DENVER -- A makeshift mannequin that failed to fool police monitoring the high-occupancy vehicle lane on Highway 36 fetched $15,000 in an auction on eBay, with proceeds going to charity, the buyer announced.\nDenver-based Video Professor bought the Styrofoam head, coat hanger, and clothing stuffed with newspapers from HOV scofflaw Greg Pringle, 53, of Broomfield, said Brian Olson, a company spokesman.\nAs part of his sentence handed down earlier this month, Pringle agreed to donate any profits from a Web site -- launched to free "Tillie" after she was impounded by police -- and the auction to the Alive At 25 driver safety awareness program.\n"We've rescued Tillie from a life of crime and we hope to rehabilitate her so she can be a contributing dummy to our society," Olson said.\n"This is just incredible," Pringle said.\nPringle also was fined $115 and ordered to hold a sign alongside the highway for four hours reading: "HOV lane not for dummies." He was pulled over and ticketed Jan. 26 for driving in the lane reserved for car pools, motorcycles, buses, and hybrid vehicles.\nPringle previously said it cost him $10 to create Tillie.\nOlson said the computer tutoring company will take Tillie to various events and later auction her off again for charity in June.\n
High school students mistaken for hostage-takers
\nFERNANDINA BEACH, Fla. -- A movie set at the downtown post office turned all too real for a group of high school filmmakers.\nMembers of the high school Spanish club were shooting a movie Thursday night when the police showed up believing a hostage crisis was going on inside the post office.\nBut apparently, someone saw the teens carrying toy guns into the building on Centre Street, which is the heart of the town's historical district. When they couldn't get an answer to calls placed inside the building, they assumed the worst.\nPolice cordoned off the block, cleared nearby buildings and surrounded the post office ready for a hostage crisis. When a group of students left the post office, they were ordered to get on the ground, face down.\nPostmaster Ron Steedley had given permission for the school group to use the post office after hours to make a movie, "Rolling Thunder." Steedley said he didn't think the student's movie would frighten anyone.\nDevon Menendez, the film's director, said his film career is over.\n"I'm not accepting any more offers to direct a movie," he said.\n
Bank robber gets stuck in chimney
\nGRANGER, Wash. -- Sometimes honesty is the best policy.\nA man found stuck in a bank chimney didn't try to cover up his intent.\n"We asked him what he was doing down there and he said, `What do you think? I'm trying to rob the bank," said Police Chief Robert Perales.\nFirefighters threw down a rope and pulled out a soot-covered 26-year-old man, who was arrested on the spot. He was booked into the municipal jail in nearby Wapato.\nPolice in this lower Yakima Valley town had been summoned Thursday morning to the U.S. Bank because of an apparent break-in attempt. They discovered the stuck suspect after finding the top had been removed from the ventilation shaft for the furnace.\n
Marines recruit 78-year old
\nSAUGUS, Calif. -- Sonia Goldstein was flattered by the nice recruiting letter asking her to consider becoming one of "the few, the proud."\nBut at age 78, she believes she's just a little old to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps.\n"I couldn't believe it," Goldstein told KCAL-TV on Friday. "My girls were sitting here ... we were in hysterics, we laughed so hard."\nThe letter told her the corps could use her unique language skills, but also warned that life as a Marine would test her physical and mental abilities "beyond anything you've ever known."\n"There I am with my walker. I can't maneuver from here to there without it," said Goldstein, who added that her only language is English.\n"I'll do whatever I could for this wonderful country we live in," she said. "But you know, this is kind of stretching it a bit."\nThe Marines ordinarily recruit people 18 to 27, said Maj. Joseph Kloppel, a corps spokesman. He said the letter must have been sent by mistake.\n"Seventy-eight is obviously too old," Kloppel added.\n
Alligator knocks at front door, is not let in
\nBONITA SPRINGS, Fla. -- So now the alligators are going door to door.\nWhen Lori Pachelli heard someone knocking at the door of her home in a gated community in this southwest Florida community earlier this week, she looked out to see an unwelcome visitor on her front stoop: an 8-foot alligator.\nThe bull gator, which had wandered up from the pond behind the house, had a bloody lip from banging its head against the door.\n"He was pretty big, pretty aggressive," Pachelli said, adding that the gator may have followed her home from walking her cocker spaniel, Trooper.\nPachelli's husband, Mike, said he sped home after his wife called him in hysterics. The animal remained at the Pachellis' door for about an hour before going back into the lake, where trapper John French captured it later.\nFrench said it's not unusual to find male alligators in some pretty interesting places this time of year.\n"You're starting into what's called the crawl season, the breeding season," he said. "We get them out of front porches, out of garages, out of swimming pools."\nThe Pachellis said they never dreamed an alligator would venture that close to the house.\n"I've never seen them walking around (the neighborhood), let alone banging on my front door," Lori Pachelli said.\n
State road signs give motorists phone-sex number
\nSPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- Callers to a state road-construction information line might have been surprised to hear, "We love nasty talk as much as you do."\nThe Illinois Department of Transportation intended newly installed signs along the Dan Ryan Expressway, which will undergo major reconstruction starting later this month, to instruct motorists to call a toll-free number for information on alternate routes.\nInstead, the initial number posted directed callers wanting "exciting live talk" to another toll-free number, which begins, "Hey there, sexy guy. Welcome to an exciting new way to go live, one on one, with hot, horny girls waiting right now to talk to you."\nThree of six informational signs were planted Thursday along the 11-mile stretch of roadway that will be rebuilt during the next two years, IDOT spokesman Matt Vanover said. An IDOT worker commuting to work Thursday morning recognized the incorrect number and alerted officials, he said.\n"We apologize to anyone who may have called that number and did not get the information that they were looking for," Vanover said.\nWorkers were correcting the number on the signs Thursday afternoon, Vanover said. The Bureau of Operations is responsible for the signs, but Vanover would not comment further. He said the agency would investigate the mistake but he would not speculate on whether anyone would be disciplined.
