I got a call last week that everything was ready (that is, the auto body shop had received the check in payment) for our rear-ended mission car to be repaired. Yesterday after we completed our morning shift at the Visitors’ Center we drove to the Turtle Bay Resort, about 20 minutes northwest of Laie, picked up an Enterprise rental car, and delivered our car to the Windward Auto Body shop in Kaneohe. We got there about 5pm, just before they closed for the evening. I asked them if all the parts needed for the repair were at the shop. “Most of them,” she said. “We can get started and everything will be here soon.” Hmmm….

I think that’s Hawaiian speak for “It’ll get finished in the next few weeks…”.

So, meanwhile we have a 2015 Toyota Corolla rental from Enterprise being paid for by the insurance company. Our mission car is a 2013 Toyota Corolla, pretty much bare bones. Both Nina and I like our car much better than the newer Enterprise car, even though that car has most all of the available options. For one thing, the driver’s seat doesn’t go as far back and it sits too high. This is one car where the front passenger seat is much more comfortable than the driver’s seat. But, we only have to drive it until our car gets finished. Seeing as how the insurance company has already paid the auto body shop, I think there’s little (if any) incentive for them to aggressively get the car finished and back to us.

At the buffet and luau dinner venues at the Polynesian Cultural Center guests going in for dinner have the option of having their picture taken with cast members participating in the evening show, “Ha, the Breath of Life”. The cast members who are assigned to be in the guest pictures are actually “extras” in the night show and perform once a week. They’re guaranteed 19 hours of paid work, so the rest of the hours are made up of smiling and getting their pictures taken with the guests. When we’re assigned to one of these venues to take tickets, we have the opportunity to visit with these students during slack times. They’re always fun to talk with and they’re all quite interested in getting better parts in the night show so they can perform more often and be picture models less often. Almost always they are in their first or second semester at BYU-H and they all have a story to tell. Talking with them is one of the fun parts of taking tickets at the PCC.

The Indiana Primary Election was today and it’s now looking pretty certain that our presidential choices this fall will be between a bigoted, crazy liar and a should-be-in-prison charlatan. We’re plumbing new lows in American politics, I’m afraid. I generally avoid politics in my blog and only touch lightly on religion. Maybe that needs to change, although I’m pretty sure my lonely voice will have no impact. I’m considering starting up another blog: rolandksmith.com (I own the domain name) as a place to rant.

Ta ta for now!