Alan Hargreaves' Weblog

Sometimes life sucks

An unual blog title from me for an unusual entry.

Last night coming home on the train (about 9:20pm) I was sleepily playing a game on my notebook as the train pulled into Narara Station (about 15 minutes from where I would disembark). Out of the corner of my eye I noticed my backpack moving across the seat. Too late I realised it was being taken. I ran after the thief shouting for him to stop. He jumped off out of the car and ran along the tracks, jumping a fence and running off. I jumped after to follow but couldn't catch him.

Inside the bag were:

• Ferrari Charger
• 60gb USB disk
• Ferrari bluetooth mouse
• VPN Token card
• Some CDs, pens and other small bibs and bobs

Pretty much nothing to make the theft worthwhile.

I must express my extreme thanks to the folks who watched my notebook while I tried to catch this guy and returned some course material that had fallen out, also to the train guard firstly, for noticing I was beside the tracks and not allowing the train to move; and secondly for his assistance on the rest of the trip home to make sure that it was correctly reported and that I was generally ok.

I know the thief probably won't be reading this, but he will have been caught on CCTV on both Gosford and Narara Stations. The police also have the hat he dropped.

Anyway as I was talking to the guard, I noticed that my shins hurt and I'd cut my hands up a bit, where I'd fallen on the ballast jumping out of the train. After I got to Wyong I went up to Wyong Police Station to report the theft and hand in the hat. I then drove back down to Narara to look around the area to see if anything had been discarded. Gave up after about half an hour and went home.

When I got there Lyn reminded me that as this was my usual journey home, it should be reported through workcover. As I commented earlier I was starting to hurt a little so I ventured up to Wyong Hospital to be checked out. Unfortunately I chose a very busy night, so it was about five hours before anyone could see me (which I don't begrudge as I lost track of the number of ambulances bringing in folks who were hurt worse than me). As it turned out the nurse who ended up bandaging me up after the Doctor had checked me over was a good friend of ours and she was very helpful, even grabbing me a cup of coffee and something to eat before I left (and offerring a lift home if I wasn't up to driving).

Finally got home about 5:30am and decided it really was not worth going to bed until after the kids went to school, which I'm about to do now.

Oh yes, one more thank you, to all the second life folks who sent me their best wishes on hearing what happened. You know who you are, and you have my gratitude.

So I'm basically left with a notebook taht has about 15 minutes of charge on it until I can organise a new power supply. I hope that that is not going to take too long. I guess, I'm also really glad that the notebook was on my knee and not in the bag. I only just finished paying it off in December!

Posted at 09:10AM Mar 27, 2007 by Alan Hargreaves in General  |  Comments[4]