Happy Anniversary Jeff & Amy

I don't have a picture of you two together 30 yerars ago, so this goes graphicsless.

Happy Anniversary Alex & Marijke

My phones are back and working - story at 11.

I have returned from the 70's, you can once again contact me on my phone.....

Every good Epic is a Trilogy

[Previously on "A Tale of Two Phones" our Hero had his two phones stolen out of his classroom, heard kids on the other end when he called them, had them disconnected, reported them stolen, got an ornery e-mail from a friend he missed a meeting with, had his older brother contact him because his father contacted the older brother when the people who found one of the cell phones contacted the father, and told our Hero to contact his father about the phone.]

So I went to the address that Julia gave me and and it was every bit as charming as she described it. I started talking to the lady at the front door, who at first looked at me like I was growing a second head out my left shoulder and then told me she had no idea what I was talking about. After being told she was clueless a couple of times, it finally dawned on her that I probably wanted to talk to people in the basement apartment. As I'm walking around the side of the house, this guy comes up out of a stairwell to meet me, not having central air their windows were all open and he had heard the conversation. At first he seemed to be somewhat cautious, like he was expecting me to demand his son be arrested for theft, or maybe I'd settle for a portion of the family fortune. Once I had made it clear that I simply wanted the other phone back, and had no intention of retribution, he became friendly and invited me into the house to talk to culprit #1, his (probably 8 year old) son Zachary. A charming apartment, with 2 kids at the table munching cereal, mom laying on the couch and the baby in a pen with her diaper sliding down about the knees. Zach had no idea where the phones came from, (yeah, right), but remembered the other phone because his friend was taking pictures with it. The parents, or whatever relationship the man had with the family (at one point he said to Zack - just wait 'till your dad gets home), were very helpful. They got Zack to tell which friend it was that had the camera, called the house and got no answer, started giving me directions to the house and even gave me the mom & kids name. Culprit #2 - another 8 year old named Harley (and I quote Zack's mom "like the motorcycle"). The mom even decided to accompany me over to the other house, which I thought was weird because most women I know would never get in a car with a male who was a complete stranger. By the conversation on the way over, it was obvious that mom figured that her son and Harley had taken them off my desk together, and I got the satisfaction of knowing that little Zack would be grounded for at least long enough to know that it wasn't a good thing he did.

We get to Harley's house and dad, or some sort of male father figure, was sitting out front and came to us as we drove up. Instead of breaching the subject slowly, Mom greets him with "Harley's been stealing cell phones off of teacher's desks at Granite" and 'dad' comes out with "F#$%$%, little b#%$^$, f*(&^^" and invites us to follow him inside. He starts grilling little Harley, who is playing completely innocent. No he never had any cell phones. No he didn't take them. No he wasn't taking pictures with one of them. His mom (who looked to be about 18) jumps to his defense - she never saw him with a cell phone, he never had them. So 'dad' asks Harley if he had been to Granite High recently and Harley adamantly says "No, I haven't been there in a long time." This is where little bro (probably 6) speaks up. "You were there just the other day, you told me" Harley still denies it. This is where I did my best teacher impression and looked straight at Harley and said "Harley, I don't want to get anyone in trouble, I just need to get that phone back, that's all I want." Harley opens his mouth and even before he can spew out another lie, little bro reaches out his hand and says "You mean this one?" It's brown trouser time for Harley as dad's vein starts to throb, mom becomes incredibly silent and invisible, and I take the phone, thank him for giving it to me and prepare to leave. I opened the phone to see if it was mine, and find the contact list contains nobody I know. Instead I now have the number for Deni, Dj Dopey, Dutch and someone they refer to as Mushroom. My heart stops because I think I have the wrong phone, so I quickly check the phone settings and find the number for the phone. There it is, my number and my name. Phew! (The phone also had the pictures the kids took, one of which looks incredibly X-Filesish, so you may be able to see Harley, Zack and/or little brother when I figure outhow to get them out of there.)

Anyway, that's the saga. All is well again, the internet even seems to be working fine, although I'm not cancelling my repair appointment tomorrow, 'cause if I do I know the internet will go down again...... see ya around

The Saga Continues

Part One

First of all, this morning I get up, and the internet is doing the exact same thing it was doing before. Two green lights and that's all. Bleah. I'm so sick of this I almost started crying. So I call Comcast and they're sending someone out again tomorrow to look at it. Even though it's up again, I'm not cancelling, because who knows how long it's going to last. So if you have a hard time getting on my site, that's why.

Part Two

I got a call from Alex yesterday, who got a call from dad who had gotten a call from the someone who had my phone. Oh, did I mention that Alex had had to call Danny to get my phone number? Lotta calling going on. Anyway, this guy had found my cell phone in the cusions of his couch, looked through the contact list and saw one for "DAD". Figuring that this was someone related to me, he called the number to let them know they had my phone. Of course dad couldn't call me, so he and Julia went down there to get the phone for me. Julia said something about them making "Deliverance" look like "90210", and that they got the impression that the parents knew it was their kids that took the phone. Fortunatly, Julia still had the address, because they only got my home phone back, now I have to go by and see if they can find my school phone. That's gonna be fun.

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I'm taking 2 weeks off from the Chevron before school starts. I think I'll just go up to the land and hide for that time........