Crime Wave at the Brave Astronaut Launchpad

Loyal readers may recall that Brave Astronaut was a crime victim shortly after moving into our great little town. We rebounded from that and have had no incidents since. Until this weekend. In the Brave Astronaut backyard, we discovered that two of the trees planted by our predecessors were plum trees and were bearing fruit this year (evidently it takes plum trees three years to decide to fruit). There is also a sour cherry tree, but I missed those, as they had all become dry, shriveled black dots.

I had been enjoying the fruit with my lunch and LBA had great fun plucking plums off the tree to eat in the yard on a comfortable summer evening. My neighbors were beneficiaries as well, as I shared with them a bag of the bountiful plums. I enjoyed the last of the ones I had picked on Monday with my lunch and Monday evening went out to pick a new bowlful of plums.

Much to my aggravation, every single plum was gone off the trees. Ripe ones, unripe ones, a few that had fallen off the trees to the ground, not one plum remained. There was no evidence of animals having done this (broken limbs, a gnawed plum on the ground, nothing) - it was clearly a human culprit. My neighbors did not see anything, but this clearly took place during the daylight and if only one person, they were in my backyard for at least 15-20 minutes. Yesterday evening, I emailed the Chief of Police to inform him of the situation. I didn't necessarily need to file a police report, I just wanted to let him know what was up.

Then this morning, I looked out on to my back deck and noticed a propane tank, which I had on the deck awaiting a fill up from a propane delivery service was missing. There were three tanks total and now there were only two. This obviously happened between 12:30am and 7:00am. I emailed the Chief again and received a very nice phone call from him.

I guess it's time to install a surveillance camera and perhaps an invisible electric fence. That might work. I'm aggravated by the whole thing, but I'll get over it. Sometimes, however, I feel like Nate Fisher from HBO's Six Feet Under, "I hate the living."

UPDATE: Mission Control has learned that my neighbor was confused about the delivery date for the propane and took back his tank early this morning. So no extra propane for him. Unless he gets on the Propane Taxi bandwagon.

Well there's this thing and this one, and that one

I had a lot to say. I have several posts queued up and ready to go. They need a little editing before they go out. And I'll get to them in do time. I need to feel the creative juices flow a little more before they are "perfect."

One thing I was going to report on tonight (when I learned that today was the anniversary) was the Iron Curtain speech by Winston Churchill, which took place on this date in 1946. Click here for a little .wav file from the speech. It is also the anniversary of the Boston Massacre.

Then I saw on the Interwebs that Patrick Swayze was dying of pancreatic cancer, which was soon refuted by his doctors that, while yes he did have pancreatic cancer, his death was not imminent.

Kottke.org had this YouTube link, offering up a brief history of evil, noted as "an (animated (and condensed (and brief (and truncated)))) history of evil. Almost as interesting for the comments as for the video itself." But I didn't want to just go with a link posting.

Perhaps one of the reasons my day was so disjointed was that my slumber was disturbed last night and not by my normal bouts with insomnia. The doorbell rang at 2:00am (which is in that time of night when the volume of things is increased by some exponential value). I had only been asleep for about an hour as I had been watching the returns come in from the primaries, so I was especially groggy as one gets shortly after having fallen asleep. At the door was one of my town's finest, informing me that my wife's car had been broken into and the stereo ripped out. He knew this because (Alleluia!) they had captured the cretins and the stereo will likely be returned soon. Here's a post from my neighbor about the incident.

This had occurred around midnight (when I was still up) and during a rather heavy rainstorm. But I never heard anything other than the rain. So now I am having the nice glass people come and repair both that car's window and my car's windshield, which has had a crack for some time and is on the move again.

Is there any wonder why I'm always tired?

Good News, Bad News for the Archives Profession

Let's start with the good news. I work in Washington, DC. Most of my faithful readers know where. So allow me to step out from behind the curtain to highlight one of my colleagues, who is also a real hoot. She will also be on the program when MARAC travels to lovely Chautauqua, New York in the spring. (I have been given assurances the lake will no longer be frozen.) Imagine my surprise when I picked up the Washington Post on Sunday and happened to note on the front page of the jobs section (a section that neither Mrs. BA or I read regularly - we have jobs that we like) a side bar article titled, "Among Fragile Records The Archivists Reign." "Ms. P" points out in the article, "the job requires "patience and a sense of humor" as well as the ability to work independently and search for answers in all kinds of fragile materials." I guess I am doing the right kind of work.

So, bad news. I used to work in New York, but not at the New York State Archives. Let me state for the record, I do not know this individual. But he certainly gives the profession a bad name. Take your pick on any of the links below.

• Archivist Accused of Stealing Artifacts - AP
• State Worker Admits He Stole Historical Artifacts - Newsday (Long Island)
• A History Buff Uncovers Thefts of American History Treasures - New York Times
• New York State Employee Arrested for Selling Historic Documents on eBay - Information Week
• Man Arrested in eBay Sale of Historic Documents - Reuters

Or you can do a Google News search for New York State Archives theft or some variation and get all the latest updates. Those of us in government services are paid well for what we do, as you can see in the article regarding Connie, and even to learn what Mr. Morello was being paid. I could wax on philosophically about how we are the keepers of the flame, that we are supposed to protect the knowledge. But I am stunned to read how this individual stole these items to pay his daughter's credit card debt. For shame, sir. For shame.

In other news, my father arrived today. Tomorrow he is on his own in Washington, DC, so if you see a lost 79-year old on the National Mall, call me. Saturday, we may head toward Annapolis to see the Naval Academy or in the other direction to see how the Marines do museums.