California: Welcome to LA

Yesterday I went into LA for the first time. It's about an hour drive into the city from Irvine. I went into the city to see a show at the El Rey Theatre on Wilshire Blvd. It seemed a rather nice area of town. According to the signs that area is referred to as the Golden Mile. I'm not sure why.

Anyway, I went into the show at 3:00pm. I came out about 6:30. When I returned to my car I discovered the rear passenger window had been smashed. It was kind of a surreal moment. Is the window really smashed? If I look away and look back is it still broken? Why did this happen?

Once I knew it was real the internal swearing swearing started. Then slight panic about what to do. Finally I decided to check to see what was taken. Sure enough my backpack was taken from the back seat. I check around the rest of the car to see what else might have been taken. I check the back of the car and nothing was touched there. I looked in the glove compartment, nothing was taken there. I looked in the arm rest where I had put my iPod, and it was still there. As far as I could tell all they took was my backpack.

I stared think about what was in my backpack. I knew my cell phone was in there, but I couldn't remember exactly what else. I know I had taken out most of my important documents. I did remember there was $300 is travelers checks though. I know I could get those back, but I didn't relish the process. Also the backpack it self wasn't cheap.

When trying to decide what to do next, I though about what this person or persons may have done after taking the backpack. The usual strategy for this type of robbery is to smash, grab and run. Stop somewhere close by, pick out the good stuff and ditch the bag. So I decided to start looking around.

I knew they wouldn't have crossed the street, too busy and the lights take too long to change. I decided to do a sweep a block in each direction and see what I could find. There were still lots of people about so I didn't feel it was too risky.

I was parked on Wilshire Blvd next to a construction site which occupied an entire block. On the corner of the next block was a Hollywood Video store. I decided to look behind that store. There was a parking lot and a set of dumpsters. A quick look showed up nothing. I then walked back towards the construction site and along the small road behind it. The other side of the street was bushes along the side of houses. I looked in the bushes as I walked along the road, but no sign of the bag.

I turned down the next street and looked in the garbage cans that where put out at each house. Nothing so far. I then walked the next block behind another construction site, then turned back towards Wilshire Blvd. I hadn't spotted anything so far. There was a parking garage there so I took a look through the first floor, but it was too well lit, I didn't think they would have gone there.

Once back on Wilshire Blvd. I walked back to the car feeling really dejected. I had a good idea, just no luck finding anything. Once back at the car I realized I hadn't look into the construction site itself. I decided walk around it again and look over the fence at strategic locations. When I got around to the small back street again I spotted a black blob on the dirt just past the fence. It was about the right size to be my bag. I moved closer and took a better look over the fence. It was a chain link fence with tarps attached to it so you couldn't see what was on the other side. It was also setup with no top bracing so the fence would really flex if you put weight on it. Not good for climbing. But I did manage to confirm that the black blob was in fact my backpack.

So I had found it, but now how was I going to get it. The fence was too hight to reach over and too difficult to climb at this point. I thought about various options but the only one that wouldn't take hours to execute was to just hop the fence and grab it.

I looked for a good place, and there was a gate in the fence along one of the other sides. I tried to see if I could squeeze through under the chain that held the two halves of the gate closed, but it was just a little too tight. At that point I said screw it I'll just hop it. I put my foot on the lock chain, hoisted myself up and over.

Fortunately the construction site was just in the clearing stage. I knew there was a small pit back closer to the car, but the rest of the area was a flat dirt field. I walked careful around, following the fence line to where my bag was. When I got to it, it was definitely my bag.

Two of the three main compartments where open. I looked in the front compartment where the cell phone was. Sure enough it was gone. $30 phone, and $90 in minutes gone. My travelers checks were still there though. That was handy from a paper work point of view.

In the large back compartment everything had been mixed up, but nothing had been taken. There wasn't anything of real value anyways. Sun screen, Kleenex and some rice crispy squares.

So I picked up the bag, worked my way back to the gate, hopped back over and returned to my car. At this point I feeling much better. I had managed to retrieve my bag, and was quite happy with myself figuring out how to find it.

I decided I should make some phone calls and went and found a pay phone.

Other then the window the car was fine. Before it got too late I decided I'd head back to Irvine and continue the calls from there. It's always best to move to a safe location and work from there. No-one can criticize you for reducing risk. The car was going to be much safer in my friends driveway, and I was going to be much safer back at his place.

So at the end of the day I saw an awesome show, but was down a cell phone and a window.