army of two?

well, tonight was the gathering for the radio show. it was at tropioca, as usual. it’s over and i’m back home. this week was pretty uneventful. i did manage to return all three of the netflix movies i’d had since late july (!). that’s a grand use of my monthly netflix fees. ah well. i re-watched spring, summer, fall, winter…and spring and bad news bears before i returned them. they sent out new ones, but i hadn’t gotten them. i was starting to wonder, but then i logged on and checked my address on netflix and it was still 9023. *sigh* i thought i’d changed that. oh well. i guess i’ll be getting them next week sometime after they get forwarded.
i did have one interesting thing happen to me this week. sit back, and i’ll tell you. wednesday during the radio show someone called me. i had set my phone to vibrate, but i didn’t recognize the number so i didn’t answer. they didn’t leave a message. the next day at work around 10am i got a call from the same number. the conversation went something like this:
me: this is TeRRY.
him: yeah, um…i was doing some research online and i came across the army of Texas website, and i used godaddy and looked and it said the owner was TeRRY leife….st….e. is that you?
me: yeah, that’s me.
him: well, i called the number and it was disconnected but it said this was the new number, so i was calling to find out more about it.
me: uh, okay. what do you mean?
him: like, what is it?
me: um….it’s really not much of anything.
him: well, i mean…like, what is it? is it a paintball team? a paramilitary organziation?
me: well, it’s nothing really, at this point.
him: i mean, what do y’all do or what?
me: i bought the domain name, but i haven’t really used it at this point.
him: oh, okay. alright thanks.
me: hey…what’s your name?
him: um…my name’s anthony.
me: how’d you find the site? or what were you searching for or what, that you got to it?
him: well, i was researching stuff about like the republic of Texas and stuff
me: oh, okay. yeah, i’m familiar with them, but i’ve never really talked with any of them or i don’t know any of them or anything.
him: oh, yeah, well, me and my friend used to be in it, but we didn’t really feel like they had the right thing going on. like, they didn’t really have the right idea. you know?
me: uh-huh.
him: so we kinda got put off by them. but then we were putting our heads together to try and come up with something, and we thought “army of Texas” would be perfect. but then we googled it and your site was there already and it said “the army of Texas — ready to fight!” so we wanted to find out what y’all were about, maybe if someone was already doing what we were thinking, and maybe we could merge or whatever.
me: um…well, i’m not really doing anything with it. i bought it awhile back. i actually own republicoftexas dot org as well. but i haven’t really done anything with armyoftexas. i only bought the dot com though, so the net and org domains should still be available.
him: yeah, but everyone knows com.
me: yeah, that’s true.
him: do you think you might be interested in selling it?
me: well, i haven’t really done anything with it. yeah, i might be.
him: okay, well, i’ll talk to my friend and then we’ll get back in touch with you.
me: okay.
so that was quite curious. i wasn’t sure if i was being contacted by a government fellow trying to get some info about what i might be about, or if i was being contacted by someone that was actually part of a republic of Texas splinter group. (based on the area code and prefix, the call was coming from kilgore, Texas.) about an hour later, i got another call from the same number…
me: this is TeRRY.
him: hey, is the email address on your godaddy still good?
me: what is it?
him: terry [at] leifeste [dot] net
me: yeah, that’s still good.
him: okay, can you check your mail?
me: yeah, i can check that one.
him: when?
me: probably in about an hour or two. i’m headed to lunch.
him: okay, check it. we’ll be sending something right away.
me: okay.
so off i went to lunch. after i got back from lunch, i checked my mail and sure enough, there was an email. it contained a word perfect document. i opened it up and it was indeed an offer. but not an offer to buy the domain — it was an offer from the commandant of the “army of Texas” to give me a commission as a “captain in the public affairs department of the rear services section” if i would agree to maintain and update the website on a regular basis with info provided by the commanding officers of units in the army of Texas. upon acceptance of the website design by the commandant, i would also be named “the commanding office of the public affairs department – internet division”.
so as if i wasn’t already worried enough about the fact that i might be on some government watch lists for the domains i bought and the text i put up on them, i’ve now been called three times and emailed once by possible former members of the republic of Texas group(s).
beyond that concern, i’m still trying to figure out exactly how i’m going to handle a response to the commandant.