The Case of the Oatmeal Bandits

So, the HLDW and I were gone for a couple of hours yesterday evening, out and about running errands, getting Indian takeaway, etc., you know, the day to day tasks of life, only to return to Chateau Rhino and stumble upon the following crime scene in the middle of the kitchen:

Somehow the carton of oatmeal that I had left on one of the counters was mysteriously transported to the floor, the lid was removed and the carton remained standing upright.

WTF?

The game is afoot.

I immediately round up the usual suspects. The cats, per usual, are inscrutable and are acting as if moving the oatmeal, much less eating it, is beneath their dignity. Forensic examination reveals no oatmeal flakes adhering to their whiskers so I have to release them for lack of evidence. I ask them to not leave the immediate environs in the event that I need to bring them back in for questioning. Being the cunning bastards they are they immediately lawyer-up and will resist any further interrogation attempts. Is it no wonder that I have yet to pin a crime on them.

The dogs are next. They must be the prime suspects in this case due to their criminal history. To say the least they are not criminal masterminds - the open and shut case of the paper towel roll disappearance of '08 will attest to that fact. They were immediately apprehended when the evidence was found shredded on their blankets and they failed to dispose of additional evidence attached to their wet doggy noses. Unsubtle does not begin to describe their modus operandi.

So, I'm a bit confused as, on the surface, this crime appears to be magnitudes more sophisticated than their usual M.O.

To wit:
1. The carton is mysteriously intact. Their standard M.O. is to eat through whatever is holding the thing that they really want to eat.
2. The lid has been removed cleanly. See point number one. Besides, there were no opposable thumbs present - so how the hell did they do that.
3. There is no debris field around the carton - past performance would indicate that they would have gone into a feeding frenzy or at least knocked over the carton wrestling once the target was breached.
4. There was oatmeal left in the carton. If anything, they have been thorough in the past with respect to fully devouring their ill-gotten gains.
5. Their snouts and coats are disturbingly clean.

So, despite my suspicions I must release them for lack of evidence. Unlike the cats they do not immediately lawyer-up. I can't decide if this is because they are being their usually cocksure selves or if they are out of cell phone minutes for the month.

I don't know ... I'll let you decide ... take a look at this mug shot taken moments after our stumbling upon the crime scene and the aforementioned rounding up of usual suspects:


Is this the look of guilt?

I for sure know that despite being as frugal as I am and no evidence that any of the oatmeal was eaten by any domesticated animal residing at Chateau Rhino the remainder of that carton is going in the trash.

OK, OK, in the interest of full disclosure I will admit that I did consider that I could salvage some of the oatmeal if I removed a precise layer of 'potentially slobbered upon' oatmeal. But the HLDW vetoed this immediately and common sense prevailed.

It is good to be Sherlock Rhino.

Update for the Rhino Lovers

Just a general update for the Rhino lovers amongst you - you know who you are.

The Home Front

Had the 11th wedding anniversary with the HLDW last night ... a splendid time was had by all. The HLDW certainly appreciated the gift of the 2-hour massage (female masseuse - I checked) and the mani/pedi session. We had a great Mexican food dinner at a little hole in the wall that has been voted tops in Atlanta for oh, like a decade or something. Then we met up with my chef buddy and his wife - who happen to share our anniversary date - at another hole in the wall for drinks and listening to a band (blues). To top it off, as we were leaving, the HLDW noticed that there was one of those newpaper holder thingys outside the bar for the free weekly tabloid to which she contributes ... and the new issue had just been loaded that contained her new article. This delighted her to no end and was the perfect capper to a very nice day. You can find it here: http://www.thesundaypaper.com/More/Archives/tabid/98/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/4154/Role-models.aspx

Some may scoff at 11 years, as most of my married friends around the same age are up to the late teens or early 20's or more, but this is from a Rhino that never thought he would get married, EVAR. So, I'm feeling pretty good about it - I am a man who loves his wife.

I was great to have a stress free day as the last 2 weeks have been unending hell as we are still dealing with the fallout from 18 months of unemployment/short-term employment. We have one major issue to resolve and I believe that this will be the final hurdle to get us back on the path to normality - but at this point I'm not sure that the cure won't be worse than the disease. We'll see. There were glimmers of hope on Friday and I'm hoping that Monday brings that to fruition.

The Work Front

The new gig is proceeding well. There are some challenges that I'm still adjusting to - amongst them are the time zone differences and not getting into a solid sleep schedule to cope. The biggest challenge though is the thing that I thought would be the easiest - working from home. Don't get me wrong, it is majorly SWEET that my commute is the 2 minutes it takes me to make my way from the bed to the office and that I can take a tea & cigar break pretty much whenever I want. The upside is the downside as well in that I'm HOME pretty much ALL DAY. The HLDW is beginning to realize just how much she enjoyed having me out of the house for 10 or so hours each day - and I reciprocate those feelings. I tried working some at the cigar shop a couple of times. Funny how things works, when unemployed I would visit the cigar shop during work hours and it would be fairly quiet - to the point where I'd take the occasional nap. However, now that I need to engage in conference calls as a key component of my work day, the couple of times I tried to work there seemed to coincide with visits of large gangs of apparently deaf loud talkers that require the volume of the news channel to be turned up to 11. Or, as on one visit, one of the owners that is a great friend but does not engage in a lot of unnecessary conversation during working hours felt the need to be the most gregarious and engaging man in the world. Over the weekend I found a huge coffee shop with free wifi up the street so I'm going to give that a try next week.

Well, that's where things stand for the moment ... lots more of course but most of it is the minutiae of daily life, but them there's the basics.

Hope that life is treating you well.

Regards,
Rhino

Sri Lanka v Australia - WTF Guys?

My virtual and work worlds collided yesterday in yet another demonstration of why the interwebs rock.

Had a Skype confernce call very, very, early local time yesterday with my boss in London and members of the development team in Sri Lanka and the pre-meeting chit chat was all about the upset of Australia by Sri Lankan in the Twenty20.

Everyone was happy. Funny thing I noticed though - my boss refuses to say the word Austalians - he will only say, "Sons of English convicts" when referring to ye lads down under. Don't know where that animosity comes from. The Sri Lankans, needless to say, were full of themselves. I'm not sure what pleased them most; the end of their 26 year long civil war or this cricket victory.

I mentioned, of course, that I have a lot of Aussie buds and that I needed to write about this in my blog ... and the flood gate of links to articles began to flood my in box. They really are a vindictive bunch. I tried to stand up for you I really did - but I felt queasy trying to defend a poofy game that I didn't give a rat's arse about and, besides, I really needed them to knock out some serious code this week.

by the way, what the hell does this tag line from The Telegraph mean?

A sign in the crowd after Australia's early exit from the World Twenty20 at the hands of Sri Lanka summed it up: "Enjoy Leicester, Ricky".

Anyway, I guess I just wanted to say, WTF guys - y'all are embarrassing me in the work place.

Harden the fuck up, will ya.

Regards,
Rhino