I’ve spent the last several days down in Sunnyvale enjoying the wonderfully warm weather and bright sunshine. Californians might dither on the definition of those terms, but all I mean by it is, it’s not frigid and rainy when I step outside, and if I do it before 5pm there actually is sun out.

The nice thing about traveling on Sunday nights is, you tend to get bumped up. No room on the current flight? Take one in a few hours and some flight vouchers for your trouble. Want a full-size car rental? We’re out, but we have this high-end car just sitting here you can use, no extra charge.

So I’ve been driving around in a Chrysler 300, which is an absolute beast; gotta keep focusing on not going 90mph on the freeway.

Last night I was out to dinner and decided to do that thing that no one ever does but then swears it’s awesome and the best-kept secret ever, which is to go to a movie by oneself. I’d heard such awesome things about Coco, but hadn’t warmed up to the idea of sitting through it until I glanced at this thumbnail from the trailer, and fell in love with the coloring.

And indeed, the movie was delightful. Called a few of the story points, but enough was a surprise to keep it great. And I loved the way the writers used authentic Mexican culture to weave a story that was both compelling and educational.

Ho hum, walking out to my car, what a great movie that was. Double-tap the engine-start button ’cause the car’s cool like that, settle in and start the engine…

Hm, do I hear traffic out the back window? I swear I didn’t roll down any windows, lemme look back and check if I cracked it…

Can’t spot the top edge of the window, that’s odd. In fact, I can’t spot the window at all, did I roll it all the way down?

..Oh. There’s the window. All over the back seat of the car.

…

My bag.

And it was gone. The backpack that’d taken me from Budge Hall to Condo Row, my corporate laptop, and numerous credit cards and keys.

While none of my important work files were left on that machine, there were a number of sentimental documents that I’d pay quite a bit to get back. The irony is not lost on me, however, the guy advising everyone to put all their stuff up on Dropbox. You never think it’ll happen to you.

Y’know when someone gets their house broken into and they say they feel violated? That’s kind of like what I feel like, thinking of my poor desktop, all those files that didn’t deserve to get stolen and wiped.

But I’m trying to put it past me, and honestly it could be a ton worse. I came close to driving myself to the airport instead of having Mattie do it on Monday. If I’d driven myself I would’ve had my car and house keys in that backpack. My phone and wallet are fine, which significantly cut down on the number of cards I had to cancel. Damage insurance was included on the rental so I’m covered there.

I’ve been meaning to close my Bank of American Fork account anyways and do all financial stuff out of my new credit union, just haven’t gotten around to doing that. Since my backpack contained a checkbook for my account I was forced to close it, kick-starting the migration process.

But besides all that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? Well lemme tell you, I’m not a fan of the newer-model Macbooks, with their super-shallow keyboards, no MagSafe adapter, and no HDMI/USB-A ports. I was hoping to delay an equipment refresh as long as I could, but it looks like I’m gonna be forced into using one of them new-fangled doo-hickeys. Zeroth-world problem right there. (Although, while my Conformance Rationalization Mechanisms were kicking in, I may have finagled a way to get a refurbished older model shipped to the Kirkland office, so we’ll see on that point. (No offense intended to anyone who does own a touch-bar Macbook, of course.))