What a Day!

Yesterday was a strange day. It started out fairly normal, but that all changed a noon when I checked my mail.

The postman came earlier than normal and left a letter from the District Attorney General's office addressed to the parents of Bug. I couldn't imagine what she had done that warranted a letter from the A.G. It was a pleasant surprise to find that she was the winner for her school in the writing challenge "Do the Write Thing." She doesn't even remember writing the essay for the contest!

Next I checked my email and my whole day changed. I got an email threatening my life from some unknown person. I didn't actually panic at first, but tried to get ahold of Joe. He didn't pick up his phone, so I emailed him telling him to call me NOW! It yielded results. He came home immediately after I read the email to him. We contacted the police who took an "intimidating call/email" report and told me it was probably a prank since I haven't had any fights with anybody - ever. Since we felt like the police were blowing it off and not taking it seriously, we contacted the local field office of the FBI. They called back and we were informed that they had seen these types of emails before. They're actually tied to a phishing scam from Nigeria. They want people that are scared to respond to the email and send money. Like I HAVE any!

Of course for a little while Joe enjoyed packing a pistol around. He'd tucked it in his back pocket and I told him not to shoot his butt. He ended up getting a piece of software off the internet to trace the email. It originated in Amsterdam from what he could tell, and had been routed through a server at Honeywell. He contacted a gentleman at Honeywell and gave the IP address that the email came through so that they could secure that particular line or whatever it was that allowed that to happen. At least after doing that I realized that I don't know ANYONE in Amsterdam, so it definitely was a cruel hoax. It makes you nervous thinking that somebody may have been watching you and your family and that you may have done something unwittingly to make somebody that mad.

Last night I went to get Bear from scouts and afterwards felt like I needed comfort food after such a trying afternoon, so we went to Sonic for ice cream. I find myself trying to be more aware of my surroundings since the email came, which I suppose is a good thing in the long run. I just wish I could contact Google about the gmail account that the threat came from so they can shut it down, but there's no good way to contact that company. Hopefully today will be calmer and the most taxing thing will be doing taxes.