doylez.com

the warriors are primed to make this a winning season. even though they lost j-rich, leave it to nellie to formulate a winning team. bellinelli has been playing well in the preseason too.

 

monday started off good, but then tuesday afternoon rolled around and i got called around 3p to hear les say that our house got robbed. wonderful news on top of everything else going on lately. everyone is safe, but the house is thrashed as these hoodlums emptied dressers and closets looking for goodies. since we’re pretty modest, we don’t really have a lot of expensive stuff. furthermore, a lot of our stuff was already packed in the garage because we’ve been staging the house for sale. the single most expensive thing missing is my digital slr camera, 3 lenses and the camcorder, which was all conveniently packaged in my camera bag. bummer. they did leave behind a laptop and my exchange server. i suppose it was a smash-and-grab job so maybe their hands were full already.

our homeowners insurance will take care of some things like the camera, the wife’s purses and jewelry, but the toughest part to deal with is the violation factor that strangers were in our house and going through our stuff. they left behind some tools and i think some house keys, although they’re pr0bably useless clues as to who did it. they came in through a back window they had busted open. we’re usually good about locking the windows and doors before leaving.

as i thought about it, some of these things may have helped:

1. leaving a car parked in the driveway, even an older one. since we normally park our cars inside the garage, it’s hard to tell if we’re home or not unless you look in. lately, since our garage is full of our stuff, we’ve been parking in the driveway and so it’s obvious when we’re home and not.
2.  having a working alarm system. the house came with an older alarm system but we never hooked it up. the thieves still tried to disable it because the alarm box inside was all torn apart. it shows that they’re worried about it. we had an adt alarm system at our old condo and it was like $10 a month to operate. the squealing alarm might be enough to discourage actually entering the house, or maybe not giving them a lot of time to go through and grab stuff.
3. considering what was taken, i came to the conclusion that they grabbed what was small and most available. for example, they still missed a few things that were “one layer deep” meaning not right out on a countertop or something. considering they probably were there 5 mins at the most, they’re not going to dig deep. if you have some valuables, put them a couple layers deep in a container in the closet. for really valuable things, something like this would be unbeatable. never would a house burglar go through every can of food you have in your pantry to find it.
4. keep good records of your purchases and things. i can already tell i’m going to have to fight to get our stuff reimbursed properly from the insurance company. i kept some of the camera paperwork and things, but i don’t have the physical receipts at the ready to show the claims adjuster. scan the receipts and post them to a flickr account or email them to yourself. that way, they’ll always be there.

considering what i do, i can say that it’s almost easier to keep out digital thieves with the use of firewalls and encryption, compared to keeping people outside of your house. no matter what sort of security you have in your home (alarm, security cameras, window locks), it would not have stopped what happened in my house yesterday. the police take some time to get there if the alarm were to go off, they probably wore a hat or hoodie and they can bust through a window if necessary to get in.

my last thought would be to say just save your money and don’t get really nice stuff at your house – or at least don’t get really attached to it. keep your really sentimental and irreplaceable stuff in a safe inside the house or a safe deposit box at the bank.

had a good weekend with the family. alyssa is hanging out a bit more than usual, so that’s nice to have the entire unit out together. took friday off work to go to kevin & rhianna’s wedding at tilden park. the scenery was really nice and marcos had a good chance to play with some other little relatives of ours that we don’t see too frequently. even though it looks like salem is tackling marcos, he actually likes her the most of all the kids.

she always does a good job watching him…better than some of her older cousins, considering she’s like 7 or so.

saturday, home depot had a little thing with the fremont fire department. the hook-n-ladder had to leave in the middle of it to respond to a call but marcos got a good inspection of the undercarriage before they left.

most of the other kids were lining up to sit inside the cab, but this son of mine inspected the chassis and drivetrain pretty thoroughly. note the filipino squat in the picture above.

sunday, we all headed up to sf to watch the blue angels as part of the fleet week stuff. they didn’t have quite so many open ships as in years past. my suspicion is that the navy is not so enthused to do their show anymore since the bay area is so liberal and generally not supportive of military actions, especially these days. dad said that sf even tried to cut out fleet week altogether, probably for the gay policies and the iraq war stuff. it doesn’t surprise me. regardless of the politics of it all, it would be nice for them to come out so the kids can get interested. they’re only perpetuating the whole feeling by keeping their good ships from the show. how can the show be useful as a recruiting tool if you bring out a coast guard cutter and a guided missle frigate instead of a big ol battleship or aircraft carrier? at least the blue angels were in town and that was a good show.

again, marc slept through most of it, even the solo f-16 with full afterburner. not even a flinch.

pictures posted for all three events in the photos section. login required.