Laurie McCartney's personalized email to me
Dear Bruce Weinberg,

One year ago today, we launched our flagship site, babystyle.com!  Since then, you've helped estyle flourish into one of the most successful stores on the world wide web!  In one amazing year we've added kidstyle.com to the mix and created the greatest one-stop shop for every growing family!

Please share in our celebration by accepting the $20 gift certificate below.  It's our way of saying thanks for the first of many wonderful years in business!

Happy shopping!

Laurie McCartney
Founder and CEO, estyle Inc.

Email reply from the Florida Marlins' Webmaster
Dear Bruce,

The Florida Marlins have received your e-mail regarding Louis Castillo's RBI production.  I have forwarded it to the proper department and they will try
to explain things.  Personally, I am not the one to explain it.  However, I can tell you that Castillo is a leadoff hitter and he does come to the plate often when runners are not in scoring position.  Like you said, he does hit a lot of singles and most of them he simply slaps to the opposite field.  I think that is probably the main reason for his 6 RBI.

I am very impressed with your statistical analysis on Louis.  I learned a lot by reading it.  We are very proud of him this season.  Unfortunately for his statistics, he has rarely been in the situation to pick up RBI's.

I hope this answers your question for the time being.  Louis and Boles (manager) are really busy so I cannot promise a response from them.

Thank you for your question
_____________________________________
Thank you for visiting www.floridamarlins.com
the Official Website of the Florida Marlins.

Every Day, Every Game, All Heart.

I sent the Webmaster a reply
Dear (Webmaster's name withheld),

Many many thanks for your response and kind words about my analysis.  I understand that you may not have the full explanation, however, my guess is that you are much more aware than I of Luis's day to day play.  I certainly understand how busy Luis and Manager Boles are during the season; still, it would be neat to get a response from either one of them, or someone who is extremely familiar with what is going on during most every game.  Hey, if I buy something from the team store, will that increase the likelihood of a response from Luis or Manager Boles (smile).

Best of luck with the rest of the season; and, by the way, I like your site -- well done.  I'll check it out more when I get a chance.  Again, many thanks for replying and offering your explanation for Luis's rbi output thus far this season.

Sincerely,

Bruce

Williams-Sonoma
Today, I went to the Williams-Sonoma site in search of Olio Santo olive oil because Homeruns did not sell an olive oil brand to Amy's liking (see July 20) and I wanted to get an olive oil that Amy does like.  The olive oil was available at their site.  The price was $20; I was unsure, however, whether this was for the small or large sized bottle.  I clicked on the graphic of the item to see an enlarged view of the photo in hopes of seeing more detail or being able to read the label.  No such luck; I could not make out the amount of oil in the bottle (this is listed in the dark area at the bottom of the label just under the words "First Cold Press").  I decided to call customer service for assistance as the "customer feedback" email option gave me the impression that I would hear back from them on the twelfth of never were I to send in an email for assistance.

The customer service person checked for information to see if she could help.  All she could tell me was that the product weighed 2.4 (or she might have said 2.6 pounds as I do not recall precisely); she was unsure of how much olive oil was in the bottle.  She checked with a few other people and was unable to get an answer.  I commented to her with a lilting laugh "the Internet's great for shopping isn't it?  You can't even find out what size you're buying."  She laughed back and was embarrassed.  In order to partly explain why she could not tell me how many ounces were in the Olio Santo olive oil bottle, the customer service person told me some stuff about their databases and computer systems, which I will not go into because it might be confidential -- probably not, but keeping my lips sealed couldn't hurt. 

She then offered to send an internal email request to operations in order to try and find out the answer to my question.  I gave her my telephone number so that someone could get back to me.  I asked if someone from operations could simply email me and she explained that they could not for technical reasons.  In a friendly voice, I sarcastically told her that Williams-Sonoma ecommerce infrastructure was impressive; she laughed apologetically.

In the meantime, I found another site that sells Olio Santo online -- Caliogroves.com.  Caliogroves' price for the 17oz/500ml size is $11.99.  I would have ordered from this site except for one slight problem.  I could not find out the shipping fee, shipping alternatives, expected delivery time and in stock status.  Try putting something in the shopping cart (make sure to change the number in the quantity field to a number greater than zero) by clicking on "add to order" and then clicking on "send order (normal)."  You'll see that the next window asks for all key order information, including credit card number, and then directs one to "send order now."  Hey, hold on; we need a bit more information.  I sent a request for more information to Trish at Caliogroves.