38 years later…. same look of inspection… same bulging belly…. same sandals…

#1. it is the FIRST annual tournament so we are still working out the bugs – so to speak.
2. it has been dragging on to allow time for all the teams to coordinate their schedules to play.
3. next year- it may last all year long- who knows?
4. even if you have never in your entire life even HEARD of bocce ball you have a chance to win the second annual tournament. (could be your claim to fame – your 15 minutes – the event that sets you on your path…)
5. the trophy is just one of the prizes: free pizza – glory – your name forever glorified… no telling what other amazing prizes they will come up with…

next time you’re there, just sign up for the next tournament… where? lightnin’ salvage, that’s where.
you will thank me later.

first annual championship game coming soon. information will be posted HERE.
where?
here. the blog.

this photo was taken at one of our ukelele nights – but it gives you an IDEA of a scene you might see at open mic night… you see- this is my blog and this post is directed to people who are interested in our bi-monthly OPEN MIC night. not long ago it was once a month but it has been so successful that now it’s every other wednesday (more or less.)
do you like to get in front of people and bare your soul? perfect. the music is from 6 – 9pm. get there at 6 and find neil to reserve your spot in the line-up. if you arrive too late you might not get to play that night but you’ll definitely get to enjoy some other local musicians talents… i’m looking forward to the time when there’s enough local acts to fill 8 spots every wednesday. we’ll feed you a slice and a drink and who knows? maybe you’ll be our next friday night act? maybe you’ll be on letterman in a month?

when you think – think lightnin’ salvage.

danny runs the place every night- neil is the MC for Open Mic night. you go up there and remember those 2 names – and you’ll be treated like family.

LSE / OPEN MIC/ EVERY OTHER WEDNESDAY (check the calendar) don’t be scared. we love you even when you sing off key.

on a positive not though, i will show you TWO NEW VIDEOS.

first, there was this old beer cooler and the box was old. we had put new hinges on it and worked to get the doors closing right and it was a real pain. then i made the stupid mistake of shutting it down for a month this summer and the moisture got into it and the foam inside swelled up and then it was obvious that this box would never close up tight again. the compressor was fine but the BOX – shot. this thing was a beast too, it took 5 big guys to get it out of the bar area. i called the joker who sold it to me and he sent some guys over to haul it away:

old beer cooler from satchel on Vimeo.

and also – i’ve been working on a sculpture that was wholly inspired because i wanted something to put whirligigs on. so i built this whirligig holder. it’s supposed to get 5 whirligigs but i only got 3 on today. i’ll finish tomorrow so you get to see this before it’s even done.

whirligig sculpture from satchel on Vimeo.

warms my heart.

i’m designing a school t-shirt. my design may get chosen by kids.
check me:

i may do a coloring book (bottom image)

collectible hand fans and new sculpture whirligig coming soon (not pictured.)

bocce ball holder from satchel on Vimeo.

tonight, our stereo receiver blew. there wasn’t like a fire or anything but a bad electrical smell which prevented us from playing the live music through the speakers and the ipod. the pawn shops were all closed at that time and i really did not want to drive across town to best buy and plop down too much money for a receiver that had more bells and whistles than we would ever need. danny said, let’s post on facebook for a free pizza if someone brings in a receiver. i said, “they can have 3 free pizzas and a beer.” 2 hours later we got our receiver. i think i like facebook.

wedding from satchel on Vimeo.

so, i have 2 new very short flicks for you now. i’ve got to get warmed back up you know…. the following is a stencil i was making for my son

scorpion stencil from satchel on Vimeo.

what else? pizzas are looking good of course. i happened upon some reviews the other day although i tell myself i won’t read them but then once or twice a year i do… the main complaints were the same- the pizza is too expensive, the parking lot is too small, the wait is too long, the place is too crowded. our food costs are actually higher than most places so that shows the prices are in line. and of course, i don’t have control over the wait… but whatever, i don’t need to defend my business but i was a little bummed that our 4 star rating on yelp had dropped to 3 1/2 and by all counts i think our service and food have gotten better. i saw this documentary on some young basketball players, “more than a game”, and lebron james at one point says something to the effect “the more popular you get the more people want to knock you down off your pedestal.” there are folks who love to hate us but i am not going to let it bother me except for the small detail that they knock my rating down. whatever. people who love us love us a lot.

the photo above is from my summer trip to st. augustine. what a place!

them gators are about to crank up again, so that’s always fun to follow. and the chil’rens do need to learn to read and write, right?

later.

i finally got a group photo mailed to me from the family reunion. these are folks from my mom’s side of the family tree.

it was a good weekend at work. tonight, saturday, was rainy and stormy but somehow we stayed steady through it all. had a full house all night, and some crazy people too. crazy in a good way.
i’m happy. yes indeed.

business was brisk tonight. we made some great pies. i saw some happy people. my ankles are shot and swollen but that’s just par for the course. i got bad ankles.

i’m glad to have my computer back. i can watch videos again. i can’t edit video again yet as my computer guru is afraid my movie program is corrupted and so he is looking into the fix. my guess is that it will be september before you see any new video. did i ever tell you i hate computers? i have a love/ hate relationship with them. this stupid mac has been through 2 hard drives in 2 years. why do i bother with this thing? i should be painting my truck. which do you like better? the old truck:

or the new version (see post below)

later

ATM has been giving us trouble. it’s like somehow the banks know that we are giving money to charity instead of them and so they are making our ATM work improperly so we will be forced to give in to the dreaded “credit card.” i am becoming more jaded with the hassles and am trying desperately to hold on for the charities. we can do a lot of good with that money and if the ATM works right every time, then it’s worth it to me.

one of the dining room A/C’s was on the blink for a couple days… dripping excessively from finally getting properly cleaned…now my friends – it’s colder than ever in satchel’s. normally with all the people sitting around putting off BTU’s, and and the full glass windows and the florida summer heat, we can’t get it below 82… today i could’ve sworn it was 78, but it couldn’t be working that much better could it?

never a dull moment i tell you – never… and i only told you half the story…

those of you who have never played bocce because you don’t know how to play – it takes all of 5 minutes to be a master and a lifetime to really learn… you should be kicking yourself right now for not having been involved in the FIRST ANNUAL. you still could maybe get a game if you went down tuesday and talked to danny…

i’m trying to explain the first annual here to folks who don’t know what that means… first annual basically means that the contest we are talking about is never going to get any easier and possibly the rewards for winning might never be so collectible or minimal… if you could fit 2 one hour bocce games into your next two week schedule – then you could find yourself the WINNER of this the FIRST ANNUAL tournament….

don’t listen to me. i don’t know much about it. i just heard it was the right thing to do this summer…
don’t let the summer pass you by: go out in the thinnest shirt you own and feel the layers and layers of blankets wrapped tightly around you… the HEAT that we love so much in florida….

- you didn’t think i was serious about quitting the computer did you?
you must know by now that the computer is my only friend and worst enemy…

photograph – APPEAR!

you might think that this would be a bad night, losing twice AND buying beers, but in fact, it was one of the best nights i ever had up there. i didn’t worry about anything, i didn’t bother the kitchen doing their thing, and i didn’t even get slightly stressed one time, except for that one throw where i blew it for the corn dogs. we met 4 new people who were friendly, and i felt like a regular guy for a change.

dean lent me a few bites of his cheese calzone at lunch and that was amazing.
my wife made tacos and i think i had about 6.
it’s a great day to quit the computer.

this machine is still ok. look, here i am online.

i think i will use this as an opportunity to decrease my computer time.

the paper wrote up about the check fraud. they called it a “mail scam” which is actually something quite different. no matter, the story is mostly true and fairly accurate. it would have been nice if it was pointed out that all the checks were cashed IN THE SAME DAY.

i am ready to move on past the check fraud situation… past the super wal-mart and the internet gambling place… past the piles of broken computers and devices i have seen pass through my grubby hands. i will even pass the broken glass from the employees car window and the fallen wind chime, and i will walk until i smell some pizza.

(i had a pie at mancino’s today for lunch on my way to pick up my kid from camp. it was mighty good.)

satchel out.

saturday night special from satchel on Vimeo.

misters from satchel on Vimeo.

so, some of you may be wanting more info on the compass bank story and i will give you the full details here now. unfortunately, this will no doubt be the longest post i have ever blogged and a shame it has to be about check fraud but these types of things aren’t always so simple to explain. i’d like to at least show you a picture or two but my main computer is STILL in the shop, actually BACK in the shop for the third time, and i have not been able to upload photos to this computer and that’s an entirely different story which is not worth getting into. i think the photos and video are the best part of blogs and who really wants to read more stuff?…. but i will tell this story and then i promise to return to photos and video soon.

so, someone stole checks from our mailbox, which is out by the street. they copied our checks, and sent 6 people in the bank to cash bad checks totaling over $9000. the first 5 checks were for $1356 (all the same amount and all cashed in compass banks around town, 2 in our home bank!) and the last one was for just over $2356. we downloaded bank info friday and things were fine, then on the saturday download we caught it. it all happened in one day. well, the checks were made out to different women, and some of the checks had driver license numbers and fingerprints on them. we got a call from the fraud department and they asked us a lot of questions and when we asked if it would be covered they “didn’t know, but needed to do their investigation.” well, we had a police report and we tried to follow up with the detective but not much response there… so we waited. after a couple weeks they gave us a letter that said we were too high of a risk and gave us 10 calendar days to find a new bank. everything they ever did was business days until they got rid of us and then all of a sudden calendar days was the deal. anyway, they said they would cover the fraud and put the money back into our account. a couple days later they “changed their mind” and took the money back out. we kept trying to reach the detective and when we finally did he said he had not done anything on the case yet, run the ID’s or prints… when we tried to call the compass legal department they would not return our calls.

we had of course stopped putting checks in the mailbox once we realized checks were getting stolen. we have also gotten a PO box so bank statements don’t get stolen. we put ALL employees on direct deposit to reduce our check exposure and even have been trying to get all vendors on direct deposit payments… in other words, we bent over backwards trying to make sure this wouldn’t happen again. the bank, who has insurance for this type of thing, who cashed all these checks for the same amount in the same day without realizing anything was amiss? they decided to stick us with the cost. of course, we had just ordered new checks and deposit slips for our new account with them and that was over $200 and we had been working overtime to deal with all the hassles involved with closing an account (the one we had to freeze…) and starting a new one….

so, now you want to know why they chose not to cover the fraud…. well, years ago, when i realized that we had 3 or 4 vendors coming in a day all wanting COD, and that i could not be there for every vendor that came in to sign and write every check, we asked at the bank, what do we do?
i can’t sign every check… they said to make a stamp of the signature.
i remember going to get the stamp made of my signature and thinking how weird it was that we could stamp a check, and that my signature was now a stamp… well, somewhere in their 30 page disclosure agreement is a paragraph which says if we use a facsimile signature then they are not responsible for any fraud. even though the person copying the checks could have just as easily made a copy of the real signature as the stamp, they’ve got an out. basically, if you don’t sign every check, all bets are off. also they used the language: “… Compass Bank … has a fiduciary duty to its shareholders to make sound decisions and not concede liability in matters where the bank’s position is protected by existing law.” in another spot they claim to “exercised ordinary care” in cashing the checks. well, of course i don’t think they exercised ordinary care and and i don’t think they made a sound decision in denying us the coverage, but when an attorney looks at the legaleze they see that “we don’t have a case.” even if those checks were signed in pen, just the fact that we own a stamp would cause them not to cover the fraud and even if we never got the stamp, there is enough jargon in their legal docs to pick any number of reasons to decide to not cover it. the truth is, they could have covered it but they chose not to. we have been with them for 7 years.

here’s a blurb i got from one contact of mine about it:
Holy shit, that’s awful! Sorry to hear that. Compass is getting killed right now, a good part of their business is in Hispanic countries with lots of bad loans so BBVA is hurting there….this is why they aren’t cutting any strings right now. They are being very tight.

here’s another quote from a friend of a friend:
> i was so shocked i called my bank about this (Florida Capital)
> i am happy to tell you what the manager said
> They had NEVER heard of a bank not covering bad checks (thefts like
> this) – apparently it’s standard operating procedure to cover the checks
> then turn the whole thing over to the police

it’s just $9000. it’s not the end of the world. we’re still in business and going to get through this. but i think it’s worth telling as many people as possible that their money may not be safe at this failing bank. this is yet another reason to move your money to a local bank.
my mom is so mad. she wants to picket out there. i just don’t think i have it in me to organize a protest. it’s just a fight we won’t win so it turns into getting upset and angry over the greed of the big banks. a roach cannot be anything but a roach. all my jumping up and down and clinching my fists won’t turn it into a butterfly.

anyway, that’s the whole story. i was asking the attorney about our rights and didn’t want to be bashing the bank while we were also pursuing the possibility of getting our money back. he realized right away that we can’t fight compass bank and i’ve just been busy at my family reunion and visiting with my sister’s family who is visiting from colorado. if i spend all my energy trying to fight the bank and if i was able to get them to give me the money back, i would still lose because i would have wasted tons of time that i could have spent playing games with my nephew and niece or my own kids. live and learn. spread the word.

because in the end, at satchel’s, i think we all feel that it was the bank who stole from us in the end, more so than even the one stealing our mail and copying checks. because you think your money is safe and that banks have procedures in place to catch criminals and insurance to cover fraud. and we found out that they really needed our money for their shareholders and we can go fly a kite for all they care.

sorry, as i really do not like to use the blog as a place to complain and rant. i want to use the blog as a place to share great photos and stories and video. i’d like to have it be a place of inspiration not depression. so, as much as i would love to not share this, it seems it is important somehow. if one person switches to a local bank and learns from our mistake, then it is worth the words. for the rest of you, sorry to dwell on the bad news.

new wheels from satchel on Vimeo.

i’m hoping now that the new photos page will finally get up and running soon and that i’ll be able to get new photos up weekly, or at least monthly. also hoping that the new capes will be on the production line again soon. we’ve got patches coming, and i’d like to make an LSE flag…

i am so happy that “summer” is here! kids are out of school and so let’s have a good time kids! pizza in the toaster oven so all is not lost.
i need those misters around the outside. an employee told me tonight, why don’t you get those misters? uh, i don’t know. maybe i should? where do i get them? anyway, the trouble is i love the heat so much that i don’t think about misters. i was so incredibly happy today that it was so hot. i felt like a baby wrapped in a blanket so i couldn’t move. i love this weather, but everyone else hates it. i guess i need to get misters for them. just like i should make them some ranch dressing, right?