I wrote a while back that I told the whole world we were on vacation and no one stole anything while we were away. Probably not a good idea to blog you're going away on vacation. Anyhow, turns out there are "professional" burglars in our neighborhood. (how does one become a professional burglar?).
From a neighbor:
This evening about 7:30 while we where home, our home was burglarized. Someone came in our back kitchen door, moved through the house and took our wallets and a camera. We were upstairs during the short period that this happened. We nor our dog heard anything, no TV or music was playing. Seems to be the work of pros. Within 20 minutes one of credit cards was used at a 76 gas station.
The other evening, I went out for an hour run or so. I'm all energized afterwards and start doing chores. I go take out the garbage and as I go back inside I notice something on the ground. It's metal. Oh hey, it's a crowbar…in my backyard. The joys of living in the 'hood. It's good we have a security door and motion lights in the back. It's also good that we don't have much to steal. It's great that I didn't run into the owner of the crowbar either. I very much hope this person doesn't read my blog.
Mashup Idea
If you've read this far might as well listen to my mashup idea. I'd like to see a Google Maps or Yahoo maps that has crime overlays for burglaries, homicides, rapes, and assaults (other crimes?) by year. I'd like to see this done for all cities and then I'd like to be able to zoom out and be able to visually compare cities and countries.
Any takers? If you can show me this app at the MashupCamp conference, I'll get you something nice from the Mozilla Store.