(Cheeky apologies to @Dronecatcher for borrowing his subtitle 
)
So, a couple of months ago, we had a house fire that extensively damaged about half of our house. Repairs are underway, but I have learned a pretty hard lesson on pointing out what needs to be removed from the house and pointing out to the work crew about what you'd like to keep and what you want to toss.
In my basement utility room, there was minor water damage to various items from the firefighters putting out the fire, due to water soaking through the floor. I had two totes and a box filled with spare parts from various machines, as well as a couple of old video game consoles that needed minor repair that I just hadn't gotten to. I removed all of my Macs and various other machines and components from the house during inventory time, but had left my spare parts containers behind. I thought that I had made it clear that I wanted those items kept, but they obviously misunderstood me. I went to check on the progress of the house and to grab my floppy module for the Wallstreet, and couldn't find my spare parts bins. I asked the cleaning crew on site whether they had moved those items somewhere in the safe areas (the garage and my basement office), but they informed me that those items got tossed, as they thought that due to the water damage in the utility room that everything in there was to be thrown out.
Cringe...
Due to miscommunication, and the fact that I probably should have moved those items into one of the safe areas, I lost years of accumulated spare PowerPC parts and other useful items, as well as my Atari Video Pinball unit (needed minor repair), working backup Dreamcast console, and original working NES. I had three good LCDs for my TiBooks (just needed hinges), spare Powerbook keyboards, Wallstreet modules (two floppy, one ZIP), an original Macintosh mouse, old Wallstreet and Pismo user manuals, working Powerbook CD/DVD/Combo drives, two Bondi keyboards and mice, a graphite keyboard and puck mouse, and countless old Mac video cards (including a PC Radeon 9800 that I was going to flash). There were a lot more components that I'm forgetting, but this is, to me, a crushing loss. We lost a lot of other items that they tossed from the room as well, such as old collage books and pictures, and that hurt as well. Granted, we are getting a large check from the insurance company to cover our losses, but a lot of that stuff cannot be replaced with cash.
So, hard lesson learned. It's a very confusing and traumatic time when disasters like house fires happen. Even if you have your wits about you, it affects you subconsciously, and you may overlook things during all of the upheaval. I should have brought someone unaffected with me during the inventory process to be sure that I didn't miss anything.
)So, a couple of months ago, we had a house fire that extensively damaged about half of our house. Repairs are underway, but I have learned a pretty hard lesson on pointing out what needs to be removed from the house and pointing out to the work crew about what you'd like to keep and what you want to toss.
In my basement utility room, there was minor water damage to various items from the firefighters putting out the fire, due to water soaking through the floor. I had two totes and a box filled with spare parts from various machines, as well as a couple of old video game consoles that needed minor repair that I just hadn't gotten to. I removed all of my Macs and various other machines and components from the house during inventory time, but had left my spare parts containers behind. I thought that I had made it clear that I wanted those items kept, but they obviously misunderstood me. I went to check on the progress of the house and to grab my floppy module for the Wallstreet, and couldn't find my spare parts bins. I asked the cleaning crew on site whether they had moved those items somewhere in the safe areas (the garage and my basement office), but they informed me that those items got tossed, as they thought that due to the water damage in the utility room that everything in there was to be thrown out.
Cringe...
Due to miscommunication, and the fact that I probably should have moved those items into one of the safe areas, I lost years of accumulated spare PowerPC parts and other useful items, as well as my Atari Video Pinball unit (needed minor repair), working backup Dreamcast console, and original working NES. I had three good LCDs for my TiBooks (just needed hinges), spare Powerbook keyboards, Wallstreet modules (two floppy, one ZIP), an original Macintosh mouse, old Wallstreet and Pismo user manuals, working Powerbook CD/DVD/Combo drives, two Bondi keyboards and mice, a graphite keyboard and puck mouse, and countless old Mac video cards (including a PC Radeon 9800 that I was going to flash). There were a lot more components that I'm forgetting, but this is, to me, a crushing loss. We lost a lot of other items that they tossed from the room as well, such as old collage books and pictures, and that hurt as well. Granted, we are getting a large check from the insurance company to cover our losses, but a lot of that stuff cannot be replaced with cash.
So, hard lesson learned. It's a very confusing and traumatic time when disasters like house fires happen. Even if you have your wits about you, it affects you subconsciously, and you may overlook things during all of the upheaval. I should have brought someone unaffected with me during the inventory process to be sure that I didn't miss anything.
