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.

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