| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
Sean 
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
|
 Posted - 05/07/2008 : 01:33:45
|
There've been enough sad stories here lately, how about another kind of story... 
Lord of the ring ... at last
5:00AM Wednesday May 07, 2008
Wellington groom Tim Capper proved the cynics wrong when he embarked on a romantic quest for his lost wedding ring which, as all good quests should, had a happy ending.
Mr Capper, 37, married his sweetheart of four years, Sanna Cooke, in March, in a beach ceremony on Long Beach, Russell.
But two days after his bride slipped the wedding ring on his finger, Mr Capper lost that same ring wrestling his brother in the surf, metres from where he had said his wedding vows.
The ring fell off while Mr Capper was swimming in shoulder deep water at low tide. He realised that if he did not find it quickly, he never would.
A search squad, quickly assembled from friends and family on the beach, could not find his band of gold in the encroaching tide.
His new wife was "awesome - she wasn't really fazed by it".
But Mr Capper had already become attached to his ring.
"I really liked having the ring. I felt naked without it, and not having it just felt horrible."
Mr Capper spent the next week on the phone unsuccessfully scouring the country for an underwater metal detector.
At a cost of around $1500, he imported one from the United States and began testing it out on Wellington's beaches.
Dressed in his wetsuit, scuba gear and headphones, and carrying what looked like the skeleton of an old- fashioned vacuum cleaner, Mr Capper drew some strange looks from other beach-goers.
"I've found another way to repel women at the beach," he laughed.
Six weeks after the ring went into the water, Mr Capper returned to Russell with a sense of purpose and optimism, buoyed by good luck messages from friends and family.
His first day searching, he "swam around like an angry bee" backtracking and getting nowhere.
Realising he needed a system, he took a more methodical approach the next day, putting stakes in the sand to show where he had been, and attempting a grid search.
By the third day, he was forced to acknowledge that while he may have lost his ring, his wife had nearly lost him to his new obsession.
He promised that day would be his last.
His father-in-law - "who I will always be indebted to" - recommended using an anchor and stretching a rope out from it, covering the area by sweeping in wide arcs.
On the seventh sweep, with the tide starting to turn, the detector started to hum.
Diving down, Mr Capper "saw this circular glint of gold through the settling sand that I'd disturbed".
He grabbed it, stood up and raised his hands in a silent, triumphant tribute.
The ring had been 50m offshore, buried in about 10cm of sand.
His supportive friends then admitted they'd never believed for a minute he would find it.
As for his bride? "She just squealed."
He slipped the ring back on his finger - more than six weeks after his wedding day - without ceremony, he said.
"It just felt good. It was back where it needed to be."
- NZPA
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10508395
|
|
|
w22dheartlivie 
"Kitty Lover"
|
Posted - 05/07/2008 : 01:42:59
|
| Some guys are worth keeping. |
 |
|
|
bife
"Winners never quit ... fwfr ... "
|
Posted - 05/07/2008 : 01:52:11
|
Cool
Not in the same league, but after 5 years of marriage, leaving my wedding ring next to my bed every night and putting it back on in the morning, I got up late on the last day of a trip to Phnom Penh, forgot to put it on and left it in the hotel.
I called the hotel when I got back to Singapore, a maid had found the ring and handed it in (given the salary of a hotel maid in Cambodia, I was doubting I would see it back, it is always gratifying to see the good side of human nature shine through).
However, being cambodia, the hotel 'didnt think' they could arrange an international shipment, they were pretty sure it would never get through the mail, even by courier.
I was planning to go back to Cambodia two months later to Siem Reap, a town approx 6 hours from Phnom Penh. So the hotel agreed to send the ring with one of their own drivers to their sister hotel there.
I turned up having not seen my ring for two months, pretty sure it was gone forever no matter what story the hotel had been spnning me, but when I arrived I found a bevvy of about 10 staff waiting anxiously for me with ring ("here's the dumb git who left a gold ring in a hotle room").
Linda didn't think I'd get it back, and was ready to make the rest of my life hell.
Not quite the same as spending 6 days searching with an underwater metal detector on the beach, but it made me happy. And I no longer take off my ring to sleep |
Edited by - bife on 05/07/2008 02:28:14 |
|
|
|
Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
|
Posted - 05/07/2008 : 03:55:48
|
Excellent story.
I'm not entirely surprised you got it back though. Buddhist country, less materialistic + the karma issue etc. I think if it was going to disappear it would have done so very early on, i.e., "No sir, we didn't find any ring in your room" or something similar. Once they'd said they had it, then they've got other people involved and to 'make it disappear' would have required collusion. So from then on, the easy path was to keep it safe until you came to collect it.
Although the fact the hotel staff didn't trust the postal system suggests there is some endemic dishonesty in Cambodia. The hotel's refusal to use the post was probably a good indicator of their honesty though.
Anyway, glad it worked out.  |
|
|
|
ChocolateLady
"500 Chocolate Delights"
|
Posted - 05/07/2008 : 07:26:20
|
| Aw... nice story! |
|
|
|
duh 
"catpurrs"
|
Posted - 05/07/2008 : 07:42:26
|
Too bad he couldn't have found Lisa Marie Presley's engagement ring that she tossed into the water after a spat with Nicholas Cage a few years ago.  |
|
|
|
Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
|
Posted - 05/07/2008 : 09:35:06
|
quote:
Originally posted by duh Improper Username
Too bad he couldn't have found Lisa Marie Presley's engagement ring that she tossed into the water after a spat with Nicholas Cage a few years ago.
Ah well, I'm sure they could both afford another one.  |
|
|
|
Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
|
|
|
Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
|
Posted - 09/24/2008 : 03:27:47
|
Here's another funny story. I read the first this morning, and the follow-up article a few hours later. As you can see the police in NZ must be pretty busy...
Abandoned picnic remains a mystery
10:23AM Wednesday Sep 24, 2008
Police are still trying to solve the mystery of Rotorua's "Mary Celeste picnic".
"We're no further ahead today than we were two days ago," Detective Sergeant John Wilson told NZPA today.
The fully laid-out picnic, complete with blanket and food, was found abandoned on the beach of a Rotorua lake last week.
Police received a call on Friday morning from someone who had found the picnic near the carpark between Tikitapu (Blue Lake) and Rotokakahi (Green Lake).
There they found a red blanket laid out, a wicker basket, two small bottles of Coke, a packet of chips, a relish container, chicken caesar salad, three apples, two bags of sweets, a barbecue lighter and a copy of the Weekend Herald dated September 13.
Mr Wilson likened the mystery to the world's most famous "ghost" ship the Mary Celeste.
The Mary Celeste was a brigantine discovered in the Atlantic Ocean unmanned and under sail in 1872. The fate of the crew has been a subject much speculation since.
Since the find a police search and rescue team had searched the tracks around the lake and made inquiries at the camp ground on the opposite side of the lake but could not find the owners of the picnic.
Mr Wilson said today police were considering what further action to take.
"We're tossing up at the moment what we're going to do, whether we'll go back and re-search the area," he said.
"It's just bizarre."
Mr Wilson said police were more likely to search the area than fingerprint the items.
"Our scenes of crime officers have got enough to do.
"They're the sort of items that are not particularly good to get fingerprints off anyway," he said. "And if it's a legitimate picnic then the chances are we won't have the fingerprints of the people."
Mr Wilson said he was considering having the lake searched.
"It's not a very big lake. I'm going to have a meeting with some of my colleagues from search and rescue a bit later on and we'll mull it over."
Yesterday the Daily Post published a photograph of the picnic items in an effort to identify their owner.
- NZPA
Picnic mystery solved
New 2:15PM Wednesday Sep 24, 2008
The mystery surrounding an abandoned picnic found at Rotorua's Blue Lake last week has been solved.
Today a very embarrassed Rotorua man, who will stay anonymous, visited police to explain what happened.
Detective Sergeant John Wilson says the incident can best be described as an 'aborted romantic interlude'.
"It was a planned liaison with a female. He had been out there at about 2 o'clock last Tuesday afternoon to set it all out, in the hope of later meeting her there... and unfortunately she didn't make the appointment. He simply failed to return to pick everything up."
But Mr Wilson says the two have since been on another date and the mystery has ended happily ever after.
- NEWSTALK ZB |
|
|
|
ChocolateLady
"500 Chocolate Delights"
|
Posted - 09/24/2008 : 07:34:54
|
I'm guessing this is an area where there isn't a whole lot of homeless people who might have destroyed the "evidence", as it were.
|
|
|
| |
Topic |
|
|
|
...and they lived happily ever after.
