To sleep, perchance to dream
To sleep, perchance to dream

And my dream is to do four walk through settlements at three different WCAB district offices in one single day. ((Photo courtesy of robertrice)) ((I told this dream to a co-worker yesterday and he laughed and called me a nerd.  Pssh – tell me something I don’t know, Steve.))

I’ve given this a lot of thought and I even have a plan as to how to get this done.  If I ever got the chance to do four walk throughs at four Boards in one day, I’d do it like this:

  1. Get up early, arrive at the Santa Rosa WCAB at 8:00 AM and attempt the first walk through
  2. Head to San Francisco over the Golden Gate for the second walk through
  3. In the afternoon, do the third walk-through in San Jose
  4. Hit the road for Oakland and do the fourth walk through
  5. According to Google Maps, that’s 234 miles and 4 hours and 26 minutes

I honestly don’t even know if this is possible.  ((Perhaps this might be easier in Southern California – there’s as many as seven Boards within about 15 or 20 miles of one another.)) There are a million things that could go wrong.  I could hit traffic, I could be missing a page from a benefits printout, someone could change their mind about the settlement, a doctor could issue a supplemental report.  I also know that I would need a LOT of things to go right.  Here’s my tentative checklist:

  1. Four walk through settlements ready to be approved at four different Boards (this is easily the toughest part)
  2. Four claims examiners standing by on speed dial
  3. One full calendar day
  4. A fully charged GPS, two fully charged cell phones
  5. A full tank of gas
  6. $55.00 or so ($10 for bridge tolls, about $5 for photocopies, and easily another $40 for parking)
  7. A bag of snacks (I’m probably not going to have time for lunch)
  8. Call ahead to all of the Boards to make sure I can do a walk through that day
  9. The good will and cooperation of the Board staff and my colleagues

However, having done two walk through settlements in a single morning gives me hope.

Technical Difficulties
Technical Difficulties

A little over a month ago my laptop died.  I took it to a shop in Contra Costa County named, “Paramount Technologies” who were able to fix up my laptop in record time.  ((Estimate: 3 days.  Repair time: 3 hours.  Now, that’s what I call service.))  Apparently, the problem was the video chip which had loosened from the motherboard over time (probably through overuse).

Friday evening my laptop died all over again.  At least it was peaceful.  I put my laptop to sleep and it didn’t wake up again.

Its still under a repair warranty from Paramount Technologies, so I’ll take it back to them.  It has the same symptoms, so I hope its the same problem.  Even if it weren’t under warranty, my formula for determining whether I should invest in repairing or buying a new computer still dictates that I should probably repair.

No matter.  Be of good cheer: these troubles will have absolutely no effect on this website.  :)