Talk About Timing

Here's what you want to be focused on as you are leaving town.

Identity Theft.

And you thought i was going to say the safety of your family and your driving plans and getting the bills payed and making sure the kids can get to school, etc.

Nope.

This is another of those adventures you don't want to have.

A few days ago, on our home phone, i answered a number i didn't recognize. It was a payday type loan place, calling to offer Meghan a great deal. Well, there has never been a Meghan here, and i said so, and the person said, "Thank you" and hung up.

No further calls have come on the home phone.

My mobile, the cell phone, is another story.

Within about 10 minutes of that first call. i got a text message for Meghan, again asking her if she wanted a loan.

The calls and texts have not stopped since.

With the calls, i tell them my identity has been stolen, i don't want a loan, take me off your calling list. One guy, when i said that, said, "Oh, no!" and hung up fast.

The texts all tell you how to "unsubscribe," but i know better than to respond in any way. Then they won't just keep texting, they will sell your number to everyone on earth.

Instead, i have just been deleting the texts.

So, Meghan, whoever it is, has put her name and both of my phone numbers on the lists of these predatory loan people, and i am not amused.

After a call to my ID Theft Protection company (www.zanderins.com , if anyone wants to know, they sell the best protection on the planet), i am going to treat it as theft and monitor the situation very closely.

A call to the phone provider has shown no unusual activity on my account. If i get sick enough of the calls and texts after a few days, i can pay an extra $5 a month to allow my to put up to 15 numbers in a database and block them from contacting me. That would be a last resort.

Right now, my hope is that whoever this is just has nothing but my phone numbers, and used them instead of his or her own, but had no other info of mine. Possibly she wanted to take out a loan, but didn't want to get all the calls associated with it.

Because they have both the home and the mobile number, it could also be a practical joke, or just a mean trick, from someone who knows me and wants me bothered by all of this.

Either way, i'm not going to let it interfere with my plans.

Nor will i let it get me down.

S-Fest, here i come.


Today is:

Eleven Days of Global Unity -- Day 10, Disarmament (sponsored by We, the World)

Feast of Zywie -- Poland (goddess of longevity and health; date approximate)

Haustmanuour -- Iceland (beginning of traditional Autumn Month, during which all the summer chores are finished, including livestock rounded up, before winter begins)

National Rum Punch Day

National Youth Day -- Thailand

Okuma-kabuto Festival -- Nakajima, Japan (Noto Peninsula's top autumn festival)

Opening of Parliament -- Netherlands (holiday in The Hague)
Prinsjesdag -- Netherlands (technically translates "Prince's Day;" the day Parliament opens and the reigning sovereign, now Queen Beatrix, gives the Speech from the Throne)

Seventh day of the Eleusinian Mysteries, when the secret rites in the Telesterion began -- Ancient Greek Calendar

St. Eustace's Day (patron of hunters, difficult marriage situations; against family troubles)


Birthdays Today:

Taro Aso, 1940
Sophia Loren, 1934
Anne Meara, 1929
Dr. Joyce Brothers, 1928
Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton, 1890
Upton Sinclair, 1878
Rama V, King of Thailand, 1853 (eldest son taught by Anna, of "The King and I" fame)
Emperor Takakura of Japan, 1161


Today in History:

Atilla the Hun defeated at Chalons-sur-Marne by General Aetius, 451
Saladin begins the siege of Jerusalem, 1187
Ferdinand Magellan sets sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda with about 270 men on his expedition to circumnavigate the globe, 1519
Galileo Galilei is tried before the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for teaching that the Earth orbits the Sun, 1633
Maryland passes the first "anti-amalgamation" law to stop English women from marrying black men, 1664
The Negro Convention of Free Men agrees to boycott slave-produced goods, 1830
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is created, 1848
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 ends with the recapture of Delhi by troops loyal to the East India Company, 1857
The first gasoline-powered car debuts in Springfield, Massachusetts, United States, 1891
Cunard Line's RMS Mauretania is launched, 1906
The first Cannes Film Festival is held, 1946
James Meredith, an African-American, is temporarily barred from entering the University of Mississippi, 1962
The RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 is launched, 1967
Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs in The Battle of the Sexes tennis match, 1973
The Socialist Republic of Vietnam joins the UN, 1977