Blue Eyes Designs

Looks like LD’s in Te-has (Texas) dodged a bullet this month. Just goes to show you the power that one ticked off constituent and a bunch of ignorant (to the ways of live entertainment) politicians and staffers.

For those of you who don’t know, basically a Texas state congressman amended a bill that had nothing to do with electrics or live entertainment, in an attempt to clean up engineering legislation, to include a provision that “lighting design” could not be performed by anyone except licensed engineers, electricians, and architects. (And not recognizing any of the LE industry licensing programs.) Basically, he had a constituent (i.e. big donor) call and complain that he was unhappy with the work of someone he hired to “design” his residential lighting. In a knee-jerk reaction, a the congressman added the above provision without knowing its full ramifications.

Thankfully, it was immediately brought to the attention of the lighting design community and heavy-hitters came out in force. Gently educating the congressman on what exactly that would mean to thousands and thousands of people, not just designers, but the people that hire them, the companies that supply them, etc, seemed to open their eyes and the amendment has since been pulled.

Kinda scary there for a minute, tho. Could have been illegal to practice lighting design in the state of Texas!

“People with nowhere to go have decided to speak in the blood of children.” – R.B.

Powerful words written by a good friend of mine with a gift for metaphor. They deserve to be reproduced.

I know it’s been a few days since the events at VT and I’ve posted since, but I keep reading what people are saying about why this young man did what he did and I’m finding myself developing and remembering some serious concerns I have about what the “aftermath” might be and the state of things in America.

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To whoever decided that it would be a good idea to steal my family’s minivan on Friday morning:

You are an asshole. There are not enough adjectives to correctly describe your degenerate ass, so I’ve settled on Asshole.

Because you needed to get your rocks off by stealing a vehicle, and probably using it to traffic drugs, you have dealt a horrible blow to a family that is already stretched near the breaking point. You have stolen, in one fell swoop, not only the livelihood of of one of its members, but much of the hope of all of its members that we might, someday, dig ourselves out and have a fresh start at life.

You are a horrible, horrible human being. I curse the fate the led you to choose, out of a subdivision full of minivans, in a world of people who need to be rocked just a little bit, our van IN OUR DRIVEWAY.

(The one, I might add, parked next to an unlocked Mustang with the keys in the ignition.)

I hate you. I hate you and your degenerate ass. I hope you find yourself someday, prostrate and powerless to some other asshole and you feel regret and remorse for what you’ve done.

We have no extra income. We have no means to replace what you’ve taken. We’re now in the situation of having to make loan payments for a vehicle we no longer possess and trying to scrape up the means to replace what you’ve taken.

I hope, for your sake, we never meet. If so, you will definitely live to regret it.

Words cannot express how horribly violated and destroyed we feel right now. We’ve been in such a bad place for so long. We were finally beginning to feel like we were making some headway, regaining some ground, and then someone steals our damn car. Just gone. Woke up Friday morning and it was gone from our driveway like it had never been there.

I keep hoping that it will just reappear someday soon. That it’ll turn out to be some prank gone horribly awry. That we’ll get it back and this horrible episode will be behind us. But I know that’s probably not going to be the case.

There’s a seven day waiting period before we can get any compensation from the insurance company. In that time, they’ll pay for a rental car, but it has to come out of pocket and then we’re reimbursed for it later. We certainly can’t afford that expense, even if we do get it back later because we don’t have it now. Thankfully, it sounds like the company that my dad works for has stepped forward to help out, and that’s a great thing, but even still….

The money from the insurance company has to go toward the car loan first, and than whatever’s left over goes to us. Well, there isn’t going to be any leftover. In fact, we’re still going to owe money toward the loan. The insurance company only gives you KBB value for the vehicle. Not actually what it would take to get you back on the road again.

Assholes.

For a variety of reasons, I have grown to hate car insurance companies in the past few days. There not in the business of helping people. They’re in the business of screwing people and doing only the least the law allows.

(I just found out that my insurance premium is an extra $10 a month because I went TWO DAYS without insurance while I was switching providers. Assholes.)

To top it all off, I know it’s not entirely rational, but it’s set me completely on edge. I don’t feel safe anymore. When I was falling asleep last night, I heard a noise that sounded like it was coming from the garage. Convinced someone was trying to steal another one of our cars, or worse, I armed myself with my knife and stuck out to investigate. Obviously I found nothing, but I was so rattled that I slept with my knife under my pillow and slept fitfully all night.

You don’t think it’ll happen to you. You hear about thefts and break-ins and it’s always somebody else. I’m here to tell you that it can be you.

Please, if you have an auto loan, see if your insurance covers all of your loan in the case your car is totaled or stolen. PLEASE. If it won’t, demand it, and if they won’t, switch. Don’t just assume the insurance will protect you.

40 Questions about 2006:

I didn’t do this last year because my blog was down at the time, but I should do it again this year. It’s been a big year. I have to be careful, though, because I know how much my current mood can effect what I think of.

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So I shared this on my Google Reader thingie, but I wanted to briefly comment on it. The Edge asked 160 of the world’s notables what they were looking forward to in 2007 and these are their responses.

I’m not usually one that goes on about glasses and their relative full-ness, but I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one to think that there are things to look forward to in the coming year.