Steal this, Fool!

A couple of weeks ago Will finished his latest lab project.  After a couple of hours of work, he looked over toward me and said triumphantly "Steal this, Fool!!"

'Fool' is this case refers to The Thief, the person who has been stealing Mac laptops from Will's research building for the last seven or eight months. It started out simply enough: a laptop went missing early last fall and then some weeks later a second laptop went missing. The third, fourth and fifth laptop disappeared soon after and concerns began to rise. All students started investing in quality laptop locks.

Some laptops went missing over Christmas vacation, leading to suspicions of an inside job since only those that should have been in the building could have been in the building at that time (the building is secured with card access after hours, on holidays, and on weekends). The disappearances became more regular and more bold. The Thief would strike in the morning, afternoon, and evening. S/He would strike on weekdays or weeknights. S/He would hit all the different labs in the building; all five floors were wary of The Thief.

Will's lab had its first casualty in January when one of the undergraduate students had her laptop stolen. For three days, she planned her revenge in the form of phenol/chloroform (as Will says, "Nothing like organic solvents in the face to ruin your day"). The grad students convinced her that murder/disfigurement wasn't necessarily the best idea, but they did think some shock therapy might be in order - if they could set up an electrified decoy laptop, wouldn't that be awesome?! Will was certain we could find an electric fence transformer for less than $50. (I was concerned a lawsuit could arise from that so they backed off that idea.)

Unfortunately, perhaps some shock therapy was actually in order because The Thief struck their lab again in March, when s/he stole our good friend Katie's laptop which was locked with a standard laptop lock that had been snapped in half. Katie bought another laptop and an even nicer lock.  The Thief then struck again, stealing Katie's second laptop in the middle of the day when Katie slipped out for ten minutes. Katie was upset, the lab was bothered, and Will became obsessed focused on devising a plan to make his laptop theft proof.

We spent our date night and FHE night at Home Depot, thinking through possible options. (Honestly, Will thought through the different options while I tried to hide my skepticism of his 'drilling into his laptop' plan and just helped him look for things. It turns out I am very good at finding things at Home Depot.)

Here is what we bought, all for $20 (plus potting supplies for my strawberries. We have a stair garden! Blog post to come on that.) Will was excited for the needle files (the things on the left, for those of you who are file-ignorant like me).

Here is Will working on his laptop. (Isn't he handsome?)

Here is the finished product after 2+ hours of sawing a metal framing bracket, bending and filing that bracket, drilling itty bitty holes into the side of his laptop, and finally securing the shiny new bracket piece with itty bitty bolts. Will has officially chained his laptop to his desk, prompting the understandably triumphant, "Steal this, Fool!!"