AsktheBuilder.com News - November 23, 2018
Dear ,
Did you just subscribe? Welcome and let me tell you now this is a pretty strange issue of my newsletter. Hang in there.
Old friend or newer subscriber? You're going to LOVE this issue. If not, reply and tell me why. March through the entire thing as there's great stuff here the day after Thanksgiving.
I'm a little groggy writing this as I didn't get a good night's sleep last night. It's now just after sunrise here on a bitter cold New Hampshire morning. Brilliant sunshine is pouring into my man cave, but it's only 9 F.
Last night just after 2 am I hear a knuckle rapping on my bedroom door.
"Dad! Dad! Get up!"
My son was talking in a hushed voice and I got up from a deep sleep and was groggy.
Opening the door, "What's going on?"
"Dad, are both cats in the bedroom?"
We have two indoor cats, both of them are pretty special as they're a mix of domestic and wild cats. With a fog swirling inside my head, I couldn't quite figure out why at 2 am in the morning it was important to know that.
Quickly I open the door enough to let light in and I see both cats in the bedroom. I then went out into the hallway as I could see my son was pretty upset. He had an unusual wild-eyed look.
"What's going on?"
"Dad, the front door was wide open!"
Sure enough, the hallway was cold. The floor was damn cold. The choke in my brain had just been pushed in and I was starting to think more clearly.
The previous 24 hours had been windy as an arctic cold front was our Thanksgiving gift. Temperatures were in the single digits overnight and the wind chill was below zero.
But going to bed, I remember the wind had pretty much died down.
Was there a burglar inside? Had my son scared him as he came up the steps?
We decided to go room by room and clear the house. I should have grabbed my Sig 9mm from the bedroom, but didn't. We live in a rural part of New Hampshire and there's a raging opioid epidemic that's causing personal devastation and increased crime. Burglaries and break-ins are now as common as loons on the lakes.
We went into every room, opened every closet, looked behind all the shower curtains. We looked everyplace we could think of where someone might be hiding. Nothing.
I decided to go out the front door to see if there were any footprints in the dusty snow on the driveway. Once again, nothing. I needed to get back in as I had gone out barefoot.
"Dad, could the wind have opened the door? It just doesn't seem possible. Look how tight the weatherstripping is."
I tested the door and it did take moderate effort to get it open once the latch was out of the keeper.
"Anything's possible."
We said goodnight and I went back into the bedroom. But I was wired and awake. Kathy wanted to know what was going on and I told her.
My mind was whirling as I lay in bed.
It's damn possible a burglar did try to get in but got scared off.
Maybe I should go look next door as my neighbors, their house is the first down the driveway, are gone for Thanksgiving and maybe the burglar went first to their house and left footprints in the light snow on their drive.
Then in hit me like a bolt out of the blue.
The motion sensors on my Ring floodlight cam and the Ring doorbell would have captured the movement of the wretched burglar!
Each time anything moves in front of either device it records video and creates an event on my app.
I sprung up out of bed like I was sitting on a spring and fired up my phone. Here's what I saw:
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