tsa-la-tsi-s-gi gv-do-di ka-ne
dance
- with - snake
DANCES
WITH SNAKES
"CONSUMER ACQUISITION SITE"
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tsa-la-tsi-s-gi gv-do-di ka-ne dance
- with - snake
DANCES
WITH SNAKES "CONSUMER ACQUISITION SITE"
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I Hear Jasper Calling My Name
I'm not sure what it is about Jasper, TX that keeps calling me back. It could be the climate, or the people, but it's probably the petrified wood that keeps me coming back to Jasper with two ATVs, a 16' trailer, and a goal of collecting at least two thousand pounds of petrified wood... We had planned to visit Toledo Bend Reservoir back in February to do some collecting with Rob Townsend, David Dobson, and others but couldn't make that trip due to weather. There were some great pieces of palm wood found on that trip by Rob and others, and the word from Rick Ramsey was that there was some really good collecting on the Louisiana side. This trip however, was to be concentrated near Jasper as the water levels at Toledo Bend were well above normal, and collecting wasn't feasible at the time. I contacted Rob and David and arranged the trip for three days beginning March 9th, with the main collecting days to be Saturday the 10th and Sunday the 11th. Brandon and I drove most of the evening from Tulsa, and arrived in Jasper around 11:00pm Friday night. Another member of our Tulsa club, Fritz Hatley, was already in town and anxious to get collecting. This would be a first for Fritz, this type of collecting, and especially for specimens of the size I was looking for. David had arrived a bit earlier and was already checked in at the motel. I called Rob and he met Brandon and I at his cousin's place north of Jasper. I dropped the trailer there as we wouldn't be needing it until sometime the next day. We visited with Rob for nearly an hour before heading on in to Jasper. Since Rob had to work Saturday, we would be on our own most of the day. When we arrived at the motel, Fritz was enjoying the night air (hyper about the prospect of collecting the next day!) and we visited for a bit before settling down for the night. The next morning, everyone was ready to go before the fog lifted, and we grabbed a quick breakfast from Mickey-D's before heading for a couple of spots Rob had told me about. We spent perhaps an hour at one spot without too much luck and decided to move on to the next place, which was a field adjacent to the RV Park where I had left the trailer. This spot yielded a little bit more in the way of pet wood, mostly smaller pieces, but David did manage a piece that weighed in around 150# and was about four feet long. After a couple of hours here, we decided to hook up the trailer and head for my favorite lease area not far away. This area always produces large pieces, and plenty of them! This time would be no different. Since I hadn't been down here in over a year, and some of the terrain had changed, I had one of those senior moments (or Reagan-itis attacks as I like to call them) and had trouble finding the correct access road to the area. We drove around a bit and finally decided to go to the original access point and enter from there. David and Fritz headed off to check the nearby area and creek while Brandon and I unloaded the ATVs and headed for the larger area of logged property to the north. Within a few minutes we were heaving pieces of pet wood onto the ATVs, and set to digging out a few partially embedded pieces from a wash. I went to work on a piece I had discovered last year that weighed in around 600# and was completely buried. This turned out to be the smaller of two pieces I eventually located and managed to get to the trailer. It took the combined efforts of all four of us to finally liberate this one from the compacted soil. Fritz decided he would stick to more manageable pieces under ten pounds, while David seemed to concentrate of the fifty pound and below chunks. I'm a bit less subtle, anything up to a thousand pounds is fair game where I am concerned. If I can figure out how to move it, it's going on the trailer! Lots of smaller pieces ended up on the trailer as well. Brandon located a nice round that weighs probably three hundred pounds. It can just be seen in the picture above at the far end of the larger log. At the same time as Brandon found this piece, I located a log from the heart of a tree. It seemed to me at first it must weigh in at least eight hundred pounds. I managed to move it a couple of feet with the Polaris, then it decided it wasn't going any further. I went to help Brandon with his log and recruited him with the other Polaris to help move the larger one. With both ATVs hooked up and double the horsepower and traction, we got the log moving finally. After a few stalls and changes of direction, we managed to get to within a couple of hundred yards of the road before the logging trash, limbs, logs, and soft soil rendered the ATVs pretty much useless in the effort. We tried another direction change and only managed a few feet more in the process. Within sight of the truck, it seemed that we had reached an impasse with this half ton rock. Then I decided there was a reason I had recently purchased a 4-wheel drive Toyota Tundra... I wish I had pictures of this next escapade, it would have made a great commercial for Toyota! Over brush, stumps, logs and logging debris, the Toyota walked right to the spot with no problem. I turned around and backed up to within reach of the cable and David and Fritz hooked me up. I lined up with the only somewhat clear route to the logging road and in 4-low headed for it. At one point the path narrowed down and forced me to partially climb a log while the pet wood log decided to go right around the end of a log on the right side. At this point, it was trying to pull the truck to the downhill side on the right while gathering debris along the way. Eventually, after two brush piles were gathered along the way, I finally cleared the road and had the log in a position to be able to back the trailer ramp up to it and roll it up onto the trailer. Job well done! After this team effort and a short break, we went right back to the hunt. Brandon went to explore more creek areas while Fritz and David went separate directions, and I headed into the devastated wasteland that once was a pine forest to look for more large pieces of petrified wood. A while passed and Brandon came hustling around to show me a piece of palm he had found in one of the creeks. This got Fritz and David fired up, So I let David take the Polaris, with Fritz in tow, to follow Brandon to the particular spot on the creek where he had located lots of pet wood. I spent a few minutes arranging the trailer before finally following along on foot. I found quite an interesting place when I got to where they were collecting in the creek. There were small pieces of pet wood everywhere. The creek bottom seemed to be all petrified wood here. They were concentrating on looking for palm wood, and since I have plenty of the smaller pieces of wood, I left it the way I found it, with thousands of pieces of pet wood littering the bottom of the streambed!
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HAVE YOU BEEN THE TARGET OF A SCAM LATELY? DON'T LET YOUR GUARD DOWN! AUGUST 20TH, 2008 - BROKEN ARROW, OKLAHOMA
If you are not on your toes all of time, you could be the target of a scam or con. Last evening while filling up with gas at QT in Broken Arrow a blue PT Cruiser pulled across in front of my truck. A casually dressed black man stepped out and in a hushed voice asked if I was interested in buying a laptop computer. He proceeded to tell me he had three or four of these for sale for $250 each. Claiming they were brand new Sony Vaio laptops. My first question was "Are they hot?" and I informed him I wasn't interested. He pressed on asking if I would pay $200, then $150. "I don't buy merchandise from the trunk of a car" I informed him. He then asked how much I would be willing to pay, and went back to his car, retrieving a package from the back seat that appeared to be a box about the size of a laptop, wrapped in brown paper, taped up excessively with packaging tape, and a photocopied ad from Office Depot advertising a Sony Vaio for $2099. In the process of getting the package from his car, he covered it with a sheet before bringing it to show me.... A lot suspicious... He handed me the package and returned to his car to retrieve a laptop from the back seat, again covering it with the sheet so no one else could see what he was doing. The laptop was an older Compaq, that he claimed a lady had dropped, but the ones in the packages were Sony. He very quickly returned it to his car, not letting me see more than a glimpse of it under the sheet. Meanwhile, I was hefting the supposed "new" packaged laptop, the entire time suspecting a scam more so than stolen merchandise. I strung him along a little while, squeezing the package (it was too lightweight, and compressed easily) Now knowing I was actually holding a package with nothing substantial inside, I told him I might be interested if he showed me what was in the box. He very quickly retrieved it from me, still trying to get me to pay $150 for it, as he gradually put distance between us getting back to his car. That pretty much ended the conversation. I told him again, "show me what's in the box, I might be interested." No go, he got back in his car and quickly went looking for another mark.
I had meanwhile finished filling my tank, and drove to a strategic location in the parking lot to watch him and his accomplice as they drove about the lot, approaching literally everyone coming and going, I quickly dialed 911 and reported their activity, gave a description of the vehicle and what they were doing, stressing that I firmly believed they were scamming people with empty boxes. I waited for police to arrive, but before they did, the vehicle exited the QT, and drove down the street. I followed at a distance, again calling 911 dispatch to report they had moved to another location, near Chili's and Buffalo Wild Wings. Actually, they had gone to the Lowe's parking lot and by the time officers arrived, had already approached several patrons in the lot. As an unmarked Dodge Charger pulled into the BWW lot, I pointed them to the Lowes. Two other marked units quickly converged on the lot, and as the PT Cruiser approached another mark in front of the store, they hit the lights and surrounded the vehicle! Too cool! I watched from the lobby of Lowes as they talked to the "suspects", and got the passenger out to open the back of the vehicle. After some minutes, a couple came out of the store and saw that the police were questioning the pair, and hollered at them "What are they doin'? Tryin' to sell ya a laptop?" One officer motioned them over and asked if they had been approached, to which they answered yes. The officer asked if they would be willing to make a statement, and a citizens arrest on suspicion of fraud. When they said they would, one of the suspects started cursing at them, this just added resolve to the couple, and they immediately made the citizens arrest. (This was necessary because the officers had no evidence of a crime otherwise.) At this point the two were arrested on fraud charges.
As it turns out, the packages were Fed-X boxes filled with newspaper... They had empty boxes, brown paper bags, tape, scissors, and flyers in the back to make more fake packages. Officers also found bolt cutters and a few personal items in the vehicle, along with three or four bogus packages, and the old, useless Compaq laptop they were using as a prop for their con. They did not find any weapons or drugs fortunately, but the passenger had a felony warrant for his arrest in Florida (the officer said that unfortunately, Florida would not extradite). Officers said they also had a fair amount of cash on them, leading officers to believe they were semi-successful with their con game. Both suspects were from Alabama, and the PT Cruiser had Alabama plates. Both are now sitting in the Broken Arrow jail, the PT Cruiser is impounded, and at least for now, they are off of the street.
Do you think those who paid $150-$250 for a box of newspaper will report it to authorities? Probably not.... Wouldn't you feel a bit foolish for falling for the scam? How about the fact that anyone with common sense would know they were about to purchase stolen merchandise, had the package actually contained a new $2000 laptop...
If you buy merchandise, especially new or near new expensive merchandise off the street, or from the trunk of someone's car, for pennies on the dollar, you should know you are about to buy stolen merchandise, and will be supporting crime. So don't do it! Don't be a victim! Report this kind of activity and save some other fool from making a mistake. These are tough times and if we don't stand up as citizens and do our part, then we are part of the problem!
In all honesty, it felt good to help get these two apprehended! And yes, I gave a written statement, and if asked, would gladly testify against them in court!
Virgil
© 2006 - DANCES-WITH-SNAKES.COM VIRGIL G. RICHARDS
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