January 13th, 2018

So tonight was supposed to be our conspiracy dinner. Hal did show up for lunch, but he was on the phone with Tim as he was walking in and wasn't able to put the phone down until halfway through our lunch. According to Hal, Tim is on the warpath about Melia and is insisting that Hal drop everything and all but walk up to her demanding to know who she is. I was only able to hear half the conversation. Hal spent a lot of time confirming that his schooling was actually his primary goal and that Melia is something he'll do when he has the time. And then they were going over his schedule and how much homework he was expected to have.

By the time Hal hung up, he was apologizing that he'd have to cancel diner tonight. I asked if we should just put it on standby in case Tim cancels again, but Hal said even if Tim did he'd neglect letting Hal know until it was way too late to get everyone together anyway. Besides, from the sound of things, this was one meeting that was going to happen whether Hal liked it or not.

So, I texted Sam and Max immediately and let them know what was going on. Both responded, Max seemed disappointed, Sam just said thanks for the heads up. And that was that. After work, I took the bus home. Mom and Dad were happy to have me "over for dinner" as they put it. And it was nice having an evening with the folks, don't get me wrong. It just sucks for plans to fall through like that.

That said, since it was my normal pattern to go over those things, I sat down at my computer and spent some time looking around just to see what I could find. Despite the winter weather, I have found that people are still disappearing. There was one just this last week up in Pennsylvania of a couple who were out cross country skiing. The guy came home alone and frantic because his fiance had disappeared over a hill. Her tracks just came to a stop and nothing. Search and rescue were called in, but as of yesterdays news they still haven't found anything.

This is not the time of year to get lost in the middle of nowhere, I just hope the lady is able to find shelter and supplies. If we're right, she'll be returned to her future groom soon enough, I just hope soon enough isn't too long.

I've found a couple of other similar reports, and now I'm feeling bad that we'd all allowed ourselves to get distracted by what's been going on here. It's all important, but people going missing is heartbreaking. And not that we're responsible, or that we could do anything about it, but it's like we're not even paying attention to it.

I don't know.

Max had asked if Sam and I still wanted to get together, but Sam mentioned having a lot of work to do at the shop and might have cancelled himself anyway. Since Sam was out too, Max said she should work on homework anyway.

I tried looking for more information on Jane Doe too, but didn't find anything. It seems a donation page was set up to help her with medical expenses and other immediate general needs, but there's nothing about how to get in contact with her. I was tempted to try and say something on the site itself, but felt awkward about doing so. There were a lot of well wishers, and even others that were asking to meet or inviting her to join them for various events. But there were no responses, only a note at the top saying that while the site was set up to help Jane, Jane herself didn't have anything to do with the site. That made me a little skeptical about what the money was actually going toward. Granted, if they were going to lie about it, they'd probably lie about who they were, so I hope this is going toward Jane. Still, not the place for me to try and make contact.

So back to square one. Hal was texting for a while, but I haven't heard from him in about three hours now. Awful long time to be meeting with Tim. I hope they're not getting in to trouble.

Nothing else I can do, so I'm going to go to bed.