House Flambe

My house tried to kill me yesterday by catching in fire. It failed miserably.
Everyone got out fine, we are ok and the house is in pretty good shape. Electrical fire in my crawl space from the 220V line running to the water heater. The smolder of doom started above the laundry room and we found it before it really caught. The fire department ripped down the ceiling in the laundry room and half the garage chasing the smolder through the insulation. We are crazy silly ridiculous lucky. Insurance adjuster has already been out with a contractor and electrician. They will be back this morning to run new house mains and replace the water heater which means a little demo work in my office to get to the back side of the breaker box to replace the breakers and run the line. After that the real fun begins (work permits from the city, replacing ALL the insulation, structural engineer to sign off on the scorched ceiling beams, etc. etc.)
We are staying in the house tonight even though we where offered hotel rooms. I will skip the hot water for the opportunity to keep an eye on the abode that tried to kill me. Might post pictures of the torched wires, rafters, and missing ceilings.. might not.

My wife and I had both just returned home to meet with some friends (waiting in our driveway) to head out for the day. Kristina was bringing back the dog from getting its nails trimmed and other doggy things and I was coming back from the dentist. Our friends where leaving there 2 dogs at our house as we where planning on being out well into the evening. Because my wife had the dog she went into the house through the garage, and thus the laundry room and thought it smelled like burnt marshmallows. We started checking the water heater and following the smell.. mostly out of curiosity. There was a warm spot near the door and since I am freakishly tall I was able to touch the ceiling and feel a hot spot. Got the ladder and poked my head through the crawl space hatch that is in the laundry room and saw small wisps of smoke and blackened insulation and beams around some wires. Told Kristina to call the fire dept and ran out to pop all the breakers in the house. Posted my friend on the ladder with a fire extinguisher to hit anything if it actually ignited (felt confident leaving him there.. anyone trained to fight ship board fires can fight them in my house). Fire Dept came and was able to take care of it before it actually caught and turned into a real fire. Plenty of damage though.. the thermal imager the captain used was registering over 500 degrees on the inside of the ceiling.

Not quite the eventful weekend I was hoping for. My wife did a pretty good write up of the events of the fire. You can find it HERE.

Doh

You know what is silly? Setting your phone down 3 inches away from the charger but not plugging it in. Some days I amaze myself.

I never wanted a camera in my phone. I never found the idea appealing and I still think that there are more useful things to do with the space that circuitry takes up. I do have to admit though, there are times when having a camera on my phone is handy. Take for instance... last weekend.

The first picture is Scott on a bull. The second picture is Scott... no longer on the bull (unfortunately Scott is laying behind the bull).

Ramblings

All aboard the money train. Next stop, Sequel Station!

I pulled up the TV guide this morning to see which games where on which station and I couldn't help but notice that WGN has decided to go out on a limb and put some truly first rate movies up against Sunday Football. (That was sarcasm BTW).
Up first is the never The NeverEnding Story III, a one star doozy from 1994. After that they have chosen Back to the Secret Garden. They didn't even bother to rate this gem from 2000. I understand the never ending story is well.. never ending, but it still revolves around Bastian and apparently he is now struggling through adolescence. The first one was great. The second one was tolerable. The third one.. well I haven't seen it but I am having trouble coming to grips with the fact that it was actually made. There may be one redeeming factor in the mess in that it does star Jack Black. I still don't think that is enough to make me watch it.
As for the Secret Garden, it was found once so its no longer a secret.

In completely unrelated news: Kristina, Lenny, and I went to the Irish Heritage Festival yesterday. We volunteered at the AAGI booth showing off the greyhounds and answering a lot of questions about adoption and the breed in general. Except for the fact that we where across the way from the beer/whiskey tent, and right next to the DeLorean tent, I was pretty disappointed. The whole thing was pretty low key, and the main draw was the 2 stages of performers (there where supposedly some dancers but I only saw musicians). There where only 2 or 3 other cultural/historical booths, everyone else was a vendor hawking the usual bunch of jewlery, non-irish inspired leatherwork, or Guinness apparel. I wasn't able to go into the actual Irish Heritage Foundation Building they have there, so I probably missed out on a core aspect of the festival. My wife has some lovely pictures on her Flicker account if you have access and feel the need to see alot of pictures with dogs. I'm glad we went, but I felt a little disappointed in the whole ordeal. I guess I was expecting more history lessons and less commerce.

The sickness continues

3 posts in one day. Boy, I bet you are all feeling lucky.. or maybe you haven't checked in a few days and are feeling overwhelmed.

So the video game saga continues. I am officially down 1 PS2 but instead of hunting for one on the cheap I decided to exchange Guitar Hero 2 for an undamaged disk. What a trip that was. Tom was itching to go to Fry's Electronics because he was in a bad mood. I was in a similar mood and decided to join him. Luckily he had the Best Buy receipt for GH2. He picked me up and we stopped by Best Buy on the way to Fry's.
I stand in the returns line for about 15 minutes while Tom goes and plays with the latest smart phones. I finally get to the service rep, the look at the disk, look at the receipt, then tell me to go get a new copy of the game and bring it back up to them. They also tell me I don't have to wait in line.
I walk to the back of the store, find the game, and head back to the counter. When I get there they have gone from 4 Customer Service reps to 2. I walk to the front of the line and wait patiently. After 5 minutes the guy I am waiting on takes my receipt and hands it to the lackey too his right. I assume this was to speed up my transaction as he is now dealing with a difficult return. So I go stand by the obviously younger and less knowledgeable worker and continue waiting patiently. After 10 more minutes and a few conversations with some other guys in line about cars and manly stuff the young kid finally finds what was wrong with the lady's order in front of me. Apparently she had ordered something, taken too long to pick it up, and they had canceled the order. It took him15 minutes to figure that out. I was still better off though since the smart guy was still trying to figure out how a cordless mouse was on some guy's receipt but wouldn't scan into the system (as in they don't actually carry that mouse).
The guy helping me takes the 5 seconds required to print the exchange receipt and I am done. Total wait time 30 min, total "help" time, about 1.5 minutes.
Amazing.

As I turn around I see a man in the now very long returns line holding a Wii. I immediately approach him and ask if the machine is broken. He says no, he just doesn't want it. I talk with him a little more as I try to grasp the cusp of the situation. It still doesn't quite compute to me and I sort of wander away pondering the mere possibility of the situation he claimed. I find Tom, confer with him and we decide this is an opportunity that can not be passed up. I approach the man again and ask him if he would rather just sell me the machine instead of waiting in line to return it. He politely declines, mumbling something about a credit card. He says I could probably just wait and buy the system as soon as he returns it. I consider this good advice and take my post at the end of the costumer service counter. About 5 more minutes of waiting go buy when the General Manager comes over, I assume because he has noticed how long and aggravated the line has become due to the counter being staffed at half strength.
After inquiring to the where abouts of all his workers he decides to pitch in and help. Instead of helping the next person in line he singles me.. the guy standing randomly at the edge and ask if I need help. I ask him how long the turn around is for a returned item to hit the floor. He looks at me like I just asked how many cucumbers he could shove up his ass in 45 seconds and asks for clarification and specifically what kind of item. I point out the man with the Wii and tell him the man will not sell it to me, but wants to make the full return instead. The manager states he is obligated to make an announcement, then grabs the mic attached to his shirt and makes a call on the radio to all his employees that goes something like this.
"attention, we have a customer returning a Nintendo Wii, however we already have another customer lined up to buy it. Repeat, We have a Wii to sell and somone inline to buy it." He then promised me the Wii and went about bossing people around. Tom and I waited another 10 minutes or so for the guy with the nintendo to get helped. As soon as the transaction was done the CS rep brought the machine to me at the end of the counter and rang it up.
I was in a pretty foul mood today when it came to video games and video game systems. All that has changed. I am a very very very happy boy.
My wife, Tom, and I have spent the last 2 hours taking turns on Wii sports. All the rumors are true. The system is just plain fun. I just wish I could find another controller. Tom and I tried 3 stores and no one has any extra controllers.

I hope you all come over to play soon, it really is a whole new social experience.