Unplug your Christmas Tree
 

Joann left her Christmas tree plugged in and possibly on. It overheated.

http://msdelta.net/~dave/images/house-fire/

I'm not going to get into it here. I'm sure I'll have more to say about it later.

http://msdelta.net/~dave/images/house-fire/P0001319.JPG - yes, that is my iBook. No, it does not work.

Let this be a lesson to all of you - unplug those goddamn Christmas lights.

Jesus, Dave! Ouch man! I only assume that since the iBook is highlighted that no people got hurt. This sucks, this sucks on toast, there's nothing else to say. Let us know if there's anything we can do.

dave,

im really sorry man. that sucks.

~james

Dave, I sent you a PM. If there's any way Rho and I can help out, call me.

We had 15 animals in the house. 13 definitely lived, 1 definitely didn't (Shadow, my sister's big black cat), and 1 is missing but cannot be found anywhere (Tinkerbell, my baby).

They figure that all my computers are toast via smoke damage. You saw all my consoles. Yeah, pretty much everything of mine was ruined. I just want to find my cat.

Geeze Dave.
I want you to find your cat well too.
I'm sending hope vibes.

That's incredibly tragic. Losing most of your posessions--and a pet as well--must be devastating. I hope your cat is found OK and that the house is still habitable.

Let us know if we can help out.

Shit! I don't know what I can do from a distance man. Good luck on the last cat. Sorry man.

Hey Dave, I'm sorry to hear about your accident.


I feel for your loss, I know how close people can get to their pets. I hope your house remains liveable and you get it all back on track soon.

Brian

I'm sorry for you Dave, good luck.

Dave,

I'm really sorry to hear what happened. I'll be thinking of you and your family. Hopefully the kitty is just in hiding right now, and will show up when least expected. All in all, however, it seems like you were very lucky.

Wow. That's an incredibly harsh way to start the holidays. I hope everybody's handling it okay.

*insert standard expression of sympathy and offer of assistance here*

Of course, I only live about an hour away from you... so if it turns out that there actually is something I can do to help, let me know. My truck and I are standing by.

Have you tested your other computers yet? Perhaps only the hard drives failed. Perhaps you can still reuse many of the parts?

The computers are going to go to a company that specializes in recovering computers from disasters (water, etc). The insurance guy that looked at them said they were probably toast, but that if they can be salvaged, they will be. The hard drives are actually <b>not</b> what I am worried about - they are sealed and the chances that they were damaged by smoke are extremely small. What I'm worried about is the insurance people undervaluing my equipment. For example - the PowerMac cost over $4,000 and I still owe about $2,000 on it. If you bought it now though, it would cost around $1,500. Obviously I don't want to be in that situation. My iBook was $1,300 when I bought it, plus $200 for the hard drive upgrade, $100 for the wireless card, $300 for the base station and $200 for the RAM - about $2,100. If they value it at less, I need to shop around on eBay and whatnot, and that's not really acceptable. I really need to buy new, and to buy new, I'll need to spend about the same amount of money.

My main machine, with monitor and speakers, came out to around $3,000. What if they value it at less?

The <b>good</b> thing about this (computer-wise) is that I don't have to accept anything that's in any less than "like-new" condition. If I can smell smoke on it, I don't have to accept it - but I will <b>still get to keep it</b>. So if my PowerMac doesn't smell great but works fine, I will still get money for it as well as keeping the PowerMac. So I might end up on top. But I would hardly say that it's worth the hassle.

The only computer that is <b>definitely</b> shot is my iBook. I will hopefully get a replacement for it soon. The others, I am not sure about.

Anyway... yeah, all in all, lucky, but really only in the sense that no one was hurt. As I said before, I lost pretty much <b>ALL</b> of my stuff. Which, quite frankly, fucking sucks.

I'll be at work for a while tomorrow, and I'll write more then. Thanks for the kind words.

--dave

I've finally had an opportunity to look through some of your pictures. Man, you were extraordinarily lucky (even if you don't feel that way right now) to make it out as intact as you did.

Good thing you had insurance, even if they are hassling you somewhat at this point.