#life

That Ted

Hiya, Elise!!!

SOOOOOOOO glad to hear that you made it back all in one piece and you're sounding a lot more like yourself again, too. (Also glad that your house wasn't trashed and the lizard was in good -- comatose -- condition.)

As for me, after dashing off my update to you, I got back on the road and headed out to PODUNKVILLE, OREGON to pick up my car... It was all fixed and sounded TOTES BETTER on the way back home. I was TOO TIRED TO DEAL and decided to drive STRAIGHT HOME... it meant my second SUPER-LATE NIGHT in a row but it was SOOOOOOO nice to crash in my own bed -- to a startled snort and mumble from the Hubs -- and then to wake up, luxuriantly, in my OWN room with my OWN pillow under my cheek.

SRSLY, it's the little things in life that make the difference.

And then... well, reading over your last update, I see why this happened, but I was sort of WEIRDED OUT when I originally got the call.

My phone rang, like SUPER-EARLY in the morning -- I was just getting back from my morning SPIN SESSION -- and I picked it up.

Silence. Then "Ummmm, Lindzi"

"Yeppers, that's me!"

"Um...."

I sighed. "Well, WHAT IS IT????"

"Uh, this is Ted. From #life."

"Yeah, Ted, I have your number in my phone. So what's up?"

He started to explain that you'd sent him to investigate Zelda. I didn't know about it but supposed it was a good idea. From what I can tell -- remember that computer-code poem from the very beginning? -- he's pretty good at that stuff.

But then something he was saying sunk in...

"...and since I didn't have the permissions to look at her account activity, I hacked into your profile on the site. Really, Lindzi, even a CHILD could have guessed your password; you really should make more of an effort to keep it more secure. C'mon, "RunGirlRun" is the name of your blog. Seriously, you should put a little more thought into it. I guess I should be glad it wasn't 12345 or something..."

(I had almost set it to 12345. So annoying, that Ted!)

"Ted, thank you for the lesson. What is your point?"

"Oh, yeah. Well, so once I was in your profile, I did some quick scans of the user activity and I..."

Blah blah blah. I figure he probably spent some time stalking Lila's deets as well as whatevs he was doing for Zelda. I made myself a bagel and pretended to listen to him as he blathered on. I thought you said the guy wasn't talkative, Elise????

Any-hoodles, eventually I realized he was actually saying something sorta interesting in between all the computery mumbo-jumbo...

"... and my trace backtracked it to a company's IP address -- naturally it was routed through a number of spoofing sites and I had to break the encryption before continuing..."

"Yeah, yeah, Ted," I interrupted impatiently, losing my patience, "I know you're a genius... so what did you find?"

"AS I WAS SAYING," he went on, as if I hadn't spoken, "After I broke through the encryption I saw that several of the IP addresses were registered to the same shell corporation. Not the same company name, mind you, but the same shell corporation. Even more suspicious, they were all registered on the same day by the same person..."

I set down the phone -- it was on speaker -- and went to wash my hands.

There was a suspicious pause on the other end. "ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME? This is important, Lindzi."