DHL, Amilio Del Rosario, and Baseball.

What does DHL, Amilio Del Rosario, and Baseball all have in common?

They're all in this Blog entry! Read on to hear more about each of them.

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What could I be getting from DHL? Hmm...

Wow! All for me?

Earlier this week, I received a 860 page invoice from DHL for $121,011.72! Fortunately there was already a $93,327.07 deduction, so the net amount due was only $26,889.71. But still, I wanted to know what I shipped that cost so much! So, I started to look over the invoice.

Well, that's not quite how it went, but before I explain what did happen, let me give a little background.

At the beginning of April I sold a gas powered R/C Airplane with a 50" wingspan on eBay. Because it was so large, and also because airplanes are delicate toys, I had to ship it in a VERY LARGE box with lots of padding. The box was one of those U-Haul wardrobe boxes, about four and a half feet tall, and about three feet side to side. After the auction was over I contacted UPS about shipping, only to find out that it would cost me about $110 to ship! So I contacted FedEx, which was about $75. Still not happy, I contacted DHL. They only charged $17, so I decided to ship with them (OBVIOUSLY). Anyway, I never received an invoice (which is how I thought I was set-up to be billed), so I finally called DHL last week and asked for the invoice to be "re"-sent.

So it was with this history in mind that I opened the invoice this week. As you can imagine, I thought someone had either hi-jacked my account, or else there was some major mix-up with DHL. So I grabbed the phone and called DHL. They asked for the invoice number, so I gave it to them. The next thing I heard was "Oh, you shouldn't have gotten that!" I said: "So I don't have to pay any of this?" They said, "No you don't" (It was like pulling teeth to get any info from them). I asked "So, what is this?" They said, "You got the complete records of all the people that shipped like you did, over the internet". So (still wanting to make sure I was getting it straight) I asked, "So, I wasn't supposed to get this?" They said, "No, the bill-to address says 'Do Not Use, 515 W G----- Rd, etc...". I asked "So what should I do with this?" They said "Oh, you can just discard it".

I was ok with that, certainly a lot more ok than paying the $26,889.71, but I wonder how much UPS would pay for these records. :) I bet DHL was thinking PLEASE DISCARD THAT!

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As many of you know, our neighbor across the street from us (Jacob Bernhardt) is a very fine pianist. Over the past year he has started taking lessons from Amilio Del Rosario. This Monday I received a phone call from my piano teacher (Mrs. Bendorf) asking if I would be interested in sitting in on one of Jacob's lessons! Of course I was thrilled with the opportunity, both for the purpose of what I might be able to learn in my own piano playing, and also for what I could glean from a teaching stand-point. So last Thursday I spent the afternoon in Winnetka, IL sitting in on the lesson. It was great! I was especially happy that they were working on one of Chopin's sonatas! I was able to glean some pretty neat stuff about interpreting Chopin (my favorite composer for piano).


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Last night our family went over to MilkyWay Park where we got together with some families for a game of baseball. The first game went well. The teams were very even, and at first I thought we were going to lose, but then we rearranged our field positions and we ended up winning 13 to 8! The second game was Fathers and Daughters vs. Sons. The sons won 6 to 4. Here are some pictures from the evening.