Theft while attending the PJF

As some folks may have heard, it was my car that was broken into at Reed College during the main show.

My fiancée Kristen and I had been on a 2wk "early honeymoon" road trip up and thru Canada, with the PJF being the last couple days of the trip for us. As a result, we had alot of gear with us. The back passenger window was busted out, and somehow they got the rest of the car open (meaning: they'd have to climb into that broken glass to reach the front doors, and I don't know how they couldn't have gotten sliced up during that, as even my gorilla arms can't reach that far safely). They went thru the glove box, center console, briefly ransacked the back seat, and then removed everything with a handle from the top section of the trunk. Ultimately the damages and losses are about ~$4500 as far as we can itemize so far. This included electronics, souvenirs, camera bags (Kristen is a professional photographer and lost all her gear except the camera itself which we had at the show with us), and, most important to this blog, all my juggling equipment.

To that end, I post a description of what juggling stuff I had taken:
- 13 Dubé 220g European Long Handle clubs with glow body, gold handles, and assorted metallic decorations that are all basically one-off's. The knob ends have my last name written on the washer ["M.ks.m..k" should be enough to recognize it].
- 7 Tossaballs, glow, one year of wear (bought at last PJF in fact)
- 14 Hybrid Tossaballs, some red, some yellow, and some blue. Bought that day. They were the 'heavy for their size' ones.
- The balls were in a small canvas shopping-style bag. At the bottom were the OSU Jugglers' business cards, and many of my own [hand written on the backs of WJF3 entry cards]. Oh, and an electronic metronome.
- All props listed (including the canvas bag) were inside a blue American Tourister zippered bag. There was a bunch of notes about passing patterns and various people's business cards and some other trinkets in the pocket of that bag too.

I'm still working with insurance to see what can happen there... Either way, the car insurance (for "everything bolted to the car", so, glass really) and the homeowners insurance (contents of car) both have a $500 deductible [yes, $1k total], which sucks given the market crashed the day we got back too [I've been living off stock and am at the tail end anyway, but talk about a kick while down.. yeesh].

I give a big thanks to Stuart and the folks at the PJF. Given our plight, they passed the hat at the end of the event, raising $280 toward our deductibles. That definitely helped take the sting out of yet-another-huge-bill-this-fall.

All in all, I have the same hopes that Dave had about his equipment getting stolen: I just hope some juggler gets the stuff instead of the landfill. Years later, Dave found a guy who had some of his stuff, and they talked about how he got it - passed thru a bunch of people until he bought it from some guy's roommate, etc, etc... So, basically, if you see someone with the clubs, just give them the 'sweet clubs, where'd you get those whacky designs?' line and see if they are ultimately innocent, then let me know so I can be happier that they are at least being used....

Thanks for listening.... --Crizzly