Walking Around the World: A True Story

Courtesy of debgeisler, an amazing and wonderful ad.

This is one of the nicest feats of cinematography, not to mention acting, that I've ever seen. Deb's post pointing us to it also includes a reference to the director talking about it. Keep in mind that this turns out to be just about the last chance they had to get it right -- take 40 on the second and final day they had for shooting -- but they did it.

Alas, it still doesn't make me want to take up drinking. :)

Feeling 90% Better

Good news: My trip-interruption insurance claim payment for the post-Westercon mess in Tempe arrived today.

Bad news: It appears to be only 90% of what I submitted. There is no explanation of why the amount they paid is less than the amount I claimed. I speculate that they might have reduced it by 10% because we not only had the emergency repairs done, but also had all four tires replaced because they were shot as well, and replacing tires is not a valid reason for filing a trip-interruption claim, but I can't tell from the statement they sent me if that's why. I can't find specific items on the itemized list of expenses that add up to the non-paid amount.

Now I have to wait until Monday Tuesday to call them and find out what went wrong. What irks me is that there are no marginal expenses attributable to getting the dangerously-worn tires replaced. That is, I would have been out of pocket the same amount of money (not counting the repairs themselves, of course, but they're not part of the claim anyway) regardless of whether we'd had that work done or not.

Had I known that mentioning the tires (which was what got the claim denied initially) were going to be so much trouble, I wouldn't have mentioned them at all. For all that they cost several hundred dollars to replace, they were incidental to the serious mechanical problems that almost had a wheel coming off!

I can find nothing on the check or associated material that says variations of "cashing this check means you accept our determination without recourse," so I'll go ahead and deposit this payment and then ask what caused them to cut 10% off the claim amount. Even if I only end up with 90% of the claim paid in the end, it will make a difference; I've been carrying those extra expenses and paying interest on them since July.

Update, 21:10: Forgot to account for Labor Day holiday for reasons noted below.