We went to the "computer place" where we dropped off an old HPLC computer some weeks ago to be fixed, and these guys are super-shady. We should definitely not have taken it there. We went to go pick up the computer today, unfixed, and found that the shop had disappeared to places unknown, with our computer and its $12,000 PCI card for the HPLC unit. uh oh..... This does not bode well for my work, and not well for the senior post-doc who put the computer there.
I guess I'm going on the road after work, to be randomly searched by the Dept of Homeland Security before I get on the Bolivar Ferry.