Bjarni says!

Last night, looking out over the mishmash of shacks and yards and fences behind our house, I noticed two men with a ladder.

They propped the ladder up against a shack right behind our house, deliberated a bit and then apparently changed their mind, taking the ladder down and walking off with it.

An hour or more later, around 1 am, I heard noises outside so I looked out the window again. Someone was moving around in the yard behind the abandoned house nearest to our place, right by the shack the men had been preparing to climb earlier. Seems they had come back.

They made quite a bit of noise, but it was so dark it was impossible to tell what they were up to. They weren't carrying flashlights.

I debated with myself whether to call the cops. If they were just looking for a place to squat, I don't really feel that's a wrong thing. If they're just exploring, as I might be tempted to do on one of my sillier days, that's also fine. No cause for alarm. But it didn't sound like they were trying to break into the abandoned building. And why no lights? Very odd indeed.

What if they were planning to set the place on fire for insurance reasons? That would endanger the whole neighborhood.

As this occurred to me, and I was coming to the conclusion that I should call the cops, the men climbed out of the yard and up onto the roof of the shack behind it. At the same time, a group of slavic-sounding men from the house next to the abandoned one switched on bright lights and came out into their yard to see what was going on.

The two men crept unseen across the roof, climbed down the ladder and walked away with it.

A couple of minutes later, I saw them reappear in an alley a bit further away. Without the ladder. They'd left it behind. Were they planning to return a third time?

At this point, far too late, I called the cops and told them what I'd seen.

Then I went to bed.

...

I don't know if they came back a third time, but I think I'll go see if that ladder is still there.

After exactly two years, I'll be exactly twice as old as the open World Wide Web... for some definition of "the open World Wide Web".

I had no idea I was getting such a nice birthday present fifteeen years ago. I was probably more concerned with getting my drivers' license... but in hindsight it's probably one of the best I've ever gotten. :-)

Thanks Tim!

So I've been at the annual Google/Europe ski trip for the past few days. On my first day, I made a little mistake, much to the amusement of my coworkers:

"Comedy sunburn", they cried! And laughed. And pointed.

I had so much fun snowboarding that I didn't care. It's been an amazing trip. :-)

Update: Heh, looks like we got out of there just in time...

The furor around the Olympics is interesting - people seem very passionate about Tibet and China.

I've never really understood why.

I mean sure, China invaded Tibet and overthrew the government there. The Dalai Lama (who won a Nobel Peace Prize and must therefore be beyond reproach) is in exile. The Chinese government does Bad Things. So... Chinese who defend their government may mean well, but surely they've just been brainwashed, right?

Today I came across an article which implies that it may be just a little bit more complicated than that.

I suppose this shouldn't come as a surprise, but it kind of did. This quote kinda sums it up for me:

Like many erstwhile rulers, the Dalai Lama sounds much better out of power than in power. Keep in mind that it took a Chinese occupation and almost forty years of exile for him to propose democracy for Tibet and to criticize the oppressive feudal autocracy of which he himself was the apotheosis. But his criticism of the old order comes far too late for ordinary Tibetans. Many of them want him back in their country, but it appears that relatively few want a return to the social order he represented.

Interesting stuff.

Now go read the article to learn about the CIA's role, slavery and "Shangri-La"...