Karin's Adventures

My mother-in-law lost her final battle against cancer today at 3:53 p.m.
When her time came to say good-bye she did so gracefully, in peace, and with dignity. She had a smile on her face and was sitting in her favorite recliner at home, surrounded by her family.

We enjoy sitting out on the patio in the evenings, listening to the birds sing, watching the sun set, having a cold drink, and relaxing. In past years there was one unpleasant detail, though - millions of mosquitos, all honing in on me to have dinner.  

This summer the bugs will go hungry. We bought a steel gazebo, with netting all around it, and spent three hours today, setting it up in our back yard. Of course we also had to try it out with some hamburgers and bratwurst on the grill later on. It works to perfection!

When homesickness hits there is a cure available at the grocery store, if you are lucky enough to have an ALDI within reach. Today was the grand opening of a new ALDI store just about three miles from my home. Of course I couldn't miss that!

Indulge in renting your grocery cart: you have to stick a quarter in to release the cart from its chain.
Also remember to bring your own shopping bags, baskets, or boxes, if you don't want to lower yourself to purchasing plastic bags. You can leave your credit cards and coupons at home - they accept cash or debit card only for payment, and they don't honor coupons.

Our new store features the typical dextrogyrated ALDI Süd style setup,  which makes it feel even more like home. We spent $38 and walked out with a cart full of groceries. Next time we go there they will hopefully have their liquor license and we'll be able to purchase wine and beer there too.

I'm still not sure whether to feel traumatized or extremely lucky. Today while I was enjoying the perfect sunshine outside, walking for my lunch-break, somebody entered the office, opened my desk drawer, took the wallet out of my purse, and went to buy a whole bunch of stuff with the two credit cards in it.

I found out about four hours later, when I got ready to go home, and got my glasses out of the purse. There I noticed the wallet was missing. Just the wallet, nothing else. That wallet contained only two credit cards, my health insurance card, the library card, a few stamps, and about $20 cash. There are other things in my purse that I consider more valuable, but those things are still with me - which is why I'll probably end up feeling extremely lucky.

When I got home and called the credit card companies, I found out that one of the cards had already been reported to the bank as found, about half an hour after being stolen, by some lady not too far away from Indiana Tech. Later on I went to meet with that woman. She told me how and when and where she had found my card and gave it back to me.

From now on I will have to keep my desk drawer locked at work.
That's sad. 

update 4/5/2010
the truth is partially out

I reported the incident to the police. During the investigation I found out more details, and I realized that my initial assessment was not completely correct.

My wallet had been stolen between 9:40 a.m. and 9:57 a.m. already, not during my lunch walk. The person who did this had done the same thing last year at other businesses downtown. My stolen credit cards had been used by two different people, who must have gotten them from the thief. One of the people using my cards didn't even spell my name right when forging my signature.

There's a good chance that the two users of my cards will go to jail.
Hopefully the thief will go down too, sooner or later.

update 4/22/2010
it happened again!

Today, around 8:15 a.m., the same thief walked into another building on campus and stole a colleague's wallet out of her purse, out of her closed overhead bin, out of her office. She found out quicker than I had, before the thief even had a chance to use any of her stolen cards.
Too bad, that knowing what the thief looks like doesn't help you to catch him. You would have to see him actually stealing something. Just suspicious behaviour, documented on surveillance video, doesn't count in court.

I made it about half way through my Bachelor's degree studies; you may officially call me a *Junior* now. Tomorrow night I'll take the final test for my current 'Group Dynamics' class.

Our teacher lets us use a 5"x7" piece of paper, front and back, with whatever we want to put on it, as our cheat-sheet.
Here's how I made mine:

first I answered all questions on the teacher's study guide, using her class hand-outs. Then I copied all those answers onto a new word document, omitting all line spacing and paragraphing and indentations.

Arial narrow, 8 pt., is the smallest font I can read. Alternating colors adds even more readability. Then I printed that onto 2 pages of letter size paper, cut the text portions out exactly 5" by 7", and glued the pages together to make a 'front' and 'back'.