Saturday, June 9, 2007

Diary: Week Ten

My week in North Side did not really began Monday as Len Barcousky, who was supposed to take me out with him, came to office 3:00 p.m. and told me we would work on Thursday and Friday on a story.
With Katie's visit still two days away, I decided to use the time writing a piece for the Saturday Diary as Greg said he had place for it. In fact, I got the idea of writing a piece for the page when I met Greg to know who I could talk with about writing a story about fraud on eBay, to be specific, about fraud sellers who use eBay page to deceive innocent buyers.
I myself have the experience of meeting some fraud sellers one of whom was about to trap me had I not be cautious. He was trying to reach a deal with me outside eBay to sell a Nikon D200 camera with 4GB memory for $600 and sent me a fake eBay invoice using an eBay email address. As I was suspicious about this seller and aware about fraudulence, I verified the email with eBay and came to know it had not come from eBay.
While sniffing for some more such case, I came in contact with some other fraud sellers who are very eager to sell item through private auction and would always ask buyers to use the payment method which are not covered by eBay buyer protection policy.
Pretending that I could not understand any of their motives, I continued exchanging emails with some of them to know about their 'mode of operation'.
Hearing the incident, Greg asked me to write for his page, and I was more than happy. It's Greg! I submitted him the story Tuesday.
I had a great time Wednesday when Katie visited me. After she reached her hotel, which is very close to my office, I asked her yo wait there and got out to take her to my office. I was very happy to see Katie after this long time.
And the lunch was great, for its mountaintop location of the restaurant, if not only for the food. You'll have a great view o Golden Triangle and the downtown as well as both North and South sides. Definitely I couldn't help pressing the shutter of my camera to capture city view through the glass wall. Another attraction there was the sculpture of George Washington talking with an Indian leader. Greg, Katie, our city editor Lillian Thomas and my cricket team partner and Editorial staff Reg Henry lined up as I asked them to go near the sculpture.
Karie and I walked by the Allegheny river before I showed her my apartment. We went out in the evening to watch "Poseidon" at Schenley Park in Oakland. We, however, could not finish the movie due to chilling cold.
Thursday morning, Len Barcousky picked me up from in front of my place and we went to small town Harlansburg to visit a transportation museum which a retired U.S. Air pilot built himself. His collection of transportation memorabilia including airplanes, riverboats, automobiles, railcars, old age telephone , teletype machine, telephone booth, airmail pick up, traffic signals, two-person balloon etc shows how much enthusiasm and love a person can have for antiques, which stemmed from his love for history and an urge to transport his knowledge to next generation.
As Len did this most of the interviewing part, I learned how to get every detail about one's personal life. During the interview, I also learned a little bit about the history of American rail and automobiles.
It was easy for us to get information about his collection, which he started in his childhood, as Don Barnes loves to tell story.
Len later took me to North Side office.
The weather was very bad Friday which we spent for writing the story.

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