“Repeat Robber” was good handyman

I laughed this morning when a neighbor retracted her recommendation of a handyman she had been using for years. It turns out the handyman, Lee Pope from Precision Plumbing and Cooling, had switched from handyman work to robbing banks, becoming known to the FBI as the “Repeat Robber.” Pope was arrested Monday on suspicion of robbing over a dozen banks in the Triangle. It’s sad when a good guy turns bad. Perhaps the handyman trade wasn’t working out for him.

Before his arrest Pope drew praise for his handyman work. Said one customer:

We have been using Lee’s company for years now. He has replaced our furnace, AC, fixed pipes and we are getting ready to have him redo all the plumbing in our house. He is excellent and reasonable.

Once news broke of his arrest, the customer changed her tune:

I would like to retract this recommendation. For the past 6 years he did close to $10K worth of work for us and was always here when it was icy or 110 degrees and something was broken that needed fixed, fixed our friend’s AC for free, etc., I guess he hit bad times and went rogue.

I wonder if Pope had anything to do with the rash of copper thefts from AC units in the area. Hopefully police are following up on this, too.

The Miracle Worker

The kids were reading about Helen Keller in school so I decided to put The Miracle Worker on our Netflix list. The kids finished it a week ago but I just found the time to finish it. Wow, what a powerful story.

I may bitch and moan about some things not going my way, but nothing I will ever do will be as absolutely miraculous as what Helen and her teacher Anne Sullivan accomplished. And Patty Duke and Anne Bancroft exhibit great acting in the film.

Randall for Congress breaks the law?

A neighbor got a political robocall on behalf of Randall for Congress yesterday. While that’s not unusual, what IS unusual is that the company calling on behalf of Randall spoofed the CallerID on the call, pointing it to a disconnected number in the 919 area code. This is in apparent violation of NCGS § 75-100, North Carolina’s Telephone Solicitation Law:

(i) No telephone solicitor shall knowingly use any method to block or otherwise circumvent a telephone subscriber’s use of a caller identification service. No provider of telephone caller identification services shall be held liable for violations of this subsection committed by other individuals or entities.

Here’s what my neighbor said about the call:

I got a robocall last night in which a person claiming to be Maria Schrader (sp?) representing African American conservatives encouraged me to vote for Bill Randall for congress. My caller id showed her number as 919-521-8593. I called back to ask to be taken off the list and got an automated message indicating the the number had been disconnected or was no longer in service.

I’m not too impressed with the use of forged callerid, so I left a message on the “Randall for Congress” line and got a call back this morning from Tom Price who informed me that the robocall came from Washington Political Group. I called them at 678-794-9988 and Don Burrell said he would take my number off their calling list.

Longtime MT.Net readers know I don’t take kindly to callers using forged CallerID. I’m sad to see it has come to North Carolina politics. I hope the attorney general steps in and smacks any campaign that tries to do it, as they so clearly deserve it.

Busy end to busy week

Wow, what a week I just had. I had a sales presentation I had to complete for work, to be done in-between conducting two days of product training for customers. After work I conducted the East CAC meeting Monday night, attended a public hearing Tuesday night, presented at the Raleigh Neighborhood Recognition Awards Wednesday night, went to my first Parks board meeting as the vice-chair Thursday night, took Travis to his piano lesson Friday night and then attended a neighborhood party afterwards.
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Five years of Wikipedia editing

Wikipedia tells me that it was five years ago this month that I became a Wikipedian. I’ve focused my Wikipedia work with a few of my interests. I began by editing the entry for the USS Elliot (DD-967) as I had found a press release about its sinking. Then I went on to add bits to many of the Raleigh-area entries. I’ve also taken many photographs of Raleigh-area landmarks and added these to the appropriate pages (including the page for Raleigh itself).

Though I’ve slowed down lately with my Wikipedia contributions I still greatly value this amazing, free resource.

Here is an official list of my Wikipedia contributions, formatted in especially-hard-to-read geek format. Here’s a list of the photographs I’ve taken and donated to the public domain through Wikimedia Commons.

Gays in the military

Defense secretary Robert Gates spoke at Duke University recently, urging the “best and brightest” to “step out of your comfort zone” and join the military. I thought that sounded fine until Gates bwhegan dragging his feet when a judge (temporarily) struck down the military’s don’t ask, don’t tell policy.

Allowing gays to serve openly “is an action that requires careful preparation and a lot of training,” Gates said. “It has enormous consequences for our troops.”

Bullshit, plain and simple. Gays have served in the military as long as there have been troops. Many have them have proven their valor and loyalty. Some have paid the ultimate price for their country, yet these soldiers and sailors must be dishonest to their fellow servicemembers about who they are. This is simply wrong.
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The man of a dozen voices

Like many kids who grew up watching cartoons, I was amazed by the vocal gymnastics performed by Mel Blanc: “the man of 1000 voices.” Blanc was the voice behind so many cartoon characters, possessing such a range that he could voice the majority of characters in a show without any two voices sounding alike.

As I went about my weekend it occurred to me that I could try to be more like Blanc in my voiceover work. I spoke in my announcer’s voice when I was in my voiceover “class” but that’s certainly not all I can do. While listening to the N.C. State game on the radio, for instance, I easily slipped into a good ol’ boy Southern accent as I repeated one of the commercials.

“Duh!” I thought. This is the kind of stuff I do all the time without thinking about it. I can make my voice sound just about any way I want to.

For the rest of the weekend, I spent the break time between the stuff I was doing just recording little clips of voices I had come up with: creating a vocal library. All of those little voices I use off and on during the day can be easily forgotten if I don’t capture them.

The voices themselves might not be marketable but the exercise itself helps me expand my vocal variety. And it’s fun, too!

Tardy Tavern

I had planned to post an update on my Isaac Hunter’s Tavern trek. Instead I found a bunch of more resources (actual books!) that I would like to consult before I post again. I don’t want to go off half-cocked, so look for a more complete update in a week or so.