A woman in Des Moines carried out a fantastic punishment on her son who violated an agreement they had concerning a car she had recently bought him. The classified ad she put up in her local newspaper says it best:
"OLDS 1999 Intrigue. Totally uncool parents who obviously don't love teenage son, selling his car. Only driven for three weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a life found booze under front seat. $3,700/offer. Call meanest mom on the planet."
Click through to read the rest of the story (via Fox News).
The Colorado Legislature is set to introduce (and hopefully pass) several bills in 2008 to help promote the use of solar power collection systems. Some legislation would offer rebates to homeowners who install solar systems in their homes, as well as require utility companies to buy back excess solar power produced by that home. What's interesting there is the rebate would be $2 per watt installed, and a company in California (NanoSolar) has just started shipping solar panels that cost less than a dollar per watt. Granted, there are many other costs that must be considered apart from the panels, but the gist of it is that in the very near future, the payback on a solar energy system may be only a matter of a few years, rather than decades as it currently stands (though this can vary greatly depending on what state rebates are in place). You can read more about this in the Rocky Mountain News.
Saturday night in the Crestwood Park neighborhood (northwest of the middle school) started out like any other winter night in Woodland Park. The near-full moon shone off blankets of snow and stars lit up the sky while people began turning in for the night, thankful to be indoors instead of outside in the sub-freezing temperatures. Our family's peaceful evening was disturbed though when, after turning in early for the night, the doorbell rang at 10:30PM, followed shortly thereafter by some rapid knocking. I'm always slow to wake up, so once I associated the sounds I heard with the door, I took a peak from upstairs and saw at least one person standing outside. By the time I grabbed my bathrobe and started heading downstairs, they had left, and I watched as their white Pontiac coupe backed out of our driveway and headed west down Valley View Drive. Too bad we didn't know anyone with such a car, for if we had, we'd have been able to go back to sleep easier! As it was, we spent the next little while being paranoid, wondering what those people were up to, why they were knocking on our door, and why they left before we had a chance to answer. If they were seeking help, why didn't they stop at any of the neighboring houses, some of which had lights on (ours was dark out front)? It was quite weird, but eventually we settled back down to sleep (after turning all our front lights on!).
Sometime around 11:45, noises again roused us from our sleep. The first noise was somewhat undecipherable, probably a rustle of things being stepped on downstairs (one side effect of having a toddler is that if you don't watch where you walk, you usually end up stepping on something). The more urgent noise was the sound of our dog barking, something he rarely does and thus nothing to be taken lightly. Upon getting out of bed, we could hear that someone was inside our house downstairs! Flipping on the lights and shouting did seem to catch their attention, though the reply was a bit of a muffled, unintelligible sound. They hadn't made it very far into the house and quickly left back through the same door. The Woodland Park police responded very quickly; in no time at all an officer was at our house to help us check out whether anything was missing, and more importantly, to see if anyone was still in the house. Once the house was cleared, she took off on foot after the intruder, which was quite simple as he had left very distinct footprints in the snow!
(click the 'read more' link to read the rest of this story...)
Do you need to dispose of your Christmas tree but aren't sure what to do with it? Take it the lot behind City Hall on December 26, 27 and 28 for free disposal. Apparently it's called the "Tree Roll Off", whatever this means. I learned of this event not from any city source, but rather by calling Waste Management. I wanted to know whether they picked up the trees with the garbage. They do, but they charge $10. However, the woman on the phone was nice enough to inform me of the city event. So there you have it. We better get to work un-decorating our tree ...
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