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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Occasionally a news of the weird happens right in one’s own neighborhood.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>But before that, there is a back story that is relevant to all this. Our neighborhood has been remarkably free of crime for many years, but recently we had an uptick in daytime burglaries. A couple months ago, our friends down the street bought one of those nifty video cameras which does image comparison and if anything changes, it emails you a picture of whatever it sees, sends it to your iPhone and so forth. This guy is a big tech whiz up at Stanford, so instead of doing my own due diligence, I Koreshed off of him and bought an identical system. It arrived a few days before Thanksgiving, but I was busy with family matters, so the thing sat unopened in the box.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Last week, the guy who bought the system to start with was the victim of a daytime burglary. His home was full of high-zoot electronic whiz bang, and the thieves got it all, games, laptop computers, all the electronic goodies. His wife is a Stanford PhD candidate finishing up a thesis in biochemistry on a home computer, which vanished along with the backup hard disc and home server. Much of the data was not in the cloud, so there was considerable loss of labor. The home security system, which he had owned for a couple months, was still in the original package, unopened. It was not stolen. So this past weekend, I was busy installing my home security cameras.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Now, the rest of the story.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>We have a neighborhood crime watch. Whenever anything happens where the locals might be able to help solve a crime, the constabulary sends out an email notice. Yesterday around lunchtime, the constable tells everyone that there was a suspicious activity, Hispanic male, mid-twenties, rang a doorbell in a neighborhood where there aren’t that many Hispanic families, told the resident he was looking for his lost cat. When asked, he seemed to not know what his cat looked like or the cat’s name. He did have the genus and species, and could likely identify the approximate number of paws the missing beast possessed, but could provide very little information beyond that. When leaving the residence, the silly prole appeared to signal to a vehicle down the street, which was described as a deep red or maroon compact car. No crime committed, NW notice went out anyway.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>About two hours later, about 1400, a second notice goes out regarding a brazen daytime burglary just down the street. According to the constable, there were “several suspects observed fleeing from a residence” carrying what appeared to be the property of that resident, electronics, including a television. This time, a local witness having been alerted, gave good descriptions of their car and at least two of the suspects. One was a sturdy black teenage male, perhaps 18, and the driver of the getaway vehicle, who was… drum roll… “an elderly white female.” I kid you not. That’s what was reported. Now the cops have the make, model, year, color and plates on the car, a deep red or maroon Kia Sephia, possibly the same maroon compact car seen nearby, two hours earlier with a Hispanic male searching for a lost perfectly generic cat.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>So now, this is weird. We have what looks like a burglary gang led by a white granny, with an ethnically diverse labor staff. I suggested a number of possibilities, such as the white granny was actually a young male thug in disguise. Another possibility, all the apparently young male thugs were actually white grannies, in black and Hispanic thug disguises. Or granny was being held hostage and forced to drive. Or the youths were being held hostage by the granny and forced to burgle. Or if the gang were all grannies, they grab the loot, jump in the car, pull off the disguises, the cops look right past them. White grannies are as invisible as dark matter in the cosmos to the constables. Or, the perps flee with the loot, jump in the car, don their white granny masks, instant cloak of invisibility to the local constabulary. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>There are still some things I just don’t understand. They stole a television and fled in a Kia Sephia. Any television which would fit into a Kia would not be worth the physical labor to haul away. Most modern televisions need a pickup truck to carry off, and at least two sturdy lads to hoist the thing; white grannies in disguises can forget it, it would take half a dozen of them to get one off the ground, never mind fleeing with damn thing.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>In any case, this whole thing will likely make it all the way up to FoxNews of the weird, ja? {8^D<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>spike<o:p></o:p></p></div></body></html>