Ok, so my buddy Nick had Sterbenz as a coach at COC 2 years ago and stayed in touch with him. This year he wrote a check to Sterbenz to buy a pair of 4frnts. These were the only pair sold in the midwest, and maybe east of the rockies. So early on in the season they got stolen. Nick filed a stolen item report that included the ski model, and bindings and where a sticker had been placed on the ski. He also contacted the patrols of all the surrounding ski areas here in Indiana and Ohio.
So, tonight we were skiing a late night ski, and one of our friends spots 2 kids with the skis. They go up and take them and contact the staff and the sherrif on duty. The kids also had a pair of boots that had been reported stolen w/in 15 minutes of Nick's skis. So these kids go into a staff room in the lodge and are being questioned. They said they had gotten them at getboards.com... supposedly I heard that getboards never got any to sell because 4frnt had sold them all themselves. Anyway the skis have the same binding and sticker residue where Nick's sticker had been. So the cop calls the kids mom, and she says she bought them for him... who knows if the cop was smart enough to even ask the name of the ski. Nick said he could produce the receipt, and could get the serial number from Sterbenz by tomorrow. However, even though they had stolen the boots and that kid got his boots back, the cop just took the kids information and because the mom vouched for him, he got to leave with the skis. All we needed was the stupid serial number... which was unfortunate that we didn't have it yet.
So thank you law enforcement for not taking the kid in for having stolen boots, or even retaining the skis for 24 hrs, or just something. Some of our friends went up to the kids as they were leaving in the parking lot, and were shovin them around a bit. After they left, the cop even told us that he believed they were Nick's skis, but he couldn't do anything. God... you think they could have asked the mom even what color the skis were. Oh well. We'll get the serial number tomorrow, call the sherrif, get a subpoena for the kids to produce the skis, and so forth. Anyway... that is the rant of the evening.