We toured the conservatory in Rochester today. They have the cutest little quail, turtles and tortoises. I want quail now so bad. Maybe these summer we can get some but I think it would have super caged up, not just so they didn't get away but because the city cats would tear them limb from limb.

The last two times we went dancing in Rochester I talked with this guy next Brett who looked so familiar but I couldn't place it. Then on Facebook today I saw his last name and found this pic on (e:dcoffee)'s Facebook. Turns out he is (e:mmtornow)'s sister. What a small world.

I was going through some old estrip backup files and found so much stuff. Here are some of the banners I had made for the old site back from 2003-2007.

Walking home from lunch today we saw Zooey and Vanessa driving by. Then I got home and was going through out old backup hardrives to move the data to SSD and I found these cute pics. She was so little.

Dear Reader,
You will never believe this situation. As I outlined in (e:paul,59727) I have been pretty down with my eragem.com sapphire wedding ring being broken. With my birthday coming up, I kept harassing (e:terry) and (e:joe) about getting me a replacement ring. Of course the one I found was too expensive to be reasonable but to try and make me happy, they decided to call and see if they could bargain a bit.

(e:joe) told Michael from eragem.com about the story and he felt awful about the situation. I would have thought maybe we would bargain down on the ring price, but he went ahead offered to send the ring as a free replacement. He also said he would help look for a new sapphire for me . I really couldn't believe it when the doorbell rang and the ring was here this morning as he overnighted it!

Here was the email from Michael at Eragem.


And this was my response.


Here is the ring on my finger





Here was the text of the emails so that they are searchable

Hello Joe and or Paul,

I was sad when I read in the post that my reply to the email that was sent about the stone cracking was not received. I know that emails/replies from my @eragem.com address are sometimes caught in spam filters so I hope you will check back in your email to find my original reply. (I included a forwarded copy of our original reply below)

I am very glad that you came back to our company even after your experience to find something else that was of interest to you and even offered a very fair price for it, not taking into account all that happened previous.

You coming back gave me the opportunity to send you the diamond ring free of charge and hopefully leave you with a better feeling about my company. I will also continue to look for a replacement stone for the original ring.

Sapphires are one of the more durable gemstones. Star sapphires are normally kept as stars because they are more heavily included and often things like natural fractures and larger internal inclusions aren't fully removed from the stone, especially from the underside, all which can make them somewhat more fragile. They should still be very durable but even diamonds can break. When any gemstone is set in a heavy ring it greatly increases its likelihood of being damaged because of the force inertia behind the weight of the ring all gets transferred into the stone and focused on the precise point the stone makes contact with a hard surface.

I hope the new ring will be worn with good feeling until we can find a good sapphire replacement, which I hope happens soon. I wear a star sapphire as well so I know how nice they are to have on hand.

Michael,
The ring is so amazing. I seriously cannot thank you enough for this. You have gone above and beyond my wildest expectations as a shop owner and I will continue to do business with you for other jewelry as well as tell everyone I know how satisfied with your shop I am.

When I got home from work tonight I will post a update to my blog describing the very satisfactory update to the situation along with pictures of the ring.

I look forward to hearing from you if you can find a similar sapphire for the other ring.

Thank you again for you help.