I’m pissed. I live in a very nice city… surrounded by a lot of people who for the most part are pretty nice. So we’ve thought nothing of the fact my wife walks a few blocks (around 12) from our house to her work and back. But today somebody got on my shit list.

As my wife was walking home from work around 3:30 today down one of the main drags here in Napa, a Hispanic kid walked up behind her. Thanking he was going to pas, she moved over. Well instead of passing he grabbed her purse and shouted “give me your purse.” She tugged back sayit was hers… and after a bunch of tugging the strap broke and he went running. My wife plays softball, and wasn’t going to take that (and wasn’t thinking) and dropped her work stuff and took after him. A guy farther down the street (A large Hispanic Male 5′ 10″ wearing black jeans and a clean white T-Shirt) turned and started running with him. As she almost caught them a guy driving by called the police, rolled down the window, and started shouting for them to give her back the purse. The good Samaritan drove and tried the cut the guys off, but they jumped in a white newer-model Jeep Cherokee and started down the street. He cruised up, opened the door and had my wife jump in, and they started chasing after them. After driving through the side street of Napa… horns honking and plowing through the street, the police advised them to back off (in case the punks had a gun) and had them stop so they could take down information. But the driving was obviously un-nerved them enough that they started throwing stuff out the window and the police collected the purse minus cash and credit card… and also a nice lady found the check book and called uup and had us come by and pick that up.

So far it looked like they came up dry on one card that was canceled before they could try. But the other card had charges at a Chevron in Vallejo already. Luckily the cards are both canceled, but my wife is shaken and her one arm got bruised up. And it looks like the punks are going to get away with it.

EDIT: First Pacific just called and tracked them trying to use our card at a number of Gas Stations in Vallejo. So far they’ve all been denied. They are making up reports to pass onto the Napa Police. Hopefully they’ll get more information and videos. Hopefully Washington Mutual (the card is Providian, but WaMu bought them) is refusing all charges and taking notes. Officer Duncan is the reporting officer. So if you happen to be able to help, I’d appreciate it.

This post has been cross-posted to my Family Blog and Here at Living in the Whine Country.

Edit (6-12-7): My wife couldn’t sleep well last night and realized they had probably stolen her ipod nano which had been in a zippered pocket. And this morning I got a call to take her to the bank, and when I went to pick her up, she had remembered that she had gotten a Mervyn’s card a month before… and it was no longer in there. Its also the strange things that had been taken, like her Safeway & Albertsons savings cards (also her Costco Card wtf?). And also she had a personal grooming kit, and they emptied the case of the parts and kept the tweezers and the case.

Edit (6-13-7) - Ane is refusing to walk (understandable) and I just found out it made the Napa Register. They don’t mention she almost caught the kid, and that certain things have turned back up (the checkbook).

Edit (6-27-7) - Checked records today to find that 2 charges from Chevron at 5200 Sonoma Blvd in Vallejo for $63.54 and $75.00. Disputing charges and contacting Vallejo Police. Napa Police have said that they should be able to get surveillance video. You’d think that these gas companies would start covering their butts more with all these illegal charges getting revoked, but they must be making enough money.

Not a big surprise, but a big day for Joseph none the less. The graduation was actually Wednesday, and as all Kindergarten graduations, it was very cute. I discovered a bit more that day, as I found out that the school had some 5 Kinder classes. And of those 5 classes they had 6 teachers with 2 teachers tag teaming one class. Joseph was in one of the smaller classes with only 10 Kinders in the class. All the kids where very cute, but I only took a few pictures, so you’ll see them below.

After I got off work, and of course after the graduation, we had a BBQ because Joseph wanted one. So we had a lot of his friends, a good bit of family and more food then we could eat. But I had 2 BBQs going, food coming off like crazy, and it all got eaten… well everything I cooked, we had chips left. All in all we all had fun (even with some early random sprinkles aside) and Joseph went to sleep happy. All that mattered.

PS - For those that gave him money for his graduation, he combined all of it and bought a couple larger LEGO sets.

view more images from this album

A beautiful Sunday Afternoon called for a small project and enjoying the outdoors.  So while Sherrilyn worked, Grandpa and I built Joseph a park style bench that we had bought at Albertsons for $17.  That went extremely fast so we then filled the rest of the nice day with a BBQ, a bit of softball and then Grandpa and Joseph got one of Joseph’s kites up.

Note for self… BBQs need more drinks and friends with staying power.  The Firepit was still going when we went in.  And there as still a little food left.

Well for the first time Ane & I decided to bowl in the Napa City Tournament. Considering we normally don’t bowl good bowlers all the time (ie. against bowlers who normally hit high 200’s and get 300’s) I am both excited and nervous.

Monday I went down and practiced… and I wonder if I should of. Sunday I had bowled league like normal and had gotten a 255, 200, 184 which is higher then I’ve ever bowled before. But Monday I was not doing that hot. But it was a good wake up call.

I bowled my first team event Wednesday with Tim. It was here I felt the best. Though my games weren’t extraordinary, I did bowl a 210, 189, 161 which was higher then my book average of 143 (must of been last years score or so).

Tonight I have a team even with my wife, and friends from Sunday League Bill & Dusty. Bill is a “lazy” bowler who always says he’s sandbagging… so I’m curious if the competition makes him bowl better. Dusty is a decent bowler when she doesn’t work herself down. And my wife is getting a lot better. She’s not the best in her Thursday Night league, but at least she’s respectable.

Saturday is going to be a long day for me as I’ve got doubles/singles with Bill starting at 9:30 and with Tim starting at 12:00. And Ane also has doubles/singles with Julia at 9:30. If we bowl good we should do well. It seems a lot of these people who bowl normally bowl a lot better then us… but we’ve been bowling better then or book averages, and we’ve got a lot of room to grow verses some of these who are close to the build from average (for handicap).

Edit: As an update the wife and I bowled our Doubles/Singles matches Saturday.  Neither of us did extremely well, but was tiring for me.  I ended up bowling 12 games all together and the grips on my main ball had gotten worn down and the ball was cutting into my finger (making me bleed all over the place) therefore that’s my excuse for my bad games… and I’m sticking with it.

Well for the first time Joseph’s Birthday party was on an awesome day. The trick? We bumped up his party to the following week. So on March 3rd Joseph had way too many kids jumping in a Cars Jumper and creating mayhem like only kids can.  I’m going to just keep this short with a link to the gallery of his birthday party picts.

Well his first season in league bowling is over and he did relatively good in the trophy department. He still needs to work on consistency in his approach but over all he was getting the ball all the way down the lane, just having the ball curve into the gutter near the end.

Well his first tournament he did awesome and came away with 4 trophies, and a no tap tournament he came away with a medal, and then at the end of the season he came away with another 3 trophies.

First is a picture right after he won the first 4 trophies at the Napa City Youth Tournament:

And Here are all the Trophies including the medal he got for bowling in the NoTap Tournament

All Trophies/Medals:

NoTap NonTap 33 pins
High Handicap Series 314 pins
3rd Place Team 574 pins
1st Place Singles 316 Pins
Handicap All Events 590 pins
High Handicap Series 340 pins
First Place Team (The Tigers)
And a small trophy with his high game of 70 pins

I figured I won’t start the blog boring you with a typical Monday… day. Most everyone knows how that is.

I’ll be using this place to vent, to talk about the customers that drive me crazy… the times that I get praise… and well the human in me loves praise.