Letters, I Get Letters

From our apartment complex management:

Needless to say, my building is neither 4, 10 nor 13.  And forget water.

On a related note:  we had movers come and shift all our possessions into the (one-car) garage on Saturday.  It took a depressingly short time, and there’s still plenty of space.  Now building management can dry the place out and replace carpets etc. , which they assured me [eyecross]  would take place soon.

But as I paid the movers with some of the money y’all sent to me, I said a quiet thank-you.  (And yes, I will eventually get it back from the insurance, but I needed it right then, and you guys made it possible.)

Best news of all:  my books were in perfect shape, untouched by the water and the resulting humidity.

And in other news:  normal blogging service should resume tomorrow with the usual mixture of guns,  rants, booze, invective and boobs.  Try to contain your excitement.

Return To Normality, Sorta

The extended-stay hotel has restored its wifi connection, at least temporarily, so I’m more or less back in business.

However, there are over 1,700(!) emails sitting in my Inbox waiting for my attention, and today New Wife and I have to go back to the apartment to pack and move stuff into the garage so that the complex can start the laborious process of drying the place out, replacing carpets and fixing drywall.

It’s gonna take a little while before blogging resumes its customary volume, in other words.

Most alarming to me has been the realization that all my precious books may have been ruined by the humidity.  I’ll find out the truth when I get back there later this morning.

Aaaaargh.


And one more time, with feeling:  words cannot express our gratitude for your wonderful generosity.  I hope nobody minds that when all the dust has settled, bills paid and my life is restored, that some tiny part of your contributions (if any remain) might go towards buying a few books.

Marking Time

The story of the film so far:

Apartment is still closed, some standing water, interior is humid like New Orleans on a midsummer day after a rainstorm, but cold like Chicago is… now, come to think of it.  No water, of course, but occasional electricity(!!)

The hotel’s wifi is still down (WTF?), but I can make a temporary hotspot with my phone and communicate with the outside world that way, except that the download time is measured in units like the old dial-up/modem connections (remember them?) so I’m not going to be anywhere like as much as I normally am.

– Good news is that I don’t think the insurance company is going to try and screw us, but time will tell on that one.  So far they have been nothing but understanding — especially when I told Insurance Agent Man that a.) the guns weren’t damaged and b.) we’d managed to keep the Persian rugs away from the water.  The sigh of relief was quite audible.

– Bad news is that because New Wife is an hourly worker, she’s not going to get paid for this past week because her school was closed, so… you know all those generous contributions y’all have been making?  Noses above water, especially as next week is Car(s) Payment Time — and once again, our sincerest thanks for your generosity.

I’ll try to post more, but please bear with me.  Aaaaargh.  In the meantime, here’s something to put a smile on your face:

I found those (all packed with loose ammo) when I was cleaning out the gun stuff.  Left to right:  .45 ACP, .357 Mag and .223 Rem.

Except of course I don’t own any guns which shoot .357 Mag or .223 Rem.  Go figure.


Update:  For all those interested in the “spare ammo”, I’m sorry.  As soon as I found it, I found it a good home because I didn’t want to hassle with it, and posted about it much later.

Dry

Just a quick update: we’re safely ensconced at a long-stay hotel, but we’re still subject to occasional blackouts which play havoc with the wifi server. So postings will only be occasional.

We are fine.

That said, we are still waiting for the insurance company to come and view the damage, so in that regard there’s still some uncertainty.

To all those folks who have tossed dollars into Ye Olde Begginge Bole, our deepest and sincerest thanks.

Apart from the insurance uncertainty (and you all know what I mean), I feel fine about things. We’re safe, warm and DRY, so things can only get better*.


*cue Howard Jones’ song of the same name.

Glueball Wormening

This week in Plano:

…but normal service resumes later next week:

I was going to take New Wife on a little car trip over the weekend up into the Ozarks as she has Monday off, but I don’t live in Chicago anymore so my blood has thinned.  Yeah, I’m a big pussy.

We’ll stay indoors, wrap up / stay in bed, hope that the ice storms don’t cause any power outages, and trust that I don’t end up looking this: