Well, as most of you know by now… Doug and Jana are Married!! The wedding was awesome, and the reception was a blast. A great time was had by all…and the happy couple is currently on a boat somewhere around the Hawaiian islands (from which Doug has blogged - be sure to check that out).
There are actually several blog worthy events that came from this past weekend. But in an effort to make up to you my faithful davidmeade.com readers, I’m going to try and spread them out over several days.
So for this first installment I will tell you about my brief run as a criminal.
After the wedding it fell to me as one of the best men to take care of a few things for the happy couple who were already flying to a tropical paradise. These tasks called for me to impersonate my brother more than once (something I’m rather used to doing being a twin), but Sunday night … I was not prepared for.
After an extremely entertaining episode of “Alias”, Ted (my older brother) and I left the house to finish some errands Doug and Jana needed done.
Maybe it was inspiration from watching Alias… maybe we were just being security minded…maybe we were just idiots…but for whatever reason we decided to arm the security system on the house. After all, Doug wanted us to do this before we left the house for good… we should test it once…right?
So we closed all the doors and locked them all (save for the garage exit) and I hit the code to the security system. The system was now armed and in 60 seconds any open door or window would trigger an alarm which I had been warned was loud enough to not only wake the dead but but bring anyone within the house (who might be able to shut down the system) to a tearful self urination in the fetal position. Needless to say… I had no desire what-so-ever to experience this.
So Ted and I bolt for the garage exit. Closing the locked door behind in (what we imagined was) the nick of time, we walked to the drive way and finally hit the garage door button to lower the metal door behind us.
About an hour later (roughly midnight) we returned.
It was at this point when I realized… we didn’t have a garage door opener with us. While there was an opener in Doug’s car, I’d only brought the car keys for Jana’s car with us. The opener in Jana’s car had been removed and placed in my hands a few days earlier. At the time however I failed to realize why the clicker was so important.
We stared at the garage door for a while when finally I shrugged and said “Oh well - guess we’ll have to go in the front door.” After all, the key I had would work on that door as well as the one that was behind this impenetrable metal gate.
So happy to be home and eager to dig into the Ice Cream we’d purchased we walked around to the front door.
I insert the key and turn it… no problem…key fits here too…
I turn the door knob … ah it’s unlocked…excellent…
Oh…if only I’d stopped here…
but I didn’t….
I opened the door…. 3 inches before the security bar caught. (You know that little bar that hotels have … latest evolution of the security chain - designed to do the same job but be much harder to break).
So… there I was. Door open 3 inches… and thru the crack opening I could hear in a distant hallway the high pitched beep of the security alarm…warning me that I have 60 seconds to enter the correct code sequence to avoid the alarm.
I’d like to say here that under preassure I came up with some brilliant plan to circumvent the security and get into the house. However unless standing stupidly mumbling “oh shit shit shit” counts…I did not. I think all the blood must have run out of my face. only about 3 seconds had passed before I turned to Ted - Panic stricken - and exclaimed: “We’re fucked! We’ve only got 60 seconds! 60 SECONDS!!!”
A few seconds of Ted giving me the “What the hell is wrong with you, and should I be ducking?” look passed and then Ted realized what was happening. I saw on him the expression I must have made to the door…and that damned security bar. Moving past me, Ted pushed me out of the way and got to the Door.. hoping that perhaps he could remove the security bar from the outside.
Me.. I reached for my phone while jogging between two spots not 3 feet from each other. I dial Jana’s cell phone.
Now I know that it’s not customary for the Brother-in-Law to call the bride on her honeymoon…but we only had 40 seconds left.
Doug answers: “Hello?”
“Hey, we’ve got a problem” I rattle off far to fast for anyone other than Doug to understand.
“Are you ok?” he asks.
“Yeah - door open - but bar locked - no garage door opener 60 seconds - LESS - alarm” I stutter out inside of 1.5 seconds. “What do I do?! How?!”
“Oh uh..shit..” he answers “um…the garage, you have to..”
“NO OPENER!”
“Shit - my car there is a…”
“NO KEYS!! HURRY!”
“ahg…ah…uh…”
“mmm Ted? I… shit”
“You’re screwed - you’re screwed.” He says. ” a window!! you have to break a window! you have to…”
And then the alarm sounds.
I guess that 10 seconds or so passed of my jumping up and down in a nervous fit while trying to cover my ears. Ted was still furious and futilely working with the lock. I remember fighting the mental battle of putting the phone down so I can better cover my ears while at the same time bringing the phone back up so I can scream “shit” to Doug.
I ran to the side yard to get away from the door. The alarm was (as I’d hoped) slightly less loud here…but not much. I spent maybe 2 minutes here talking with Doug … explaining how we’d gotten ourselves into this mess. Doug was saying things like “You have to just break down the door - you’ve no choice!” And Ted came over and was saying to me “I can kick the door in…I’ve done such things before…I can kick it in?”
By the Grace of God the alarm stopped. Apparently after it’s been triggered if the door is closed again and stays closed for a few minutes the audible alarm is silenced. Now able to think again I told Doug that we’d figure it out and promised to stay at the house to oversee whatever repairs were going to need to be done thanks to our entrance.
Ted and I surveyed the house for a while… looking for the easiest thing to break/repair. But I kept coming back to the car. The car. The car was the key to it all. Inside that car was the garage door opener..and inside the garage..the door I had a key to which had no security bar. We’d mapped out several possible entry ways by the time I remembered the things I’ve learned from hacking and network security. And I provide now to you the greatest of those things:
Lesson 1 - Social Engineering: People want to help people…and will…even when they really shouldn’t.
So I called a tow truck company to come and break into Doug’s car. To make a long story …less long… about 4 hours later I was inside Doug’s house with no damage. The tow truck company had broken into Doug’s car … allowing me to break into his home. All it took was a smile and a healthy tip for the guy to overlook the fact that I didn’t know the year of the car, the address of the house, the number at which he could reach me, or the fact that once the car was open Ted began to desperately trash the car searching for a garage door opener.
All in all it was a surprisingly exciting evening. Oh and, Doug, sorry about the mess in your car… but hey… your patio door is still in one piece.
