Just wondering. . .

How did all of those footprints get on the parking garage elevator doors? If you stand in the elevator and look at the door, there are BIG footprints all the way up to the top of the door -- and not just one or two, more like 10 or 12.

Are people jumping up and kicking the door (but with their whole foot and not just the toe, the way normal people kick?)

Or are they taking off their shoes and pounding them against the door?

just wondering. . .

New Favorite Word

For years, my favorite word has been "defenestrate" -- to throw something (or more apt, someone) out a window. From the Latin de- (off, or out of) and fenestra, window. Interesting is that the German word for window -- das Fenster comes from the Latin (at least I think -- haven't researched it and it could be a, a, uh, false cognate.) There is an old Germanic term -- Windlass from which English gets our window.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes you have gone forever without hearing/knowing a word, and then you hear it once and suddenly it is all over the place? When we moved to Germany, we took a book (such a hard decision, which books to take and which to put in storage) by M. Hunstberger (?), The Quintessential Dictionary, and that's where I first came across "defenestrate."

When I visited Prague with some friends, we got to visit the sites of the "Defenestration of Prague". There were at least two defenestrations of Prague, but this was the one that kicked off the Thirty Years War. As an aside, wherever you go in central Europa, you will find a monument to the event that kicked off the Thirty Years War. In this defenestration, a couple of governors were thrown out of a castle window -- they landed on some manure and survived. (The defenestratees of the first defenestration weren't so lucky -- I think five or six of them died.) What is it with Praguers (Pragians? Praguites?) and defenestrations?

Now vying for position of my new favorite word is "snarky" -- it's one of those words that you just know what it means even when you have no context. Supposedly it is a contraction of "snide" and "remark". (and I haven't forgotten Lewis Carroll's Snark, either.)

They Killed the Cat!

When I was going through the house after the burglary, I looked up at a high shelf in the storeroom and saw a cat paw sticking out from the shelf. "Oh, no! They've killed and dismembered our cat!" I actually started to cry, and then I gingerly touched the protruding foot, and then Prince Genji stretched, trilled and looked down at me -- "well hello, what's for dinner?" What a relief.

WooHoo Two!

Follow up to our burglary story --

This morning I had an appointment with Detective Tate to discuss our burglary. It seems that some people had burgled 3 homes in our neighborhood, 5 in East Austin, and perhaps another one somewhere else in Austin. One of them (we’ll call her “Miss H.”) took the loot to a pawn shop (perhaps more than one?) where the serial numbers were entered into a data base that the Austin Police check on a frequent basis.

In the meantime, Miss H. and her bad-news boyfriend “borrowed” a friend’s car and drove to San Antonio. They didn’t return the car in a timely manner and the friend reported the call as stolen. They were caught with the car in San Antonio, and the boyfriend was incarcerated. Because Miss H. had used her own i.d. to pawn the stolen goods, she was of course apprehended when they ran her name through the system.

After a night with her mother (whom it appears somehow got some sense into her), Miss H. decided to cooperate with the police. She drove through Austin with them, pointing out the crime scenes and giving quite detailed information about each one. “We hit this one early in the morning. We entered by reaching up through the dog door and unlocking the door. We took X, Y, Z, and A, B, C.” (that was our house.) She was so detailed and thorough that Detective Tate asked her, “Why, with such a detailed memory are you doing this with your life? – there has got to be something better you can do with those skills.” (I'm thinking the same thing -- waitress, doctor, biologist, secretary, you name it, she could use those skills.)

Detective Tate did assure me that my mother’s Mossman acoustic guitar (with the Sitka Spruce top and the Brazilian Rosewood back) had been recovered. The Apple iMac was probably recovered too – they are still sorting through the detritus of 8 or 9 robberies. (and perhaps detritus isn't quite the right word, since we hope the stuff hasn't disintegrated and eroded. "the remains of 8 or 9 robberies"? "the odds and ends of 8 or 9 robberies"?) We now have to wait for the property hearings (which come after pleas, trials, and sentencing), unless the pawn shops are willing to sign waivers. Our detective assured us that he was going to try to do all he could to sweet talk the pawn shops into signing the waivers. (We're thinking that his "sweet talk" isn't what you think of when you think "sweet talk." Maybe some serious arm twisting?)

Detective Tate and the rest of the burglary team at APD rock!

College Day

Last Friday morning I got a call from a high school student who said he wanted to visit our university today. We frequently have prospective students visit, but this one said something about our tour -- which we don't have. I explained that we were an advising office -- which major(s) are you interested in? He thought a moment and said, "Physics." He said that he was coming from a suburb near here and would arrive before 11:30.

At 11:25, this group of four high school students came in -- bouncing off the walls, to boot. "It's our College Day, they let us out for the day, we're supposed to be visiting colleges today!"

Since my office has 3 visitor chairs, and I had files and advising cards on 2 of them, and we weren't anticipating any other student visits before noon, I said, "Why don't I just talk to you out here in the reception room? What would you like to know about our school and physics?"

"Well, what can you do with a degree in physics?"

Perfectly good question, one of the more common ones (especially from the parents), so I went into my usual spiel about majors/careers/grad & professional schools/government/business/industry/teaching/etc. (and also how the job they may get 5 or 6 years from now might not even exist today.)

Then the girl pipes up -- "What time & where is cheerleading practice?" --- which, having been unceremoniously kicked out of pep club in high school, totally threw me for a loop, "Uh," I asked the other advisor, "do you know where cheerleader practice is?"

Two of the other guys are bouncing in and out of the room. A couple of similar questions are asked and answered.

One of the students has been studying the mass of students and faculty walking past our glass doors -- he looks at his buddy and then asks me, "Is there a dress code here?" (at this point I want to say, "Normally suits and ties, but this is casual Friday.")

Then the student who asked the dress code question has another one, "Can we walk around here?"

I know now what I need to do. They really don't want to be here -- they just got released for a day, and they want to have a chance to goof off a bit. Turning to the student who asked the only question pertaining to academics, I ask, "Do you need a letter from me to take back to your teacher or counselor?"

"Yes, but him and her are already out of school. Just him and me need a letter."

I quickly type out a letter and gave the two who weren't "already out of school" (does that mean they've graduated early? . . . or dropped out?) some information about our office and majors. "Well, I hope I see you back here in a year or so."

"Thank you, ma'am!"

(note, I've made it a point not to blog about my students or colleagues, but these aren't my students -- YET!)

WooHoo!

Tonight as I pulled into the driveway (late, as I'd gone to a lecture in the CS dept. -- more on that later), I felt my cell phone vibrating. (Mid-way through the lecture I'd realized that the ringer was set on LOUD -- Dr. Cline didn't look like the type to appreciate a roaring rendition of "Scotland the Brave" during his talk -- so I set it to vibrate, and forgot to switch it back afterwards.)

It was Scott on the phone (he's the only one who calls me on the cell anyway) and I said, "I'm in the driveway."

"Oh," he said, "I'll come out and talk to you like a normal person," and within a few seconds he was by my car. "There's a message on the answering machine that you should listen to -- it's the second one on there."

Could it be -- I couldn't bring myself to think it, but yes, it was a Detective Tate, who said, "We caught some people in San Antonio who were responsible for the burglary of your home. Can you call me on Monday to set up an appointment to give a full statement? And can you get me an itemized list of what was taken?"

WOOHOO! They caught them! Now, if only they still have some of our stuff -- in priority order, we'd really want my mother's guitar, the computer/printer, and Scott's rifle. (We want the other stuff, too, but those are the most important/valuable on several levels.)

We haven't felt this good in a couple of weeks, so we went and celebrated with enchiladas (w/verde sauce) and a Mexican martini. (o.k., Scott celebrated with a diet coke, since he is the designated driver.)

WooHoo!

Being Burgled

It's taken me a couple of weeks to recover from this experience -- I was physically ill for a couple of days -- nauseous, etc.

I came home one Tuesday at noon -- not my normal routine, but I needed a break after surviving the first couple of weeks of add/drops at school.

The patio door was slightly ajar, which raised a bit of an alarm, since I'm pretty careful about locking doors, checking doors, rechecking doors. I pushed the door open with my toe, and knew right off something was wrong, since the armoire and store room doors were open. "OH NO!" -- ran back to the "Room of Music and Contemplation" (most people would call this a living room) and the computer and printer were gone.

(And in retrospect, I probably shouldn't have gone into the house as soon as I noticed things were amiss -- what if the burglars were still there? Of course, there weren't any cars around.) I went out into the yard, just as one of our retired neighbors pulled up -- they'd been gone all morning and hadn't seen anything. Another retired neighbor emerged -- same thing -- didn't see a thing.

Called the police -- 311 -- someone took the basic info and said that someone would contact us to get us a case number and take fingerprints. Called S. in Ft. Worth -- "You have GOT to come home NOW" -- he was there by 5 p.m.

At some point I went down the hallway -- an old, small tv/vcr was missing from my "clutter" room. All of the drawers in our bedroom had been rifled through, and the canvas baskets in one of the closets had been overturned. Nothing was missing from the bedroom, though -- not even my mother's squash blossom necklace and some other Indian jewelry.

Other things missing -- a larger TV, perhaps 8 years old -- the color was always sort of washed out, and we could never get it adjusted properly; a fax/answering machine that came with a 60+ page manual (which they didn't get) which never worked well -- you could never set the answering machine for 4 rings; a Karcher pressure washer (brand new, with special release fittings added by S.); an old DVD player that we'd never hooked up; and worst of all, my mother's guitar -- a 76 Mossman Great Plains, which needs a lot of expensive work to be playable. (I've already contacted the manufacturer, and need to contact some other repair places, although the one place I had look at it in Austin recommended that we have the manufacturer work on it.)

The police never came that first day, and I was too sick/stunned to care. S. realized a rifle was missing, so I called them the next day and told them that -- they apologized profusely, and S. said someone was at the house within an hour to take fingerprints -- he said they spent more than an hour on forensic stuff.

We did have the serial numbers for the computer, gun, printer, power washer and guitar. I don't care about the other stuff -- in fact, I get a secret joy knowing the hassle they are going to have with the fax machine -- you can't even use it as a printer anymore, since something I did to it the last time messed it up. It was in the storeroom until we had a yard sale.

We're not 100% sure how they got in. I'm so sure that I locked the patio door -- Scott thinks he may have left the kitchen door unlocked (yikes, for two weeks), but I think I would have noticed that. There is a BIG dog door in the kitchen door that we were using for the cats -- the detective said she could crawl through that if she didn't have her belt & gear on. Someone could have reached up through the dog door and gotten the deadbolt key -- in fact, that key was missing, so we rekeyed all the locks. We also put locks on the backyard gates -- someone could still break in if they wanted too, but this will make it a little more difficult. S. made the dog door smaller, too.

The woman we bought the house from told us once, "Oh, there's always people coming in and out the house -- we don't even lock the patio door, and I always keep a key on the kitchen window sill." The first thing we did when we moved in was change the locks, and the first thing we did after the burglary was to have the locks rekeyed.

Well, off to check Craigslist, eBay, pawn shops, etc.

Arrg, We've Been Burgled!

More details to follow, but I will say that once I got through to a real human being at the end of the insurance logic tree, she asked, "Is this a loss/liability claim?" or some other insurance-ese that threw me aback for a moment. Uh, didn't she already know what I wanted? Did I not punch the right numbers on the phone keypad and say "yes" and "no" at the right times?

Apparently not, so I told her, "We've been burgled."

"You've been WHAT?!" she said.

Obviously I am not enunciating clearly in my state of shock. "We . . . have . . . been . . . burgled."

"What's that?" she asked.

Have I reached the wrong section of insurance? Does she work in the "cosmetic repair of chipped automobile windshields department" so she doesn't recognize terms not relevant to her area of work? "Someone came into our house and took our stuff."

"Oh -- you've been BURGLARIZED!"

Sigh, she thinks not only have I been burglarized, I'm so traumatized that I'm making up words.

(this post was made possible by the loan of a sweet little graphite clamshell iBook. thanks, CH!)

Time for another house pic

The white is white Austin limestone. We like the roof -- easy to maintain, nice surface for solar panels, no weird gables to collect leaks, etc. Someday the lawn will be a native TX wildflowers & TX plants field -- this is our stealth project. S. is rototilling the front yard little by little, covering the dirt with plastic to solarize it and cook the remaining grass, and then we're going to plant it with purple coneflower, liatris, bluebonnet, indian blanket, little bluestem, turk's cap, velvet leaf mallow, whatever will grow without gobs of water. The house at the far end of our street -- a couple blocks away -- has already done this, so our house will sort of be a "bookend" -- and perhaps the madness will spread, bwa-ha-ha!

Little Googlemapping Game

1. Think of some human construction or other geographical feature that could be seen from a satellite photo
2. Try to find it on Google Maps on your own
a. try to find it first with just your own knowledge of geography (i.e., the Great
Pyramids are across the Nile from Cairo)
b. use the hybrid map/satellite feature
c. last resort -- open a tab on your browser and find a regular map of the area

3. Variation -- find something unusual, and try to figure out what the heck it is.

Here are a couple (I couldn't get the "insert link" feature to work correctly, so you'll have to cut and paste):

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=29.977316,31.134396&spn=0.022108,0.045540&t=k&hl=en

and

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=39.913561,116.394959&spn=0.018793,0.045540&t=k&hl=en

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=36.114581,-112.202511&spn=0.079176,0.182158&t=k&hl=en

more to follow. . .