Hi, all. Yeah my account expired. I just re-upped my account. (Heck, I SHOULD be a charter member, as I joined back then, but when they tried renewing my account, my credit card had expired and so I lost that charter designation. No amt of pleading to the membership dept changed that. Jerks.)
Honestly, I’ve just been swamped with being a new dad and an incredibly demanding job, and this has completely fallen by the wayside for me. Took an email on myspace to remind me to renew my subscription and follow up on this. I really haven’t done jack in about 2 months. Wallet is still here. I’ve stopped by the police station to talk to Officer Ivens, but he wasn’t in, and I haven’t gone back since. (Several people fired at my job, and their duties have fallen on me, so my previously busy work life has become barely manageable. Not complaining, it’s a great gig, just leaves little time for fruitless searches.)
None of the papers/tv stations I contacted bothered replying. Seems they only care once you do the legwork. My contact at the FBI politely declined to search. The occasional posts to Craigs List have come up empty as well. Follow-ups to sites that specialize in finding former soldiers have revealed nothing.
I’d love to get the wallet back to Mr. Ivens. But the search has become too much effort.
Crappy ending, and not saying it’s over yet. I will get back to the police station once work slows down, but that’ll likely be late July at the earliest. Other than that… shrug
I say it’s time for Cecil to follow up on this. Let him use his brainpower for this global manhunt. Anyone have an in with the guy?
A letter to the Social Security Administration’s letter forwarding service is quick. Given Ivens’ age, the SSA will almost certainly have his current address. The local police department is not so certain to have his current address.
Sorting GQ by views and skipping the stickies puts scalar weapons at 41,610 with 1,017 replies and this thread at 41,352 with 345 replies (this will of course increase to 346 once I post this).
Ya know, I was content to let this subject just go away, but nooooooo… you all can’t drop it! :dubious:
So, I caved. It’s done. I’ve written a check for $25 and a letter to the social security administration letter forwarding service. They’re in an addressed, stamped envelope, they’ll go out in Monday’s mail. That’s Oct 1, for those of you who want hard facts.
You know that scene in every horror and action movie ever made (and also in Fatal Attraction) where the bad guy (gal) is dead and everyone in the movie relaxes but everyone in the theater is still tense because they all know that there’s a gun/knife/hatchet/rocket launcher/box of dynamite within reach of the evil corpse, and lo and behold the dead baddie gets up with a final primal scream and reaches for the ultimate final destructive act but they are then killed (for REAL this time) by the previously cute and innocent retired cop/little girl/blind autistic dog/virgin geekazoid who saves the day in the end?
This is my final back-from-the-dead lurch, and that stamped envelope is my box of grenades. I’m really hoping it works, but if it doesn’t I’m pretty much done anyway.
To reiterate, I’ve called far too many people around the country, spent too much money on “we’ll find anybody” web sites, asked several news organizations to help (no response… they want you to do all the work and they’ll just print the story), asked the Straight Dope staff to help (no response), asked the Straight Dope staff to reinstate my charter membership status (no response) (and yes that’s irrelevant but what the hell), have taken up too much of Walloon’s time, my time, and Google search time. So far, zero results.
If the Social Security administration can’t track Donald Eugene Ivens down, then I probably SHOULD start digging underneath my house for bones. Luckily for me, I don’t own a shovel.
Now, we wait on the government to respond. Tick… tock… tick… tock…
Never too late. And I’m as interested as ever in the outcome. Hope it’s not Mr. Ivens writing back to the SSA, “Who the hell cares about some thirty-year-old wallet. Leave me alone!”
No big update, but still waiting. Letter to social security office was sent about 3 weeks ago, I’m hoping to hear something back within another 3 weeks…
