Monday, July 26, 2010

Good & Bad

by Wilfred Bereswill

Sorry for not having this up earlier.  I'm still recovering from the theft of my things, including my Macbook Pro on a business trip.  It's a longer process replacing eveything than I would have thought.  I've reposted last Sunday's post about what happened.  I haven't heard a peep from the police in Tempe and the way it seems, I'm not likely to.  I did see a Macbook Pro like mine on Craigslist in Phoenix that went for sale the night mine was stolen and the ad said, "EMERGENCY, must sell now."  The cops didn't feel like they would investigate it, and I got no response to my query.  I've accepted that it's all gone.

On the good side (remember the name of the post) my short story, Sinfully Delicious is on sale now at OmniLit by Echelon Press Publishing.   It's inexpensive, it's saucy and I'd love for you to give it a try.  As a matter of fact, I'll give a copy to one poster at random.  Check back at the end of the day.



Some temptations really are TO DIE FOR.

How could anything that tastes and feels so right be so wrong? I just can’t seem to help myself, but who am I really hurting? I mean…it’s just a little snack or two…
 We’re brought up to know the difference between right and wrong, but sometimes, slipping to the dark side is out of our control.







VIOLATED

On Thursday I traveled to Phoenix for business. I was picked up from the airport by the regional office in my contact's company mini-van, threw my suitcase and briefcase into the back of the van and spent the next 7 hours in the scorching Phoenix 115 degree heat. In a long sleeve white shirt and tie no less.

At 5:45 PM three people from the office took me out to a fabulous dinner at Roy's Hawiaan Fusion in an upscale neighborhood. We had great food and talk and a few drinks. At 7 PM we walked out to the parking lot and the mini-van's driver door wouldn't open. I got in the passenger side and opened the door, but my host just stood there looking at her vans door handle. I asked what was wrong and she said something looked wrong. I got out and took a look and somebody had punched out the lock. The next thing she said was, "Is your stuff in the car?"

It was all gone. My suitcase with my clothes. My briefcase with my personal MacBook Pro, digital camera, iPod Touch, and so on. It felt like I had been punched in the stomach.

If that weren't bad enough, all of the wedding videos I took with my new Flip video and had downloaded on my Mac were gone. They were deleted off the camera as I put them on my computer. I had finished putting all the video together with a bunch of pictures and had them nicely arranged with some cool effects. I burned one disc, and it was in the computer when it was stolen. It is gone. That's what hurts the most.

I stood there on the parking lot, sweating, unbelieving, pissed, helpless, vicitmized and stunned. It happened in broad daylight, in an upscale neighborhood, in a crowded parking lot. Talk about bold.

To make it worse, we called the Tempe police. They didn't even see fit to come to the scene. We gave the police report by phone. No wonder crime is rampant. The police took the friggen' report by phone.

My associates were kind enough to take me to a mall to get a new shirt and underwear. I went to the 4 star hotel with a red backpack with everything I had to my name. The hotel supplied me with a pathetic disposable razor, a toothbrush with 1 row of bristles and a couple of tiny packs of toothpaste and shaving gel.

Not only did I lose all the wedding videos, but all my website design. I have a new short story coming out this week and I now have to figure out how to redesign my entire website.

I still have no idea about how I'm going to reclaim my possessions, but in the meantime I'm down to using my little netbook.

10 comments:

Joyce Tremel said...

What about offering a reward in the Phoenix paper? Or maybe a reporter in Phoenix would be interested in writing about the loss of all the wedding video. You never know what might come of that.

Jenna said...

Good ideas, Joyce. Will, SO sorry about your loss. (Congratulations on the short story, though. Way to go!)

Wilfred Bereswill said...

Thanks all. I posted a notice on Craigslist and got no response. The Tempe police sent a form to list out my property and at the end of the form it says that they will only contact me if they recover my items.

Over the weekend I found out about my short story being up for sale and thought, "I'll put it on my website." Then I realized I did it in iWeb and all the files were on my stolen Mac.

So, all weekend I've been busy trying to recreate the website. Got it about 1/3 done, which is why I was late in posting my blog.

Joyce Tremel said...

Will, wouldn't the web hosting company have copies of the files???

Wilfred Bereswill said...

Joyce, I can get the HTML files from my web hosting service, but I don't think iWeb can import HTML.

I have an appointment with Apple Reps to find out for sure tomorrow.

Gina said...

Will -
I think what Joyce is suggesting is that you go above and beyond the standard "wait for the police to solve it" by appealing to public sympathy. Get on Phoenix tv and/or in the newspaper as a human interest story.
- Gina

Anonymous said...

My sympathies on your loss. I've heard of a number of stories like yours, where unattended vehicles in parking lots in 'nice areas' get broken into. Hope you get some response on your laptop. - Cheryl Williams

Joyce Tremel said...

What Gina said is exactly what I meant.

Police these days are too busy dealing with shootings, murder, and other violent crimes. They are NOT out actively looking for the thieves. This type of crime is just not important enough to them.

The only way this will get solved is if they catch the thieves in the act of breaking into someone else's vehicle. Or you solve it yourself. You really need use the media to play on people's sympathies. That's your absolute best bet for recovering some of your items.

Wilfred Bereswill said...

Cheryl Williams, if you send your e-mail address to me at wbereswill at wbereswill dot com, I'll send you a copy of Sinfully delicious.

Patg said...

Hey Will, sorry about your loss. Since you were traveling on business, does you company have a travel insurance for you? All my corporate accounts were badgered into buying them, maybe yours does too and you can recoup some of the monitary value. It will never cover the emotional loss, but it could help.