A four-footed alarm system

Charlottesville Daily Progress
Published: May 3, 2008

Hooray for the hero!

  Slap him on the back and buy him a round of … um … dog biscuits.

A black Labrador retriever named Guinness saved his family from fire last week with his persistent barking.

Linus and Keely Cash were asleep in their Augusta County home when the dog’s noise woke them up. Mr. Cash tried to go back to sleep, but his wife said she knew something was wrong.

A fire had started in the adjacent carport, had spread to the attic and was probably already moving toward the bedroom ceiling, said Capt. Bruce Crow of the Augusta County Fire Department.

Smoke detectors had failed to go off, but 1-year-old Guinness made plenty of sound.

Hey, never mind the dog biscuits.

“They should be buying him a big steak… ,” Capt. Crow said.

Spring has dropped

So, you thought spring arrived last month? Not in Vermont.

Actually, spring arrives in Vermont on a different time and day each year — at least it does at Joe’s.  Joe’s Pond is the scene of the great Ice Off Contest.

Each winter when the pond freezes over, a cinderblock is placed on the ice, attached to an alarm clock on shore. Contestants put money into a pot to predict the coming of the new season. When a cinderblock break through the ice, spring has sprung.

This year, four people guessed April 25 at 5:15 — the closest guesses to the ice-breaking time of 5:25 — and each won $1,323. Not bad for a $1 per guess.

DYI Robo-cop?

At O’Terrill’s pub in Atlanta, you’ll find the Bum Bot — a robot that scares away vagrants, and worse.

Rufus O’Terrill, an ex-Marine, used to walk around outside with an assault rifle to frighten off the vagrants and drug users who loitered on his property and that of a next-door child-care center, where he sits on the board. But police told him to put away the gun.

Then he used a spotlight, but that didn’t scare anybody. In fact, the bad guys stuck guns in his face.

Then his wife suggested a robot. 

So Mr. O’Terrill designed and built Bum Bot, with parts such as a meat-smoker, red car lights and rubber mats.

Bum Bot patrols via remote control, sending pictures back to the bar. It has a voice that tells bums to clear out and a water cannon as an enforcer — but police warn against using that, too.

Mr. O’Terrill has been accused by de-tractors of being a publicty hound, a charge he denies.

“This isn’t fun,” he says. “I don’t like being here every night. … But I have to spend all my time being the sheriff.”