On the day before Thanksgiving, the thinkbank was infiltrated by a squirrel. Luckily our bulldog, Hollywood, wasn’t in that day (lucky for whom, I’m not sure). The little guy scaled a tree in our lobby and was ushered out the front door — narrowly escaping being hit by a car — by one of our account supervisors, Ian Hutchison.

Twenty months ago, a delivery truck fell through our parking lot. Not all the way through, but through enough to cause a little havoc. That’s the truck on the right. We’re still not sure what it was doing in our parking lot. Just passing through I guess. That was in February 2007. Finally, after over 600 days of negotiating with our insurance agency, work has begun to fix the lot, which spans the Paxton Creek 15 feet below.

It didn’t take long for the construction crew to tear up the remainder of the lot in preparation for the next step. They even offered to let me use their jackhammer (I asked), which they assured me would only be fun for about two minutes. I beg to differ, but I never did take my turn on the pneumatic destructor.

The following photos depict the dismantling of our current lot, a process that took about 10 days.

This is our lot in its current state. After some beams are rebuilt, it’ll be ready for the cement which should begin pouring next week. We’ll keep you posted.

Have you ever noticed how nothing good ever happens “in broad daylight?”

Banks are robbed in broad daylight.

Purses are stolen in broad daylight.

Even the occasional streaker or flasher is usually nabbed in broad daylight. Sometimes during a live newscast in the midst of a snowstorm.

The term usually refers to the audacity or nerviness of the perpetrator, after all, how many times have you heard someone say, “I can’t believe he did that in broad daylight!”

Which leads me to wonder . . . how did daylight get such a bum rap? And what makes daylight broad? We never talk about narrow daylight, do we?

God bless the Internet . . . a wonderful tool for people like me who ponder these sorts of inane things (usually in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep).

It seems that the term “in broad daylight” may actually be a derivation of “daylight robbery, which has its root in . . . here’s the kicker . . . taxation.

It seems that in the late seventeenth century William III was looking for a way to scare up some income for the British monarchy, so he decided the best way to do it was with a window tax.

As you might guess, taxes were levied on the number of windows on a property, so the upper class, having the largest houses, ended up paying the most. And you can imagine how well that went over with those who were to a manor born. There was such distain for Bill and his tax that many property owners bricked up their windows in protest, robbing them of their daylight . . . hence the term “daylight robbery.”

Now, there’s conjecture about whether or not “in broad daylight” actually comes from “daylight robbery”, but the explanation makes some sense to me.

You can learn more about the phrase here.

And, I have to say, I’m surprised that we didn’t hear about a potential window tax as part of the recent presidential debates. With all the bailing out to be done, we need to pick up some revenue somewhere.