My Victim Check

This week's mail brought a check for $11.49 from Travis County Community Supervision & Correction's Victim Services unit as the first of the restitution payments for our burglary. (22 rifle, fax machine & the cost of replacing 4 locks.) The perp (Miss H.) was supposed to have started making payments last February or March, and I'm assuming there is a bit of a gap between the time she makes the payment & the time the county cuts the check.

I'd been meaning to call and tell them that we'd found the rifle at the ranch, but I couldn't find my letter from them that had the case number. The check had the case number (well, most of it) and the phone number for victims services (which I'd also lost), so I was able to call them today to get this straightened out, since we really don't want Miss H. to have to pay for something she didn't take.

When I called, it took them a bit of time to find everything, since the check didn't have the last 4 numbers of the case, I've got a fairly common name, and the perp had a common name, and, as the victim's services advocate said, "She's got a lot of cases!" We knew that she'd been involved in at least 6 burglaries that happened about the time they hit our house.

Well, we do hope Miss H. gets her life back on track, and perhaps it will be a bit easier for her, since now she has slightly less to pay off. We are grateful to her for cooperating with the police, and helping the victims get most of their belongings back.

NOTE: The Miss H. who burgled us is not the Miss H. on my MySpace friend's page. That Miss H. is the Austin High School art teacher who got fired because a friend had posted nude photos of her on the internet.

I Didn't Get to See the Dixie Chicks :-(

FRANK ERWIN CENTER, 1701 Red River

Disorderly Conduct: A non-UT subject rushed past the ticket taker in an attempt to enter the Dixie Chicks concert after presenting only a backstage pass. The subject stated that she was in a hurry then unleashed a tirade of offensive language that would have had any salty sailor blushing from embarrassment. Once the subject regained control of her emotions, the officer explained to her the security protocol that was required to enter into the Center. Again the subject's tongue unleashed a scathing tirade that displayed the shallow depth of her wordsmithing ability. During the investigation, the officer contacted the security director for the tour and the subject was released to him. Occurred on: 12-04-06, at 8:30 PM.

John Safran vs Mormons

I have considered going door to door to talk about my beliefs or lack thereof -- or at least standing on the corner at the University to pass out freethought literature on the days the Gideons come to campus to pass out the little green New Testaments, but John Safran has actually done something about it.

My New Blog is Ready?

But I need to sign in with my Google account? Do I even have a Google account? I probably do, but what was the password? And if I can't remember, did I write it in my big book o' secret password codes? And if I did write it in the big book o' secret password codes, can I remember the secret code for that password?

Bother.

On the other hand, drag and drop elements sound tempting.

Has anyone tried the new Blogger?


And it's almost time for y'all to start thinking about your New Year's Revolutions. One of mine will be to post all those postcards that have been piling up all semester. Brother-in-law & Sister-in-law just sent a nice one from the Gran Pantanal, Brazil.

Someone Stole My Coffee!

So, I stumble into RLM, actually a bit earlier than normal. I ordered a non-fat double latte with an extra shot, and went 5 steps away from the coffee stand to open up the office and put up my lunch. R.H. and I exchanged a few words, and I went back to the stand to get my caffeine fix -- but it's not there!

Kristin looked at the counter, looked at me -- said, "It was right there! -- Hey, did someone take a double non-fat latte with an extra shot? Hey you, over there at the condiment table!" This poor guy turned around and said, "I just had a small regular coffee."

Kristin said she'd replace the drink as soon as she finished the one she was making. A moment later she shouted out, "Double Caramel Decaf Soy Latte! Double Caramel Decaf Soy Latte!" but no one came to the counter to claim it.

Am I a bad person for having a bit of schadenfreude that someone who is perhaps lactose intolerant and an avoider of caffeine was walking around all sick and jittery that day?

We Didn't Get Arrested (On the Barricade)

(click on the title above for some information about Accenture)

The Texas State Employee's Union General Assembly started this Friday by surprising Accenture with 150 or so protesters wearing our new red General Assembly shirts. Most of us didn't know where we were going until a few moments before the buses were to be boarded, right at rush hour on Friday afternoon. We were told our destination along with directions to "get out of the bus and on to the sidewalk as fast as you can, because the buses are on private property."

I was one of the marshals which means, instead of getting a badge and a gun, I got a an armband, a bull horn, and a list of chants as well as a big poster to carry.

I'm sure I looked pretty funny trying to negotiate the march line with all of that -- the bullhorn they gave me required the use of two hands and it didn't work, I stupidly took my shoulder bag, the armband kept falling down my arm, I couldn't read the print on the list of chants, so I had to fumble with my reading glasses -- and the chain that keeps the glasses around my neck kept getting tangled up with my delegate lanyard and badge as well as the poster hanging around my neck -- all that while yelling "They say privatize -- WE SAY ORGANIZE! Finally, one of the other marshals said that he would try to fix the bullhorn (sadly he couldn't), but at least I had one less thing to deal with. (I just read this to SRI, and he said, "Obviously, you needed to get organized, Susan!")

One of our instructions before we left was that if anyone were to approach us to ask who was in charge, we were to say -- at this time I piped up, "The guy in the red shirt!" (we were all wearing red shirts) -- but the correct answer was, "I don't know."

We weren't bothered by any of the Accenture building security, although up to 30 employees from the building came out and watched us. Accenture is at one of the busiest corners in Austin -- IH 35 and Ben White. We marched back in front of the building for half an hour or so and then walked back to the buses. We had to walk past WalMart to get there, and they actually had their security there watching us.

And what is Accenture, and why would we want to protest?

Here is some information about from TSEU:

"Privatization is a boondoggle that has already wasted millions of Texas taxpayers' dollars. Bermuda-based Accenture LLP has already pocketed nearly $100 million on a $1 billion contract, and what Texas gets is the call center disaster. DeLoitte charged us millions for the TIERS system that still does not work. Convergys has collected millions of dollars to run a high-tech, on-line Human Resources system that has produced chaos in five state agencies.

Based on this history of success, privateers have targeted Child Protective Services, the Texas Workforce Commission, state universities, and many other state services."

Accenture is also the company responsible for the voter purge in Florida before the 2000 presidential elections (in which felons were to be purged from the voter rolls, but many who weren't felons were also cut from the rolls.) Accenture also put the wrong number for applicants for Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, food stamps and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families to fax completed forms and documentation -- instead of going to the Accenture offices in Austin, the faxes were ending up in a warehouse in Seattle, totally confounding the workers there. More info here:

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13659

One of the women on the bus to the rally said that she had tried to call (the outsourced) payroll services for her unit. (I'm not quite sure if this is Accenture or Convergys -- another outsource provider.) Someone answered the phone from another office. "Is this payroll?" "No, this is Human Resources" (or some other non-payroll unit.) "But I asked to be connected to payroll." "Yes, but there is a 30 - 40 minute wait to get through to payroll, so they are routing the calls to other offices." "Can you help me with a payroll issue?" "No." "May I please speak to your supervisor?" Interestingly, I just read an article that said that the abandonment rate for this agency had gone down -- well, yeah, duh, if you route the calls to the wrong place so that it doesn't look like people are hanging up . . .

In Memoriam (Texas State Employees Union Members)

I'll have another post or two on the General Assembly of the Texas State Employees Union with in a day or so, but this is something I wanted to put up right away.

A few years ago I was walking to a far away parking garage after dark -- the security guard informed me that I am encouraged to call the campus police for an escort whenever I had to walk in the dark on campus.

Two weeks ago, a student in extreme distress came to my office late in the day. He said that after he'd left my office the day before, someone named Marcus, and a couple of other people named Marcus started following him. I asked him how he knew that they were Marcus -- "Because they called me." The conversation disintegrated from there. When another student came to the office to add a class, I was able to contact my supervisor who notified the police. The police got there very quickly, but the distressed student was already gone. They found him a little later, and were able to get him to where he could get the assistance he needed.

On August 9, 2006, two of my fellow union members were kidnapped from the on-campus parking lot of the Lubbock State School. A week or so later, the decapitated body of one of the women, Kay Harrelson) was found (although it is unclear as to the cause of the dismemberment -- it may have been due to animals.) The other woman, Kay Merimon, has not been found.

TSEU has called for restoration of discontinued security services on the campus and for additional steps to protect the security of staff and residents.

I'll never take our security staff and UTPD for granted again; however, the Texas legislature seems intent on slashing government services.

BTW, Ann Richards was a TSEU member, so she was on the list of deceased members.

A POSTSCRIPT:

Since I posted this, I discovered that the two women actually disappeared at lunch and they have a suspect under investigation -- it's some guy who works at that school. He didn't return to work after lunch, and he called in sick the next day. He lied about when he left -- he was caught on his apartment complex's security camera at lunchtime when he said he didn't get home until much later, and he said he was alone, but the camera showed someone else in his car.

More UT Crime Line/Campus Watch News

I can see it now -- sentenced to hard labor, the poor little squirrel struggles to move while attached to a little ball and chain made out of paperclips and a golf ball:

KINSOLVING DORMITORY

Criminal Mischief: As reported by a Campus Watch subscriber:

My husband and I were visiting our daughter, a UT student. As we, our daughter and 2 of her friends exited Kinsolving dorm Sat. Sept. 23 just after sunset, we saw a squirrel jump up on a bike seat and attack it. The seat was a soft one, foam covered with cloth. The squirrel ripped open the cloth in several places and used its paws to pull out the stuffing. We tried to scare it off, even throwing water on it, but it kept coming back. We couldn’t think of anything else to do to help the poor person who will have a destroyed bike seat. If you want, I could send you a picture of this perpetrator in the act of vandalism.

The Continuing Saga of Acne Girl and Sushi Boy

A follow up to yesterday's post -- one of my co-workers said that I should NOT try to hook these two up. After yesterday's escapade, she has come to the conclusion that Sushi Boy is too good for Acne Girl:

ROBERT L. MOORE HALL, 2515 Speedway

Failure to Identify / Attempted Theft: UT police officers responded to RLM on a reported suspicious person who had stolen a Dr. Pepper on 9-20-06. At the time of the theft the suspect was described as an Asian female, wearing a pink shirt and tan pants. When officers arrived, the owner of the vending cart pointed to an Asian female wearing a pink shirt and tan pants. The owner stated that the female had attempted to take a package of "Goldfish" crackers, and got her hand caught in the cookie jar. During the investigation, the subject stated that she was a current UT student, but provided a false name and date of birth. The officers realized that the subject was not forthcoming with her correct information; she was asked to repeat her telephone number and could not remember the number that she had just given. The subject admitted that she had lied about all of her personal information. The subject was taken into custody for Failure to Identify and transported to Central Booking. Occurred on: 9-21-06, at 10:10 AM.

(In yesterday's Campus Watch, the female perp was described as having acne.)

Crime Watch in RLM

This happened in RLM yesterday (From the Campus Watch):

ROBERT L. MOORE HALL, 2515 Speedway
 
Theft: An unknown female was observed removing a can of Dr. Pepper from an unsecured storage cabinet and walked away without paying for the item.  The coffee shop owner yelled at the female to stop and followed her out of the building.  The unknown female is described as: Asian female, 28-30 years of age, shoulder length hair, with acne.  She was last seen wearing a pink T-shirt and tan pants.  Loss value: $.75.  Occurred on: 9-20-06, at 12:31 PM.
 
The perp returned to the scene of the crime yesterday -- she went into the library, so their security video picked her up -- the library staff gave the video to the coffee shop people who were going to show it to the police.

Then this came in on the campus watch right after the above theft:

UNION BUILDING, #4 West Mall
 
Theft: A UT staff member observed an unknown subject take a handful of sushi from a private vender located on the second floor.  The subject left the area prior to the arrival of the officer.  The subject was described as: white male wearing an orange shirt.  Loss value: $4.00.  Occurred on: 9-19-06, at 7:00 PM.

My "matchmaking urges" (ala Ski Boy and Bikini Girl from a couple of years back, and there were also my efforts with trying to get the two cute redhead government major twins hooked up with the cute business twins, but one of the business major twins said that he and his brother didn't like to date twins) kicked in -- I have got to get these two matched up -- what a dream date -- she can take care of the drinks, and he'll get the food!


Well, there is a postscript to this story -- the female perp returned to RLM today and tried to rip off another can of Dr. Pepper -- this time the staff chased her off before she could take the product. But a little later, K., the manager of the stand, was upstairs, and she saw her sitting on a bench, reading. The perp didn't know who K. was (it was another employee who chased her yesterday) so K. nonchalantly used her cell phone to call the police. They arrived and K. said, "That's her!"

She didn't press charges though -- she just wanted to get her attention, and I think she gets handed over to Student Judicial Services.

(and Note to Self: "don't steal from a building that you spend a lot of time in!")

It's always a lot of fun in the RLM,