There are 3 beds here and plenty of room available for you and your loved ones. I mainly stay outdoors unles I am sleeping, and I only look dangerous in my pics. Just PM me, although I don't know why I'm not sending you one right now instead of posting. That really is awful and I hope I never have to find out what that is really like.

Thats terrible, Im sorry for you. I hope you and your family manage to have a (semi) normal holidays.

I can't seem to load the pics but dude, that sucks bigtime, deepest sympathies.
Cats are remarkaby good survivers and have a tendency to go into hiding when the shit hits the fan, leave some food out nearby or something and search any hideholes they used around the area.

Well, the insurance folks are being good sports. They gave me $3,000 to get a new PowerBook. So that's what I'm writing this from.

The head of the community watch is going to be keeping an eye out for Tinkerbell. She is also posting the flyer to the community Yahoo! group (who knew?) and hopefully something will turn out. First thing tomorrow, I'm going to call the human society/animal shelter and let them know that I'm looking for my cat and give them a description. Perhaps I'll get lucky and someone will find her and turn her in. She's got a flea collar and doesn't look like a stray, so I doubt they'd put her down any time soon.

That's really all that's going on. The people came today to take my equipment, but they were not prepared for how much we had. So they took dad's today and they're coming back for mine tomorrow. I have at least 10 computers that are going to need to go - joy!

I miss Shadow a lot. He was the biggest pain in the ass of a cat that I've ever known, but he was friendly and loving as I've ever known an animal to be. Jen and I raised him since he was four weeks old and we're the only parents he knows. He is definitely missed. I hope he's in kitty heaven hissing at all the vacuum cleaners.

A wonderful woman in my neighborhood found my Tinkerbell tonight. She called me immediately, and I went down to get her (I was in Maryland, at Jenni's parents' house). She was wet and scared, but it's her. :)

HOORAY!!!!!!!

I'm so glad you got her back, Dave!!!

What the hell?! Are you trying to imitate Slang or what? ;)

Outstanding Dave! Think of it as an early Xmas present.

http://www.metastudios.com/jenibackup/tink/PHOTO39.JPG

That right there is pretty much what my life is all about.

Dave...turn the heat lamp off. ;)

My sister took that. My camera's batteries are dead (one, because I took a lot of pictures, two, because the charger got melted). I'll take pictures of my little bundle of joy some time tomorrow or something. :)

I got up 21 hours ago, so I'm going to bed. Gute Nacht.

Who me?! Would I do something like that?? (jeez, man, I just made it big. I didn't change the color or add a sound link!)

Actually I was just expressing my excitement and joy at the reunion.

Shit, dave.. belated condolences on the hard Xmas luck. (I'm still catching up on the week's threads, so I read the other one first).

So now you think it's not Tinkerbell? Keep us informed, man..

Electrical code changes that take effect this spring mandate new devices that would have made Dave's experience unlikely. A new type of GFCI, that is sensitive to electrical arcing, will be required on bedroom circuits for all new construction. Unfortunately, it will not be required on outlets that light christmas trees. But those circuit breakers can also be installed on that circuit.

Dave's experience need not be repeated. Over the next year, consider replacing a circuit breaker that powers your tree with the new GFCI Arc detecting type CB. They are already available at Home Depot. It is but one solution. Dave has demonstrated how sad the down side can be.

Computers can be replaced. But good cats are irreplaceable.

Yeah, it's really annoying when the vibrator shorts out. :-)

The new devices are called AFCIs, for "arc-fault circuit interrupters". But the last word from Dave was that it is not clear that this fire was due to tree wiring...it sounds like a branch circuit overload was a possibility, too.

The in-house electrician weighs in:

AFCIs are a good bet. I installed one for the branch circuit feeding my woodshop. Between that, the GFCI protecting the receptacle circuit and dedicated wiring in excess of load requirements, I feel fairly safe out there.

Even though the installation itself would give nightmares to the inspector! :)

Brian