Stolen!

Back in November or December, I forget which, Some Jerk broke into my truck and stole my stereo, and my laptop. I got into the truck to go to work and realized it was dark and quiet in my truck. I was mildly upset about it.

The stereo, when I bought it was pretty expensive, but over the last few years it had developed some odd little quirks. Eventually it decided it would only play the radio or eject whatever CD was in it. About once every month it would act fine and all the buttons would do what they were supposed to, and I could get it back to my jury rigged setup for playing my ipod. So the fact that it was stolen mostly gave me a really good reason to replace it.

My laptop. It too was pretty nice when I bought it five years ago. But the keyboard had some serious issues arising from a spilled can of Sprite, and it was getting kinda long in the tooth. The 512 mB of ram it had new was starting to be a serious bottleneck, and that thing could get hot! also it was somewhere around 10lbs and was a pain to lug around. I was mad that it was gone, but I had pretty recent backups of the hard drive contents, so it was not too great a loss either. Mostly it was just the fact that someone had stolen from me and violated my property had me mad.

Well back when I went to the Little Big Town concert I also went on a little hiking trip. I parked at the visitor center to the Lake Mead National Conservation Area and took this cool little hike up an old railroad line. When they were building Hoover Dam they built a rail line to haul cement and other material to the dam site. After the dam was completed it was just a useless spur line and the rails were torn up. The road bed and the tunnels are still there and it has been turned into a hiking trail. The guide book I have said the trail was 5 miles out and back, and when you got through the 5th tunnel to retrace your steps back to the trail head. Well, I got through the 5th tunnel and decided to see what was just past the end of the trail. There was this sign that said the trail to Hoover Dam was open only during daylight hours. We looked around and it was daylight out, so on we went! Anyway, to make a long story a little shorter, we hiked down to the dam and back. When we got back to the truck it was pitch black out and I just threw my pack in the bed of the truck and we left.
Well a few days later I wanted my bag for a little hike to the library. I couldn't remember bringing the bag inside after we went hiking, and it was nowhere to be found inside my apartment. I could visualize exactly what happened in my mind: When we got home I had completely forgotten about the bag in the back and the same jerk who stole my radio made off with my pack!

I knew exactly what was in the bag: GPS, binoculars, first aid kit, and my brand new camera I had gotten for christmas. Not only that, but I really liked that pack. It had what they called a trampoline back, which held the bag off my back so I was not sweating like crazy.

I was absolutely furious. Unlike the other stuff that had been stolen all of these things worked perfectly, and were important to me. I was mad at myself for being so careless. I was mad at some a$$wipe for stealing my stuff again. I was mad that it would cost so much to try to replace all that stuff. The GPS for example was the latest version of the Garmin GPSmap that Outdoor magazine had recommended for the last 3 years-not cheap.

I decided to replace the camera first. I searched several online stores and waited until I found the best price I could. I knew my parents would be mad/sad that I had lost the present they had gotten me for Christmas; I didn't want them to know. The GPS got replaced with one made for driving, not one for hiking. The binoculars I figured could wait 'till November when I would need a set for the air show. The bag and first aid kit were on hold until I could find one I liked equally as well as the old one.

Now we'll skip to this morning. I was getting dressed and I knew the weather was supposed to be in the 80's so I thought I would like to wear shorts today. I knew I wanted my favorite pair from Cabellas. I was rummaging through my closet and I thought they might be under this old camouflage bad I have. I lifted the bag and it was quite heavy.

I was trying to think what might be in there. I hadn't used it for some time.Well, well how did that get in there? I don't remember putting it in there.

Now don't I feel like a fool! this whole time I thought it was gone for good, it was in my closet! All that wasted anger! I used to get so galled every morning when I turned on my GPS and remember how my old one displayed my name, address, and phone number when you turned it on. Some jerk out there had to see it every time they used it, and had to know exactly who they had cheated. Not only that, they knew how to contact me to return it to me.

Another bit of hmm: what do I do now that I have 2 of the exact same camera?