Other thoughts on the break-in

A few more thoughts to share on the break-in.

1. The guy must not be from around here because our home actually makes a terrible target. While it is on the end of a street, many of our neighbors walk right by our house constantly. Any intruder is bound to be seen. On this particular day one of our neighbors had walked by just minutes before.

2. Our would-be intruder was seen, by at least two alert neighbors. Our neighbors look out for each other in a big way. We know who lives here and who is a stranger in our midst. Many neighborhoods in Raleigh can’t say that. I sleep well at night knowing the neighborhood’s got our backs.

3. Our would-be intruder was recorded on video. It pays to live in a geeky neighborhood.
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Neighbor captures video of break-in suspect

Break-in suspect

After our attempted break-in Friday, a friend reminded me of a neighbor’s security cameras outside his home, suggesting his cameras might have filmed the perpetrator. On a whim I asked my neighbor to check his system. Sure enough, his camera did capture video of the suspect on Friday (empty-handed, I might add). The video is here. [some weird M$-proprietary WMV format]

The detective working our case told me today that the fingerprints they recovered from our window are being processed by CCBI. Hopefully, we’ll have an identification of the guy soon. In the meantime, the photo of the suspect has been distributed to all the line officers in RPD’s downtown and southeast districts, and rides in the cab of Engine 7 of the Raleigh Fire Department. It’s good to have friends in uniform!

Needle recovered

We recovered the needle Rocket swallowed this morning, thanks to my father-in-law Neil’s metal detector. It was in the “batch” Rocket provided yesterday morning, so it had actually been out of him a full day.

I had checked that bag at the time he provided but thought there was nothing in it, as I had been looking for a 2 inch long needle rather than the one inch kind that it actually was. At any rate, I’m glad we’re not taking that particular “gift” home with us!

Needle Dog

Rocket's needle

We’ve been spending the Thanksgiving weekend at Kelly’s parents’ home in Virginia. Yesterday, the kids were helping string popcorn in the kitchen. Rocket took advantage of an opportunity to eat a piece of popcorn and swallowed the needle that was threaded through it. Everyone watched helplessly as the thread disappeared down our dumb dog’s throat.

We loaded him up in the car and headed to the Swansons’ vet in Haymarket. After Rocket got an x-ray, we were told that there were two options to remove the needle: surgery or an endoscopy. Estimated cost was $3000. Ouch! We couldn’t get the endoscopy done there; it could only be done in Leesburg at The LifeCenter. So, I loaded the dog in the car, said goodbye to Kelly and Linda, and drove 30 miles to Leesburg.

The vet there gave me positive news. There was a good chance the needle would pass without surgery. If we chose to proceed with an endoscopy, it might run from $1200 to $1800. After talking it over with Kelly we decided to try the endoscopy.
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Recruiter’s office

I took our dog to the emergency vet in Leesburg yesterday (the topic of another post). The vet’s office just happened to be near the building where I once signed up for the Navy. In the fall of 1987, I walked into the Navy Recruiting office that was upstairs in this building at 26 Plaza Street. It looks like the Marine Corps still has an office there, but no sign of the Navy anymore. Now it’s the home of a tattoo parlor called Insane Ink.

It made me smile to see the building again.

Home break-in averted!

No sooner had I put the finishing touches on my Asterisk alarm script that it got put to use on a real break-in attempt! I stared in disbelief when an actual alarm message came in, thinking that perhaps it was a test message that had only now gotten delivered. When I saw that the alarm type wasn’t one I was using to test my script, I called RPD dispatchers. I then scrambled to find my neighbors’ phone numbers to confirm what was happening.

The break-in attempt was unsuccessful as the alarm sounded as soon as the guy pried open the window. He fled, but not before two of my neighbors caught a glimpse of him. Police arrived, searched the house, and determined that no one had been inside. They secured the window and rearmed the system. My neighbors have since offered to secure the window themselves.

The funny thing is that I was literally testing the system at 10 AM this morning. When the real alarm came in, Kelly called me right after our alarm called.

“How many times today is our house going to be broken into?,” she asked, jokingly.

“Uh, honey? That was a real alarm.”

The police have plenty of clues about the perpetrator. He’s a white guy with a similar build as me, who was riding a bike and wearing a bike helmet. He took off but I would guess that it won’t be long before he’s apprehended.

I’m glad I found out about it five seconds after it happened!

Update 27 Nov: At least six other homes in the area were broken into or attempted yesterday. At one home, the intruder actually took a moment to cook himself some waffles, topping them off with honey. I’m really not sure what that says about the burglar.

Asterisk alarm script fixed

After getting another annoying 3:50 AM wakeup call from my Asterisk alarm monitoring script yesterday, I fixed my script once and for all. I customized the script first created by Uros Indihar, adding the zone assignments that were made on our system, among other things.

Now my Asterisk system only sends alerts for actual alarms and not test messages, unlike my previous script (those test calls get made at 3:50 AM on the fourth Thursday of each month). I can also parse the zone information, letting me know exactly what sensor on the system tripped.

I’ll fix my script up a little more before posting it.

Gerry lives on through his gift of lungs

My late friend Gerry was an organ donor at the time he died in a car wreck. Through the gift of his organs and tissue he gave four people he never met new life.

His wife Mandy and their families got a chance to meet one donor recipient earlier this month: the recipient of Gerry’s lungs. UNC Health Care created a profound video and story of the meeting, showing how Gerry’s gift changed the recipient’s life. Watching Gerr’y’s mom Pat as she listened to Gerry’s lungs brought tears to my eyes.

What an amazing gift of life from an amazingly generous friend.

News media latches on to smoking in parks issue

I’ve always wondered why the news media constantly fails to cover the happenings of Raleigh’s parks department and its board. Parks is a huge city department and Raleigh’s abundant parks are enjoyed by so many citizens that it’s easy to assume that a reporter would be present at the board meetings. Such is not the case. In the two years I’ve been on the board, the only reporter I’ve seen at a meeting is the Independent Weekly’s Bob Geary, who was there when the board discussed the Honeycutt Creek greenway route.
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