first, a few announcements:
this hardly seems fair. thanks to dave for keeping a look out for my women.
new photos in the may album.
now, on to your regularly scheduled post.....
i assume you've been keeping up with the blog, so when i reference an eBay auction, it should come as no surprise. recently, the crown jewel of my high school years, my roland jupiter 6 sold on eBay. the bidder had been in contact with me prior to bidding, so i knew that there was a chance he would win. here's the catch: he's in malta, which for those of you who don't know, is an island in the mediterranean just south of sicily and north of libya. it's closer to sicily though, so it's part of europe.
before i agreed to let him bid, i wanted to make sure he would pay shipping. the jupiter is a gooder, but she's not light. baby got back. *insert serious foreshadowing music here* i propped her up on my home bathroom scale in her case, and found her to come in right at 70 lbs. when i entered that weight at www.fedex.com, i was horrified to discover that shipping would be a whopping $350 USD. hoping that it would discourage my maltese friend from bidding, i communicated this to him, but he was not to be dissuaded. he wanted a cherry jupiter, and i can't blame him. my baby is dope! i told him that i would do it for $400 shipping and handling if he won, which would cover insurance and any other unforseen fees. he agreed.
a week went by, and in the final 2 minutes of the auction, he sniped the highest bid. immediately he e-mailed me to confirm the western union information. for some reason, they don't have paypal there, so we were forced to used other means. i've never used western union before. i always assumed i would walk into a place that was dimly lit with neon, a fat, unshaven, smoking clerk behind a bulletproof glass counter waiting to serve me when he got around to it.
sadly, i ended up at a bank in shorewood where i was grilled for about ten minutes by a mild-mannered clerk who could pass himself off as a librarian. soon, i had in my hand checks for the amount of the auction and shipping.
next i headed to fed-ex kinkos to send the behemoth off. i was met by a short, slight girl whose eyes got pretty big when i told her it weighed 70 lbs and was going to malta. we plopped it on the scale, and it came in at 70.1 lbs. she was impressed that i knew the weight beforehand. i guess most people don't bother.
as i filled out paperwork on carbon paper, she happily typed in the information into her computer. then:
fed ex kinkos girl: uh oh.
waiken: what?
fekg: well, it says that there is no service to the location you are sending to.
wk: that's impossible, i checked it online a week ago.
fekg: i don't know what to tell you. you could call 1800gofedex
wk: fine. (i call)
operator: yes of course we have service in malta.
wk: well, that's not what your girl here is telling me.
o: let me talk to her.
fekg: (to operator). oh ok. mm hmm, oh yes now it's letting me get past that screen. hmmm does it matter that it's over 70 lbs? ohhhh i see. ok i'll tell the customer. (hangs up)
fekg: (to me) your package is 70.1 lbs. our limit is 70 lbs. (she grins and shrugs) isn't that crazy!?
wk: yes that's one word for it. one moment.
i open the case, and remove the patch cassette and case. i figured i could just send it to the guy separately, if it would effect the weight enough. sure enough, it came in at 69.9 lbs. then i put the cassette back in without the case. 69.95 lbs.
fekg: wow, that's unbelievable. well, it's under weight. you're all set!
wk: yeah it's nuts.
i put the cassette case on the package a few times and took it off just to see, and sure enough it kept pumping it over 70 lbs. who would have guessed that this could have caused all the trouble:
anyway, malta.guy is happy to hear it's on the way. hopefully all goes well while she's en route to the mediterranean
