Days 6 & 7 - April 13th & 14th, 2009 - Looking for a home

These two days have been VERY frustrating for me. We had looked at an apartment and it was very nice, but I wasn't really digging the whole apartment living thing. I was really hoping to find a house for rent, but nothing worked out :-(

QUICK PLUG: We've been working with a great company called VIP Insurance Housing Options. They do a GREAT job of helping you to find a place to stay and even get the place completely furnished. I highly recommend them should you find youself in a predicament like mine.

There were a couple houses that were for rent, but the renters wanted to have a long-term rental (at least 1 year). Also, there were a few houses for sale (one really nice one in our housing plan) and VIP inquired if they sellers would be willing to rent taking it off the market for 4 - 6 months or even while keeping the house on the market (going month-to-month). A couple of the sellers considered, but they were afraid that if the house was being rented, someone would come along wanting to buy and they didn't want complications.

Sigh! I completely understand that, but that doesn't mean I have to be happy with it. I was really hoping to find a house because that would be the next best thing to living in our own home (now extra crispy due to fire). Alas, that was not to be and, in light of the events that took place on Easter Sunday (see the Day 5 posts), we were best off taking the apartment and getting back to a "normal" life as soon as possible.

Home is where the heart is. -Pliny the Elder
see this Wikipedia entry

Day 5 - April 12th, 2009 - Happy Easter...sort of -PART DEUX

DISCLAIMER: My in-laws have been VERY generous throughout this trying time! We're very lucky to have them. Support from extended family really helps when things get tough.

As I mentioned in part-1, my wife, son, and I were staying at my wife's parent's place until we could get our own place to stay. Now, at the risk of seeming ungrateful, I am going to tell a story of a situation in which too much of a good thing can sometimes be bad.

It was Easter dinner and my sister-in-law, her friend and boy-friend, as well as my brother-in-law with his family were in attendance. My son is 4 years old and he's at that "cute" stage where he's asserting himself (that's an understatement, perhaps). His uncle and aunt had bought him an Easter basket and he wanted to open it. My father-in-law didn't know that the basket was for him and he tried to keep my son from opening the basket. Of course, my son was NOT at all happy about that :-| Anyway, it wasn't a big deal as it was a simple misunderstanding.

Something had happened involving my father-in-law that I was not happy about (I'm not going to get into details here for obvious reasons). I had raised my voice to my father-in-law and my sister-in-law got pretty pissed at me and started yelling at me. Then my wife starts getting into it with her sister and before you know it, we've got a three-way cage match about to happen (well, verbally speaking). My wife left the house to get some air and cool off as did I (I also got on the cell to my best friend of 25+ years to vent).

I ended up sitting in the basement avoiding everyone and stewing about what had happened the rest of the day. My Easter was pretty much ruined (what should have been important was that it was a day of celebration rejoicing in the Risen Lord and sadly, I lost sight of that).

SOME ADVICE: If you find yourself needing a place to stay and your in-laws or even your own parents offer to put you up, I STRONGLY recommend that you consider a hotel room for a few days. Stressful situations can make MOUNTAINS out of even the stupidest of mole hills.

Day 5 - April 12th, 2009 - Happy Easter...sort of

It was about 6:00 AM in the morning and my wife wakes me up calling to me from the top of the basement steps (at my in-law's, I was sleeping in the FINISHED basement while my wife and son slept upstairs). She told me she was having a bit of trouble breathing; she thought she was having an asthma attack.

I dragged myself out of bed and 911 was called. The ambulance came, the EMTs talked to my wife and took her to the hospital to be evaluated.

BRIEF ASIDE: There's absolutely no words I can adequately use to describe the respect I have for firemen and EMTs (throw in the police for good measure). It's easy to take these folks for granted...UNTIL YOU NEED THEM!

Down at the hospital, my wife was wheeled into one of the patient rooms and I schlepped myself to the waiting area where I waited for 2 or 3 hours. Luckily I had some reading material as well as several of those great infomercials -I expect my orders in soon ;-)

It turned out that my wife had an anxiety attack. That's understandable considering the stressful time we've been enduring this past week. She's fine, however, and I told her that she just needs to do her best to let things roll off of her back and take things one day (hour, minute, second) at a time.

Days 2 & 3 - April 9th & 10th, 2009 - Back to Work

I'm glad that I work in a place where there's a lot of support! Many had already heard what had happened, some had not, all were shocked!

I spoke with the president of the company and he offered his support on behalf of himself and all of the employees. I got caught up on some e-mail and talked to a few folks. Needless to state, I didn't get a whole lot accomplished that day and Friday (4/10).

I was VERY pleasantly surprised by one individual I didn't really know all that well. I had talked to her here and there -just small talk at the microwave in the kitchen/lunch area. She had brought in two bags of clothes for my wife to try on and -this really surprised me- brought in an Easter basket (Thomas the Tank Engine themed) meant for her nephew, but since she wasn't going to see him for a couple of weeks, she decided to offer it to my son so that he had an Easter basket! She said that she'd make another one for her nephew. Wow! That was too cool!

If you find yourself lucky enough to be in the situation where you work in a place with such great people, count your blessings.

Day 1 - April 8th, 2009 - The Aftermath

It was the day after the fire and now comes the reality of it all -time to go into the house and see what's what...

Needless to state, it wasn't pretty. I didn't recognize my beloved home. The entire downstairs is pretty much a loss. The kitchen -where the fire started- is a giant piece of black coal. The freezer section of the fridge was MELTED SHUT. The fire had made its way into the eat-in section (immediately adjacent to the kitchen). It also went into the den and living room (where it was hot enough to meld some of the thermostat). In such a small span of time -about 10 minutes- the fire has spread quite quickly and did lots of damage.

The firemen had broken all of the windows in the kitchen and eat-in section as well as the sliding glass door in the den. My wife is probably secretly happy about that one since she hated the sliding glass doors :-)

There's heavy smoke damage upstairs as well as holes made by the firemen to make sure that fire hadn't made its way into the upstairs. The firemen did their job, that's for sure!

It all stinks...no, literally, it REEKS of smoke!

We've taken some pictures that I will include in a subsequent blog entry.

Welcome to Day Zero - Well, Not Techncially

Hello those in the blogosphere! This is my very FIRST blog entry!

I am starting this blog as the direct result of a house fire that occurred on Tuesday, April 7th at approximately 9:20 AM. Yeah, that SUCKS, doesn't it -right before Easter and all (btw, happy Easter to all, Christians and chocolate bunny lovers included).

I'll start with what I call "day zero" which is when my family's life went from 60 to 0 (as opposed to 0 to 60) inside of only a few minutes. To begin how the author of a cheezy detective novel might,

It was a day like any other day...

In my case, that is absolutely true. I was upstairs getting dressed for work. As always, I was listening to Mike and Mike in the Morning on ESPN Radio (1250 AM in Pittsburgh). I got dressed, went downstairs, put my coat on, XOXO'd the wife and son goodbye, and went outside to clear the freakin' SNOW off of my car (I was hoping that we were done with that; damn that groundhog).

I was outside clearing the snow (listening to Mike and Mike again) and I hear my wife screaming something out of the front door. I asked her what she had said and she stated "THERE'S A FIRE IN THE HOUSE!" From that point on, time started to slow down more and more (like in the movies, I guess). I ran inside and had a straight line to our kitchen which was starting to fill with smoke. At this point, I hadn't seen any fire, but you know the saying: "Where there's smoke, there's fire." In about more 30 seconds, I did see the glowing light of flames coming from the little "cubby" that is situated between the kitchen, basement, and den (you know, that small bit of space for which there's absolutely no utility except for piling a bunch of crap that you haven't decided what to do with?)

It was then clear to me that there was absolutely nothing we could do. Ironically, I guess, we had a kitchen fire extinguisher, but I had no FREAKING idea where it was!

TIP:If you have fire extinguishers, FOR GOODNESS SAKE, PLEASE PUT THEM IN PLACES WHERE YOU CAN EASILY AND QUICKLY ACCESS THEM if necessary!

We hot-footed (pun intended) it out of the house (my wife and son both have asthma and the LAST place they need to be is inside of a burning house). Now, every second that passed as we waited for the fire crews (two different companies responded as well as EMTs) seemed to take a lifetime. All I kept thinking was "where the F%*K are the firemen!" Much of my poor wife's thoughts centered around "oh my God, what about all of the things we had for Easter for our son!" We were safe and obviously that was key.

ALL OF THIS TOOK PLACE WITHIN THE SPAN OF ABOUT 10 MINUTES!

The firemen had arrived and did their thing -quite superbly I might mention. Out came the firemen putting on their equipment and grabbing axes and a 4 INCH HOSE to go into the house and put out the fire. My family and I were next door at a neighbor's house.

QUICK ASIDE: If you are lucky, you live in the kind of neighborhood like mine where you have neighbors that come to your aide in your darkest hour. Hell, you have such a great neighborhood where a complete stranger comes up to you and offers to put you up until your house is put back together in FOUR or SIX MONTHS! If you live in such a neighborhood, STAY; otherwise, LEAVE where you currently live and FIND one like mine -yo! A BIG shout-out to my peeps in Cresant Hills, Penn Hills, PA!

The firemen and EMTs were fantastic. They attended to my wife and son to make sure that they hadn't suffered any ill affects (my wife did receive some oxegen, but my son was totally fine, at least physically). One of the firemen was a chaplain and conselor (please forgive me as I do not remember their names; if my wife remembers them, I'll be sure to list them in a subsequent post). It was clear to me that he was genuinely concerned about my wife's state of mind and he took her aside to talk to her and help her cope a bit.

After about 2 hours, it was all over -the fire I mean; it was now DAY ZERO -time to begin the healing and rebuilding process.

Things hit home for me as I was sitting in the back seat of the insurance adjuster's car (great guy and great company -Erie Insurance- so far, anyway). Gary was reviewing our policy with us covering the major parts of it in terms of what coverage we had for contents and loss of use. In my mind, I was thinking "good grief, look where I am; look at where we are; what the hell!"

QUICK ASIDE: I have had several people ask me "do you have insurance?" I simply can not wrap my head around the idea of NOT having insurance for your home and property! Since I have a mortgage, I'm required to have insurance and it gets paid via escrow. If you do NOT have insurance, for God's sake GET A CLUE AND GET SOME!

Well, that's it for my very first post. I had always thought about joining the blogosphere. It's just that I thought I'd be blogging about technology since that's the space in which I live. I had NO IDEA that I'd be blogging about what the hell had transpired over the last week (I hopefully will be trying to post once per day sharing the recovery journey with all those who care to read).

SUGGESTION: If you have a comment about anything you've read or anything anyone else has commented upon, by all means, please share. If you have a tip, then kindly put the text "TIP:" or "SUGGESTION:" immediately before your comment or immediately in front of the paragraph of your post. Also, please try to follow the Blogger's Code of Conduct.

From the point of conception
To the moment of truth
At the point of surrender
To the burden of proof
From the point of ignition
To the final drive
The point of a journey
Is not to arrive
Anything can happen...

Canadian super group Rush - Prime Mover lyrics

Let the journey begin!