Finders, Keepers, Losers, Weepers.

Does this ring look familiar? Are you missing one? Check your jewelry box.

Hey, listen up, is anyone out there missing a 3-carat diamond platinum mount ring?  Anybody?  This ring has been in a Santa Fe, NM, police vault for two years, with no one claiming it.  I just can’t believe anyone is not missing a $30,000 ring.  Just can’t believe it.

Maybe you have so many 3-carat diamond rings you don’t know this one is missing?  Nah.  Or maybe you didn’t like this one because of the platinum setting?  Come on, it’s worth $30,000!  Put the diamond in a new setting.

Two years ago a couple walked into the Earth Fire Gems Gallery in Santa Fe and tried to sell the ring.  The gallery owner, Tom Forrest Broadly, looked at the ring, clearly knowing what he was looking at, and offered the couple $500.  They said they would take it if he thought it was worth that much.  Tom then called police because these fools were going to take $500 for a $30,000 ring and he knew something wasn’t right.  The man with no cojones ran off, but the woman stayed and insisted the ring was hers.

According to Lieutenant, Louis Carlos, of the Santa Fe Police Department, the woman  claimed the ring had been given to her by a previous suitor as an engagement ring.  The police didn’t buy the story, and kept the ring.  No charges were filed against the couple because they couldn’t prove they had stolen it.

You’d think this would be a rather rare occurrence, 3-carat diamond rings showing up and no one claiming them, but in April 2009 a 2.5-carat diamond ring was found on a school playground in Fullerton, Calif.  No one claimed it either, after four months, and the city was getting legal advice on how to dispose of the property.

Here’s the rule that applies:  “Finders, Keepers, Losers, Weepers.”  This means really, that lost property belongs to the finder if the real owner doesn’t appear to claim the property in a reasonable amount of time.  The problem is, what is that “reasonable” amount of time?  Fullerton, California believed it was four months.  Once the property is awarded to the finder, if the real owner should appear, it’s too late. 

Are you sure?

Now I’m thinking, if the idiot in New Mexico had used the “I found it” defense when asked by police where she got the ring, she might still have it.  They clearly didn’t believe that she had a previous boyfriend that would spend that kind of money on her.  Not only that, but she would now know what the ring was worth for chrissakes.  Okay.  I’m going to use it.  If you look up “idiot” in the dictionary what would find?  Nope, not her picture.  You’d find a definition of the word “idiot” which she certainly is.

Because now the Santa Fe Police are going to auction the ring and the proceeds will be going to the Santa Fe Police Department.  WTF   They’re going to publicize it as much as possible they say, hoping the real owner will come forward otherwise, ownership defers to the finders which are now the Santa Fe Police. 

Life Is Like An Escalator

I’m  sitting in front of a down escalator.  I won’t go into the details of why I’m doing that, just that I have discovered a very distinct pattern of escalator riding.  There are a limited, it seems by my observations, of ways to ride down an escalator and very few variations.

First there is the “stand at attention” method.  The person stands in the middle of the escalator with a hand on each handrail.  Legs spread slightly apart.  Eyes front.

Then there is the more “casual stand at attention,” where the backpack is on one shoulder and the other hand is on the railing.  Still in the middle though.  Eyes still front.

There’s the “parade wave.”  Someone at the bottom of the escalator has spotted the rider, or the other way around, which results in the rider removing their hand from the safety of the handrail and waving below.  Not everyone does this, so probably not everyone has someone waiting at the bottom or is afraid to let go of the moving handrail.

Another interesting variation is whether the rider puts the carry-on in front of them ….Wait, there’s a guy holding a purse on the escalator for god’s sake.  Oh, his wife is behind him with the baby, so that now makes sense…or pulls it behind them.  Sometimes they pull it to the stair next to them and sometimes they let it ride on the stair behind them, maybe for an easier dismount.

If you know someone on the escalator with you and they’re riding above you, you can use the “sideways stance.”  This allows you to talk to them while riding down the escalator.  Hopefully someone will let you know when you get to the ill-fated and possibly dangerous bottom of the escalator.

There is the “coy pose” ride down the escalator.  One leg is cocked at the knee to the left or right, standing on only the one remaining leg you look rather coy.  This is predominantly a female stance on the escalator.  Sometimes the leg is swung out in front, heel riding on front of the stair.

Here comes a “side stance rider.”  She knows the person(s) above her.  A “rear carry-on rider” just went by.  Little variation, this rider let the carry-on go two steps up behind them, I guess for an even  smoother dismount.

Finally there is the “walker”.  They are usually  found on an empty escalator.  They’ll walk down the stairs, glorifying in the fast pace at which they are going down stairs, until they hit the bottom and stumble off the escalator.  Sometimes a walker will be on an escalator with people and will walk as far as the crowd will let them and then stop in one of the other stances.

Patent #25,076 was issued March 9, 1859 to Martin Ames for an invention he called Revolving Stairs.  He never built it.  It appears he died in 1860.  Along comes Jesse W. Reno in 1892.  He patents the first working type of escalator.  It was introduced as a novelty ride at Coney Island at the Old Iron Pier in 1896.  It was basically a conveyor belt without stairs slanted at a 25 degree angle.

Next on the scene is George A. Wheeler and Charles D. Seeberger.  Both file patents for their designs starting in 1891.  Again in  1892, 1896, 1897 and 1899.  In 1900, Charles Seeberger registers the name “Escalator” a name rumored to be a combination of  the Latin word “scala” for steps with part of the word elevator (the prefix “e” with the suffix “tor”) to form escalator.  However this has never been confirmed.  I guess nobody ever asked him.  It is speculated that he might have used the French word “escalade” which means to climb over a wall.  By 1921 the Otis Elevator Company owned the Reno and Seeberger patents and the registered trademark.  They made the final improvements to the design which is the escalator you see today except the stair treads were made of wood.  So what happened to Wheeler?  Seeberger bought his patents and then went to work for Otis in 1899.

So there you go, the history of the escalator.  If you’re bored sitting in an airport after your flight has been cancelled, sit in front of a down escalator and see if you can come up with any new riding methods.  Yeah, bored shitless.  Maybe I’ll go sit in front of an up escalator for a while.

“Life is like an escalator.  You can move forward or backward; you can not remain still.” –  Patricia Russell-McCloud.  I think she should have said you can move up or down but you can’t remain still.  Oh well, who am I to say.  And an escalator never breaks, you know, it just becomes stairs.  There was a power outage at a department store yesterday and twenty people were stuck on the escalators. – Steven Wright.

Do you remember the first time you rode on an escalator?  Me neither, but I know I was never trained.  I grew up in a town where there were no escalators and only a handfull of elevators.  We used to sneak in one of the apartment houses on the way home from school and ride them for fun.  We almost always got caught.  The doors would open on the fourth floor and there would be a tenant waiting to get on.  “What are you boys doing here?”  WTF…riding the elevator.

Too Slow For Squirrels

Austin homeless (or not) man with sign:  “Please Help!  Tired of pigeon, too slow for squirrels.”  Thought that one was a winner, although I don’t think he was really too slow to catch a squirrel.  Squirrels are a bit more dangerous than pigeons though.  It could  bite him, then he might get rabies, and would become an indigent in the healthcare system.  I wanted to give him some money just to avoid that, but I was in the middle lane.  I would have given him five bucks too.  I pay for what I consider to be good signs.

Another sign: “Need money for McDonald’s or Wendy’s.  I promise not to buy drugs.”  Why not Burger King?  Why not SONIC?  What’s wrong with SONIC?  They both have dollar menus.  Maybe he didn’t have enough room on the sign for other choices after his first two.  I wouldn’t have given him anything, not clever enough for my consideration.

I saw a lot of these signs in Austin, it’s a warm climate, and you’re stuck in traffic a lot so you become a captive audience.  You try not to make eye contact.  Many of these signs in Austin were in  English and Spanish.  “Hungry!  Necesito Comer.  Anything Helps.  Even a Little Change.”  This one is a bit confusing.  Notice the attempt at a bi-lingual message.   For those of you that can’t read English (although I’m not sure how you would be reading this blog) the only part the sign-holder wanted you to know in Spanish is “Need Food”.  That’s enough of a message for the Hispanic beneficence I guess.  The rest of the sign is directed at the English reader’s potential generosity.  Try bringing them actual food, they probably won’t take it.  I tried to give a “Will Work For Food” guy a McDonald’s hamburger once and he wouldn’t take it.  Maybe he was being careful, thinking I might have poisoned it.

Why are you making fun of homeless people, you’re probably thinking, and Austin homeless people in particular?  The Austin part, no reason except I was just there, the other, I have reason.  Let me tell you a little story.  True story, I swear.

I was in Minneapolis for a conference.  Not a lot of homeless people in Minneapolis, climate is too cold.  A few of us decided to walk from our hotel down to, well, let’s just call it a bar.  It entailed walking in downtown after dark, and then under a freeway to get where we were headed, but, hey, we were saving cab fare.

As we approached the underpass a young man with a cardboard sign approached.  I hate being approached by people asking for a hand-out.  It’s probably that I’ll feel guilty for not helping, because I rarely do, and probably should.  I mean, I had a wallet-full of twenties waiting for the “bar”, and I told the guy I didn’t have any money on me, only credit cards.  My companions did the same.  The young man’s sign said, “Out of Work.  Baby Needs Diapers.  Please Help.”

Well, we’d already been drinking a little, probably the only reason you would risk walking under an underpass to a bar at night in Minneapolis, so someone in the group asks our guy, “Do you really have a baby at home, man?”

The guy says, “No.  It just works.  People feel sorry for me because I don’t have diapers for the baby.  I make more money this way.”  I noticed his sneakers were pretty new Nike’s.  I didn’t own a pair of Nike’s at the time, couldn’t afford them.  He goes on to tell us what other sign slogans he uses that “work”.  “Homeless.  Baby Needs Formula.  Please Help,” for example.  Playing the “baby” card seemed to be the most effective of his cardboard signs.  He had done unofficial studies.

“How much do you actually make?” I bravely ventured. 

“Oh, on an average day, I’ll take home eighty to a hundred bucks,” he proudly stated.  “Sometimes I have good days, two hundred or more, sometimes less.  It’s a pretty good gig, ” he said.  That’s what he said, “…a pretty good gig.”  A person earning $15 an hour grosses $120 a day, but their actual earnings are much less, as you probably well know; taxes, FICA, 401k deduction, and healthcare deductions.  Probably ends up taking home $80 out of that $120 or less.  That’s why they call it “take home pay”.  It’s the only place you can afford to go with it.  How does it feel to know you’re making as much as a “homeless” person with a cleverly worded cardboard sign that someone is reading at a stop light?!  And our Minnesota entrepeneur offered that he rarely “worked” a full day.

Makes me feel like shit, and that’s why I don’t give “homeless” people money unless I think the sign is clever.  WTF

Where Have You Been,/Billy Boy, Billy Boy?

“Oh, where have you been, / Billy Boy, Billy Boy? / Oh, where have you been, / Charming Billy? / I have been to seek a wife, / She’s the joy of my life, …”

I… have been to Austin.  You might have noticed that I missed a few days of blogging over the past week.  It was because I was on vacation in Austin Texas.  We spent a week there checking out what is billed as the “Live Music Capital of The World”.  I confirm that is a true statement.  Live music of every kind, and just a walk down Sixth Street.  All the clubs have shuttered windows that open into the street, and you can just stand there and listen to the music.  (Which is a good thing if you smoke, because you can’t smoke in the clubs.)

We took in the LBJ Presidential Library, boring to some of you maybe but not to me, and visited the State Capital, which is taller than the Capitol building in Washington DC.  Pretty impressive place, but I got searched with the “Geiger” wand because I forgot to take off my belt.  “Sir, step over here.”  “Sir!”  We forgot what day it was, and the Texas Legislature was in session complete with a very vocal protest going on outside the House chambers.  Very cool, but again probably boring to some of you.

We walked up six flights of stairs to get to the highest level of the rotunda.  I’m still alive to talk about it, but my legs are not the same.  I renamed them “Good Years”  While I’m standing there, looking down at half-inch people walking around below, all I could think of was “…Oooh, I like to dance a little sidestep, now they see me, now they don’t, I’ve come and gone.”  Flash back to “Best Little Whorehouse in Texas”, Charles Durning, dancing on his toes in cowboy boots.

Another notable thing, in my opinion, about Austin, is the traffic.  People mention it a lot and there’s lots of it.  We managed to avoid threats to serious injury and property damage to the rental car, barely on a couple of occasions.  Observations:  Texas drivers don’t follow the speed limit, speed limits are just suggestions I guess; there’s a lot of construction going on of highway exits that go into the clouds; and turn signals, it seems, are optional.  Probably not much different that where you drive.

Overall, we had an enjoyable time.  It was a nice respite from home which doesn’t seem to want to warm up past 70.  In Austin it was high 80’s most days, we got a little rain (they have been in a draught for several years), and the wind blew every day, but you welcomed it because the humidity is in the 80 percentile.  Not easy to get used to if you come from a dry climate, but it does amazing things to your dried-out skin.

Anyway, we’re back and I have some stories to tell.  We didn’t have FREE internet access at the Marriott where we were staying, which really surprised me since I’ve gotten FREE internet access at a lot less “pricey” hotels.  But then, remember, Marriott got rid of their X-rated movies on demand, so they have to make up the revenue loss somewhere.

On this date in 1935, night baseball makes its début.  I don’t know how they arranged it, but President Franklin Roosevelt flipped the switch to Crosley Field in Cincinnati, Ohio, from the White House.  Pretty impressive.  The Reds beat the Phillies, 2-1 before 20,422 fans.  The Chicago Cubs didn’t have night games well into the 1980’s though.  I guess the Cub fans don’t like going out to the ballgame at night, any more than they like winning seasons. 

“…she’s a young thing and cannot leave her mother.”

When It All Goes Down The Drain.

Sometimes I do stupid things…you know, make stupid decisions.  I know they’re stupid because they have consequences.  Not good consequences either, but those other kind.  Sometimes the outcome of those stupid things can haunt me for years to come.  The Lake Peigneur disaster is one of those really stupid things that I’m glad I had nothing to do with, because somebody made a stupid decision that trumps anything I could have ever come up with.

In 1980, an oil rig was set up in Lake Peigneur.  It was owned by Texaco and operated by a local drilling company.  This shallow fresh water lake was near New Iberia, Louisiana.  (“Old” Iberia is just “Iberia” I found out.)  The lake covered 1,300 acres but was only 11 feet deep.  In the center of the lake was a 70-acre island known as Jefferson Island, which was home to beautiful botanical gardens.  Oil wells and 100-year old walnut trees dotted the surrounding landscape.

Underneath Lake Peigneur, thousands of feet below the surface, was a salt mine.  Not like the one where you work, but an actual working salt mine.  Fifty-five miners were mining away at the Diamond Crystal Salt Mine on November 21st, 1980.  Up above on the drilling platform, those workers began abandoning the rig after it’s 14″ diameter bit jammed up at 1,230 feet and the rig seemed to be unstable.  They watched as the $5 million platform and derrick disappeared into the shallow lake.  The water around where the derrick had been minutes before,  began to swirl.  Yeah, like a drain.  Before the water ran out of the lake, it took with it a tugboat, eleven barges from the canal which ran from the lake to the Gulf, a loading dock, the seventy acres that was the botanical gardens on Jefferson Island, greenhouses, a house trailer, trucks, tractors, and a parking lot.  All down the drain as they say.

Far below the surface, those 55 miners were in danger of being drowned by the lake’s 3.5 billion gallons of water.  They rode up eight at a time on the only elevator.  All of them made it out alive.

See what happened was someone “miscalculated” where the salt dome was under the lake, and thus placed the drilling platform right over it.  That was the stupid mistake.  Placed incorrectly the rig drilled through the salt dome, creating the leak.  As the salt dissolved around the leak, the hole got bigger and bigger and drained the lake.  The canal reversed flow and became a 150-foot waterfall as water from the Gulf now filled up the chasm.  What was once a shallow 11 ft deep lake, is now a 1,300 foot deep inland saltwater lake.  Probably has a higher salt content than the Great Salt Lake.  Of course the entire ecosystem of the lake changed as well.

What can YOU learn from this?  Probably nothing.  I just find comfort in the fact that I have never made a stupid mistake that big, at least not yet.  You can bet Texaco was sued, and so was the drilling company.  The thing is, the person, or persons who actually made the stupid mistake have never been identified.  They claim all the evidence went down the drain. WTF

You really have to see this to believe it.

Step On A Crack, Break Your Mother’s Back…

I never know it’s Friday The Thirteenth until I’m reminded of it by somebody or something, like my desk calendar.  Then I panic waiting for the worst to happen.  I’m not really superstitious by nature, but there are some that I follow religiously.  Like I make sure all the Christmas decorations are put away by midnight, December 31st.  I have my reasons.  I don’t let anyone do laundry on New Year’s Day.  I panic if a bird flies into the house.  It’s a bit freaky anyway.  If a black cat walks across the road in front of me I look for any white paw, or tail or anything.  I try to avoid walking under a ladder, bad things have happened.  And when I was little I tried not to step on the crack in a sidewalk so I wouldn’t break my mother’s back.  There was a lot of debate as to whether the joint lines in a sidewalk were actually cracks.  Anyway, although my mother had her share of bad luck I guess, she never broke her back.

So why is Friday the 13th associated with bad luck or worse?  I figured I would try and find out.

Turns out this stuff can be traced back to the Garden of Eden!  It is said that Eve offered the apple to Adam on a Friday.  So this Friday superstition has been around for a while.  The co-mingling of Friday being an unlucky day because of this and other historical events, and the number 13 being associated with any number of demonic connotations just makes it worse.  For example, Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy and Albert De Salvo all have 13 letters in their names.  In case you aren’t familiar with those names, they’re all serial killers.

 

Last Supper, Simon Ushakov, 1685. Can you spot the traitor?

There were exactly 13 present at the Last Supper.  One dinner guest later betrayed Jesus and he ended up being crucified, on a Friday by the way.  First appearing in the 18th century, the seating of thirteen at a dinner table would result in the death of one diner.  Usually the one who leaves the table first, unless everyone stands at the same time.  Better keep that one in mind.

By the 19th century we weren’t building thirteenth floors on buildings, no 13th Street, 13th Avenues or Boulevards, no hotel rooms with a 13 on the door.  But the belief that Murphy’s Law reigns supreme on Friday the 13th, seems to be a 20th Century phenom.  If it can go wrong, it will go wrong, on Friday the 13th.  So that’s why I panic.  

Paraskevidekatriaphobics, people afflicted with a morbid, irrational fear of Friday the 13th, number about 8% of the U.S. population.  That’s a number in the range of 21 million people.  That’s a lot of people.  And they have made the superstition “fit” almost every situation.  Some will not even venture out of the house on Friday the 13th, won’t go to work, won’t have medical procedures done, and the list goes on. 

Well not to worry, there is only one Friday The Thirteenth in 2011, and if we make it through the day, we’ll be good.  Watch for those cracks in the sidewalk.

Does Batman Sweat?

Sometimes reading the news can bring a head shake.  Just a slight shaking of the head from side to side in disbelief.  Most times it’s accompanied by a chuckle and sometimes you can’t help but laugh out loud.  The ol’ “LOL” or even “LMAO.”  That’s about all the Internet-slang I know, except of course, “WTF.”  But this story, dateline DETROIT, “Police Nab Armed ‘Batman’ In Small Michigan Town,” had me shaking the head.

A female in capitivity 1898.

First off, Batman wasn’t in Detroit, he was hanging from a building in Petoskey Michigan.  Petoskey has a population a bit over 6,000 in the 2000 Census, and it’s billed as a coastal community on Lake Michigan.  The name is said to mean “where the light shines through the clouds”, and based on what I know of the weather on the northern coast of Lake Michigan, that might be a welcome thing.  And there isn’t a lot of history to be found in Petoskey either.  Nobody famous from there, really.  Maybe the biggest historical fact is that they were shooting 50,000 passenger pigeons a day there back in the late nineteen century.  The American Passenger Pigeon, ectopistes migratorius,  was officially extinct in 1914.

So besides that, Batman seems to be the only other notable thing to have happened there, and it took over a hundred years.  Like I said, Batman was hanging off a building and when police pulled him back up they found a baton, some chemical irritant spray, and a pair of  lead-lined gloves.  Batman’s real name, you might be interested to know, is not Bruce Wayne as you saw on television and in the movies.  No, his real name is Mark Wayne Williams.  They didn’t find the Bat Mobile and Robin was nowhere to be seen, but that dude at the top of the page sure looks like Batman, but does Batman sweat?

This is the part that made me LMAOOL.  ( I don’t know if that’s acceptable slang, but it means “Laughing My Ass Off Out Loud.”)  The Petoskey Police charged him with several counts of carrying concealed weapons, one count of carrying a gas-ejecting weapon, and causing a public disturbance.  I guess there’s no ordinance against hanging off a building, possibly endangering those below.  Especially if he was fighting crime.

They don’t know why Batman was there.  He didn’t offer an explanation and it seems they didn’t ask .  They didn’t spend any time interviewing him the police chief said.  I think they were pretty familiar with him myself.  A few years back he was in costume as the “Crow.”  In Mr. Williams defense, it gets cold in Michigan in the winter and “cabin fever” can exhibit itself in some strange forms.  WTF.

Photo credit:  Petoskey Department of Public Safety via WDIV-TV.

Gee Thanks, Great-Great-Great-Grandpa Burt

Here lies Wellington R. Burt. Forest Lawn Cemetary, Saginaw, MI.

I just know my great-great-great-grandfather was very rich, despicable, vindictive, and there is a fortune that he is waiting to bestow on me.  I don’t know who my great-great-great grandfather is, but his name was probably Albert.  They named the first-born male, Albert, in my family almost religiously.  My father was Albert, my grandfather was Albert, and I know my great grandfather was Albert.  So why not the others?  I survived somehow.  I think it was my mother’s refusal to name me Albert, or maybe she pulled some funny business with the birth certificate without my father knowing.

I know I have no family in Saginaw, Michigan, so I have no claim to the $100-$110 million fortune that is being distributed 92 years after Wellington R. Burt’s death.  Talk about taking it with you, sort of.  His will stipulated that his fortune could not be distributed to the family until 21 years after the death of the last grandchild born in his lifetime.  Man, the murder plots that were probably considered during that person’s life.  Last granddaughter, Marian Landsill, died in November, 1989.

Wellington was pretty vindictive and he knew what he was doing.  He gave paltry sums of money to his children, the highest being $30,000 a year to a favorite son.  But most got $1,000 – $5,000 a year, except one daughter that got cut out because of her divorce.   Through a trust fund he left his secretary $4,000 a year.  His cook, housekeeper, coachman and chauffeur each got $1,000.  Just for comparison, the 1919 value of $5,000 is comparable to $63,641.62 today, so he didn’t exactly leave them destitute, well, with that one exception.  But he sure as hell didn’t want them to enjoy his millions.  Millions he got from lumber and iron mining.  He even cut the city of Saginaw out of his will over a tax dispute.

Why 21 years though?  Seems to be a legal issue.  According to Danielle Mayoras, attorney and co-author of the book, “Trial & Heirs:  Famous Fortune Fights,” it involves the common law’s rule against perpetuities.  That rule forbids leaving money to anyone 21 years after the death of the last identifiable individual living at the time the will or trust was created, often referred to as preventing control by the “dead hand”.

Great-Great-Great-Grandaughter, Christina Cameron, moved up the inheritance chain after her grandfather died two years ago, and then her mother died at 50 last year.

But what absolutely frickin’ amazes me is what Ms. Cameron, 19, told the “Saginaw News”.  “I’d rather not rely on it,” she said. “I’ll probably just save it. I don’t know; it’s just not as big of a deal to me as it was to most of my family.”  I’m worried about her.  She and her sister Cory will each inherit a bit over $2.5 million.  Yeah, I’d put that in a savings account……..AND LIVE OFF THE FLIPPIN’ INTEREST!!  WTF.  Do you know if you put that money in a savings account at a paltry 4% compounded monthly, you will make over $80,000 a year.  Guess I could live with that.

Is There A Stranger In Your House Spying On Your Every Move?

This one sounds kind of scary, but it’s really not, unless you didn’t know that your personal computer has this capability.  It got scarier for me, though, because there are now websites inviting you to join the class action lawsuit.  “How Does It Feel To Have A Stranger In Your House Spying On Your Every Move From A Hidden Camera On Your Computer?” screams the attorney’s website.  “If you have an Aaron’s, Inc. Computer, contact us now for a free case evaluation…”

What, a hidden camera in computers rented from Aaron Rents?  Well, it seems that a Wyoming couple is suing Aaron’s, Inc. for spying on them.  Brian and Crystal Byrd, of Casper, WY, claim the company showed up at their door with a webcam image of Bryan sitting at the computer.  We don’t know what Bryan was doing other than sitting, but we can only hope for the best.  They were at the Byrd’s doorstep to repossess the computer which had, in fact, been paid off early.  It was mistakenly considered to be in default by the local Aaron’s, their first mistake.  The second one was showing them an unauthorized webcam image.

Well, first of all, the camera is not “hidden” in the computers.  Clearly every customer would know that the camera is there and can capture your image.  At least they should.  The real scary part comes with the knowledge that if they can take your picture without you knowing it, they have the ability to remotely access the computer.  Which means they can intercept and monitor everything you’re doing on that rented computer.  Things like screen shots of your bank statements.  Websites you’ve visited.  Keystrokes.  Images you’ve captured on webcams.  Think they could listen in on your video calls?  Sure.  The Byrd’s allege that Aaron, Inc. did this on a routine basis, collecting data and storing it on their servers. 

Did they do that?  I think not.  What purpose would it serve to show up at a repossession visit with a picture they took of you using the computer?  To prove you had it?  Or to prove you were stupid enough to spy on them?  It makes no sense.  Aaron, Inc., officially denies that this spy software was used by the company or put on its rental computers or used by its independently owned stores.  But how do you explain the alleged unauthorized webcam image?  You have to assume the software was at least installed on the Byrd’s computer by the local Aaron’s Rents store.  The lawsuit alleges that this was confirmed by law enforcement.  The BIG question is why?

And why would you think it stops there?  Do you think “Big Brother” can watch you?  (By the way, the technology has existed for years that allows your television to receive as well as transmit.)  If you don’t know much about the operation of a computer and it’s connectivity to the World Wide Web, then he probably is watching you, just like Aaron’s.  Minimally there should be firewall protection on your computer that prevents this type of invasion.  Your home network should be secured and password protected from unauthorized use as well.  If you don’t know what this is, find out and right now.

Do you know the amount of information that is obtained from you when you visit most websites?  Websites place cookies on your computer, a small text file with a unique ID tag, matching with an ID tag on the website server.  It stores information, like the pages you visit and how long you viewed those pages, and your IP address, and even your location, city and state.  Information you gave the site, and information they “captured” when you signed in.  

I have a website.  I can get daily stats reports.  Even this blog tracks who is reading the stories and where they are coming from.  Do you think I can remotely take your picture?  No.  But I can tell I don’t have enough readers, and you know that over 1,800 readers have “hit” the site just by looking at the counter on the page.  I know which stories they’ve hit, how they got here to read them, but I don’t know if they read them, and I don’t know if any of them are spreading the word about how great these daily doses of interesting stuff are.

I’m not a tech-weenie, but I can promise you I wouldn’t buy or rent anything that I didn’t thoroughly check out and understand how to use.  I have to believe it should have been obvious to Bryan when the picture was snapped, with my understanding how the process works.  Maybe he thought he did it?  Maybe he did and it was stored on the hard drive which Aaron’s could access.  Technically, they’re alleging that Aaron’s could have turned on the webcam and watched the house, well anything happening in front of the camera.  I don’t think they could control it remotely, at least not without making a sound.

And one of the Wyoming law firms that is representing “Brian Byrd and Crystal Byrd, et. al., v.  Aaron’s Inc, et al. (That et al. is an abbreviation in latin which means “and others” in case you didn’t know that.)  is none other than the famous law firm of Jerry Spence.  They see the money and that’s about it.  This isn’t really about protecting the public against violation of federal privacy and technology laws, but it should be.

     

They Have A Humorous Waddle When They Walk

We got skunked over the weekend.  Actually our dog, Sassy, AKC Registered Boston Terrier, Lady Sassafras VII, got a little too curious with a skunk outside our bedroom window at about 2:00 am Sunday morning.  It’s all circumstantial evidence though, we didn’t actually witness the crime.  The stench was so bad it woke both of us.  We’ve had that happen before, but it was someone else’s unfortunate pet, and wasn’t directly under the open window a  story below.

We didn’t think much of it at the time, just tried to get back to sleep trying not to gag, and after a while the eyes did stop watering.  The smell, although still very strong, dissipated enough that we fell back asleep.  We figured that it must have been in a next-door-neighbor’s yard.

Sunday morning we could still smell the normal skunk smell but we also kept smelling a very strong order of burnt rubber.  It would be stronger once in a while and less so in another room.  Then we figured out

Not Sassy, but close.

where it was coming from.  It was the dog.  When she was close to us, there was this smell of burning rubber and rotting eggs, and when she wasn’t in the same room it wasn’t as bad.  My jacket, hanging next to me in my work-space this morning, has the same smell, as does every room in our house including the closets.  I don’t think scented sprays and candles are going to fix this.

So here is the most commonly accepted recipe to remove the burnt tire and rotting egg smell from your dog.  It’s not tomato juice as I always thought.  I guess the only thing worse than skunk smell is the aroma of tomato juice added to the burnt rubber and rotting eggs with a hint of garlic.  Just a caution, the recipe below is extremely dangerous if you try to save any of it for later use.  It has a tendency to explode if kept in a closed container.

You’ll need one quart of hydrogen peroxide, one-quarter cup of baking soda, and one teaspoon of liquid soap (Dawn is preferred it seems).  Mix that up real good in an OPEN container.  Shampoo up your dog with it using a clothes pin on your nose and a little dog shampoo to start it up.  Be exceptionally careful not to get any of this solution in your dogs eyes, nose, ears or mouth.  I haven’t actually tried it yet, but they say it works.

I wish I would have known about this special recipe yesterday, but we just used a shampoo on the dog and got most of the smell out.  I also noticed that there are a lot of skunk smell remover products on the market.  You won’t find the recipe above sold in any stores though, or on an infomercial, because, like I said, you can’t put a lid on the bottle.  You can put it in a spray bottle and use it as an air freshener though.  Just don’t save any of it when you’re done.

It made me wonder who figured it out the formula without blowing themselves up.  Turns out it was invented by Paul Krebaum, an Illinois chemist.  It works because there is an active, yet short-lived, chemical reaction going on with the ingredients and the chemical in the skunk smell.

Skunks are normally active at dawn, dusk or during the night.  That means they’re nocturnal creatures.  They have a humorous waddle when they walk.  They can only see about 18″ in front of them, but their hearing is excellent.   They have  these two glands, one on each side of the anus.  These glands produce about 15cc of a mixture of sulfur-containing chemicals, including methyl and butyl thiols that have a highly offensive odor.  The skunk will use this defensive weapon only sparingly because they only have 5-6 uses before they need to produce more.  Which means they won’t be able to ward off that bear if they run out, because it takes about ten days for the glands to produce more spray.  The biggest danger with regard to your pet though, is that they are prone to rabies, so always check for bite marks.

So that was the excitement for the weekend.  Learned a little more about skunks I didn’t know.  Did you know that you can smell a skunk up to a mile downwind of where they sprayed?  Don’t know how helpful that information might be, except that even though you might think so, that skunk wasn’t as close as you thought.  But just like counting seconds between lightning and thunder to determine how close it is, if you wake up gagging, with your eyes watering and you think somebody is burning tires in your backyard, that skunk was pretty damn close.