• Recently Written

  • I NEED A VACATION
  • PASSION FOR CHILD SAFETY
  • DAMAGE CONTROL
  • Go Go Gadget
  • What planet are you from?
  • The rest of the story and more.
  • Cocktail Party Chat
  • A day in the life of a middle aged Private Investigator

• Categories

  • Uncategorized

• Archives

  • June 2008

• Blogroll

  • Chip St. Clair’s Fine Point
  • crazyauntpurl
  • Development Blog
  • Documentation
  • Plugins
  • Suggest Ideas
  • Support Forum
  • Themes
  • WordPress Planet

• Admin

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Wordpress
  • XHTML

I think it was three years ago when my wife and I visited Napa Valley for a mini-vacation. We love the wine country and it’s products. Which brings me to the biggest drawback of owning your own business. Somebody has to “watch the store”. Over the years, I have been criticized for not letting anyone help me run my business. It’s easier than said than done. Thus, we seldom get to take vacations.

I’m ready! Some very recent health issues have me rethinking the whole control thing. What could possibly go wrong? My immediate short-term goal is to recruit a trustworthy part time person to perform a few of the things that are preventing me from getting away.

�

A number of years ago I met Chip  & Lisa St. Clair. Chip was the newly elected Regional Director for the Michigan chapter of Justice For Children, a child advocacy non-profit organization. As it turns out, Chip was networking local business owners in an attempt to get connected and develop a base to draw from and build a Board of Directors for the JFC chapter.

Rather than give you the cliff notes of Chip’s amazing story, I highly recommend that everyone pick up his best seller, The Butterfly Garden, Heath Communications, Inc. His memoir will change your life! Okay, I’ll give you just one small teaser to motivate you to visit amazon.com to buy the book.

A child is murdered, a prison break, a child born without an identity, more disgusting abuse, running to avoid the strong arm of the law for 26 years, betrayal, love, passion, and justice. I can’t wait for the movie.

As the President of the Board of Directors for the Michigan Chapter of Justice For Children, I have grown to love Chip like my own son. He never enjoyed a father’s love, for that matter, he never enjoyed a mother’s love. Oh yeah, Chip convinced me to join the board and ultimately take the helm as the President. It is my honor to serve with Chip, Lisa and the other fine members of our board.

Justice For Children works with the Judicial and Legislative branches of Government. While we don’t have direct contact with the abused children, Chip has been instrumental in getting some major legislation passed in our State House and Senate. He has met with John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted, Montel Williams and several other child safety advocates.

�

This has been a very stressful week. We experienced multiple employee problems that resulted in the termination of three of our security guards. That is never a pleasant task. Filling their shifts with new employees only adds to the stress. We typically go through 10 applications to find one quality candidate. This week was no exception.

On the brighter side, my wife and I had dinner with Chip and Lisa St. Clair Thursday night. We finalized plans to open the Butterfly Foundation offices. For the time being, we will use the rear portion of our building in Rochester. Half way through our meal at 220 Restaurant in fashionable Birmingham, Michigan, Sigourney Weaver and a male companion came into the restaurant and sat two tables away from us. She is in Michigan filming a new movie. That was cool!

On Fridays I visit a select group of customers, yesterday was no different. I mounted up and rode my 2004 Harley Davidson Road King to a nasty section of the Motor City. For those of you not familiar with Detroit, it was at one time the Jewel of the Midwest. My Father and Grandfather grew up there, I was born there as well. My dad had very fond memories of Detroit and often told me stories of taking the public transportation alone and safely, hanging out with his pals and roaming the streets in what is now considered to be one of the most violent cities in the United States. What happened? To quote my late dad, his theory was simple. He would always say that, “The city of Detroit or any other city is only as good as the people who live there”. He applied the same logic to business. “Our company is only as good as the people who work there”, he would say. Makes sense to me.

That being said, as the owner of a business, it is imperative that I hire the best of the best. The above reference to terminating three employees this week is a direct reflection of me and my company. Our employees should be our ambassadors. When they aren’t, they risk everything, and that is unacceptable. We are now entering into Damage Control mode. We will survive!

Â

Do you remember your first cell phone? I think it was 1989 when a buddy of mine who worked for a Dutch electronics company gave me a mobile phone. It was huge! The phone was attached to the battery pack and needed a canvas bag with a shoulder strap. The cost to activate the phone combined with the ridiculous per minute rate was almost as much as having A.O.L. when the Internet was in its infancy. Thank you Al Gore!

In our Private Detective business, we have been using GPS tracking units for many years. Like early cell phones, they were costly, bulky, awkward and difficult to hide on vehicles. Today we sell a variety of do-it-yourself GPS trackers that are compact, lightweight and very inexpensive. If you want to know where your kids are or where your spouse really was last night, consider purchasing a GPS tracker like the one pictured here.

Â

I have lost count of the number of space cadets who have come to our spy shop seeking help with what inevitably turns out to be voices in their heads. While it is at times amusing and entertaining, it is ultimately a very sad state of affairs. Mental illness comes in a variety of types, we typically see the paranoid schizophrenic requesting a bug sweep of their home and car. It doesn’t take long before the illness presents itself in living color. What starts off as an innocent concern regarding potential invasion of privacy, ( they are convinced someone is listening to or watching them ) quickly turns into the great conspiracy theory. Its always “they” when asked who is watching, listening or bothering them. I’m getting better at spotting our paranoid friends just by asking a few questions up front.

“The Bag lady” is one of our regular customers. She is an elderly woman who usually wears a large, messy blond wig, too much makeup and always has a bag filled with junk. She is a dear woman who is convinced that “they” are everywhere, in her apartment, her car, and of course, inside her head. She has no money and yet she continues to seek my help with her problem. last year I gave her some door alarms for her apartment so she would know when the doors opened. She never installed them because “they” would take them.

At a slight risk, I offered her a business card of a clinical psychologist who may be able to help her. She seemed confused and never accepted the card. I tried!

 

Â

Yesterday was another crazy day. With my wife out of town with our 15 year old, and the other two step children with their “real dad”, I have been making several trips to the homestead to check on our pets and the contractor working on our backyard deck. This is of course in addition to running my little company.

Back to the case I was discussing yesterday. Our client was presented with the video of her husband and his “Administrative Assistant”, I think her title is quite appropriate based on how she assisted her boss in the car. The client remained calm and thanked us for capturing the evidence she needed to confirm her worst fears, and left our office. A week or so later, the client stopped by to share her story of how she confronted her husband. She arranged a quiet evening at home with a candle light dinner, their favorite wine and a racy movie to set a romantic mood. After the meal and wine, they moved to the sofa to watch what turned out to be her husband in an X-rated version of drivers training.

To say that her husband was shocked is beyond an understatement. The first thing that came out of his mouth was “how dare you violate my privacy” at that he was encouraged to look out the backyard where all of his belongings we spread about on the wet grass. As he gathered his underwear and socks he looked up into the face of his wife through the glass door-wall leading into the temporary theatre, she closed the blinds and locked the door. All of the other locks in their small bungalow had already been changed. Another family had been destroyed by the ferocious desires of the flesh.

Â

So what do you do for a living? That question is standard operating procedure for most men at first meeting. Perhaps it is just the way we are made. I find it rather amusing to listen my fellow mates discuss their careers. Most are unfulfilled and wish they were doing anything else. I will usually encourage men to pursue their hearts desires, rather than stay stuck in the mud. Most choose to stay in the mud, it gives us men something to talk about. This is not the case with me.

My wife and I often find ourselves gathered around a kitchen table sharing stories from our spy archives. OOOH, your a private investigator? you must have some very interesting stories to tell. It isn’t long before trivia questions about Magnum P.I. or The Rockford Files, ( Jim Rockford was my personal favorite ) are exchanged and debated. My standard reply is usually something like, ” working a domestic surveillance is anything but glamorous, sitting in a surveillance vehicle for 12 hours waiting for an opportunity to get three minutes of video can be exhausting. Images of Tom Selleck cruising around the big island of Hawaii in a red Ferrari is Hollywood’s version of our industry. Jim Rockford charging $200.00 a day plus expenses is closer to reality.

One of my favorite cheating spouse cases: Our client was confident that her husband was involved with his secretary. More specifically, she suspected that they were taking time from their busy schedules to exchange more than water-cooler chit chat. Having done her homework, our client provided some remarkable details to help us with the case. We had a time and location where the lovers may meet for their tryst. The scene could have been out of a motion picture.  We set up our surveillance van in the parking lot of an abandoned office building where the lovers may be having their off site meeting.

Right on schedule, a vehicle slowly approached the parking area as if to be looking for a good spot to park. Alas! they parked next to our ugly, run down (surveillance) van, a perfect spot to hide from the world for a brief moment in time. It as a very hot and muggy August day. The video we shot would not be allowed on You Tube, My Space or anywhere for that matter. Its amazing what you can do in the front seat of a Mustang G.T. when you set your mind to it.  Use your wildest imagination and multiply by 10.

I need to get going, I will finish this with the “not so happy ending” tomorrow.

Â

This is my first attempt at blogging. I was inspired by Crazyauntpurl and her outrageous blog. Here we go.

My life is filled with daily opportunities to multi-task, today was certainly no exception. You see, I own a private investigation agency, a security guard company and a small retail spy shop store. At last count we have around 40 full time employees. What  was I thinking? On the home front, I am married to a wonderful woman and her three children. (when you get hitched for the second time, you take the entire package). Did I mention that I could multi-task?

It will be my goal to share some interesting spy stories on this blog. You see, in my 25 years of spying on cheating spouses ( we have some very interesting videos), catching corporate bad guys, and providing executive protection to some fascinating celebrities and politicians, it has been a blast!

As for today, I rode my Harley Road King 1/2 mile to my office, great gas mileage, hired two new employees, spoke with several customers, met the plumber and painter back at the homestead, did payroll, met with my accountant, sent a dozen or so emails, had a smoking hot steak & cheese sub at a local eatery, sold two surveillance camera systems, and in one hour I will be attending a fund raiser for a young man who is running for an open State Rep seat here in Michigan. Oh I almost forgot, I also dropped my wife and her 15 year old volleyball star off at the airport. They are Orlando, Florida bound to compete in the AAU Nationals.

I need to feed the dog, cat, fish and one of those large furry rodents when I get home tonight.