb out of.  But he did.  His junior year, he prioritized the Science Fair over all of his other work, and again, he found himself in a hole, but not one as bad as the year before, and again dug his way out.  This senior year, he again got an after-school job and through determination and focus he graduated.  Like Hollywood movies, the big ending is all the more satisfying knowing the main character had obstacles along the way, met those challenges and ended victorious.  That was the story line of K's high school career.  Greeted with loud cheers from his brother K2, mother & father, his paternal grandparents, his step-father and step-brothers, K produced a huge smile as his name was read.  He crossed the stage as if on air, and in his usual floppy way found his way back to his seat.  As the graduates left the auditorium, K skipped.

And now what's next?  He's 18 and high school graduated.  Boo and I returned home from the post-commencement brunch puzzled by that thought.  He's the first of the 4 we will see leave the nest, and he's setting a great example of how to transition into independence.

Car stuff:  I did the rotors and pads on Flash a few weeks ago, didn't apply grease nor anti-squeal goop and regretted it.  I did them again, and now they're dead quiet and stop well.  Goes to show that anti-squeal goop isn't snake-oil; it actually works.  I haven't been able to play around with the bus other than fiddling with his shifter again.  I was able to drive him to work every day last week, and that was a true pleasure.

I guess that's it for today.  Thanks for following along, and Hapy Last Day of School-