Got a hold of my friend

7/11/08 Friday
I finally got a hold of my friend in Toledo. Been calling his number for two weeks and only getting his answering machine. It had me real worried because Allen is subject to intense depression and has been suicidal for years. I’ve pulled him through several times, one time when he called to ask what he owned that I would like to have. “Anything Bob, you name it” he said and I knew he was planning on ending his life. Allen suffers chronic pain from a lifetime of abuse, both from his grandfather, who beat him with two by fours and a hammer, and self inflicted from years of competition martial arts fighting. Adding to that are highly probable traumatic brain injuries from getting hit in the head and knocked unconscious with a hammer, falling through the roof of a barn, and countless blows from martial arts fights. I was so worried I searched the Toledo newspaper online to see if his name showed up and was going to call the police to see if they had anything. So I was ecstatic to hear him answer the phone. Allen has been sick with a stomach virus but also fell down his stairs while carrying a box full of stuff that included a big vase. That he said broke over his head. On top of that he twisted his ankle so bad he can’t hardly walk on it, but he does anyway. Of course he didn’t go to the hospital like he should have. Too macho for that.

Allen is about as tough as I am. You can go back in this journal to read and see pictures of when he blew himself up. Allen is a member of the Pyrotechnics Guild and builds, or at least used to build, professional fireworks. At their yearly get together in North Dakota a thirteen inch shell he made went off twenty feet away. It pushed his truck sideways five feet and blew him over the top of it. I spent a lot of time cooking, cleaning, and helping him surgically remove gravel from his body. There is a picture of his leg that shows how bad it was. Without insurance and unable to work going to the hospital wasn’t an option so we did it ourselves without anesthesia. I would go over everyday to change his bandages and clean the wounds.

It would be nice if I could go back to Toledo for a few days to help him out and for that matter just find and visit my friends and see what happened to my former secretary. Her phone is disconnected so I haven’t been able to get a hold of her either.

While out working on the pumpkin patch I noticed a car parked down by the phone company’s building. Suspicious he might be tapping into our Wi Fi I went into the house to check. Sure enough someone was going online through our system. So I spent the last two hours trying to figure out how to set up the security system on the Linksys but kept getting confused so I gave up. I’m sure it’s a simple thing but I can’t quite grasp how to do it. Looking at the link Bill gave me to check on our satellite usage I found that someone had gone online for nearly two hours from three to five in the morning. We’ve got to get that security thing up. Some idiot could be doing child porn or something else illegal and it could get traced back to us. Plus they can hack into our computers. Can’t have that.