MY LIFE - JULY

Saturday, July 20, 2002 (continued)

I'm going to try and present these next pics in order from the outside appearance of the house, to the first floor, the basement, the second floor, and then the third floor. Then in a couple days, I'll scan up the rest of the pics and let you all in on what's happening right now with the house.

This is the house from the front yard. The windows are no longer boarded up on the second floor as they've all been replaced now, nor are they boarded up on the third floor either, but the front windows remain covered. The boards were the only evidence in the front that something happened outside of some soot on the upper part of the house. Oh, and the dumpster is probably a dead giveaway as well.

These are all pics of the back of the house, one of them more towards the side then the back, but the idea's the same. You can clearly see that the fire started in the back of the house as that's where the most damage occured on the house. There's several gaping holes in the roof that are covered with a blue tarp. Within the next week or so, the third floor is going to be leveled and rebuilt.

This pic basically sums up how are backyard looked for a while. There were piles of scorched wood all over the place until we managed to go around and pick them all up. There's still some lying back there, but very little.

This was obviously not fireproof. It's our wet/dry vac that my mom had just bought maybe a month prior to the fire. It had been up in the attic because Teresa and Dan were using it earlier in the week. Some of the stuff that was pulled out was pretty fascinating, this being one of them. My favorite was the melted keyboard.

I think it goes without saying that we might need to get a new doorknob and lock. It got kicked in by our neighbors when they thought someone might be inside. If not for them, who knows what could've happened.

To basically sum things up, the ceiling couldn't withstand all the water running down and those are pieces of the ceiling as they came down. It was a huge mess. Needless to say, the carpet was shot.

That's how our dining room ceiling was looking. If you looked at the ceiling fan closely, you could see brown water inside of the light fixtures. That in itself was a good reason to shut the power off.

There was so much fear that the kitchen ceiling would collapse along with the supports that the workers decided to take it out the night of the fire so that it wouldn't completely cave in. What you're looking at is the result of that, a rather good look at the supports in the house.

This is the light in the hallway leading towards the basement steps. That's the same water that ran down into the basement, ruining my tv, vcr, and computer along with a lot of white shirts that I had.

That's the color of the water that came down into my room. Most of the ceiling was already in dire need of replacing, this just expediates the process. Needless to say, the white clothes that were sitting underneath that spot are no longer around. I lost two tech jackets as well.

These are the steps up to the second floor. As you can see, there was a lot of glass lying around in the house from windows getting kicked in. A little further up, the carpet was actually black from soot that had collected on the shoes of everyone who was walking up and down the steps.

This door saved the house. If you can believe it, the other side of the door is perfectly white, as if nothing happened. This is the side that got roasted obviously, but it didn't cease to amaze those who saw the other side. If not for that door, the whole house is gone.

These are all pictures of the attic. The fridge that didn't work is in the first picture, the second pictures is just a general pile of rubble from the fire, the third one is what used to be the kitchen, the fourth one is from the bathroom, the fifth one is the stove (which will not be replaced), the sixth one is of the ceiling/roof, and the final one is everyone's favorite, another one from the bathroom. Note the fire extinguisher. It was empty, so even if someone had been up there to try and use it, it would've been worthless.

Those are the pictures that I've chosen to show you first. In the next few days, I hope to scan up the more recent ones that show the skeleton of the house and how it's shaping up. I'd love to get a picture of the house with no attic, but there's no telling when that might be. For now, this is what I have.

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Just some quick minor things before I wrap this up. I learned today that one of my favorite pharmacists of all time, Jim, is being transfered over to our 24-hour store in North Olmsted. From what I understand, he didn't have much of a choice in the matter, especially since Steve turned down the offer first. In a week, we will be without one of the strangest pharmacists I've ever worked with.

I don't think the place will be the same without him either. Unfortunately, all hopes of forever ridding ourselves of him were dashed when he promised to call everyday.

In all the excitement of the last couple months, the five-year anniversary of this site went by without me evening mentioning it. Well, this site is now five years old and I can't believe I'm still doing this, nor can I believe that there are people who make it a point to read what I have to say. To everyone who's kept on coming back, thanks. To everyone else, fuck off.

In other news, I've been really hyper the last few days. I really have to lay off those cookies that I've been eating. Since I started eating those again, I've been bouncing off the walls and I know it's driving some people nuts at work.

Oh, and my damn stomach still hurts, my allergies are getting worse from the cats, and I wanna go home, but it's going to be another 6 weeks from what I've been told.

I don't know how much more of this I can take, but I'll deal with it. I've been through worse.