Sometimes things just work out
 

I was taking my usual after-dinner ride after dark. I was traveling eastbound on a one-way street and I noticed what looked like a small camera bag on the ground. I turned around and was a salmon for about 20 feet to get back to it. I picked it up and noticed that the car it was next to had the dome light on.

A guy in an upstairs apartment yelled at me about riding the wrong way on a one-way street. I explained to him that I was originally going the right way but I found something in the road and backtracked to pick it up. Without telling him what I found, I pointed to the SUV and asked him if it was his car. He said no. He kept calling me "bro" until I finally told him I was a female (see, I hate my damn deep voice!). He brought up the one-way street thing again and I reassured him I was leaving in the correct direction.

I went down the street to a well-lit area to check the camera bag for any identifying information so I could track down the owner. I turned it on and started looking at pictures to see if I could find any that would at least give me a clue where to start looking. After about five pictures I thought to myself "f this, I'm going back to the car. I'll hang around the area for a while and if I don't see anyone walk up to it, I'll leave a note saying I found something by the car and to please call me at XXX-XXX-XXXX".

When I got back there the apartment guy saw me and told me someone walked up to the car and got something out of it. He told me he tried to tell him someone found something by it, but the guy didn't hear him. I hung around for about 30 seconds and I saw a guy come out of another apartment complex two houses away. He walked up to the car and I asked him if he lost a camera. He said yes and mentioned that it was in a red bag. I told him where I found it and he thanked me profusely, telling me "my wife would kill me" if he lost it for good. He said it had pictures of his baby grandson on it, etc.

By then the apartment guy had joined us, and after the other guy secured his camera and left, we had a long conversation about all kinds of cool stuff, including some Sacramento history.

We parted company and I finished my ride just before it started raining again. All in all, a good night:)

Cool! That was nice of you. I think most people would take it and run. I've been thinking aobut engraving my name and number on my cameras for that reason, hoping to get them back.

I must admit that once I was a bad boy. My buds and I were sitting in front of a convenience store when some dude pulled up in a nice truck. Snake skin boots and a cowboy hat. We were sitting there drinking gatorade when he wlaked by to use the payphone (would think with all the goodies, he'd have a cellphone.:D).

He walked by and I said how you doing? He just gave me dirty look and walked by to the phone. While talking I noticed he dropped a wad of money.:eek: I thought maybe 10-20 bucks. I figured he was a jerk when I tried to be friendly. If it weren't for the snake skin boots and hat, I would have thought he was a cyclist snob.:p

He was a jerk so I didn't say a thing. He left without the money. I walked over to pick it up, $85 :eek:

My friends and I had a good lunch after the ride...compliments of the jerk.:D I might spend 10 minutes in hell for that one but it was a darn good lunch.:roflmao2:

Thanks:) I'm a firm believer in treating others the way you wish to be treated. There were a couple other times I found cellphones and used the contact list to track down the owners. The first person didn't even thank me. She was working as a waitress in the restaurant I found the phone in front of. When I found her and told her where I found the phone, she just gave me that infuriating bimbastic "you're weird" look and took it from me:mad:

The second phone was on the side of the road on Salmon Falls Road, one of my favorite climbing routes. The battery, phone, and battery cover were in three separate places within 10 feet. I took that phone home, cleaned it off, and let it dry for a couple days before attempting to power it up to go through the contact list. It had rained recently so I wasn't taking any chances.

The battery on that phone was low, but I have a Samsung charger that fit that phone (also a Samsung). I went through the list until I found someone with the nickname "DEA Dave". Like I was hoping, he worked in law enforcement and knew who the owner was. I drove out to his office to return it and he called the owner right there to let her know her phone was found. He went through the text messages and found one that said that the phone had a tracker on it and the thief would be caught. No wonder they threw the phone on the side of the road:lol:

In your case, it serves that guy right:D Karma's a beeyotch, ain't it?:roflmao2:

Looks like you have some good karma coming. I have found a wallet, and a couple of credit cards and returned them. Recently I was on a ride in downtown Cleveland and I forgot (no pun intended) to zip my saddle bag and ended up losing my phone with my bank card and id in it. Luckily the girl who found it called my dad and gave him her #. She is a bartender so I went in ordered a beer, got my stuff, said thanks and left a $20 tip. She deserved it.

My oldest boy once found a grocery list on an envelope with $50 at the store. We turned it in and it ended up being a mentally disabled persons. It was a grocery shopping lesson they were on from the independent living house. My youngest also found a debit card and returned it recently.


That is awesome that you found that camera with those pics. And when I was younger I probably would have had a free lunch like Beanz.

"There were a couple other times I found cellphones and used the contact list to track down the owners. The first person didn't even thank me."

That's nice. I lost my phone though an unkown hole in my pocket on the last day of a 3-day backcountry backpack trip. (There was no phone service, but I was using the phone as a watch.) Amazingly, a couple found it and used the dialed numbers file to track down my mother. I got in touch with the husband and he mailed the phone back to me. I noticed that the return address was in OH near an REI. I sent the guy a gift card.

FTUH - thanks for being one of the people that gives me hope about the future. :thumb:

All too often I run across folks that try take advantage of other people's misfortune. On those occasions that a cashier gives me too much change and I give them money back they look at me like "wow, most people don't say a word and pocket the extra money". It's good to know there's still honest folks out there...I guess cyclists really are a cut above everyone else. ;)

Zactly! I found a wallet with a payroll check in it. I drove all over the county looking for the business that issued it. I took it in and gave it to the clerk who said he knew the guy. Weird but he acted as if I had stolen it.:(

I only wish whoever took my wife's camera bag would be so nice.

We 'lost' it out of our car (pretty sure it had help) two days before our daughter delivered our first grandchild. It was in the car so it wouldn't be forgotten on the trip to the hospital, so now all we have are lousy phone-cam pics instead of quality digital cam and video of the whole experience.

Not Happy.

I love happy endings, especially when they happen to the disabled. Good job:thumb:

:thumb:

Thanks:) What you said about cyclists reminded me of another incident at an LBS a few years ago. I used to own a Sun EZ-3 recumbent trike. I rode that thing 20,000 miles and wore out the entire drivetrain. Normally I do my own work on my bikes, but for some reason I didn't feel like dealing with that particular bike, so I took it in and had them do the work (big mistake!).

It cost $420 to have all that done, which probably could have bought me a lightly used replacement EZ-3 on Craigslist. They had that bike in their shop ALL SUMMER waiting for parts. To top it off, when I went in to pick it up I noticed that they forgot to replace the rear cog. When they replaced it I came back in to pick it up and they only remembered to charge me the $10 for the cog. I reminded them that I still owed them another $420. They didn't act surprised or thank me for being honest, so maybe they're so used to honest cyclists that nothing surprises them:lol:

That sucks! You go to all that trouble to track down the owner and get treated like a criminal.

I wonder if that's why I got the strange reaction from the waitress whose phone I found? I told her I was riding my bike and found the phone in the bike lane. Oh well.

Whoever did that has some BAD karma coming, if it hasn't happened already:(

i found a wallet with an Amex card, debit card and ID in it a couple weeks ago but nothing with a phone number or a lead on how to get in touch other than the address listedon the license but here in NYC you never know if they really live there, people move so often.

So I went on facebook and typed in the name and found the woman. Sent a message to her as well asone to her husband since his profile was linked to hers. 2 minutes later I got a call from him, he called his wife, she called me and in 10 minutes she had her wallet back! Fortunately she had come to my neighborhood for a party and was still in the neighborhood. she didn't even know she had lost it, she did notice it wasn'tin her bag but she just thought that she left it at home. She was very grateful.

Moral of the story, even if you don't like facebook, create an account and make it somewhat visible, you never know when someone will need to track you down!

A couple of months ago I was riding along the road when a car starts to pull out of supermarket driveway. We made eye contact, and I thought he was going to wait for me to go past, but instead he guns it forcing me to slam on my brakes. As he is pulling away I noticed something roll off of his roof, or trunk, at least I think I saw it roll off, so I start waving, trying to get him to notice it. I see him turn around to look out his back window and he flips me the bird. As I roll past I look down to see what fell off, it was a golf club. Since it was laying in the middle of the street I doubled back to pick it up, I didn't want any other cars to run it over. I waited on the side of the road for a few minutes hoping he would come back, I wasn't mad or anything, I just wanted to get the club back to him. He never shows, so I stashed the club in some bushes and went on my way. On my way back home I picked up the club and rode home with it. I did some research and it's worth about $300. I've checked the lost and found on Craigslist daily, but no one has posted it lost, I called the police, and they said they are not lost and found. I've even e-mailed the manufacturer 3 separate times with the serial # trying to find the original owner, they have never responded. I don't play golf so now I have a club I won't use. I've tried to get it back to it's rightful owner, but haven't been able to locate him. I guess maybe I'll sell it.

I'm an avid golfer, please pm me what kind of club it is. I assume it's a Driver if you estimate the value at $300. let me know the model, loft, and if you can find it, the flex on the shaft.

Wow! His loss. I bet he's scared to contact you after he flipped the bird. Me, for $300, I'd go back, take my arse whipping as long as I got my club back!:D

Priceless! I teach high school and get this look about 12 times per hour.

I found a wallet a few years ago and was looking up the guy's phone number to return it. He only had like 3 dollars in there and one of the dollar bills was folded up really tight. Curious, I unfolded it, and there was some white powder inside. It was definitely some weird drug (cocaine, probably), so I felt weird tracking the guy down. Usually I'd return something like that, but in this case... forget it.

:thumb:

I found a driver's license in the middle of the street a few years ago. I called the non-emergency police dispatch to ask them if there was a place I could drop it off nearby. She actually sent an officer over to pick it up:thumb: I was really surprised, considering the fact that I live in a metro area and the police are usually busy. It was really early in the morning though, and may have been on a weekend so maybe they weren't busy.

There are two reasons I called the police instead of going to the address on the DL. One, people move and don't always get a new DL with an updated address, so there was no guarantee that the address on the DL was current. Police departments have the tools necessary to find a person's address. Two, it would have been a long ride out to return it. I was over 200 pounds at the time, with no decent bikes other than my heavy, slow Sun EZ-3 recumbent and one adult trike. That ride would have been a suck-fest:lol:

Hey, you did your part:thumb: If the guy wants to be an ass, it's his loss.

You must have the patience of a saint! I could never put up with that, as it's one of my pet peeves.

When I lived in the 'hood years ago, I found a handgun in the street by the curb. I carefully picked it up and put it in my pannier to transport it to a safer location, where I called the police. When they got there they removed it from the pannier. They did frisk me, but they apologized sincerely for having to do that. I told them it was okay because I knew what neighborhood we were in:D They have to be cautious. Letting their guard down around the wrong person could be deadly, so it didn't bother me at all to be frisked. Cops have good instincts, so they could tell right away that I wasn't a bad person.

I've done two good deeds while riding that I remember.

The most recent was going shopping after a snow fall and finding a cell phone in the muck at the supermarket. I'm glad people put "mom" or "mommy" on their cell phone list.

I called the mom and explained that I found the cell phone but have no idea whose it is. She said it was her daughters, but since the mom lived out of the area and I had the daughters phone, there would be no way for her to contact her daughter. She did however know the daughters boyfriends name, so off through the contact list I go.

Unfortunately the contact list had about 3 guys with the same name. So using deductive reasoning I figured the most frequently called name had to be the boyfriend. I called him and explained that I found the cell phone. I told him I would drop it off at the service desk at the store and he would come by to pick it up. He said that she has been looking for the phone for a couple of hours and was grateful someone would turn it in.

The second good deed was steering traffic around two manhole covers that had come off.

I was riding my bike during a rainstorm when across the street I see cars swerving. I look over and see two manhole covers that were half off. I quickly cross the street and get off my bike and start directing traffic.

Since I have never encountered this before I didn't know what to do except call the police. After about 5-10 minutes of directing traffic in the rain a cop call pulls up. I explain to the cop that this is how I found them and didn't know what to do.

She said that this sometimes happens after a heavy rainfall and that she will move them back. While she was moving one, I went and did the other. I'm thinking to myself, how rainfall could move something so heavy.

I don't think i even got a thank you for directing traffic. She could have at least given me a safety badge or something.

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=194933

Good job, exile:thumb:

Water can be pretty powerful. Look at the tsunami damage in Japan for an extreme example. One related to manhole covers happened here in September 2004 when we had a freak thunderstorm dump a ton of rain on us. I have a video on my computer of all the flooding outside my place. My friend with a 4x4 came over and picked me up and we drove to another neighborhood where the water had blown a manhole cover off in a flooded area. Water was bubbling up out of the sewer about 3 feet above the flood. It looked like a miniature geyser.

This one wasn't me, it was my sister. In 1997.

We worked at the same place, same shift, different areas. She came up to me at first break of the night with a ladies' wallet, telling me how & where she found it, and that she was turning it in to the accounting office.

It had $1100.00 (!) cash in it.

The owner wanted to leave her a reward the next day when she came back for it, but the bosses wouldn't allow it.

Good for her:thumb: Hopefully some good karma came her way after that:)

I'm pretty good anymore about doing the right thing.

However, when just out of college, me and two other guys (also just out of college) went camping. We were riding along in an old box van and talking about our futures and how money was not important to us but rather living a good life based on personal quality, was. The not desiring money part came up a couple times.

Then suddenly, as if God was mocking us, there was a bunch of dollars flying around in the air, hitting the windshield, as the van drove right thru it. The driver almost rolled the van trying to stop it. Both side-doors and the rear doors all popped open at the same time as all three of us raced around gathering up money. We also found a wallet with some ID and credit cards.

The amount of cash was small, $23 I think, but it looked like a lot as we drove thru it. We talked about what hypocrits we must be, drove into Athens Ohio, pooled the cash, dropped the wallet into a mailbox, and went to a bar and started buying pitchers. We had convinced ourselves that the PO of the wallet would just be happy to get it back with the plastic and ID intact.

LOL! Good story:lol: I think we've all done things when we were "young and dumb" that we regret later.

Some of us are still doing them. The bad thing about regret is that it happens after the fact.

However, what is it called when you know you will regret doing "something" before it happens; Pregret?

I don't know, maybe "Sometimes, you've got to say what the !@#$"? (my favorite quote from the movie "Risky Business":lol:)