Posts by Jonah

Today is the first Christmas we’ve spent alone.  Unless you count Christmas ’07, whenBerck got the last flight from O’Hare to Colorado Springs, getting in late at night.  Berck has a bad cold, possibly the flu, and has been pitiful all day.  I made myself some cheese eggs and bacon for breakfast, making lots, fully expecting Berck to steal about half of it.  But he must really feel bad, because he only had one piece of bacon and a forkful of eggs.  For Christmas dinner we warmed up some breakfast burritos Berck got from a New Zealender who comes by his work and sells them.  Berck did brew a double batch of beer but then apparently  expected me to clean up from it.

It was nice to have a relaxing day at home, though.  We opened up presents in the morning, and I video chatted with Ben in Mobile and Mom and Dad who are visiting the Baileys in Seattle.  Berck and I went through a few plastic tubs of his dad’s that have been in storage in the garage, tossing a lot of it in the trash, keeping some of it, and putting some in a box to take to Goodwill.  The sort of things we found ranged from a dusty quarter of a roll of Tums (trash) to a set of surgical tools engraved with Dr. Kelsey’s initials (keep).

With as crazy as life has been lately, it was really nice to not have to do anything all day on a Wednesday.  And we get to have the same schedule next week.

Maybe Berck will be feeling better by then and we’ll even cook the duck I bought at the store yesterday.

Here’s one of the neighborhood deer watching Berck brew out on our deck today.  I think he may have won an argument with a hammock.

Today I have an especially good reason to be thankful.

See this blue car? It’s in the middle of a crime scene. In my parents’ front yard.

Berck and I took a load of firewood to my parents’ house today. As we were pulling into their driveway, we noticed an unmarked cop car with its lights on down the road at the other corner of their lot. The cop car followed us down the driveway, bleeped its siren, and a tiny deputy stepped out and demanded to know why we didn’t stop. (We were stopped.) She asked if we lived here, and I told her my dad did. She said that there was a car parked among the trees in the front yard and it was an active crime scene and to please not come down there. Berck asked her what it was, and she said it involved a homicide.

I went over and found Dad, who was working on the shed. (Mom is in Seattle.) He said his neighbor had called him this morning, asking why there a blue car parked in his front yard. Dad went out and looked at it and called the Sheriff’s department. When the deputies arrived, they were concerned because the house was unlocked and Dad wasn’t in it, because was working in the shed. They told him that they were so glad he called because that was a missing piece of the puzzle they needed.

The deputy still there came back up the driveway and asked Dad what time he’d seen the car. We looked on his phone and saw that his neighbor had called at 8:54 that morning. She had Dad fill out a form. She showed us a picture of this guy and asked if we’d ever seen him before (the news posted his picture several hours later).

She said there were two homicides and one other shooting victim, but that was all she could tell us. She warned Dad that the media might converge on his house once they found out that’s where the car was found, and if they did, she’d put up crime scene tape across the driveway so they wouldn’t drive up, but that she’d put it high enough so Dad could drive in and out if he needed to.

She said they were pretty sure they knew who the shooter was. She said they thought he knew at least one of the victims and at least one of the other victims just happened to get in the way. She said her department had it on their to do list yesterday to see if they could find this guy, but something else had come up and they hadn’t been able to. That night he shot three people.

So we’re not really sure of all the details, but it appears this guy shot someone during a burglary not too far from their house, shot someone else the next road down from their house, then ditched his car in my parents’ front yard.

Today I’m grateful my Dad is okay!

We tried to buy this house last summer.  Someone else snapped it up before we could.  (Our process was delayed by being evacuated by the Waldo Canyon Fire and our loan guy being evacuated as well.)

It’s been burned completely to the foundation in the Black Forest Fire. All the houses but one on that road are.

This time Black Forest is on fire. The fire apparently started about half a mile from my parents’ house. They’ve evacuated along with my uncle and the pets and they’re all staying with us. One of those times that having a spare bedroom is nice!

Here’s a link to the local paper’s up to the minute coverage.

And here’s the evacuation map.  Mom and Dad’s house is in the southwest corner of the map.  So far the fire has been burning mostly west.

Berck left work this afternoon and helped them load up the cars.  He also grabbed the photo albums!

There’s another fire at Royal Gorge, so you can see two plumes of smoke from our house depending if you’re looking to the south or to the east.

Tomorrow it’s supposed to be less hot (it almost got to 100 today in Colorado Springs) and a lot less windy.