(no subject)
This last week or so has just been a blast... sort of.
Tuesday before Thanksgiving we ran Raven up to Saint Marys after my shift at work. Wednesday after my shift at work, I had about a 5 hour shoot (not for money). Thursday, we drove back to Saint Marys, picked up Raven, drove to Findlay for Thanksgiving with the Wallen family, drove back to St. Marys to drop Raven off, then drove back home.
Friday (Black Friday) I worked from 5:30am to 1:30 pm at Speedway, dealing with discount-crazed, fight-hungry shoppers who needed to vent their frustration at not having gotten that 25% off deal on the stupid can opener (among other things) they were after and either had to tell me all about it, or treat me like shit in place of the person at whom they were really angry. After my shift, I went home, packed, and drove in Black Friday traffic up to St Marys to spend the night.
Saturday I shot a wedding in Wapak (the reason for my Black Friday foray into traffic and Friday night overnight at my parents’ house) and was on my feet from 11am through about 8pm, minus about 10 minutes spent driving from the church to the reception hall, then later on another 20 minutes spent wolfing down supper. After that, I drove back to St. Marys to pick up my stuff and kiss my family, then it was back to Riverside. I arrived at 10pm, went inside and virtually crashed, not even getting to spend any time with Brian and the kids. (That was our weekend with the girls, too.)
Sunday morning we discovered that Brian’s van was missing.
I’ve got more on that in a moment, but in the meantime, I didn’t get to stay home and help deal with it, because I’d agreed to be in a campy movie short (and I do mean campy... the title is Damian Reaper) being filmed that morning in Cincinnati. At my invite/request, Adam came with me to help me make sure the guys I was going to work with (whom I had met only via the ‘net) were ok. Adam ended up getting drafted into helping out as an actor... we pretty much had to ad-lib everything... **Thank you Adam for being such a good sport and a great friend!!!** ...and the guys were fine, other than being thoroughly disorganized. They turned out to be just a couple of geeks like ourselves... pretty fun guys, actually. Anyway, the shoot was outside in the cold, and for my death scene I ended up supporting my body weight, such as it is, with my quads (mostly the right one) after the cold had seeped into them. This, after driving and riding nearly 600 miles in the last week, and followed by the drive back to Riverside, overstressed the quads in my right leg. Ouch.
Of course, I didn’t feel it until the next day. Monday I could barely move, but I went to work anyway. Thank God I’m married to a massage expert! The leg still hurt like hell on Tuesday, and was still stiff after work on Wednesday, when I had an eight hour shoot (again, not for money) followed by a 2 hour computer session. Then I went home and had to stay up long enough to eat something and take my meds. This took extra time because I kept dosing and then waking with a start... completely out of it and wondering why I was sitting in the living room before seeing the food and taking another bite. I didn’t get to bed until about 2 hours before I had to get back up for work. Thursday is one of my long days - I go in at 5:30 am. I was off an hour early, so I did get an hour nap (since I couldn’t go into court for David with everyone else due to a lack of babysitter... but it didn't matter, I guess, since that was cancled because Tina is a fucking SICKO). Now... more about the van:
This is the second time in less than 6 months we’ve had a vehicle stolen... both times from the same damned parking spot - right under the lamp post with the burnt out light about which I’ve been bitching to the apartment manager for nearly a year now.
We went through the same crap; calling Riverside police department & filing a report, calling the auto insurance and the renter’s insurance and alerting them to the various possible claims, and fuming about the fact that this should not have happened... wondering if, had the light been fixed, the thief would have still stolen from that particular parking space. I am getting sick of the lousy maintenance here... our rent is way too high for us to be putting up with this kind of shit!
Tuesday morning, Riverside police found the van in the other segment of the complex, which is separated from our part by about a quarter to a third mile of other properties, including another apartment complex.
We got the van back Thursday morning. (The day I worked all day with almost no sleep.) There was some damage to the driver’s side door lock and the steering column because the thief broke the lock to get in, and the steering column to hotwire the van. Our deductible is $250, so it’s costing us a bit to fix the damned thing, but at least this time we didn’t have to pay ransom to get it back, and at least it isn’t totaled like the Buick was.
The police surmised that the thief had probably abandoned the van at that location after spotting a patrol car or something... in other words, chickened out and bolted. We figured that at least the ordeal was over, and we could fix the damned thing and get on with our lives. I planned to discuss the security and loss issues with our apartment manager... the lack of lighting, in my opinion, is neglect on the part of the administration of this apartment complex, and I feel that we are due some kind of refund from the rent we paid for the month during which our vehicle was stolen, in the form of a partial credit for the upcoming months’ rent payments in the amount of the out of pocket expenses we’ve had because of the theft. It’s not much... but for me it’s as much about the point as about the money.
That said, we were wrong about the ordeal being over.
Thursday evening, coming home from gaming, I began to feel a bit nauseous because I ate too much junk food (guess I’m not 20 any more... duh) and ended up staying up for a couple of hours with a big cup of ginger tea, trying to calm down my upset stomach. Since I tried to go to sleep first (and found myself in the pre-puke holding pattern of gurgles and burps), I was totally nude. I sleep that way because Brian is so hot he warms the whole bed. Yes, I meant to say that exactly that way.
About 1:30 my stomach finally settled. I was so wiped out I couldn’t focus my eyes on anything anymore... time to crash. And it literally would have been a crash, too. All of the stuff that had happened over the last week had pretty much exhausted me. In the last 2 days, I’d had about 3 hours of sleep, and that was after recovering from that leg pain and an exceptionally busy week.
I shut off the computer and started back to the bedroom, when there was a loud pounding on our door -scared the everloving shit out of me. Remember... at this point I am naked as a jay-bird.
I grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around myself, making sure I was “decent.”
I looked out the peephole: There was a man outside. I cracked the door and asked what he wanted, and he asked for Larry. At this point, I nearly bolted the door and called the cops... but instead I stayed calm and explained that there was no Larry at this residence. The still unidentified man asked if the owner of (describing Brian’s van) lived at this apartment. This really made me nervous, because now there was an unknown man outside my door asking about our recently stolen van, and I was standing there still virtually naked. I nearly shut the door in his face... but first I asked what business he had with my husband’s van. He belligerently refused to talk to me about it, demanding to see my husband, until a voice from behind him said, “you have to tell her who you are.” I think I might have even heard the word “stupid” grumbled after that by the same voice. The belligerent unidentified interrogator finally informed me that he was a City of Dayton Police officer, and would I please go get my husband. At this point, I did shut the door in his face. I went to get Brian, who came out there and let them in - there were 4 all told... 2 Dayton cops and 2 Riverside Police officers. The 4th man to walk in was one of my regular customers, and he gave me an enthusiastic hello, much to the dismay of the Dayton cops.
There I stood in my living room, naked except for a blanket, with 4 other big men besides my husband, all of whom were shooting me curious looks, one of whom knew me.
The Dayton cop who was belligerent to me then rudely interrogated Brian about his whereabouts on Saturday night, until I pointed out that the van he’d initially asked about had been stolen that night. (It turns out that whoever took the van used it as their getaway car for a very short shoplifting spree at a local retailer - they ran in, stole something, ran out with it, and drove off.)
At that point, the Dayton cops began asking about the steps we’d taken regarding having reported the theft. It was obvious that they were fishing for something they could use to call that a lie. When Riverside piped up that someone was out here on a stolen vehicle call Sunday morning, and that they would have a report on it, they got frustrated and started asking questions about the age of our son. Finding no one they could justify arresting in the presence of another department, they threatened Brian with suspect status unless he shows up at their department on Monday to “talk.” I am pretty sure, based on their demeanor, that had Riverside not been there, Dayton would have taken Brian with them despite the fact that he couldn’t have been their suspect. If he shows up Monday, they're gonna keep him. AnnA confirmed my suspicions in that regard.
Instead of going in to talk, we are going to make sure they get a signed, notarized copy of the police report regarding the theft of the van. They are not getting the opportunity to keep Brian for “questioning” like they have with David. We are going to make sure they have to sign for it, too. That way we have proof that they are aware that Brian didn't have that van on the night in question.
In the meantime, I am going to find out from that local retailer exactly why Dayton is involved in the first place. The retailer in question happens to be in our neighborhood, and is inside the city of Riverside.
So... the van was stolen from a Riverside residence, used, according to the police, in a shoplifting incident at a Riverside business, and abandoned on private property in Riverside. How does Dayton even know this happened, much less have any excuse to get involved? Why isn’t Riverside the department investigating this?
The city of Riverside is not a neighborhood of Dayton, it’s an independent municipality with its own police, fire, and emergency response system, city tax, city government, etc. Dayton does not have jurisdiction here.
The only reason for them to show up at all would be if the retailer in question called them. Either this retailer bypassed local police (for whatever reason) to get out-of-town cops on their shoplifting case (because it’s not like Dayton has any more serious crimes to deal with) or this idiot retailer called the damned 911 emergency system to report a shoplifter. I am going over tomorrow and asking to talk to the store manager. God help him if he refuses to answer me. I will contact corporate and raise hell with them over this. I want to know which one of those two things occurred, and to let him know the result of his actions. If someone dialed 911 to report a shoplifter, I want that person fired. The 911 system is for life threatening emergencies, not fucking shoplifting. At the very least, if someone did do that, I want the opportunity to LOUDLY ask the manager, "You mean your store used the 911 emergency system to deal with a lousy shoplifting incident?" or "You mean your staff actually called the wrong police department? Doesn't anyone here even know what city your store is in?" so that other customers will know how fucking stupid the staff in that store really is.
In the meantime, I am so wound up I probably won’t sleep tonight, either.
I smell a lawsuit brewing... this fucking better not get as bad as I think it could. If it does, we are going to sue everything that fucking moves.
Tuesday before Thanksgiving we ran Raven up to Saint Marys after my shift at work. Wednesday after my shift at work, I had about a 5 hour shoot (not for money). Thursday, we drove back to Saint Marys, picked up Raven, drove to Findlay for Thanksgiving with the Wallen family, drove back to St. Marys to drop Raven off, then drove back home.
Friday (Black Friday) I worked from 5:30am to 1:30 pm at Speedway, dealing with discount-crazed, fight-hungry shoppers who needed to vent their frustration at not having gotten that 25% off deal on the stupid can opener (among other things) they were after and either had to tell me all about it, or treat me like shit in place of the person at whom they were really angry. After my shift, I went home, packed, and drove in Black Friday traffic up to St Marys to spend the night.
Saturday I shot a wedding in Wapak (the reason for my Black Friday foray into traffic and Friday night overnight at my parents’ house) and was on my feet from 11am through about 8pm, minus about 10 minutes spent driving from the church to the reception hall, then later on another 20 minutes spent wolfing down supper. After that, I drove back to St. Marys to pick up my stuff and kiss my family, then it was back to Riverside. I arrived at 10pm, went inside and virtually crashed, not even getting to spend any time with Brian and the kids. (That was our weekend with the girls, too.)
Sunday morning we discovered that Brian’s van was missing.
I’ve got more on that in a moment, but in the meantime, I didn’t get to stay home and help deal with it, because I’d agreed to be in a campy movie short (and I do mean campy... the title is Damian Reaper) being filmed that morning in Cincinnati. At my invite/request, Adam came with me to help me make sure the guys I was going to work with (whom I had met only via the ‘net) were ok. Adam ended up getting drafted into helping out as an actor... we pretty much had to ad-lib everything... **Thank you Adam for being such a good sport and a great friend!!!** ...and the guys were fine, other than being thoroughly disorganized. They turned out to be just a couple of geeks like ourselves... pretty fun guys, actually. Anyway, the shoot was outside in the cold, and for my death scene I ended up supporting my body weight, such as it is, with my quads (mostly the right one) after the cold had seeped into them. This, after driving and riding nearly 600 miles in the last week, and followed by the drive back to Riverside, overstressed the quads in my right leg. Ouch.
Of course, I didn’t feel it until the next day. Monday I could barely move, but I went to work anyway. Thank God I’m married to a massage expert! The leg still hurt like hell on Tuesday, and was still stiff after work on Wednesday, when I had an eight hour shoot (again, not for money) followed by a 2 hour computer session. Then I went home and had to stay up long enough to eat something and take my meds. This took extra time because I kept dosing and then waking with a start... completely out of it and wondering why I was sitting in the living room before seeing the food and taking another bite. I didn’t get to bed until about 2 hours before I had to get back up for work. Thursday is one of my long days - I go in at 5:30 am. I was off an hour early, so I did get an hour nap (since I couldn’t go into court for David with everyone else due to a lack of babysitter... but it didn't matter, I guess, since that was cancled because Tina is a fucking SICKO). Now... more about the van:
This is the second time in less than 6 months we’ve had a vehicle stolen... both times from the same damned parking spot - right under the lamp post with the burnt out light about which I’ve been bitching to the apartment manager for nearly a year now.
We went through the same crap; calling Riverside police department & filing a report, calling the auto insurance and the renter’s insurance and alerting them to the various possible claims, and fuming about the fact that this should not have happened... wondering if, had the light been fixed, the thief would have still stolen from that particular parking space. I am getting sick of the lousy maintenance here... our rent is way too high for us to be putting up with this kind of shit!
Tuesday morning, Riverside police found the van in the other segment of the complex, which is separated from our part by about a quarter to a third mile of other properties, including another apartment complex.
We got the van back Thursday morning. (The day I worked all day with almost no sleep.) There was some damage to the driver’s side door lock and the steering column because the thief broke the lock to get in, and the steering column to hotwire the van. Our deductible is $250, so it’s costing us a bit to fix the damned thing, but at least this time we didn’t have to pay ransom to get it back, and at least it isn’t totaled like the Buick was.
The police surmised that the thief had probably abandoned the van at that location after spotting a patrol car or something... in other words, chickened out and bolted. We figured that at least the ordeal was over, and we could fix the damned thing and get on with our lives. I planned to discuss the security and loss issues with our apartment manager... the lack of lighting, in my opinion, is neglect on the part of the administration of this apartment complex, and I feel that we are due some kind of refund from the rent we paid for the month during which our vehicle was stolen, in the form of a partial credit for the upcoming months’ rent payments in the amount of the out of pocket expenses we’ve had because of the theft. It’s not much... but for me it’s as much about the point as about the money.
That said, we were wrong about the ordeal being over.
Thursday evening, coming home from gaming, I began to feel a bit nauseous because I ate too much junk food (guess I’m not 20 any more... duh) and ended up staying up for a couple of hours with a big cup of ginger tea, trying to calm down my upset stomach. Since I tried to go to sleep first (and found myself in the pre-puke holding pattern of gurgles and burps), I was totally nude. I sleep that way because Brian is so hot he warms the whole bed. Yes, I meant to say that exactly that way.
About 1:30 my stomach finally settled. I was so wiped out I couldn’t focus my eyes on anything anymore... time to crash. And it literally would have been a crash, too. All of the stuff that had happened over the last week had pretty much exhausted me. In the last 2 days, I’d had about 3 hours of sleep, and that was after recovering from that leg pain and an exceptionally busy week.
I shut off the computer and started back to the bedroom, when there was a loud pounding on our door -scared the everloving shit out of me. Remember... at this point I am naked as a jay-bird.
I grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around myself, making sure I was “decent.”
I looked out the peephole: There was a man outside. I cracked the door and asked what he wanted, and he asked for Larry. At this point, I nearly bolted the door and called the cops... but instead I stayed calm and explained that there was no Larry at this residence. The still unidentified man asked if the owner of (describing Brian’s van) lived at this apartment. This really made me nervous, because now there was an unknown man outside my door asking about our recently stolen van, and I was standing there still virtually naked. I nearly shut the door in his face... but first I asked what business he had with my husband’s van. He belligerently refused to talk to me about it, demanding to see my husband, until a voice from behind him said, “you have to tell her who you are.” I think I might have even heard the word “stupid” grumbled after that by the same voice. The belligerent unidentified interrogator finally informed me that he was a City of Dayton Police officer, and would I please go get my husband. At this point, I did shut the door in his face. I went to get Brian, who came out there and let them in - there were 4 all told... 2 Dayton cops and 2 Riverside Police officers. The 4th man to walk in was one of my regular customers, and he gave me an enthusiastic hello, much to the dismay of the Dayton cops.
There I stood in my living room, naked except for a blanket, with 4 other big men besides my husband, all of whom were shooting me curious looks, one of whom knew me.
The Dayton cop who was belligerent to me then rudely interrogated Brian about his whereabouts on Saturday night, until I pointed out that the van he’d initially asked about had been stolen that night. (It turns out that whoever took the van used it as their getaway car for a very short shoplifting spree at a local retailer - they ran in, stole something, ran out with it, and drove off.)
At that point, the Dayton cops began asking about the steps we’d taken regarding having reported the theft. It was obvious that they were fishing for something they could use to call that a lie. When Riverside piped up that someone was out here on a stolen vehicle call Sunday morning, and that they would have a report on it, they got frustrated and started asking questions about the age of our son. Finding no one they could justify arresting in the presence of another department, they threatened Brian with suspect status unless he shows up at their department on Monday to “talk.” I am pretty sure, based on their demeanor, that had Riverside not been there, Dayton would have taken Brian with them despite the fact that he couldn’t have been their suspect. If he shows up Monday, they're gonna keep him. AnnA confirmed my suspicions in that regard.
Instead of going in to talk, we are going to make sure they get a signed, notarized copy of the police report regarding the theft of the van. They are not getting the opportunity to keep Brian for “questioning” like they have with David. We are going to make sure they have to sign for it, too. That way we have proof that they are aware that Brian didn't have that van on the night in question.
In the meantime, I am going to find out from that local retailer exactly why Dayton is involved in the first place. The retailer in question happens to be in our neighborhood, and is inside the city of Riverside.
So... the van was stolen from a Riverside residence, used, according to the police, in a shoplifting incident at a Riverside business, and abandoned on private property in Riverside. How does Dayton even know this happened, much less have any excuse to get involved? Why isn’t Riverside the department investigating this?
The city of Riverside is not a neighborhood of Dayton, it’s an independent municipality with its own police, fire, and emergency response system, city tax, city government, etc. Dayton does not have jurisdiction here.
The only reason for them to show up at all would be if the retailer in question called them. Either this retailer bypassed local police (for whatever reason) to get out-of-town cops on their shoplifting case (because it’s not like Dayton has any more serious crimes to deal with) or this idiot retailer called the damned 911 emergency system to report a shoplifter. I am going over tomorrow and asking to talk to the store manager. God help him if he refuses to answer me. I will contact corporate and raise hell with them over this. I want to know which one of those two things occurred, and to let him know the result of his actions. If someone dialed 911 to report a shoplifter, I want that person fired. The 911 system is for life threatening emergencies, not fucking shoplifting. At the very least, if someone did do that, I want the opportunity to LOUDLY ask the manager, "You mean your store used the 911 emergency system to deal with a lousy shoplifting incident?" or "You mean your staff actually called the wrong police department? Doesn't anyone here even know what city your store is in?" so that other customers will know how fucking stupid the staff in that store really is.
In the meantime, I am so wound up I probably won’t sleep tonight, either.
I smell a lawsuit brewing... this fucking better not get as bad as I think it could. If it does, we are going to sue everything that fucking moves.