camwyn | Blah.

Woke up this morning. Had to go to work despite snow and BRUTALLY COLD ARCTIC AIR MASS snuggling up around my house.

Car skidded a bit on the way down an unploughed, very long road. Hit a deer crossing sign.

Fortunately, I was not going very fast at the time. The impact broke my bumper in a few places- I drive a 1995 Saturn, which means a plastic bumper- and ripped open a few of the superglue-based spot repairs on my forward side panel from three years ago, when I had a snow-related accident getting off the highway. That is, however, all that broke. All my lights are still intact and working.

As far as I know, the car is still legal to drive, which would not have been the case if the headlight or turn signal had been shattered. I can't think of too many laws that would sideline me for a broken bumper. I had to get my headlamp replaced when I had that accident years back... I don't know how much it'll cost to fix the bumper, though. Most likely it'll have to be replaced, as the damn thing is plastic and all one piece (save for the Styrofoam inside). That's going to be expensive, I'm sure. I'm going to wait a while on this one and try to get things at least in line with where they're supposed to be until I have the money to approach the nice people at the auto body shop.

My headlight is fine, my turn signal is fine, even my side running light is fine. I'm fine. The car works fine. The deer crossing sign was already a little off kilter from previous hits; the thing wasn't even bent appreciably further when I checked it out. I didn't hit a person, I didn't hit a deer, and I didn't hit the telephone pole that was two or three meters past the deer crossing sign. I feel stupid and a little guilty for having hit the sign in the first place, but it could have been so much worse. And my car's still legal to drive, which I keep telling myself is the important thing- legal and pretty much safe. I don't know how much impact it can take now, but the bumper should still be pretty good as long as I'm careful and don't repeat myself. I think I'm going to concentrate on 'everyone and everything is okay' so that I quit feeling as if I did something that's somehow morally wrong, instead of merely dumb.

In other news, I have finished "Grandfather's Legacy", as I indicated last night. I'll be working on the Diary today as my part of the bargain with King George. Don't know when, but I'll be working on it for sure. There will be SHOOTING. In the meantime, though, I thought I'd be nice and provide links to the whole of GL.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six

I think I'm going to restructure my web site so that it's divided into Art, History, The Author Of This Web Site Is Clearly So Far 'Round The Bend That She Couldn't Reach Normal By Shouting And Prodding With A Very Long Stick, and Fiction. The Sergeant Preston stuff and the Potterverse stuff I've done isn't exactly publishable, so I can set that up there without worrying about any kind of rights foo... yeah, that'll be fun.

EDIT: A bit of searching on my part has yielded a number of sources for bumper parts. Upper bumper covers for the Saturn I drive are around $92 on the web. Lower covers, $85. Absorbers, which I think is the Styrofoam inside, run around $50. Reinforcement, which is the black plastic thing I damaged many years ago and have had fixed in place with duct tape, $50. I don't know how much labour would cost to replace the lot. I'm going to wait until I've filed my taxes and a few other things have cleared up, and then I'm going to get the repair work done, unless I can find a friend who's made aftermarket modifications to their car and can help me figure out how to replace these bits myself, as I haven't got any m4d 4u70 r3p41r sk1llz yet and should probably pick a few up.