Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

Chase in Austin Car-jacking Ends With Arrest in Elgin

Austin police are looking into a car-jacking that ended in a chase and arrest in Elgin.

It happened Saturday at Barton Creek Square Mall and escalated to the small town. A woman told detectives she was getting out of her car when she was approached by 22-year-old Chadlee McShan. Within seconds she was “knocked to the ground and her vehicle taken,” says APD Detective Andrew Perkel.

Headed towards Elgin, McShan and Bernardo Contreras were eventually spotted.

When Elgin police tried to stop the car, the men jumped out and ran off. They were found in a nearby yard sometime after the attack and car-jacking.

We’re told the suspects in this case were part of a crime spree, first hitting up family then a woman at the mall.

APD will be charging McShane with robbery by assault.
As for Elgin police, they are pursing their own charges.
Both suspects remain behind bars.

Now here’s the funny part. The news report had pepper spray company representatives demonstrate how pepper spray would be ideal for a situation like this. A bad guy with a piece of pipe came at a good guy who was getting into his car. The good guy raised his keys and sprayed the bad guy with pepper spray. The bad guy swung his pipe at the good guy 5 more times in 7 seconds before finally going down.

Yeah, that’s a big help, thanks. I’ve got my head bashed to a bloody pulp already. And the news aired this story in support of carrying pepper spray as self defense!

No thanks.

Right now Caroline is in the hallway putting together a toy and completely in her own little world, singing “Three Blind Mice” to herself with made-up words. Utterly unselfconscious. Her small little voice fills the upstairs. Every once in a while she plays with the sounds she is making, moving from words to “blums” to “nee nee nee” as she hums the tune. She’s been doing this for about half an hour, and I’ve been observing covertly, wishing like hell I had a video camera nearby. I don’t think anything could be sweeter.

She’s gonna be like me and sing in the car when she gets older.

It’s my small act of subversion to fill in false information on all the stupid little demographic-collection web forms which want your zip code and date of birth and gender. And I use BugMeNot.com whenever possible.

Do you have to fill out a form with your personal information when you read a magazine or newspaper in real life? No. Why should it be the same when you want to read one online?

As far as I can tell, I make a damned good Bloody Mary.

Start with a hefty portion of vodka. Add Mr. & Mrs. T’s bloody mary mix, lots of worcestershire, some tabasco, celery salt, and a squeeze of lime.

Delicious and nutritious.

I also made an excellent strawberry cobbler tonight:

2 cup sliced fresh fruit
2 cup sugar
½ stick butter
1 cup flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ cup milk
Mix fruit with 1 cup of sugar in a bowl; let stand for several minutes. Place butter in a 2 quart casserole and melt in 325 degree oven. Combine remaining 1 cup sugar, flour, baking powder, salt, and milk in a bowl; mix well. Pour over melted butter. Do not stir. Spoon fruit on top of batter. Do not stir. Bake at 325 for 1 hour.

When Caroline was a baby she would not go to sleep unless I was holding her. I spent countless hours rocking her to sleep. At first she curled up with her head on my shoulder, and later she would sleep facing outwards. It drove me nuts to be so tied up for so long.

I finally got her trained to fall asleep in her bed. She would make me sing to her every night though. Usually “Sing a Song” (where she would accompany me on the “Good things, not bad” and “Happy, not sad” by singing “Baaaaaaaaaaaaaad” and “Saaaaaaaaaaaaaad” while frowning and shaking her head “No”). Sometimes “Over the Rainbow” where she would sing as much as she remembered, ending with “Why oh why can’t I?”.

She’s a big kid now though. Wearing big girl panties. Tonight she was up far too late and went nuclear at bedtime. I picked her up and held her in the rocking chair, singing her some songs. She politely listened, then said, “I wanna get OFF!”

Ouch.

We got the kids vaccinated for chicken pox. They ended up getting a mild case of it anyone while they were at Grandma and Grandpa’s house last weekend. No fever, no scratching, just red dots.

Why cyclists wear black pants.