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There's a saying that every musician has at least one story about someone stealing their gear. Saturday was my turn.

I was in Sacramento, taking a voice class in a relatively upscale East Sacramento neighborhood when disaster struck. I had parked my car -- and had forgotten that I left my bass guitar in the back seat. Bad move.

Man oh man, my stomach sank like the Titanic after I walked outside and saw that big slab of shattered, tempered glass hanging out the right side of my Honda Civic. And automatically I was struck with a simple, but undeniable fact: my bass was gone -- some cretin broke my window and ran off with my beautiful guitar!

Jordanian Air lounge No. 7 in Amman, Jordan, waiting for flight 816 at 9 a.m.

An hour and 20 minutes to Baghdad International. Some 70 passengers wait, all but about 10 of 'em men. I guess the group of crewcut dudes with tats and bipolar biceps are some of the 160,000 private contractors working in Iraq. The smaller guys in baseball caps may be Filipinos also heading for the Big PX in the desert. A lot of Arab speakers, of course, a few Euro and American businessmen. No other obvious newsies. One woman and a little girl, both veiled.