I was robbed last night!

Yes dear reader I was robbed last night (Thursday 13-08-2009 at 21:00) and they took my laptop bag with all it’s contents!

So let me set the scene:
A very good friend of mine and I arranged to have a couple of drinks after work as we were working in the same area this week. My friend is permanently based in the area but I’m more of a floating worker and am sent from one customer to the next. So we decided as we were near to each other we’d meet up and have a good old chinwag.

The afternoon was going swimmingly with me bending his ear most of the time about all the stuff I have been researching with regards Internet marketing and after a few pints in the first pub we decided to move to another pub and to get some cash along the way.

The evening fell upon us and we were having such a good time we even ordered a food platter to share as we were getting a little hungry and there was no ways that I was going to want to cook anything when I got home. Soon after the food arrived I checked over my shoulder, as I had been doing on a regular basis to see if my bag was still there but this time it wasn’t. You know that sinking feeling, well it sank in very quickly as I gazed upon the void where my bag was not 10 minutes before.

First action was to look around and check outside if I could see the person making off with my belongings but alas there was neither hind nor hair to be seen of them. Next course of action was to alert the bar staff and luckily I got to speak to the manager of the establishment directly. He very quickly came out from behind the bar to assist in my frantic search for the missing bag and it’s contents. This proved to be equally fruitless but the bar manager went to neighbouring establishments to speak to their managers to be on the lookout for the elusive bag and thief.

At this time I got my work mobile phone and rang the police and no more that 15 minutes had passed since I last saw the bag where I had left it, on the floor behind my bar stool next to a pillar. The police office was very helpful and made sure that I gave him all my details, a detailed description of the bag and a list of the contents. To let you know what I had lost here’s basically what I told him:

It is a Dark grey Wenger Swissgear Synergy laptop backpack with light grey straps and panels. An exact picture of it can be seen here http://www.wengerna.com/synergy-ga-7305-14. This bag was great and could carry a lot, just see what mine had in it:

• 1 X HP Compaq Business Notebook 6715b- Turion 64 X2 mobile technology 2 GHz – 15.4 ” – 2 GB Ram
• My house and car keys
• My mini London A-Z street map book
• 1 X 16Gb, 1 X 1Gb and 1 X 256Mb memory sticks
• 128 MP3 player with Russel Brunson’s Micro-Continuity mp3s on it
• Several Software CDs
• A hand full of USB, Mobile phone and charger cables plus headsets and Apple iPod headphones
• Several printed ebooks about marketing including Mike Filsaime’s Butterfly Marketing manuscript.
• 1 X 2lt bottle of diet Coke
• 1 X 6pack of cans of diet coke (I’d done some shopping earlier and decided to carry the heavier items in the backpack)
• An empty lunchbox
• The power cable and transformer for the above laptop computer
• The latest 2 Tidy Music Library CDs, vol 12 & 13
• My hard copy diary and note pad
• General stationary and my Barclay card reader for Internet banking
• Last but by far not least was my 4 month old Nokia 5800 Express music mobile phone

So as you can see that backpack holds quite a bit of stuff and other than the diet Coke is normally what I carry around on a daily basis and it does it beautifully, well it used to!

So after calling the police and speaking to my company I sat down, finished off my platter and last pint and decided to head off home, well I couldn’t go home as I didn’t have any keys to get into my house and my wife was still over in Alderney visiting her family. So I went back to my friends house, along the way I called another friend who lives close to me to ask if they could pop their head in on our dog as she’d been left out in the back garden and wouldn’t see me until the next morning, not the usual routine. It was agreed at this point that  I would make the journey homeward and they would pick me up at the train station and we’d take it from there.

Whilst waiting at the station for my train to arrive it suddenly dawned on my that I needed to phone my mobile phone network and bar the phone and sim card, so I did this whilst my train arrived and left unannounced and without me on it, this was not turning out to be my night.

In the end I got back to my friends house, closer to home, and crashed over at theirs. The next morning had a lot in store for me!

In the morning I made it home and was welcome by a very excited dog who whimpered at my absence the night before and I got well and truly covered in her fur, still wearing my work clothes from the previous day. First things first was a shower and a cup of coffee. Then began the arduous task of retrieving my car from the station car park without the alarm\immobiliser remote, but luckily I had my spare key at home. I had to contact several insurances to see what I could recover in the way of replacement keys and the rest and it pans out that all I will be without is my laptop backpack and mobile phone as I stupidly ignored to insure my phone. Oh well I’ll just have to use my faithful backup until I can warrant getting a new one.

To close this off, as I am rather tired after my ordeal I’d just like to reiterate the importance of having insurance, it may be a pain to pay the monthly premiums bu god forbid should anything like this happen at least you know you’ll be covered.

Thanks for reading as this has helped me get a load of my chest and I look forward to writing something a little more positive next time.