Mining for unclaimed property

I was doing a little mining on the Internet this week..

I read about a site named naupa.org, which is the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators. I figured it was a lot cleaner to go digging around the vast cyberspace wasteland than to go mucking for silver in the hills of Nevada.

Besides, the results were likely to be the same. Zilch.

So I logged on in hopes of finding some long-lost cash. Perhaps a utility deposit I'd forgotten to recover somewhere along the line. Maybe there was a paycheck still owed me from some job. Maybe somebody died and left me a fortune.

Naupa.org searches by state. There are other, commercial sites for trying to find the billions of dollars turned over to treasurers' offices and lying unclaimed, but this one links to the basic databases and doesn't cost anything.

The first place I looked, naturally, was in Nevada. Sure enough, Treasurer Brian Krolicki's site immediately showed that Barry Smith had a piece of unclaimed property.

Unfortunately, it wasn't me.

If you're out there somewhere, Barry J. Smith, who last lived in Las Vegas, you have $60.58 in a utility deposit you never picked up.

It also told me that Barry F. Goldsmith, who lived in Las Vegas sometime or another, has $262.70 in something called "GRP Benefits." Group benefits maybe? I don't know.

Brian has your money. Go get it.

I previously lived in Colorado, so I checked there next. The treasurer's site, which is called Colorado Payback: Stake Your Claim, carries this handy message: "Search the property that most likely belongs to you. This does not guarantee that it is your property." Darn.

Well, there are four Barry Smiths with a claim to stake in Colorado. Again, unfortunately, not one of them was me.

The Colorado site doesn't say the amount of the unclaimed property. That's too bad, because you always want to know what you could have had if you'd just been the right Barry Smith. It's kind of like when Pat Sajak shows the prize to the loser on "Wheel of Fortune." The bigger the prize, the bigger the groan.

Oh, well. On to Illinois, where I grew up.

Here I struck a virtual bonanza of Barry Smiths who have neglected to claim their just desserts - 11 of them. The Web site is called "Cash Dash" - notice how these Treasurer's Office sites sound a lot like the Lotto? - and the example they list for how to type your last name first is "Smith John." I was feeling lucky.

I quickly scanned down the list of Barry Smiths from Chicago, Evanston, Libertyville, Girard, Romeoville, Ottawa, until I got to the last name on the list: Barry W. Smith Jr. of Wedron, Ill. If he's a piece of unclaimed property belonging to me, I'm not sure I want to know.

n n n

Where's Saddam?

I had a better idea where Saddam Hussein was before he was captured on Dec. 14 than I do now. I mean, the smart money was saying he was hiding somewhere near Tikrit, and sure enough he was found in a hole on a farm eight miles outside of town.

But I haven't heard a peep since then.

An American general said at the time they intended to do extensive interrogations, which would last "as long as it takes." I guess it's taking quite awhile.

I do recall the video of them checking Saddam's teeth. Maybe they're just trying to get him a dental appointment.

n n n

One of the funnier pieces of news last week came from the state Environmental Protection Division, when inspectors went to check for blowing dust at the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository site.

They didn't find any.

I realize the health hazard for workers who may get lung disease isn't an amusing matter, but it did strike some folks in the Nevada Appeal newsroom as a bit odd that you could go anywhere in Nevada and not find blowing dust. Apparently, it's a bit more technical than that.

Actually, after Tuesday, most of the loose dust in Lyon County can now be found in Utah.

n n n

When I was writing an editorial earlier this week about pedestrian safety, I forgot about the pedestrian-crossing signal on Edmonds Drive near the animal shelter. It's there for schoolchildren, and it's just the kind of thing we need a lot more places around Carson City. Pushing the button makes the lights flash, which definitely gets your attention.

On Wednesday afternoon, the school zone was a busy place, because sheriff's deputies and Highway Patrol troopers had cars pulled over left and right. I presume they were writing tickets for speeding through the 15 mph zone, although I couldn't tell for sure as I crept very, very slowly along.

n n n

Oh, and if you're wondering what Nevada legislators do between sessions, the other day they were studying whether to form a committee to study how they form committees.

I don't know the outcome. I think they were still studying it.

Barry Smith is editor of the Nevada Appeal. Contact him at editor@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1221.