Had a bad day

Today (or yesterday, according to the clock) wasn't one of my better days. It began with scrambling around looking for our son's backpack for school. We never found it in the rush, but this put us a little behind schedule. So, rather than walking him to school, I drove.

This led to an accident while trying to park the car in front of the school. I was double parked when I saw someone leaving their spot. However, I had already clicked the back right door of the car for our son to get out. He pushed the door open all the way. As I backed up to the open spot, I heard this awful screech sound. It was our door scraping against the left side of the car of the mother of Antoine, one of our son's classmates. The damage wasn't great, but it looks like it will be 400-500 euros worth to get the paint redone on her car. Ugh!

This has been my introduction to the world of French auto insurance. I've been paying it for nearly 6 years, but never had any accidents or problems. It looks our back right door actually has more damage than the woman's car, but we're probably not going to fix it, as our Toyota Corolla is getting old. Tomorrow I'll talk to our agent, who was out of the office today.

Another sad thing was learning of the death of Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter from Australia. He died at 44 (my age) after accidentally being stung by a stingray. My problems of today were nothing compared to his.

I also had problems with our Microsoft Outlook. We live and die by our address book and calendar, so my heart sank when I wasn't able to open it. I ended up uninstalling a couple different versions of MS Office that we had. However, I still kept getting the error message that MS Outlook wasn't able to open, as the set of folders could not be opened.

On the bright side, I discovered that I got 2 free help calls with our 2003 version of MS Office. Kathryn and Anirudh were helpful in getting the problem solved, so now our address book works again. My wife came out at 2:00 a.m. and said that she would pray for this situation, so this certainly helped in figuring out to call MS Office and finding 2 helpful people.

One song that I have started to enjoy is "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter. I've heard it in the U.S., as well as on Star Academy in France. Some followers of Jesus seem sugary and artificial to me when they always have to wear a smile. Of course, we are to have the joy of the Lord. But it's ok to not always be on cloud 9. And in the midst of the bad days, Jesus is still with us.

Here's the lyrics.

Where is the moment when we need it the most
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost
They tell me your blue sky's faded to grey
They tell me your passion's gone away
And I don't need no carrying on

You stand in the line just to hit a new low
You're faking a smile with the coffee to go
You tell me your life's been way off line
You're falling to pieces every time
And I don't need no carrying on

Cause you had a bad day
You're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don't know
You tell me don't lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
The camera don't lie
You're coming back down and you really don't mind
You had a bad day
You had a bad day

Well you need a blue sky holiday
The point is they laugh at what you say
And I don't need no carrying on

You had a bad day
You're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don't know
You tell me don't lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
The camera don't lie
You're coming back down and you really don't mind
You had a bad day
You had a bad day

Sometimes the system goes on the blink and the whole thing it turns out
Wrong
You might not make it back and you know that you could be well oh that
Strong
Well I'm not wrong

So where is the passion when you need it the most
Oh you and I
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost

Cause you had a bad day
You're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don't know
You tell me don't lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
You see what you like
And how does it feel, one more time
You had a bad day
You had a bad day
You had a bad day