April 19

Some fiend broke into my place while I was at work last Wednesday. He broke my door frame (door was bolted shut) and stole my laptop, external dvd burner, dvd player for my tv, and digital camera. I lost all my photos from mid February on. This included my trip to High Island and Port Bolivar. Well my dad has a copy of my burning firehouse restaurant photos since he thought they were cool and I emailed them to him. Oh and my sister has a copy of my picture of Raising Cane II (mascot of Raising Cane's Chicken fingers) that I took at LSU's Vet School open house and emailed to her. My latest photos which were still on my camera were taken from the Mississippi River levee. The river is extra high this year (10 year flood cycle) and I took some photos with the water above the level of the cars driving on the road on the other side of the levee.

I also lost my birding database, which I really should have backed up. I mean my computer could have crashed if not for the robbery. I think I can rebuild my life list although I probably won't be able to keep things in the order seen within the same day. That required me to bring a notebook with me every time I went birding anyway and I may just stop doing that. I also lost my year list data which I won't be able to recover.

My binocs (w00t!), tv & vcr (old pieces of crap), cd collection, portable stereo, and practically brand new awesome printer were left behind. Bunnies and aquarium were not harmed. I did not have any expensive jewelry or cash in the house. He didn't bother to riffle through my stuff and so missed all the possible identify theft papers.

My friend is letting me borrow his old computer until I get a new one. My mom said I could borrow her pentax film camera which I haven't used since I went digital. I don't know when I'll get a chance to go to Texas to get it. But when I do, we're going back to High Island and hopefully there will be baby birds to see!

I was already planning on getting a dSLR soon (and new computer, mine was really old and slow) but I'm not sure yet if I want to get a small camera also to replace my Olympus C-765UZ. I just spent my entire tax refund and a bit more on fixing my leaky car up. My A/C was leaking into the outside, my oil pan was leaking onto my carport, my tire was slowly leaking air, and my muffler was leaky making my car noisy and scaring birds away. But I am getting a roommate and a raise next month so new computer and camera are not too far away.