The little Inn by the wayside

[eMTe]

And I wish you more games than birthdays.

[eMTe]

So, just in case somebody's interested - I spent the whole day at home with high temperature - between 38,5 and 39,3 with sore throat and cough. It started three days ago with a bit of itching in throat and eventually ended up in this. So here I am, surrounded by medicals, food reserves, books and movies and actually this post should go to the "happy" thread, because throat doesnt ache that much, cough isnt strong and only temperature is high. Besides, I took free Sunday, so I have three days (well, now two) of doing nothing ahead me.

[jayenkai]

Poor thing. Glad you're getting better. Enjoy your free days!

[Chroelle]

Feel better eMTe. Hope you find time to feel like you're having a weekend, and not just sickdays.

[Scythe]

Hope you got through the night with some actual sleep, not too many fever dreams and didn't wake up with a throat that was trying to kill you. (That's how it usually goes when I'm in a similar situation.)

[eMTe]

I slept for 2 hours the previous night and 1 hour this night, because of the fever. So I finally, in the morning, took up two fever reducers (which usually work as a sleeping drug also) and immediately went asleep.

At least I read half of the Arnaldur Indriðason's "Myrin".

My throat isnt trying to kill me, which is suspicious, because that's usually how my illness manifests.

[Tormuse]

Moving to a new apartment in the east end of Toronto today! Both excited and nervous. I hope I don't lose my internet connection for too long while I'm moving in. Wish me luck!

Also, WOO!

[Chroelle]

Wishing you luck. Hope the move is going smooth! (And I hope you found time to pack the rest before you had to go.)

[Railwaymodeler]

Tormuse, I hope your move goes smoother than mine ever have. Back in 2010 it was a logistical nightmare to move everything!

Tomorrow morning, 9 AM, Maria and I are due for court against Pace. This is incredibly exciting! Years of hardship and suffering, finally drawing to a close! Skoda seems to be giggly happy tonight, almost as if she knows something is happening. My phone has been ringing quite a bit from Pace drivers expressing their best wishes towards Maria and I.

Can hardly wait for tomorrow now!

[eMTe]

I hope I don't lose my internet connection for too long while I'm moving in.

You can always use Facebook!
Wait...Facebook isnt part of the internet, right? Or is it?

[Chroelle]

Raillo - you will keep us up to dae on the trial thing right? I hope the best for you and Maria.

And once again - this forum is not unwelcoming to baby-pics.

[Railwaymodeler]

The trial was first on the judge's docket for the day.

Maria and I gave our testimony, then Pace was allowed to give theirs. Theirs mostly consisted of Maria breaking the rule about a driver having a relationship with a passenger. Then the state investigators were allowed to share their findings.

Judge asked Maria and I a bunch of questions, then asked Pace questions.

The judge was not happy with Pace at all, especially after noticing that testimony that they gave conflicted at times. It was obvious they were lying quite a bit.

The judge had some stern words for Pace, and awarded us as much as he could per charge. Maria got $25 million, I got another $3 million. The look on Pace's lawyers faces was priceless. Of course they tried claiming then that Pace does not have that kind of money. Judge wouldn't hear of it. He informed them they have 14 days to come up with it, or face serious prison time.

We went down to the bus terminal at noon, and shared the good news with everyone. Our winning the case, paves the way for a class action suit the drivers union has filed for others that have faced problems with management.

Maria and I are planning to go to a very nice restaurant tonight.

I'll see what I can do about uploading some pics of Skoda. Maria is against me sharing pictures of our baby anywhere online, though, and I respect that.

[eMTe]

Maria got $25 million, I got another $3 million.

Good heavens! That's A LOT of money! You can start your own railroad modelling shop or something.

[Zyx]

Maria got $25 million, I got another $3 million.

Good heavens! That's A LOT of money! You can start your own railroad line or something.

Fixed that for you, eMTe.

I assume that this is not actually the end of it all? I'd imagine they'll appeal or that's not possible? Also, I guess it's quite probable that they'll just declare bankruptcy and you'll never see even a fraction of the penalties awarded? My brother was just in court when some drunken guy decided to fight and break my brother's ankle. Considering the guy is, unsurprisingly enough, unemployed and probably will remain so for the foreseeable future, my brother won't see any payments for a loooong time even though it was just thousand euros or less (we don't have punitive damages over here, which I think is quite reasonable). Not that it really matters as the insurance company covered all the medical bills. (They naturally also want their money back from the guy as well.)

[Scythe]

The judge had some stern words for Pace, and awarded us as much as he could per charge. Maria got $25 million, I got another $3 million. The look on Pace's lawyers faces was priceless. Of course they tried claiming then that Pace does not have that kind of money. Judge wouldn't hear of it. He informed them they have 14 days to come up with it, or face serious prison time.

Only in the U.S... I'm assuming they can appeal the case? They obviously will.

[eMTe]

On another topic, I had awful end of Saturday and Sunday. While I was still relatively ill, my tooth (actually the remains of the tooth), which I should have removed years ago (but I didnt, because it was silent, so why bother) started to ache. I slept quite well in the Saturday/Sunday night, because I was taking antifever drugs, so they helped to overcome this relatively light pain, but the fun started on Sunday's morning. I spent practically the whole day swallowing huge (too huge) doses of paracetamol, ibuprofen and codeine, but they usually were enough only for 2 hours, pain was so great. Trying to not overdose, I tried going on long walks outside to not sit and think about pain, making ice compresses etc., but they were hardly helpful. Meanwhile I booked the visit to my dentist online, took huge dose of ibuprofen for the night and got asleep...for 3 hours, then dose of codeine, sleep for 2 hours, dose of ibuprofen, sleep...and so I woke up with no pain after 4 hours, but with 36,2 temperature (because of painkillers, no doubt). Instead when I looked in the mirror Ive found a huge bulge on my gum, right next to the tooth. Luckily, I felt ok for most of the day and went to the doctor in good mood. It occurred that the abscess that developed around the tooth's root years ago eventually decided to see the outside world, so he desperately tried to get out throughout the Sunday. After such a painful experience the whole procedure was relatively short - took 3 minutes - the woman cut the gum, squeezed the pus, put the swab in and told me to come back on Thursday to pull this damn teeth out at last.

So now Im sitting all happy, with no tooth pain, remains of the cold and eating gooseberry jelly.

[Railwaymodeler]

As far as today's trial, given what Pace put Maria through, the judge took a very dim look at that. Our lawyer thinks it is unlikely that Pace will appeal the decision. He did cite reasons for this thinking, but mostly it was legal mumbo-jumbo to me.

Pace is a government funded operation, not a private venture, so they can't simply fold up and declare bankruptcy. Otherwise, if they could, they would have done it years ago.

The fact they are government funded makes the matter slightly worse, as the public in general does not like knowing their tax money funds what they do.

Historically Pace has been unsuccessful at appealing court decisions. Some years back there was a number of management officials at the system headquarters that were nailed for fraud. Another instance that I remember was when an executive director was frequenting strip clubs and casinos while on company time.

I guess Maria and I will see if we get our money in the next two weeks.

[Chroelle]

HOLY CRAP!!!! THAT IS AN AMAZING SUM OF MONEY!!!!
Congrats on getting the whole deal done today. Glad to hear it turned out ....lets say WELL.
Oh and I totally get that Maria doesn't want the pics out on the internet. I can imagine she is the prettiest damn thing you ever saw, right?

Once again Congrats my friend.

Oh and eMTe - DAMN! I suddenly dont feel as annoyed by the cold-warm sensitivity I got in one side of the mouth after having a cavity filled a few weeks back.

[Tormuse]

(I'm writing this from a library computer since my internet connection is down for the next week or so)

@RWM, Wow! I guess little Skoda is set for life! No worries about her financial future! Congrats!

And I understand Maria's concern about not wanting Skoda's pictures on the internet. Personally, I'd respect her wishes; we don't need to see Skoda that badly. As Chroelle says, I'm sure she's the prettiest baby ever.

@eMTe, reminds me of when I had my wisdom teeth out. I got a dry socket infection a few days afterward, because I didn't clean the sockets properly. The pain from the infection was agonizing, way worse than the actual surgery. I went back to the dentist to get it treated and he just put some topical anesthetic on it, cleaned it out, and put a dressing over it and the pain was completely gone within a few minutes. The difference was astounding!

EDIT: As for myself, the move went smoothly enough and I'm now recovering from the aches of all the heavy lifting I did and putting off the daunting task of unpacking everything.

[Railwaymodeler]

Maria and I are setting aside one million for Skoda's future expenses, such as college and education. I understand Maria's concerns too; She recalls that when she was younger, in Colombia, there were real problems with human trafficking (sex slaves and similar), so I understand that as a new mother, this is her natural reaction.

Reading all this about teeth, I remember when I was maybe 15 years old, I had to have all four wisdom teeth pulled, as they were coming in very crooked, enough that they were going to cause problems for the rest of my teeth. This was my first and only (so far) surgery. I remember being terrified of it, and my dad said that if I do well before the surgery, he would take me to my favorite hobby shop afterwards.

Well, I was dressed going under the gas before surgery; Logically I would have expected to been dressed waking up. Nope. Was stark naked waking up. Between this and the pain in my mouth, I was NOT happy! But then, spitting blood was kind of interesting, being 15 and all. The doctor did explain that they stripped me shortly into the proceedure, as a monitor they had me hooked into, gave a reading that my heart was not doing well, so they stripped me in case they needed to do anything else. Don't remember the particulars of this explanation. I do remember that when I was about that age, my blood pressure often ran very low: 60/30 is low enough, that the doctors were never sure how I kept going with that. Suffice to say I have an "interesting" medical background.

I know what it's like to put off unpacking - last time I moved in June 2010, I wasn't fully unpacked for a number of months.