So yeah, my wallet got stolen from the Boathouse.  I've had quite a streak of luck there lately.  First, I lost my digital camera... and to be honest, I'm not 100% sure where the heck it is, so I won't say it get stolen there.  But today, someone definately got my lock open at one of our locks and made off with my wallet.  To be honest, our locks are pretty crappy, so, in the future, its probably better to bring you own lock.  But still, I've never had a problem there before.  There are so many volunteers down there, that we notice sketchy characters right away.  Taino suggested that maybe someone else got the wrong locker and cracked open the lock thinking it was their locker.   Then, seeing a wallet just sitting there, they just made a spur of the moment grab.  Punks.

The funny thing is, they left my Treo 650 just sitting there.    They had no interest in a $600+ phone.  Instead, they took my wallet, which had $80 and all of my credit cards.  Well, you gotta assume I'm going to cancel the cards... and if you just want the cash, just take the cash and leave everything else.  Morons.

Everyone that I told was more concerned about my driver's license.  I guess, to most people, they'd rather incur a substantial monetary loss than have to go to the DMV.

Anyway, I just cancelled and reordered all my cards and stuff.  In the meantime, I have no cash, save for my change jar... so I'll be making a trip to Commerce Bank and using their little coin machine.  Maybe I'll have enough to feed myself, because I'm temporarily living in my friend's apartment until my closing on Thursday and she sure has hell doesn't have any food in the house.  If anyone else wants to bring me food, call my cell.

What really sucks, though, is the fact that I lost three items in my wallet that were really important to me.  One, I had one of those little plastic funeral cards from my grandfather.  Second, I had a 10 year old generic blue gum wrapper that my high school girlfriend gave me on the first day we ever met.  I know that's cheesy, and the girl hates me now, but I guess I'm just sentimental.  And third, I had a five pound note that was a momento from my trip to London a few years ago. 

Thieves.  They should be shot and then forced to tag for the rest of their lives with Yahoo MyWeb 2.0.   

Man, I am starving...and I had a smoothie before I left.  It didn't really take.

The subway is really crowded.  Hopefully it won't be too long before I can start biking again.  Seems that we're having our February weather in March, though.

Onlt five or six weeks until softball.  I went to the cage at Chelsea Piers yesterday.  This is going to be a breakout softball year I think.  This is probably the first year that I've fully embraced the idea that I'm not a hardball player anymore and that, from here on in, its softball.  I even bought a new glove, which needs some working in.

There's a couple in front of me chatting... This has to be one of the most irratating pair of individuals I've ever seen.  They're trying to talk in some kind of code so not everyone can hear them, because he's standing and she's sitting.  Obviously, they haven't really practiced their code, because they're not getting it.

"...Do you mean the first thing or the second thing?"

"What second thing?  The thing from the other person involved?"

"No, your second thing...from before....you know..."

*Smacks hand on head.*

I'll bet you they're not even talking about anything remotely interesting.

No one seems to notice that I'm wearing two different sneakers.

It was an accident.  I had two pairs at work and grabbed a mismatching pair...  I'm just lucky I didn't get two lefts, or, even worse, two rights.

Last summer, my friend Anna and I went for a drive...aimlessly.  We wound up heading in the direction of Greenwood Lake, which is where my grandmother (mom's mom) had a house for like 35 years.  That house used to be the center of all our family stuff over the summer, particularly when my brothers were younger.  Well, after my grandfather passed away, she sold the house--probably too quickly--and hasn't been up since.  Its been about 7 years or so.  I wound up taking pictures of the house and she got very upset, but in a good way.  She wanted to go up to see it and I promised I'd take her.

So, on Saturday, me and my 87 year old grandmother--my favorite person in the whole world--trekked up Route 17 and spent the afternoon in Greenwood Lake, NY.  We went back to the house, whose address has been changed to 22 Julie Lane (it used to just be on HR1) and stopped out front.  There wasn't anybody home, but either way, Nana felt a little embarrassed ringing the bell, so she just sat out front.  Its really well taken care of, which she was happy to see. 

What was kind of disappointing, and I wrote about this last year, was that the beach/dock area by our little community clubhouse was in total disarray.  It seems to have been abandoned.  The dock is falling into the water and the stairs, which were all broken up last year, have now totally disappeared.  All that's left are these rocks which seem to have slid onto the dock.  Its a real shame.

Afterwards,  we went to Le Bistro II.   This place needs some better advertising, because I had a hard time finding it on the web.  The food is pretty good and the portion sizes were even better.  I hope they do better business than when we were in there.  I'd definitely go back there again, and if you're in the Greenwood Lake, NY area, stop by.  Have the seafood Fra Diavlo plate with the clams and mussels.  The mussels were HUGE.  I've never seen mussels that big (except on myself, of course...  ba dump bump.)  Nana took me out for dinner.  I snapped off a few pics when she wasn't looking. 

It was a great day, but also a little sad.  Our family doesn't get together anymore the way we used to up at the Lake.  I'm debating getting all the cousins I don't see together for something.  I have about 25 cousins and second cousins that I have near zero interaction with.  I think a few of them are living in the city, too.  Perhaps I can get them on linkedin.com

I spent the past weekend in Vermont with Zog Sports--skiing mostly, but I did take a snowboarding lesson yestersday morning.  I didn't have much time to take any pictures or  videos.  Plus, my battery died out before my friend got a chance to get my mildly successful snowboard run down the bunny hill.  However, I was able to pull a still from the video of my attire:

I didn't yell, "Coooobraaa!" don't the hill, but I was tempted.

We skiied at Okemo and Killington.  I liked Okemo's trails much better.  It was quieter and I felt like the trails were better insulated from the winds.  Killington was like skiing in the artic.  Being at the top of the mountain with the winds sweeping up made me feel like I was on some ill fated expidition where I'd have to figure out which one of the Zoggers I'd have to eat first.

Okemo had great powder on Saturday and if you get a chance, do the Rum Run.  Its dinky on the map, but its longer than it appears and the scenery is really fantastic.  Its not a hard trail at all, but its probably one of the nicest winter scenes I've been in.

Snowboarding was alright, but I'm a skiier.  Legs need to be free, and so after my lesson, I switched and went right back to skiing.

It was a great trip and I'll definitely be going on the ZogSports ski trips in the future. Here's a pic of the Zoggers on the bus:

So I'm home waiting for furniture to arrive from Levitz (aka Furniture.com).   They called yesterday with an automatic service to confirm delivery between 8AM and 12PM.

lalalalala...    waiting around...  *twiddles thumbs*

12:00 PM.

12:10 PM.

12:20 PM.

12:30 PM.

Time to call Customer Service.

They have no idea, but they e-mail the warehouse (why not just call?) to ask where the order is. 

The trucking company calls me back and says that the warehouse postponed the order.  Mind you, the furniture is in the warehouse, so I have no idea why they would do that.  Call Levitz back.

Levitz keeps me on hold for 25 minutes (I can't believe I held on that long, but I had nothing else to do).   Basically, for no apparent reason, someone along the chain--the warehouse, the trucking company, etc. decided I didn't really need my furniture today.  It just didn't go on the truck.  No rationale.   They offered me $100 gift certificate.  I just want my furniture.  I told them to just put the furniture on the truck.  No, trucks were out.  Well, when they come back, put my stuff on a truck.  Can't do that.  Yes you can.  You're just not willing to.  Customer lost.

With the company teetering on the edge of yet another bankruptcy, you'd think they would try and do a little better job on the customer service.   Screw the $100...  the right thing to do is to find the guy responsible, put him and his team on a truck, but my bedroom set on that truck, and get me my stuff.  Whoever eats the overtime, Levitz, the trucking company, whoever... I don't really care.  And, I shouldn't have to. 

Plus, everyone up and down that chain should be intent on fixing the problem.  Don't give me, "We'll reschedule."  It should be, "We'll get you that furniture today if the customer service guy on the other end of the phone has to march down to the warehouse himself and get it to you tied to his Jetta."

That's the kind of attitude that wins customers, creates word of mouth, buzz, etc.

You know what Jamba does when they screw up your order?  Even if they just give you the wrong size...  without hesitation, not only do they give you the thing you didn't order, they start all over again and get you your order.  Twice I've gone there and gotten my usual original AND a 16 b/c they accidently gave me the smaller size.  That creates such a positive experience for me.... makes me want to come back.

Bottom line, if they can't get me my furniture today, they're going to take off all the delivery charges and give me $100 off for my troubles.

Who to blame, though?

You know who the buck stops with?  Ward Dingmann, SVP of Logistics at Levitz.  If you leave your image to the guy at the warehouse, forget your company.  So, maybe Ward will Google himself or someone who know him.  He's on LinkedIn, but I'm not connected to him.  So, if anyone knows Ward, let him know there's a pissed off blogger who is without a bedroom set.

Yesterday, we celebrated both my dad's 66th birthday and my grandmother's (mom's mom) 88th birthday at, where else, Gino's. 

Watching how they treat my dad is like watching people visit the Godfather.  (And my dad isn't even Italian.)

The beginning of this video features Sayo the waiter trying to gather his troops for a little waitstaff in the round birthday song.   My maternal nana is sitting to my left, and my other nana is on my right.  My brother Steve is at the end of the table.

Don't my parents look pretty good for their age?

So, about a month ago, I took a personal dispute public.  Adrianna wanted to infultrate and conquer my pleated wardrobe and I was quite resistant.  In retaliation, instead of just opening up to her influence, I decided to create the first open source fashion recommendation system:  Coat Idol.

I needed a winter coat.

People nominated coats in del.icio.us.

And now, you can vote on which one I'll buy:  (Note, some of the coats didn't make it, b/c their permalinks weren't so permanent and I couldn't find them again.  Silly retailers.)

Voting ends Tuesday at 5PM.  At that point, I'll blindly place a rush order (its getting pretty cold here) for whatever coat has the most votes.  Please vote only once.

Here are the choices... vote at the bottom.

1) New University Coat (with Thinsolate)  - $198

2)  Columbia Men's Leather Bib Hipster Jacket - $180

3)   Kenneth Cole Reaction Wool Peacoat - $175

4)  Kenneth Cole REACTION  "Boxcar" Coat - $99

5)  Andrew Marc's Marc New York - $195

6) Leather Car Coat - $119