Thursday, May 20, 2010

What's he building in there?

A man in East Austin dug tunnels under his house and had chemicals and firearms. The neighbors were suspicious. He apparently was not subtle when removing the excess dirt from his excavations, and the tunnels were not well-executed, as the ground collapsed along the fence line of his neighbor's property. Maybe he felt he had the right to dig on his own property? Yeah, yeah, I know: code violations. Still. The fact that he had 19 guns and welding equipment doesn't mean he was up to anything nefarious.

How cheeky. And in the Lone Star State, as well.

I will say his first mistake was to reside in Travis County - the city of Austin is lousy with California transplants, and they brought their own Berkeley style of fuckery with them to re-tool the running of that city.


This made me think of that song What's he building in there? by Tom Waits.


What's he building in there? We have a right to know.




Or do we?

7 comments:

Jon said...

"..."I can tell you that our consulting engineering group has given a recommendation on the extent of the excavation and they believe that filling the hole is a viable option,” Martinez said...."

This is brilliant. My immediate thought was to dig a bigger hole for disposal of the smaller hole.

Rush Baby said...

A real life Dale Gribble. I'll be damned.

phlegmfatale said...

Jon - filling the hole? The plot thickens, eh? Poor guy. Yeah, maybe he was up to no good in a lot of ways, but what we have here may be someone who was just minding his own and is not guilty of anything. And yet, his trial already has begun in the public eye.

Rush Baby - heh.

Sarah said...

So a dude dug a tunnel and owned firearms. Neither indicates that he was planning, or even thinking about, anything harmful or evil.

In MY part of Texas, the neighbors would get together at his house and offer tips for reinforcing the tunnel in order to avoid the unfortunate collapse...not become hysterical.

phlegmfatale said...

Sarah - perzackley.

Kristophr said...

So the guy was making a DIY fallout shelter.

BFD. I hope he sues the snot out of the city of Austin.

Old NFO said...

You're right about Austin... sigh...