What's Happening in Your Life?

[AzEaglesFan]

Thank you, I'll see if I can do that. I'm beginning to see why the guy wants $200. I wish he had put the cassettes on CDs in the first place.

[MikeA]

AzE: hang in there. Folks'll get you straightened out with that DVD. I've never worked with that file format.

I did a really stupid thing this past Friday. Verna and I went "up north" to the Casinos up there. The first one we come to is the only one that has a hotel and we stay there overnight. But I don't play there at all...too rich for my blood! So, I'm dropping Verna off to go check into the hotel while I go to the gas station to pick up some Indian Tobacco (no, not the wacky stuff <LOL>)

As I was coming out of the gas station, Verna calls to tell me she is ready to be picked up. I had ten cartons of smokes, a cell phone to my ear talking to Verna and was trying to sign my credit card receipt and negotiate the doors. When I got to the car, I almost dropped the cell phone trying to get the trunk of the car opened and managed to hang onto it and get it stuck into a pocket.

I went to the hotel, picked Verna up and headed on north to a casino that I do play at. I noticed when about 20 miles up the road, that I didn't have my cell phone! Verna called it and it rang in her handset, but there was no sound of my distinctive (Black Dog) ring inside the car! She tried calling it again and it went straight to voicemail!

A couple of hours later, my daughter calls Verna and said that she just got the weirdest phone call. Some guy in Lawrence had called her on my phone saying he had found it at the gas station. We'd called the gas station and the hotel and asked them to be on the lookout for the phone in case someone turned it in.

Odd thing was that the guy didn't just turn it in where he found it! Lawrence, Kansas is maybe 25 miles away from Topeka....in the WRONG DIRECTION for us! He didn't want to mail the phone to me even though I offered a reward and offered to pay shipping. He said he'd just drop it off at the police substation in Lawrence. Well, he calls back and says that the Police substation is not open on weekends so "he'll just meet us at the exit of the Turnpike to Lawrence". YESH!

Verna had been checking out account for "minutes used" and they weren't moving so we figured the guy was honest....maybe not the brightest bulb in the chandelier....but then I'm not either a evidenced by the lost phone!

He did meet us, refused the compensation for trouble and I got my phone back, no worse for the wear. And maybe that extra 50 miles was just what I needed, though I can't imagine why! <LOL>

[TimothyBFan]

Mike-sorry, but I had a little chuckle at your expense. The way you tell the story is fantastic. Especially the "maybe not the brightest bulb in the chandelier". Glad you got it back tho.

[Brooke]

Geez, Mike! Some days just don't go as planned, do they?! Glad you got your phone back though!

[MikeA]

I think it is just coincidence, but it was shortly after I signed the Credit Card receipt at the gas station, that some charges started showing up on our credit card monthly bill. My wife watches that account like a hawk since we do make some on-line charges with it.

We had two $10 to Skype (which I never have used) and one $40 charge that was reversed (and not by us!). We're having to have a new credit card issued and had to cancel that old one. We'd had it for 20 years and it is the only one we use! There's no problem as far as the charges go...there is no contesting it with the insurer. They have reversed the charges...pretty obviously not us.

But it has to have originated from somewhere that we have used the CC at a brick and mortar store. We only use it through PayPal for on-line purchases as well as a couple of places where we use it to pay recurring charges (like my account with GoDaddy).

That is why I am suspecting that someone got hold of the receipt or found some record at that gas station. No way to prove it of course. But that is one reason that I really am far more hesitant to use a credit card or a debit card at a store than I am to use them "on-line".

[Prettymaid]

Hey Mike, multi-tasking is calling for you...they want their membership back!

[Z]

Thank you, I'll see if I can do that. I'm beginning to see why the guy wants $200. I wish he had put the cassettes on CDs in the first place.

Depending upon the format they are in, $200 is about $150 too much. IMO

[Glennsallnighter]

Good luck with it AZEF. I'm not familiar with the procedure so I don't know what is good or bad!
Mike, that was a lucky escape with the phone. Have you cancelled the credit card? Over here they don't print all the credit card numbers on your receipt so it cannot be used fraudulently if it is found by somebody else.
Willie, I'm delighted your friend is getting some leave and I do indeed hope he has a safe journey home. I remember him going. It does indeed seem like a long time.

Miss ya Lou But I'm glad you are having fun with Helen.

Molly, I'm sorry that your gift was broken by the time it arrived. That really sucks.
I'm sorry I haven't been on much in recent weeks. I really miss not getting my daily 'fix', but I am thinking about you all.

Update on MSG Dvd's. They are all copied and will be sent very soon to those who gave me addresses. I'm sorry it has taken so long. But you WILL all get them.

[sodascouts]

So glad you got that phone back Mike - it's amazing how much we come to rely upon them!

And Z - amen to that. That guy is a ripping people off.

[MikeA]

Oh, it wasn't losing the phone itself that got me all aglitter. I don't really use mine that much other than to talk with Verna and to listen to music or audio books when traveling. No, it was the damage someone who is unethical could do to us financially with calls to Africa or Australia...or that 804 area code that charges $2,400 a minute in Jamaica. Other than look through the contents on my memory card, the only thing the guy who found the phone did was to use my phone to call my daughter in an effort to find the owner ("me") of the lost phone. I was very lucky.

Then that credit card thing happened and that's caused us untold hassle as we have to change all of our automatic monthly payments we have charged to the credit card.

But then, Sunday evening after it had been raining all day long, our basement started taking on water! I've spent the last two days, about once an hour, using the shop vac to suck up soaked carpet in the basement!

I think we are just going to pull up the carpet in the main part of the basement. It's gone through several soakings and I'm sure that it has taken on a life of its own (mildew, mold, creepy microscopic critters!). Besides, that will make it easier to vac with a squeegy attachment.

I recon we will "paint" it with some of that sealing paint such as is used on garage floors to maybe stop some of the seepage and to make it look a little better. On a positive note, all that bare concrete should make for some interesting sound effects for recording! <LOL>