Fan Club

I'm no fan of wine; I'd rather have my grape juice non-fermented, if you please. But lots of people love it, and wish to be as close to it as they can. As with anything, you can take it too far.

Out in Santa Rose, California, there is a vineyard where someone reported a "suspicious vehicle" parked nearby.

(I can tell you this: during my years in the police dispatching business, I argued unsuccessfully a hundred times that a vehicle itself cannot be said to be "suspicious." Attributing human characteristics to a Buick never works out. The car you see parked outside suspects nothing. The circumstances surrounding the vehicle being there may be well suspicious, but whatever...)

So the police show up and they find a hat on a piece of farm equipment. Again, not right. Farm equipment does not need hats. 

The Sonoma County Sheriff's Department found a man stuck inside the shaft of a giant vineyard fan. I didn't know this either, but they need huge fans out in the grape growing lots to keep air moving around the grapes so they won't freeze.

The "suspicious" vehicle in question

The Fire Department had to respond the get the man out of the fan, and I can assure you, that is the first time in my long life that I have ever typed those very words all in a row.

“The man indicated he liked to take pictures of the engines of old farm equipment,” the Sheriff said. “After a thorough investigation, which revealed the farm equipment wasn’t antique and the man had far more methamphetamine than camera equipment, the motivation to climb into the fan shaft remains a total mystery.”

They took this picture of him because he deserved a souvenir.

Free advice to all would-be criminals: always make sure you have more camera equipment than methamphetamine on you. In fact, zero meth should be your goal, as should not committing crimes.

The man is 38 years old now, and as Casey Stengel would say, in ten years he has a good chance to be 48. He needed medical attention but should make a a full recovery, so that's nice, so he can be in good health to deal with trespassing, drug possession, and violations of probation case.

I've spent a good amount of time wondering about the trouble people get themselves into, and now I have to wonder about the fans people get themselves into. 

It keeps me busy.