Articulated Vulgarities

The final stages

I'm trying to get back into the blogging groove.  Luckily, with the house nearing completion and the excitement reaching critical mass, that is becoming increasingly easier because I feel I should share the progress with my friends.

We stopped in yesterday and the painting is pretty much done.  There's some small touch up work to do yet, but the major portion is complete.  Vent covers, electrical sockets, and light switches have been installed.  All that remains are the sinks, the basement toilet, a few ceiling fans, cabinet and closet handles, and finishing the bar. 

Unfortunately, Señor Blurry (aka the iPhone camera) doesn't do the best job of capturing the different shades of the rooms, but you'll get the idea.  Here's a shot of my room, leading into the hallway.  You can also see the difference between the way the floors were stained. 

My ceiling fan.

A shot of the bathroom tile and the wall, which is a light taupe color like the kitchen and living room.

This is my brother's room.  It's hard to tell in the photos, but the shade of blue is much lighter in his room.  My room is almost blue-gray.  The shots are at weird angles because I wanted to capture as much of the color contrast as possible - the floors, the trim and moulding, and the walls.

This is what used to be my room, and will now serve as the office/computer room.  Again, this shade of blue is actually a little different than the one in either of the other two rooms.

Here's the living room.  As you can tell, the light fixture isn't completed yet.  Before the fire, the house was painted almost completely white, off-white, or light gray (which looks white).  Not only does that show off every speck of dust, dirt, fingerprint, or mark, it's boring.  We wanted a lot more color this time around, which is why we went with taupe in the common areas and shades of blue in the bedrooms and basement.

The kitchen is the same color as the living room, but this shot shows off the recessed lighting, which I love. 

Again, this is a different shade of blue from any of the bedrooms.  This is the basement, which will become the entertainment hub once I get all my gear moved in.  The blue flecks in the floor tiles look great against the walls.

The bar area.  The walls here aren't actually different form the rest of the basement.  The effect is just caused by the lighting.  The bar itself is a very, very dark shade - almost midnight blue/black. 

So that's the latest.  The front porch should be repaired this week, which was the last major hurdle in moving back in.  We're hoping to get the OK to move some of our stuff back soon, which will also allow us to move our furniture delivery up a week or two. 

It seems entirely possible, and even likely, that we'll be able to move in before the September 30th date set by Jarvis Construction, but even if we have to wait the entire time, it's less than three weeks away.

I had considered holding a housewarming party, but thought better of it for several reasons.  First and foremost, we are terrible planners.  We are also cheap and not willing to buy alcohol for other people to drink.  Secondly, I have several pairs of friends who do not like each other.  The solution is to either neglect to invite some friends, which is just rude, or run the risk of the WWE Royal Rumble breaking out in my newly finished house.  The much easier solution is to simply invite people over one at a time to see the house, hang out for a while, and maybe have a few drinks and/or dinner individually. 

It's very possible the next set of pictures I post will be the completed house, filled with furniture, and hopefully some friends who come to visit.

$8,300 and 6 1/2 hours later...

I.  Am.  Exhausted.

But it was all worth it.  We went shopping today, and we accomplished more than we expected. 

Trips to Art Van, Gardner White, and Lowe's were all fruitful and almost all the necessities have been purchased and are awaiting delivery at the end of the month.

My mother was worried that we would somehow run out of insurance money.  Even if you estimate we've spent $10,000 already, which is an inflated estimate by probably $2-3,000 , that still leaves us with $50,000 to furnish the house with.  Since we are not buying furniture carved by hand out of the most exquisite, rare woods on Earth, we will be fine. 

After a delicious lunch at Five Guys Burgers & Fries, we hit up Art Van where we found the bulk of our furnishings.  We fell in love with several things, so the choice was tough to narrow down, but we eventually all reached an agreement. 

First up is the living room.  This is the couch we selected. 

The color in the photo is thrown off by the sunset.  It's actually a greenish color with pinks and blues in the threads.  It's very pretty, and the colorful matching throw pillows are included.

This should give you a better idea.  We picked up this chair and ottoman as well.  Near the top of the backing, you can get a better idea of the color.  The chair and sofa are both incredibly comfortable - that kind of comfortable where you feel like you're being swallowed by the fabric. 

This is the coffee table we selected for the living room.  That is slate around the glasss, which matches not only the sofa and chair very well, but even the breakfast bar, creating a nice flow from the kitchen to the living room.  Here's a closer shot of the table, so you can get a better idea of the array of colors.
 
Still doesn't do it justice thanks to the BlurMaster 3000 (aka the iPhone's built-in camera), but you can see the stony browns, reds, greens, and blues.

Next up is my brother's bedroom, where he picked this queen sized sleigh bed.  I forgot to get a picture of his TV chest, which has six large dresser drawers, then two openings for audio/video components and a nice flat top to place his new HDTV on.  The comforter set is display only, as we both already have our bedding picked out. 

As for my room, I got a very similar style of bed, though it is lacking the footboard.  The wood is also darker, but they both have similarly curved headboards.


Above you can see the dresser I chose.  I love the doors in the middle, and the smaller storage drawers on top (which were sold separately). 

Here's the dining room set we bought (sans the decorative pitchers).  This table is 100% real wood, as are the matching chairs.  You can see that the backs of the chairs are curved, which makes the unbelievably comfortable.  In the center of the table are three slate tiles that help tie the room together with the coffee table and the kitchen.  It's a smaller table, but with the breakfast bar only two steps away, we have more than enough space to dine. 

After Art Van, we headed up the street to Gardner White where we were stalked by a nervous salesman who seemed to appear when we would least expect it, offered stilted commentary on every piece we looked at, and didn't quite understand the need for families to talk amongst themselves without a pushy salesman around.  We actually had to excuse ourselves several times or else he would've just stood there and stared at us.  It was quite a different experience from Art Van, where we weren't followed or hounded like we were being hunted for sport.

Be that as it may, we did end up buying two leather recliners for the home theater area because they had a great deal on them. 

We stopped at Home Depot to look around, but it was hard to give them our business with a Lowe's literally on the opposite side of the parking lot.  Sure enough, we entered Lowe's and left after having purchased these:

 

The fridge is not picture because it was their last model and was still wrapped.  It was not a floor model; it was just the last one they had it stock and it never made it to the floor.  It was sitting in their warehouse and we inspected it through the box and plastic wrap.

All four of these items are Whirlpool devices, and they're all real stainless steel.  The fridge is a 25.3 cubic foot side-by-side with an ice maker/water dispenser.  The range is gas-powered and self-cleaning, with cast iron tops and a fifth burner in the center.  You can see the price tag says $718, but after their sale discount was applied, it ended up being $646. 

As an aside, we also stopped into Bed, Bath & Beyond where I picked up two nifty little art pieces that will go well in the home theater area.


There was also a huge, beautiful painting that we're going to purchase to hang behind the bar in the basement that I didn't think to get a picture of.  Accompanying these little kitschy paintings will be several official framed movie posters.  Undoubtedly, there will be a Blade Runner and at least one Dark Knight, but I'm still deciding what other films I want to purchase. 

So, let's recap.  We purchased a sofa, chair, ottoman, a queen sleigh bed, a standard queen bed, two dressers, a coffee table, two leather recliners, and four stainless steel appliances for $8,300.  Subtract that from the roughly $50,000 we have left to spend (which is actually more like $53,000), and I think we're going to be OK.

In fact, we're going to be golden.  There's still plenty of things to buy - plates, silverware, glasses, towels, more cookware, and all the other things a house needs.  My brother still needs to replace his electronics, which will be a couple grand, and we are going to need bookshelves, media (CD/DVD) racks, computer desks and office chairs, and possibly another chair for the living room or a loveseat for the basement.  We're also going to get another recliner (probably a rocker/recliner) and possibly a fake fireplace for what will become the reading nook in the basement, and a small chest fridge for the bar.  Oh, and a new fake Christmas tree.

Even taking all that into account, we should have so much money leftover that we're not even going to know what to do with it.  It's not as if the house will need any improvements, but I'm sure we'll find a way to spend it, whether it's replacing more clothes or CDs or buying more furniture.  Just running the math, we've already bought almost all the necessities for the house and we still have over 40 grand remaining to play with.  I think it's safe to say my dear mother's worrying is unfounded.

Everything will be delivered at the end of the month, once we're given the OK by the construction company.  Again, I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to everyone from Jarvis Construction for doing such a wonderful job on our house in such an amazing amount of time.

Today was a very exciting, very wonderful day.  I love everything we picked out and I can't wait to see it all inside our home.

Almost Home

It has been a long time since I've provided any updates on the progress of our house.  Sorry about that.  It's not that things are moving slowly, we haven't been to see it, or don't have a multitude of pictures.  I've just been a bad blogger.  The idea was to originally chronicle the journey from the fire to the completion of our mostly new house.  Like every other project I start, I get lax and let it fall by the wayside.

So to catch those who may have some interest in such things up, I'm going to post select pictures from the past several weeks and months, right up to some that were taken only an hour ago today.  I want to give you all an idea of how fast the construction company, Jarvis Construction, is working on our house.  I cannot say enough good things about these guys and the work they've done on the house. 

The following pictures were taken July 25, 2009, just after the completion of the rough drywall:
 

The living room.

 

The half-wall is the breakfast bar that separates the kitchen and dining area.

 

The upstairs bathroom.

The basement.  This is important to note because in the past, our basement was unfinished.  We had panelling on the walls and hideously ugly tile on the floor, but now it is going to be fully finished and will be the entertainment hub of the house.  My plans are to put all of my home theater equipment downstairs, and in the additional space afforded by the loss of what used to be the work room, we are now going to make a small reading nook.

That was a little over a month ago.  The following pictures were taken on August 6th, 2009:

 

The cabinets have been installed, and more importantly, the hardwood floors!  Only two weeks after the drywall was completed, the entire house had floors and cabinets installed.  I took pictures from several angles in the kitchen, showing the pantry space on the opposite wall pictured here, and the space where the fridge and dishwasher (another new addition for us) will go.

Now let's see what happened a little over a week later, on August 15th:

 

Pictures don't do justice to how nice this countertop actually looks.  It's textured, with blues, greens, and black all swirled together. 

 

The wall opposite the sink.  This is our pantry space, and the little ledge gives us more preparation space, or a place to put a canister set or something useful instead of the giant rack we used to have that housed our microwave, and nothing else of any practical use.

 

The breakfast bar, now with a top.  This is about a third the size of the old one, which is actually much nicer.  It mostly overhangs on the kitchen side and is far less intrusive than it was before.

 

The closet space in the living room, as well as the front door.  I love the little half-circle window on the door.  This closet used to have a sliding mirrored door that was a royal pain in the ass to clean. 

 

The tile that will eventually be installed in the bathroom.  It has a very natural stone look to it.

Not bad for nine days, huh?  Another nine days later, on August 24th, we stopped in again:

 

These have actually been installed for quite some time, but this was the first time I'd gotten a chance to photograph them.  These are the glass block windows that are now installed in our basement.

 

The floors have been stained!  The living room, kitchen, and main hallway all have this lighter, clear oak color.  Again, pictures can't really do justice to how nice and shiny it really is.

 

The bedroom floors, however, have a darker, cherry/brown stain.  It doesn't break the flow of the house at all.  In fact, it looks absolutely spectacular.

 

Remember those tiles?  Not only did they get the entire floor stained, but the bathroom AND basement tiles were installed.  Unfortunately, it was too dark to get a good shot of the basement tile, which is a beautiful white with blue flecks and swirls.  The walls of the basement will be a blue/gray color with white trim, which will contrast the floors beautifully.  At this time, they were still storing the closet doors for the rest of the house in the bathroom, which is why it looks a little crowded in there.

And finally, these shots were taken today around 5:30 PM:

 

Again, these blurry pictures from my iPhone cannot capture how gorgeous this combination looks, even in its unfinished state.  The stones still need to be grouted, but the colors fit the countertop PERFECTLY.  It looks better than I ever could have imagined when we compared it with the small sample chip in the store.  I was actually surprised to find these little stones go around the entire sink area, as I expected them to simply be behind the stove and the rest would be bare drywall (like it used to be).  I was pleasantly surprised to see these tiles go around the length of the entire kitchen sink and cabinet area. 

 

A much better shot of the upstairs bathroom, now almost 100% finished aside from a little area above the range of the shot. 

 

A much better shot of the bedroom floors, with their darker stain.  As you can see, the closet doors have all been fully installed (and the shelves and rails inside have been as well).

 

The beginnings of the bar in the basement.  This is the one area where I expect it won't be quite as nice as the one my dad built with his own two hands, but we hardly used it anyway.  Now that the basement is going to become the central entertainment area of the house, however, we agreed it would be nice to have a bar again.

 

Shelving in the downstairs bathroom area.  The basement bathroom is actually a fairly large room, so the far corner of it is perfect for additional storage space.

 

Last, but not least, the elusive basement tile.  This is a close-up of the stairs, and there is plenty of sawdust visible, but you get the idea of what it looks like. 

So that's it for now.  They're still expecting to finish by the end of September, which would be perfect timing since we just got our notice that we have to be out of the rental house by September 30th.  It seems like there's so little left to do, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that their estimate is right.  It's so close I can feel it.

Saturday Shopping: A Pictorial

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fruitful trip...
(OK, so I changed the lyrics, but you now have the Gilligan's Island theme song playing in your head.  You're welcome.)

After spending a great deal on money on Friday to replace my gaming and home theater entertainment equipment, we kicked off our Saturday by meeting our mother at a local kitchen and bath furnishing establishment to pick out new cabinets for the house.  We're told that in the next few weeks, we're going to see some rapid progress so we had to make a decision.  After much deliberation, we settled on these:

It's tough to tell in the picture, taken with my iPhone, but these cabinets are much darker than they look.  However, the color streaks and fades all throughout the wood, giving it a very natural appearance and allowing it to match with almost any type of flooring.  Rest assured, we will not be selecting the same ugly green countertop or the ugly white plastic handles on the doors.

The inside of the pantry doors have nifty sliding shelves for storing canned or boxed goods, and the upper cabinet has a sliding rack designed to hold baking sheets and things of that nature. 

Another angle.  I particularly like the little cubbyhole and the rail on top of the cabinets.

This was meant to give us an idea of how the cabinets would look with our lighter floors.  We're going with the clear red oak on the far right of that floor sample.  The entire house is going to be real wood.

We left the store very pleased and excited and then my brother and I hearkened back to our youths and spent no less than seven full hours visiting various local record stores.

Ahhh, record shopping.  I've often lamented the fact that record shopping isn't what it used to be thanks to big chains and corporations that can afford to undercut prices, and of course the internet, where you can find practically anything you're looking for if you look hard enough.  However, one of the upsides to losing almost your entire collection of music is that local used shops suddenly become goldmines.

We started out at nearby Flipside Records.  Back in the day, Flipside used to be THE bootleg connection.  The owner, Frank, just so happened to be a big Prince fan himself and he stocked an amazing collection of Prince bootleg vinyl, CDs, and even hooked my brother up with cassette tapes and discount prices.  I even bought a lot of used NES games from Flipside back in the day, which he was nice enough to let me play before I purchased to see whether it was worth buying in the first place.

They had a few bins of used CDs for $4 a piece.  If you could find 10, you'd get them all for $35, essentially giving you the 10th disc free.  That was no problem for my brother, though I was being far more selective with my choices.  I did manage to pick up Skinny's debut album, The Weekend, for $2 from their ultra-clearance bin however. 

After Flipside, we decided to grab some lunch.  Not content with meager fast food, we went for BD's Mongolian Grill where we could make a meal big enough to last the rest of the afternoon and into the evening.

Full and contented, we headed back out and stopped off at our old favorite, Record Time, where we found a few more good deals.  My brother was really on a roll, while I was being more reserved, but I still snagged a few great finds.

Without question, the most important stop of the day had to be Car City Records.  Car City used to receive frequent visits, and the one thing that stuck in my brother's mind were the boxes of clearance CDs that sat under the racks of newer used items.  He had a hunch we might find some incredible deals in those boxes, and his hunch was right.

Look upon it and weep.  Isn't it beautiful?  Rows upon rows, bins upon bins of vinyl.  This is what a record store should look like.  This is the type of place you could spend days in and still not go through every bin.
 
More bins, with records stacked on top.  Used CDs sat on the other side of this wall, and that's where we found the majority of great stuff.

Did I mention the store has lots of vinyl?  I particularly like the copy of Funkadelic's 'Uncle Jam Wants You' in the top left bin.

More crates of 12"s.  Do you see those white boxes in the back there?  Those are filled with 45s for 94 cents each. 

This was my haul at the end of the day.  19 CDs for roughly $120.  You can see I got some great stuff - Massive Attack's 'Blue Lines', Dido's 'No Angel' (only $2.83), R.E.M.'s 'Up', Beastie Boys' 'Ill Communication', and more, but the real story centers around two particular discs.

First up is Way Out West's 'Intensify".  Clicking the link will take you to the Amazon Marketplace product page where you can see how much the CD goes for.  Even used copies regularly sell for the cost of a brand new CD.  You know what I paid?  94 cents. 

Lastly, NPG's 'Exodus'.  A little background: 'Exodus' was a CD recorded by Prince and his band in 1994, during the height of his feud with Warner Bros. Records.  At the time, Prince claimed that his greatest work, 'The Gold Experience', would never be released due to his record label wanting to stifle his output and limit the amount of albums he released in a given year.  'Exodus' was released in the UK, under the NPG name so as to circumvent his contract with Warners releasing "Prince" albums.  Naturally, Prince himself is all over the record, though mostly in the form of a persona he called "Tora Tora" (a Japanese warcry) which used a heavily slowed down pitch. 

'Gold' would eventually see release, of course, and 'Exodus' was something of a precursor, but it was never released in the United States and copies regularly go for a decent chunk of change, as you can see from the Amazon product page.  I paid $3.77.

But if you think that's amazing, check out my brother's haul.

I believe his grand total was 48 CDs, which includes a 3CD set (purchased from $9.80), and several CD/DVD sets as well, for about $250.  He snagged a copy of The Crystal Method's classic debut 'Vegas' for 94 cents, Imogen Heap's brilliant last CD 'Speak For Yourself' for $2.83, and loads of others for prices ranging from $1.89 up to no more than $8. 

Our final stop of the day was the only chain store of the bunch.  The remnants of Harmony House can still be seen and felt in the FYE that now sits at 12 Mile & Woodward Avenue.  The staff are largely the same, and the bins are still filled with loads of used CDs at prices ranging from $2.99 to $9.99, for the most part.  Taking advantage of some great deals there, we completed our trip and headed home.

As if that weren't enough, my copy of the X-Men Trilogy on Blu-ray arrived at the house just as we were about to take off, as well as my precious new Sennheiser PX-100s - the same portable headphones I lost in the fire.  My Senns meant a great deal to me and I could be seen carrying them, folded up in their case, practically everywhere.  I'm thrilled to have them back as they are, hands down, the best pair of portable headphones I've ever owned.

See?  Look how happy that guy on the side of the packaging is! 

The day couldn't have been any more wonderful.  It felt like being a kid again, sifting through boxes upon boxes of discount CDs and excitedly discovering an old favorite for proverbial peanuts.  After an exhausting day, I crashed on the couch and watched the first Blu-ray movie I've been able to watch since February - Blade Runner, naturally. 

Even the Red Wings losing to the Penguins couldn't spoil the utter greatness of this weekend.

Shopping Spree!

This is what $1,500 looks like (the cat was not part of the spree).

Today was the big day.  The insurance check cleared, the funds were released, and I was given clearance to go ahead and replace my gaming/entertainment equipment.  I replaced my TV during the last week of May, and my surround sound setup only a few days after that, but now the circle is complete.

As you can see, I have replaced my PlayStation 3 (which functions mainly as my blu-ray player), Wii, Nintendo DS (with the new DSi), and Xbox 360 (an upgrade to the Elite model, no less).  I also finally went wireless, which not only comes in handy in the house we're currenly holed up in, but will be useful when we move back to our old house as my equipment will no longer all be in the same room. 

To say that today was an exciting day was an understatement.  I could barely sit at my desk.  I was constantly tapping my feet, waiting for 1:30 to arrive so I could take off early and replace my gear.

To top it off, I'm writing this during the first intermission of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals between my Detroit Red Wings and the Pittsburgh Penguins.  Hopefully the Wings give me a reaason to stay up late and celebrate instead of putting a dark cloud over a fantastic day. 

Do you hear me, Red Wings?  You don't want to ruin my day, do you?

Signs of Progess

Wanna see our new house?

Here's the master bedroom.

Here's the kitchen (excuse the A&W cream soda).

This is my room.

Here's the upstairs bathroom.

These are the closets in my brother's room.

Another shot of my brother's room at a different angle.

The west wall of the living room.

The north wall of the living room and the front window.

The floors.  Aren't they lovely?

The ceiling and attic space.

The west wall of the kitchen.

As you can see, the place is a little barren right now...

All kidding aside, I can't believe how far the house has come since the last time I was in it about two or three weeks ago.  At that point, they had already cleaned out most of the rubble and debris (which took only about a week itself - another pretty amazing feat), but the charred skeleton of the house remained.

I couldn't get any pictures of the basement (too dark for my phone's camera), but basically the structure of the house and the rooms is done already.  All the supports have been replaced and the plywood floors have been laid down.  It looks like new electrical outlets have been installed, but obviously there's no power to the house at this point in time.  The plumbing looks like it has been replaced and is just waiting to be hooked up.  About the only signs there was a fire inside the house could be seen around the windows, where some blackened, half-melted glass and ashen frames could be seen.

To say this is encouraging, and even a little exciting, is an understatement.  We're already looking for cabinets and flooring, and by the looks of things we may need to make our decision relatively soon. 

In addition, we've decided to make some changes to the house.  We are having central air installed along with the furnace.  No longer will we need to suffer in the sticky, sweltering Michigan summers, confined to our rooms where our precious air conditioners were.  There's a good chance we will also have an additional shower installed in the basement, in what used to be only a half bathroom.

Most exciting of all, we are thinking of turning one of the three bedrooms into a home theater.  Instead of keeping all my electronics in my own bedroom, which is pressed for space with just a bed and basic furniture, we'll convert the third (unused) room into a little entertainment den, with a nice, new, and even bigger HDTV, surround sound system, and multiple gaming consoles.  If we can swing it, we'll even pick up some theater loungers, but only if we have leftover money after we've replaced the necessary furniture. 

I'm excited.  This may not be the way you want to go about redoing your house, but at least some good will come out of it at the end.  It gives you something to look forward to after enduring a tough situation, and I can't wait for the day when we walk into our brand new house.

Finding the Positives

I know, I know - "Enough with the fire updates already!"  But this is good news!  LOTS of good news!

If you read my post about last Sunday's walkthrough (complete with pictures), then you already know that my DVDs, a majority of my games, and apparently my clothes appeared to be salvageable.  Well, I can now confirm that my clothes should, by and large, be 100% A-OK!

We took my beloved Grandaddy "Ghostie" t-shirt out of the house as a test.  My mother ran it through her plain old washer and brought it back to me last night smelling, as Outkast might say, so fresh and so clean.  Seeing as how all my shirts were in similarly undamaged, but smelly condition, they should all be wearable again - save maybe a handful that were a bit more exposed to the smoke and water.

That's not all, though.

MY HARD DRIVES ARE SALVAGEABLE!  In fact, as I type this, I am copying over all my pictures from my primary C: drive on my old computer to my new one, thanks to Chris, who let me use his external USB hard drive enclosure. 

While he was here, he also hit me with a big surprise.  He produced a bag that contained a very nice hardcover edition of Thomas Harris's Hannibal, as well as a $50 Amazon.com gift certificate from he and his wife as an early birthday present.  I can't even begin to describe how touched I was by that.  I'll be buying some more books and CDs tonight!  Thank you so much, the both of you! 

Just as I was hoping, finally getting to perform the walkthrough of the old house seemed to be the turning point.  Now we know what we can salvage, and what we have to replace, and we can finally start moving forward.  It has been almost nothing but good things ever since.

Walking through the house also helped put everything into better perspective for us both.  Sure, we're still bummed about the things we lost.  The picture of my melted TV gives me heart pangs every time I see it, but think about this: Would you rather escape with your life and lose all of your earthly possessions, or die surrounded by nice things?  If we had gone to bed even a meager ten minutes sooner, we could possibly both have been killed, and after seeing the damage the fire caused to the house, the prospect of being trapped inside it is indeed terrifying even looking back.  I am very thankful we all got out OK.  My stuff can be replaced; my family cannot.

The Fire (In Pictures)

Today was the big day.  We went through the house to begin the inventory process.  After inhaling the smokey air for several hours, my throat is quite sore, but I am otherwise fine. 

The good news is that it looks like a fair amount of my belongings may very well be salvageable!  At least two or three rows of games (including my Xbox 360 and Wii games), all my DVDs and Blu-ray movies (more on this in a second), and - I'm praying - my concert t-shirts!  Most of my hoodies are, unfortunately, a lost cause, but there are 5 or 6 that may have survived.  We're going to attempt to have them professionally cleaned, and if that works, I should be able to get my precious Grandaddy hoodie back!

My brother's room was a complete lost cause.  Since it sat right above the laundry room, it took the most damage of anywhere in the house - including the laundry room itself.  His clothes were nothing more than a 3 foot tall pile of ash.  His CDs are mostly one giant piece of plastic fused together, and his computer is a melted hunk of scrap metal (however - the hard drive inside MAY still be salvageable).

I took some 40 pictures, but the temporary lighting in the house caused many of them to come out blurry, and a few of them were rendered completely unusable, but let's take a little tour, shall we?

As you can see, this WAS my beautiful Samsung 40" LCD TV.  You can see my burned out PC chair on the floor, amongst a pile of rubble and burned clothing.  In the distance, note that the game rack is still fairly intact.  The top two shelves are covered in soot and some of the cases are melted, but the discs themselves seem to have survived.  I took a few discs home to test, and sure enough, they've all worked so far.  The only games I have yet to test are the two Saturn games I removed from the house, because the Saturn system Chris gave me lacks a controller and I am unable to get past the menu screen to start the game as a result.  Given the amount of rare Saturn games I owned, I am hoping the discs may at least be salvageable.  The booklets have loads of water damage (from the hoses, naturally), and the cases are a little nasty, but if the discs are playable, I'll be happy.

Another shot of my room, this time including the bed.  Note the walls. 

This is the interesting part.  This was the spare room that used to be my Mom's.  This room took the least damage.  Most of the furniture in there is oak and looks totally fixable.  That big rack back there contained over 250 DVDs and all my Blu-ray movies - all of which look like they may be COMPLETELY salvageable!  Some of the cases are a little brown, but the discs themselves all look to be in perfect condition - even my collection of bootleg Prince DVDs!  There is a second rack in this room (not pictured) that contain more DVDs, and all those looked perfectly fine as well! 

The best news is that this is where I stored all my old work clothes and my concert t-shirts - the vast majority of which LOOK like they may be salvaged!  There is little to no visible damage to any shirts in my closet, so as long as we can get the smell out - and the guy from the contstruction company thinks we'll be able to - I may be able to recover most (if not all) of my concert and band t-shirts at least!

To top it off, most of the vinyl we stored in this room was spared.  My brother's ENTIRE collection of Prince vinyl, which includes bootlegs and incredibly rare 12" singles, is in PRISTINE condition on the bottom of the closet.  It looks like there's no damage to it at all, which may not make up for everything else he lost, but was still a big relief for him. 

Unfortunately, this shot came out very blurry, but it gives you a good idea of the chaos that is our bathroom.

My brother's CD rack.  The top three shelves or so were all his Grandaddy CDs.  Both sides of this rack were filled to the brim.  We estimate it holds 800 standard sized CDs, but given that he had import singles (which come in slimline jewel cases, half the size of a standard one), we figure there were probably well over 1,000 discs on this rack.  His Moby collection, and all his various CDs were also stored on this rack.

My brother's other CD rack, containing all of his Prince, Pet Shop Boys, and Faithless CDs.  This was a large wall rack that held an unknown amount of CDs, but I'd say there were at least 600-700 on there.  There is a possibility many of the discs on the lower shelves may be safe, as they were protected when the rack was toppled.  He already took his copy of Pet Shop Boys' rare 2CD Very/Relentless to test.  Unfortunately, most of his Prince bootlegs and incredibly rare CDs, including imports, extremely limited quantity singles (limited to only a few hundred copies), and associated artist CDs, are most likely goners.

A shot of my brother's computer desk.

This is the floor of my brother's room.  That circular object on the right is part of his ceiling fan, and though you can't tell, the mess of wood was once the entertainment center that housed his (or rather, my) Toshiba TV (that I loaned to him), his stereo receiver, CD player, and turntable.

More clutter on my brother's floor.  I believe that was the Prince - One Nite Alone box set.

VHS tapes in my brother's closet.  90% of those were all Prince concerts, although you can see some store-bought tapes (including Rock Me, Falco) if you look.

Some of my brother's vinyl up on the top, charred to ash.  Beneath, you can see the remants of several clothes hangers.

Another shot of his floor.  You can see some of the mattress.

Back to my room, you can see the relatively good condition my game rack is in.  Many of my Saturn games were toppled and trampled over, but the discs inside the cases may very well be OK. 

I honestly don't even remember where this was taken in the house.  It's just sort of an indication of the mess left behind.

Can you tell what that is?  Look real close.
It's an iron.

The remains of the TV in the living room.

The hutch between the TV and my CD rack in the living room.

The microwave in the kitchen.

Note the water still in the sink from having done dishes that night.  It's like a snapshot of what we had done that day.  On the sill, you can see the electric griddle we had.

A very blurry shot of some of my toppled Saturn games, including the $200 rarity Panzer Dragoon Saga.  The discs, however, may still be playable.

Another shot of the chaos in my room.  My Rock Band 2 drum set, standing fan, and air conditioner all all visible strewn amongst the rubble.  Those long white tubes were the lightbox fixtures I got from my days at Best Buy.

My PC and my X-Arcade dual joystick - in nearly perfect condition.  They're covered in soot, but otherwise fine.  I cracked my PC open and removed the hard drive, and it looks fine.  Hopefully I'll be able to recover the data.  Amazingly, almost all of my gaming systems LOOK fine - my Saturn, PlayStation 2 and PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, system selector, and even the WOW HD DVR LOOK fine, though they're a bit brown with soot.  Unfortunately, any chance of them being usable is pretty much gone due to the water from the firehoses.

My Grandaddy hoodie.  It's soaking wet and dirty, but there are no burn holes or anything that I could see.  Please, everybody pray this can be cleaned.  I know it seems like a small thing, but you have no idea how special this hoodie was to me.

My book shelf.  Many of my books look intact as well, including my hardcover editions of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.  The DragonLance books may be salvageable as well, which would be fantastic given how rare some of those hardcovers now are.  You can also see the skeleton of my floor lamp.

Do you remember how my room used to look, with all the posters all over the walls?  Here, refresh your memory.  This is how my room looks now. 

This one is REALLY painful - my TV, melted.

Another shot of my brother's computer desk.  The interesting thing about this one is near the top.  See that little charred figurine?  That was a Pistons bobblehead.  It reminds me of those shots you see from Hiroshima, where peoples' shadows were burned into the walls from the blast.

The bar area in the basement.  They had to pump the water out twice to get it to this stage.

Just some of the clutter in the basement, including a garden hose we'd brought in for the winter so it wouldn't freeze and crack.

Absolute chaos in the basement. 

The laundry room.  This is where it all began.

One final shot of my brother's room.  That rusty metal thing?  That was his stereo receiver.

Just to give you an idea of how hot it must have been inside the house, that was the electrical box on the outside rear.  As you can see, the wires melted.

And there you have it.  What used to be our house.

Painful though it was, I must say that it was also cathartic and somewhat encouraging.  There is a good chance many of my things may be usable still, and even my brother - who lost considerably more than I did in terms of CDs - was perked up by the fact that even SOME of his things may have survived (namely, his Prince vinyl collection). 

Now that it's behind us, we have to go and finish taking what we think is salvageable before they begin throwing the rest out.  The hardest part is over and now it's a matter of waiting.

The Latest from my Neck of the Woods

Alright, I'll get the fire-related news out of the way first.  Things are progressing along.  Hopefully by the end of next week, we will have moved into a more permanent residence.  We had an appointment with a realtor yesterday to look at houses for rent.  There are two possible choices, one of which is literally two streets away from our old house.  That one is my preference, but we need to find out whether the appliances will be furnished or not.  If not, we have another rather nice place to fall back in the same general area.  We're anxious to get out of the glorified hotel we're currently staying in as the soul-crushing boredom is becoming too much to take. 

We'll have to pay for utilities and cable/internet wherever we go, so it will be pretty much just like at our old house, but the insurance company will pick up the rent and add any additional furnishings we request (TVs, DVD players, couches, chairs, tables, etc.).  This is the best news we've had since the fire.  It will be nice to have our own place where I can finally take this nice new PC without having to worry about housekeepers traipsing through. 

Speaking of which, it's killing me not being able to use this thing more.  I just purchased my brand new 23" Samsung LCD monitor (to replace the 21.5" Acer that got burned up in the fire), and it's a thing of beauty.  Running Fallout 3 on the highest settings is incredible, and it's amazing to me how much better it looks than the Xbox 360 version, even in high definition.  My mother has been gracious enough to let us come over and use it at our leisure, however, which we are doing now.

As you might have noticed from the post I made last night, I did see Watchmen at 12:01 with Chris.  Mongolian Barbecue was eaten beforehand, jokes were made (at the expense of other patrons in the theater), and good times were had.  Yesterday afternoon, my brother and I also saw The International starring Clive Owen, which was a decent way to spend an afternoon. 

Friday night I also went out for a short while.  My friend Kristin invited me to her boyfriend's birthday party - an invite the old Matt would have turned down due to the fact that she was literally the only person I knew ahead of time.  The new Matt, on the other hand, went for a few hours and chatted with her boyfriend, his friends, and even demonstrated his horrible pool-playing skills in a few games.  I wish I could've stayed longer than I did, but the appointment the following day coupled with the poor sleep I got the previous one meant that I was too tired for a 45 minute drive back late into the evening/early into the morning.  Still, it has been nice to get out over the past few days.

So those are the latest not-so-exciting updates.  Now I'm off to play Syndicate on my new PC for a while.  Because nothing tests the power of a brand new rig like a 16-year-old game.

I know you're all sick of hearing about this by now...

Unfortunately, the fallout from the fire is the only real thing I have going on in my life right now. 

However, some good came out of it today. 

My manager Jo Anne called me over to her desk around 4:00 and handed me a thick card in an envelope.  Inside the card was $355, collected from coworkers, including some people who I've never really talked to. 

It goes without saying that I was incredibly touched.  I expected nothing, so to receive this was enough to make me misty.  I held back while I was in the department, but when I counted the money at "home" I must admit I teared right back up. 

Times are tough for everyone right now, and for people to reach into their hearts to spare ANYTHING is far beyond what I expected.  I was happy just hearing words of sympathy from coworkers, but this...

As cynical as I can be, it's obvious there are still plenty of good people in the world. 

It's almost been one week since the fire, and hopefully this weekend will turn out much better.  Chris is coming by tomorrow to hook up my new PC and then we're going to grab some dinner.  Sunday, my Dad is taking us shopping.  We just finished having dinner with my Grandma Riley, who we haven't seen in several years since she lives in Florida.  On that note, I'm going to head back upstairs and spend more time with the family, but I had to share the incredible kindness displayed by my coworkers. 

P.S. - Watchmen.  IMAX.  12:01 AM, March 6th.  Fuck yeah!