Sittin' With Dave?!?!?

I am thinking about changing the name of my blog from Fishin' With Dave to Sittin' with Dave. This is getting insane as it's been almost 3 weeks since my boat misbehaved and it's still in the shop. My timeline is starting to look pretty interesting. Immediately on Tuesday (the day after Memorial Day) I dropped the boat off to have the dealer get started. My next task was to contact the insurance company to see how much damage they would sign up for. I was informed of my $1000 deductible and they promised to start the process. Having received the forms and sending the estimates, it turned to a waiting game. On Friday May 30th I decided to call the shop to see if my insurance company had made arrangements with them. Having acknowledged that no one had contacted them, I asked if they ordered the parts, and was told no. At that point I reminded them that I had a $20,000 boat sitting there and it needed fixing regardless.......get the parts on order! Being preoccupied with my uncles funeral I waited till Thursday to followup with the insurance. I had received an e-mail with the information and it proceeded to call my agent because it did not have any phone numbers. After looking at it the claim form was made out to a different David Anderson ( I am only the 7th most popular name in Minnesota). After a quick re-evaluation of the data, I was promised this would be expedited. More delays. In the meantime I was fighting with HP on my laptop repair which had seen the screen go dead. After about 5 hours of discussions with India, they must have decided I was too smart for them and reassigned me to a real live American customer service agent. It is incredible what took 5 hours with Rakesh could be resolved in 15 minutes with Bob. My laptop arrived as Bob promised last Thursday, one problem down.

On Friday afternoon I received a call from State Farm. Amazingly they had already talked to the dealer and had processed my claim. Discussing my dilemma with an insurance agent friend, he express some possible issues with my claim. Oh great! The estimate came back at $3200 damage. He claimed that they might not cover it because of the malfunction so take a strategy that the problem made the outboard crash into the boat. Well the claims adjuster started by saying there would be a problem covering the malfunction. What I heard him say was "you are SOL". What he really said was we cannot cover the electrical damage but everything else. I quickly looked at the estimate and this part was only $120. We went over the bill less the $120 and my $250 deductible.........wait, the original told me $1000 deductible. I guess that's what the other David Anderson had! My expectation of how much beer money was going to leave my pocket just changed by $630 in my favor. Victory #2! I called the shop to make sure they were on track and today I confirmed to them that if I did not get out fishing this weekend someone was not going to be very happy. Well, apparently my new motor cover had not arrived yet. I reminded them that the motor, if fitted with a new tiller handle, will operate just fine with the old hood despite the hole in the front. We will see if this tactic works tomorrow and I will be back on Mille Lacs on Sunday. I have included a picture of my baby.

The time absent from fishing has given me a chance to get some worth while activities done. The last 3 weekends have been spent helping my brother-in-law get a number of things done around his house. He is having some serious medical problems and although I would always rather be fishing, it feels good to help in this case. On Monday I got to golf with my Minnesota Sales Rep, Dwight Bialowas, in the NHL Alumni Tournament. Dwight is an ex-Minnesota North Star and with the likes of Donny Beaupre, Brian Bellows, Gordy Roberts, Jack Carlson, Timmy Young, we play at the Legends, a beautiful course in Prior Lake. Our team included Dwight, Doc, Vic, a police officer, Mike and myself. Both Mike and I golf once a year and it shows! Dwight and Doc are basically scratch golfers leaving the rest of us provide entertainment for them. I have done this 3 years now and have never had a lie we could in good conscious use. Well after a bloody mary on the course my drives improved to the point where we actually used 2 of mine! Friday I volunteer for the Eric Applen Memorial Tournament. Mark Applen hosts this golf event in honor of his son who succumb to cancer at the young age of 17. Our charter is to raise money for the families of children with cancer. Mark amazingly raises between $20,000 and $25,000 each year, which is incredible as it is all raised by extraordinary everyday people. My contribution is a full day's guide trip on Mille Lakes, which usually goes for top dollar! It is my best trip of the year as it really helps a needy family.

Hopefully I will finally have a real fishing report early next week as I know the fish are biting and it's truly driving my crazy!