does anyone check Xanga anymore?

Jen and I had pretty much decided to be lazy bums for most of the day and rest since we had such a busy day yesterday, and have another full day coming up tomorrow. So we were relaxing in the living room when we heard a very familiar noise. The squeal of tires on wet pavement and then a very loud thud. Our first thought as we ran to the front door was that we had a repeat of last summer. But no, this was quite different. This was a vehicle that had come down the hill facing our house, going too fast on the sharp bend, and lost control on the sharp curve and plowed down are mailbox! His dark purple Jeep Cherokee was stuck in the wet grass. In the time it took me to get dressed (about 30 seconds), he was already gone and I saw is vehicle disappear over the hill. So I grabbed my keys a decided to see if I could drive around and find him and get a license plate number (don't worry, I wasn't going to yank open any doors this time). While I was out driving around I called the cops. After having no luck I came back to wait for the cops to arrive with Jen. While we were talking to the neighbor (NJ) who also seen the accident, down the hill came the same purple jeep. A young guy (probably about 16) came out and owned up to it. Lucky for him he beat the cops by about 2 minutes otherwise he would have been in bigger trouble (i.e. hit and run). Turns out he had gotten scared and went home to tell his dad, who promptly told him to get his butt back over here and pay for the damage. We told the cops since he was going to pay, we wouldn't have the cop write up charges. I got his name and number (and just in case jotted down in plate number). So we got a whole two years out of that mailbox. Guess I know what I'll be doing this afternoon...

So...my store was robbed yesterday...

Yesterday at work I was behind the front counter, doing paperwork with a customer who was in the progress of purchasing a computer from us. I noticed another customer come in the store and he went over to look at the laptops (which, by the way are each locked in place with a special laptop lock cable thingie). So anyway, a few minutes later I hear this cracking noise, and I look up to see said customer walking out the door holding something under his jacket, and the laptop he was looking at was gone from the counter, only the security cable and the power adapter remained!

It is now that I has a temporary loss in brain function.

I ran around the front counter to the front door and opened it and yelled, "Hey you need to come back here!" The thief now began running towards his car. So I did what every normal person with a loss in brain function would do and began to run after the 6'2, 350lb man. When I got to his car, he had already started it and shut the door. So I pulled open the door, and told him "Give me back the laptop!" After getting a sort of a deer-in-the-headlights look for a couple seconds he told me he didn't know what I was talking about. I responded "Give me back the laptop, I just saw you take it!" It was then that I heard is tires squeal as hit he reverse hard, and since the door was still open and I was still standing there, I nearly got run over. At this point I finally resumed some normal brain function and got the heck out of the way. Oh, but wait, then I lost brain function again, and if chasing the thief wasn't enough, also taunted him and  yelled at his still open door as he drove off  "Hey that's pretty stupid, drive away while I write down your tag number!"

(once again, resume normal brain function here)

As he drove off I quickly memorized his tag number a ran inside to write it down where the customer I had been helping early already had 911 on the phone. By the time I got off the phone with 911, the police arrived and took our statements

And if you though this wasn't crazy enough already, keep reading...

After the cop left, I got a phone call from him asking me for my cell phone number. I told him that was the number I had given him already. He asked me if I had picture and text messaging on my phone! I told him yes and he asked me if he found the vehicle could he send me a picture message so I could ID the guys car! I said sure. About 20 minutes later I my cell phone starts beeping, I look down at the display and it says "1 New Picture Message." I flip open the phone, and there is a picture of the guy that just robbed us with a caption "Is this your guy?"

I text him back:
"That Looks to be him"

I get another text message:
"We got him"

and another text message:
"and your computer"

I little while later the cop calls me and says he's on his way back to get me to write up a statement, but he wanted to call and tell me that when they recovered the laptop, the cop opened it up and the laptop was still powered on from when he snagged it, and had our  Affordable Computers wallpaper with our name, phone numbers and logo still set! He also said this guy was wanted by several other counties in addition to ours, and had all sorts of outstanding warrants and felonies, etc etc. He said the guy will do 19 months in one county for stuff they already had him on before he even gets to serve time for what he did today. He also said that when he asked the guy "what did you try to run over that guy for" the thief explained that he didn't try to run over me, his door was open and I was stating behind it, and he backed up. Um.....

Two good quotes from customers:

The lady who was there during the robbery got a phone call from her boss who was wondering what was taking so long. The one-sided phone call went something like this:

"I'm at the computer store"
"yes still at the computer store"
"because while I was here they were robbed"
"yes!"
"well how should I know who it was! If I knew that we wouldn't be giving the cop statements!"

One lady who I had been helping before the robbery had went outside to her car make a phone call, when she saw me run out to the car and open the door of the robber's car she thought to herself: "Now there's that David, being courteous and opening doors for people again."