Bad news (but with Bonus Canoe)

[catsittingstill]

Kip's and my laptop was stolen yesterday.  Kip had been taking it to work regularly, and it was stolen out of his office.  Apparently a few other laptops were stolen from the college area the same day, so we're suspecting a ring.

We've run around and changed all the passwords on everything we might have accessed from that computer.  Kip has made a full report to campus security and to the local police.  We took the serial number to the local pawnshop and asked the proprietor to call the police immediately if it turns up.

So for now we'll be on Eve one at a time (which probably means I won't play Eve much.)  We could replace it, but it would basically wipe out everything we've saved this year--and *my* laptop is about five years old at this point, which means it may not last much longer either.  So ... 

Well.  Maybe we can cut back on expenses some more.  We just got the house insulated so hopefully the heating bills will be lower this winter.  That should help some.  But I keep looking at the things I was debating buying with my fun money and knowing they're way out of reach now.

In happeir news, the first coat of varnish on the outside of the hull dried in the normal amount of time, so I put a second coat of varnish on yesterday evening.  The second coat was harder to do because I had to go pretty much by feel--it's hard to tell the wet varnish from the dry.  I think I did a pretty decent job, and it sure looks nice in the shop, at least.  And putting it on as thin as it will go seriously reduces the drips and runs, so I'm pleased about that.

Today I crawled under the upside-down hull and sanded in a few spots you can't see very well when the hull is right-side-up, then vacuumed the boat, turned it right side up, and vacuumed it again.  Then I varnished the inside, with the trim, plus the thwarts (which I took out to make getting at the inside of the hull easier.)  I also varnished a couple of spots on the seat that seemed to need touching up.

About 5:30 this evening I should be able to cane the seat, and possibly put a second coat of varnish on the inside of the boat.  We shall see.  In the meantime we finally have a dry day so I should putty some more cracks in the driveway.

Comments

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Aw man. So very sorry -- I know precisely how badly that sucks.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Ouch!! I'm so sorry about the theft. That's awful. Good luck getting everything sorted out with minimum hassle, but I'm sorry for such hassle and expense as is inevitable.

[trektone.livejournal.com]

How awful! Hope they catch the thieves.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

Oh, hell. I hope you manage to get things straigtened out somehow.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

°# ∫н׀┬‼ My sympathies!

At least the canews is good.

[mdlbear]

Ouch!

Good luck on the recovery process.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Callie and I have done what we can to ensure the "somehow." I hope they will get the laptop back via the police actually locating the original, but if not, we have tried to make it possible to replace it. God knows Cat's done enough for us in our turn.

[boywizard.livejournal.com]

The financial loss stings, but it may pale in comparison to the loss of data and the potential security breach. I hope that you have backups for everything. An event like this is like getting punched in the stomach. My sympathy for your loss.

At least the canoe is going well.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's awful. When I was burgled, I remember the sense of violation and how much I hated it. My sympathies. Does homeowners insurance perhaps cover part of the costs? Often it does. Or does the school perhaps offer its employees something?

If a replacement is desperately needed, running Linux on used equipment is very inexpensive. Sometimes you can even find used desktops for free.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Thanks

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your good wishes, and your help!

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Thanks. We're still hoping to get the laptop back, But pocketnaomi and Cflute made generous donations that make replacing it if necessary much more within our reach.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

:-)

A new word--cool!

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your good wishes.

We didn't have much personal stuff on it--Kip has a desktop that has most of that and I have an (old) laptop that I hadn't bothered to move off of; all I did with the new laptop was play Eve on it (which was nice because it meant Kip and I could play it together, him on his computer and me on the new laptop.)

Alas I also ripped a bunch of CDs for a friend on that computer (used that one to keep his iTunes library separate from mine) and now I don't have my backup of his tunes anymore. Fortunately I'd given him a copy of my work before this happened.

The only potential security breach would be in the cookies of the web browser--just to be sure Kip and I ran around changing all our passwords for everything the first night. The down side is now I have to keep looking up my passwords on my iPod (on a password-protected app.)

And the canoe is going very well :-)

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I checked with the insurance and they would cover it except the deductable is worth more than the computer...

Thanks for your suggestion about Linux. Because of Cflute and Naomi's generosity it probably won't be necessary but it's good to know.