So I had to post The Terminator’s story of his adventure in Las Vegas this weekend. I’ll never understand why anyone would DARE to steal from the Terminator. He’ll KILL you. And it just so happened to be his birthday as well! Here it is:

“How did you spend your birthday in Vegas, Duizie?”

Well it started off by realizing my iPhone was missing at 5am when leaving a casino to go get some sleep at the Excalibur. I went back looking where we had been—no sign of it. I reported it missing to security and logged onto “Find My Phone” app via Brandon’s phone. I have auto lock but we locked the phone remotely anyway. GPS showed the phone across the BLVD at another hotel. Went there, looked around the parking area where the GPS was indicating—nothing. Reported to their security as well. I knew the battery was low so I figured it wouldn’t be locatable soon. Got back to our hotel between 6-7pm and used a computer to look at the tracking. Still showed Tropicana parking lot area.

Got some sleep then got up at 10am and checked tracking. Showed the phone at a mall north of the strip ten miles away! Sent note to the phone trying to get a response. Nothing.

“Let’s go,” I said and Brandon and I followed the location signal. We tried sending the signal to see if we could hear it.

There were about six kiosks in area. One was a phone case and accessory place. Didn’t hear it make noise, looked and listened at different kiosks. Brandon even tried calling it and it would ring, but no answer. Then he tried again and suddenly it went straight to voice mail, so we knew it was off now. Finally I went up to one of the phone kiosk guys and randomly asked how their chargers worked. He showed us a solar charger.

He showed me the solar charger on an iPhone.  MY IPHONE!!!

He had turned it off probably because of the sound it was making when signaling it. And you needed the lock code to silence it.

I said, “Does the phone turn on?”

He said, “Yeah I just turned it off. It’s not mine, we’re just using it to show how the charger works.”

I said, “You know why it’s not yours. Because it’s mine.”

He was also trying to make a sale with someone else at the time when I said that.

He said, “What do u mean?”

“I tracked my phone here and you obviously can’t unlock it.”

He explained that the guy working yesterday left it here so he was using it for examples. I said that I had had it last night so that’s not true.

So he says, “If you can unlock it, then it must be yours. Take it man.” And, of course, I unlocked it.

I got his name and the kiosk info and went to report it to the mall management. They took down the info and looked up the owner of the kiosk and we called him. I informed him that my phone went missing and I tracked it to his kiosk being used by his employee. He was confused but I wanted him to know that his employees were using a stolen phone to sell his products.

I can’t prove the guy took it, but he had it so that’s the best I could do. Up to the owner now.

So long story short, I lost my phone, got to play FBI tracking it down, and now the phone is back in my possession. “Find My Phone” application on iPhone is pretty cool and accurate. But it really helps when the thief works at a phone charging kiosk and keeps the battery charged!!

Eating for first time today and relaxing. 3:30pm

Happy Birthday to me!!!

You really CAN lose and win in Vegas.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TERMINATOR! Glad you got your phone back!