On a Clear Day

So in case you didn’t quite catch the drift from the “More Stuff I Could Do Without” post a couple of days ago, my car got stolen. I had parked it in the train station lot, roughly as far from the one exit as you can get, underneath one of the “security” cameras’ lens. The car was locked and there was nothing except an ice scraper and my iPod’s $8.00 tape adapter visible inside the car. Come to think of it, ever since last year’s window-smashing burglary I haven’t kept much of anything in there so that was pretty much the extent of it.

There was no glass in the vacant space the Saturn had once occupied so they must have jimmied the lock. The responding officer said that they were having an 85% recovery rate in the city (but no guarantees on condition of recovered vehicles) and most cars were located within 24-72 hours. As of tonight at about 5:30 pm it will have been 72 hours.

I’ll be honest with you: Getting ripped off really sucks. But you know, it could be a lot worse. The insurance company contacted us and said that our insurance wouldn’t go up at all since it is a no-fault incident. They’re going to wait 15 days to see if the car can be recovered and if so, they’ll evaluate it for damage and do the payout on that or if it isn’t located they’ll pay “fair market price” (whatever that means) to replace it. Plus we owned the car outright. I’m not sure what would have happened if we were still making payments on it, but I can’t think it would have been all that great.

Besides, I was about ready to trade that car in anyway; the only thing holding me back was that we did own the Saturn and I wasn’t crazy about taking on another car payment just yet. As of right now we’re a bit unclear on how Nikki’s physical state will be once her eligibility for temporary disability runs out so there’s some question marks about what she’ll do for income. That impacted the choice to not trade in the car sooner but in this case it may also impact how we proceed from here. If Nik doesn’t get well enough to go to school (something she’s talked about) or get a regular-type job, she may have to find some kind of work-at-home plan which would actually mean we might not need a second car for a little while since I have clear access to work via the train/bus and it’s (hopefully) not a vile imposition on Nik to drop me off and pick me up from the station two blocks away.

Of course I’m a bit miffed at the train company at the moment. I really don’t understand why, considering how much they charge for fares, they can’t have some better security. In a twist of Murphy’s Law, I got one of those annoying fliers stuck under my windshield wiper at the end of last week saying they had been seeing a rash of break-ins and vandalisms in the park and ride lot lately and were planning a community access meeting for the 17th of this month. Yesterday they posted them on people’s windows again, this time mentioning car theft. I’m pretty sure I know what spurred that particular action. As expected, when I got the flier last week I threw it away, having no intention of wasting a weeknight at some boring safety meeting. Mea culpa (that’s latin for “my bad”).

So it goes.

Rain on the Parade

I’ve already apologized for not believing the Sharks would make the playoffs. But now that they are in there, I have expectations. Remember that we’re talking about the defending Pacific Division Champs who were within arms reach of going to the Stanley Cup Finals the last time we saw them actually, you know, play.

I’m not asking for a Cup victory this year. The team is still very young. However, we know that they can be a phenomenal team—when they want to be. So all I’m asking for is forward progress. They don’t have to win the Cup this year, but I want them to make it at least to the third round if not the Finals. Next year I’ll expect a Cup.

So here’s what concerns me: I want this team to be legitimate contenders for the Stanley Cup, even if they may be a bit too green to actually take it home just yet, and there are a couple of parts of their game (as a team) that is going to have to get better in a hurry if they’re going to beat the Dallases and Detroits of the postseason.

First though, a couple of things that suggest the Sharks need to be thinking “Win this year” and not be as forgiving of themselves as I am prepared to be. One is that they are a remarkably healthy team. Where other teams are struggling with aging veterans fighting off nagging injuries (Hi, Hasek!), the Sharks have missed very few games due to injury and the ones they have missed have been from lower-priority role-players like Parker and Thornton (Scott). The other is that they have a psychological advantage right now, coming off a dramatic uphill climb into the playoffs, breaking franchise records right and left and generally having the right people hot at the right time.

Still, all is not roses. The Sharks won last night but I was very, very concerned by some of the stuff I saw there. Observe:

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