Fibermania

Mystery: The Case of the Vanishing Trailer

Wednesday 5:30 am. I woke  up, grabbed a cuppa and wandered out to the porch to greet the day. I noticed that the trailer was gone from its spot by the potting shed and surmised that Dave had gotten up early and went to get more wood chips as he regularly does.
I wondered how he managed to hook up the trailer to my van when it had been totally dark just minutes ago, and how did he leave without waking me? Our drive is crushed stone, and it always announces a vehicle is coming or going.
Well...he must have done it quietly. Did he remember this is Knitting day for me, and would he return in time for me to take the van to town? Hmm.
 I went back inside and called up to him to make sure he was gone. No answer from his bedroom.
OK, I was duly awake and it was time to blog...
Time passes and soon I heard noises upstairs. Wha?
"Dave is that you?"
"Mmuhmhmmnn". (that means yes).
I got up from the computer as he was walking downstairs.
"I thought you went to get mulch" I said.
More mumbling.
"I noticed the trailer was gone and thought you went to get wood chips".
Quizzical look.
We walked out to the porch and looked in the usual spot. No trailer.
"Where's the trailer?" I asked.
Still groggy, he thought a minute...no answer.
"Did you lend it to Mike?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes".
A chill ran through both of us. We wuz robbed!

How could this be? We live in an idyllic country setting amongst the nicest salt of the earth kinds of people. Who would steal a trailer, and how could they do it without a sound, in the darkest of night?
All kinds of accusatory thoughts ran through our heads and we came up with this scenario: Nefarious sods had been driving past our house scouting out the property and lying in wait to take something like our trailer, which could have been rolled down our driveway, with a couple of hefty guys guiding it.

I had a terrible feeling of loss, not for the trailer, but for the feeling of total safety that I had enjoyed for these last three years. It was a horrible feeling. Would we have to lock our doors? Would I finally have to learn to shoot?
 Dave had a ballgame later and I would be home alone. Would they come back looking for more loot?
As I left for Knitting at 8am, Dave promised to call the sheriff and our insurance guy, and talk to Mike our hired man, about possible suspects.

8:10am Mike arrives towing the trailer which Dave lent him the day before.
"It all came back to me the minute I saw Mike" Dave said.
I blame the whole incident on his medications. Sometimes he is so drugged that memories get lost somewhere in there, only to show up just at the right time.
But still, I wonder if we are all that secure? Time will tell.

+++++
Some of you asked about getting one of those calendars that I blogged about yesterday. Here's the scoop from Edith, who did the job at HP in San Diego.

The printing of all this stuff is done in an in-house print studio that is fully-equipped with all the latest gadgets that one can experiment with. These printers are gigantic and I think they are mainly for commercial usage. My speculation would be places like Walmart, Kinkos or Staples may have these huge printers. According to the software that I used to print this, they usually charge $25.00 for a 12x12 calendar, just like the one I printed for you. Of course it free of charge for employees at this San Diego site:) Nice, isn't it?
The cool part about this Calendar printing software is that it allows you to put multiple shots on one page, and let you play around with the shuffled images until you like the final layout for Seach page, however it does not really let you pick the "champion" of the page, i.e. the shot you want to enlarge. It has its own mind ( which I think is a drawback:) So the resolution of the pictures printed on the page matters to the sharpness of the final print. Of course, the more pixels each image has the sharper it is printed. This is especially important for the enlarged prints. Like I told you in my earlier email, some of your earlier images have less pixels, so when enlarged to half-sheet of the 12x12 format, the picture gets blurry.
 
So I am guessing that $25 per calendar is way too expensive to offer them here.
Update!!  Vistaprint has lots of very inexpensive calendar options, but make sure your photos are high resolution or they will be blurry.

http://www.vistaprint.com/