Last blog for a while

So we've been busy in boulder and i haven't updated over the past 24 or so hours.. Lets just say it has been interesting, lots of highs and lows.

It's been great to see luther and matt again. we all went out for margaritas on monday night, i ended up eating way too much food (my plate and part of dans) and drinking way too much margaritis (mine and part of dans).. the sheer volume of food and liquid in my stomach wanted to make my explode.. needless to say i got back and passed out before 10:30pm.

the next day dan and matt both had to work so we woke up early and and breakfast at luciles a creole type breakfast that was literally inside of a house, neat setup. food was pretty delish. we walked around the pearl street area and felt like uber tourists....

from there we went to rocky mountain national park, gorgeous place. a must visit for all, one suggestion, bring a jacket, it gets freezing up there, even in the summer. if i wasn't leaving soon i would post some pictures up.

from there the night gets interesting. we go to REI boulder to pick up our bikes because they call us and say they are done with them.

i go in and have to return a camelbak that was purchased the day before because it was a lot smaller than i thought. the manager of the store calls me over and tells me (in front of a bunch of other customers) that i have been banned from all rei because i have commited fraud against them. at this point my jaw is on the floor and i am thinking if it was some kind of sick joke.

long story short: monday we go to rei to bring our bikes in for a warantee tuneup. i go inactive (due to cycling across country) at rei and was told my employee discount would not work. well monday i'm in there making a few exchanges on items that just broke/died on me during the trip no big deal everything goes smoothly as normal (though i did feel like "that" customer while making the exchanges), i apologized to the CS guy for making him tag so much stuff, he's cool, doesn't care. then i needed sunblock so i grab one, i'm wondering if i went inactive (wondering out loud mind you at CS) and say well try my employee discount, if i'm inactive it probably won't work. well, what do you know.. my employee discount works, i'm thinking i must not have been made inactive if it works (come to think of it now.. i should have not used it as i should have known i was inactive, therefore none of this would have happened, but c'mon, i'm a sucker for deals and honestly felt that i was not made inactive if my discount still worked).. well since my employee discount worked i was now able to afford a few things i couldn't so i made a few more purchases (said camelbak earlier and a few things to keep cool in the AZ heat).

well apparently REI claims that i have committed fraud because i "stole" from there. the stealing part comes when i used my employee discount. the boulder manager tells me he has called the boston manager who said i was terminated before the trip, which is an obvious surprise to me. last time i checked i left for vacation and was put inactive, if i was "terminated" i was not made aware at all, not even a courtesy call. that i'll have to find out today when i call nancy to find out what really happened.

but the true question is how this all happened. it actually all happened because i offended the bike tech in the bike shop, who decided to check on a few things. it definitely didn't happen on monday since everyone was around and said i didn't say anything to her, plus everything felt normal. tuesday i spoke with her once, she called about my bottom bracket, i asked a few questions and told her to do what she had suggested, i requested to keep my old bottom bracket since it still worked according to her. everytime i spoke to her someone was by my side and everyone claims the conversation was completely normal. so i don't know... kind of miscommunication of some sort.

anyways, that was a slight sour point in boulder, everything was going great until that. hopefully when i talk to nancy later today we can clear a few things. i had no intentions of "stealing" from rei, i just simply thought that if i was inactive my employee discount would not have worked. in hindsight i probably shouldn't have done it, but hey when i'm talking out loud and saying "i wonder if i'm inactive, i guess i'll try my emp. number and find out" and the guy at CS punches my number in like it's no big deal and then allows me to use the discount you can see how it would be difficult for me to think that i was doing something wrong to REI.

but hey, hopefully it will be clear that this was a misunderstanding, if not i'm banned from REI's for one year.

the funniest part of the night was when they tried to not give cole his warantee tuneup.. he busted out sally jewel and the managers almost shat themselves, they promptly give him the warantee tuneup (and chads as well).

but hey, today the sun rises again and after i talk to nancy this will be over and done with. we have 1300ish more miles to ride, we leave for new mexico today!!! hopefully we'll find people nice enough to invite us inside and allow me to blog here and there.. if not.. i'll talk to everyone when i get to sunny san diego!!!