The Traci Chronicles: More Marathon Stuff

The official race pictures are out & surprisingly I don't hate them. In fact, they're the best race pics I've taken!

This was at the beginning of the race. I can't remember where the photographers were on the course but you can see what the morning looked like. FOGGY!

This was the final .2 miles. So happy to be almost finished.

Approaching the finish line. This is also where I heard Scott & Lydia cheering for me.

There's the timing mat!

DONE!!

The Marathon allows you to download the pics for free. That's a great perk because for whatever reason race pics are expensive!

So, I've got a thing for the sticker. It's kinda like if you don't post of FB it didn't happen! Have to have the sticker!

I'm so excited to finally have one of these to put on my car. The only problem is I STILL DON'T HAVE MY CAR!

You may remember 3 months ago this happened.

Yeh, 3 months ago. That is duct tape. That was to attempt to hold some of those pieces in place so we could drive it to the shop without having them flop everywhere.

Needless to say I'm not happy. I have very little patience & at the moment what little I have is gone. To make a long story short, the body shop has been telling Dean for the last 8 or so weeks that they're "working on it". The last couple of times he called he was told "another week or two". Notice I said the last time DEAN called. Nobody ever called from the body shop including the times Dean called & was told he would get a call back. It's not like he was calling once a week either. It was more like once every 3 weeks if that. Soooo, I just happened to be in the area on the Friday they said they were going to start because they finally had all the parts - 8 weeks ago. I was a little surprised to see my car parked on the street behind the shop in the same condition minus the bumper that it was in when we dropped it off. I wasn't thrilled but stuff happens.

Fast forward to the Friday before the marathon. I got my hair cut & then went to pick up my race packet. That meant I was going to be driving right by the body shop. I decided to make sure my car wasn't sitting in the same spot it had been but of course it wouldn't be because that was 8 weeks ago. Well, it wasn't in the same spot. It was sitting across the street. IN THE SAME CONDITION AS 8 WEEKS AGO. I parked & got out so I could look at the front & see if maybe they'd been working on it. NOPE. I didn't stick around because about that time the screaming & cussing started at a neighboring house & I figured it was just a matter of time before the bullets started flying. The body shop isn't in a good part of town & here lately there are multiple shootings a day in Baton Rouge.

I called Dean & asked if he'd talked to the body shop that day because he was planning to call & check on it. He had called & they said "we're working on it, maybe another week, week & a half". So obviously this is the company line.

Dean sent an email to the owner & he got a call back with lots of excuses - we're really busy, everyone wants their cars, blah, blah, blah. He threw in that he was waiting on a machine to free up. Yeh that's what he said 8 weeks ago when they were going to start on Friday. He assured Dean we were "next" for the stupid machine.

Last Wednesday Dean dropped by the body shop & they were in fact working on it & it was on the machine. He also told Dean that he's responsible for paying for our rental car & he's "not going to make any money on this job since we've had the rental so long". Um WHAT??? NOT MY PROBLEM. Then he said he hoped it would be ready this week. So wait, you mean to tell me you've had my car for 3 months for what is going to take a week and a half to fix???? Well, apparently not because I don't have my car.

I'm not exaggerating with the 3 months either. Tomorrow will be exactly 3 months since we dropped it off.

We had lots of recommendations for this particular shop. People say the owner is great, he does great work, etc. As long as he'd had the car he better do great work. I'm so incredibly frustrated. Obviously.

This week I started running again. Feb. 11th I'm running the 15K at The Mardi Gras Mambo. My plan was to run Monday but it was really windy so I ran Tuesday.

4 miles faster than I've done in awhile. I told Dean it's amazing what you can do when you start thinking about something that you're mad about. I started thinking about the car situation & that was all it took.

Thursday morning was another super windy morning so I skipped the run. I don't like wind. I ran 5 mi. this morning.