The Unhappy Me thread

[Uncwilly]

Came home 'today' (still up since last calendar date), to find water coming from the ceiling. Will have to vacate the domicile for days. Will likely place most of my possessions in storage for days to weeks. Currently residing with nearby family. The cause was the error of others. Ruined years worth of Astronomy, Air & Space, and Science News magazines. Some collectible ephemera was damaged. The surface that my laptop was on was wet. Except one note which was dropped into standing water during salvage, it appears all my numismatic and philatelic materials survived (including my Scott #244, unused).

[LaurV]

Grrr... that is indeed unhappy and freaky! I feel very sorry for science magazines and all the damaged stuff...

[kladner]

The cause was the error of others.

Some idiot left the sink running unattended? Regardless, I offer my heartfelt sympathies for this catastrophe.

[Prime95]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/06/us/cal...html?hpt=hp_t2

I'd vote for the death penalty for this crime -- or at least life with a chunk of their leg or arm carved out once a week.

[LaurV]

+1. I would shot a guy for doing that! I still wonder how they do it? They need machines to cut it and carry it. It is not something I can go in the night with a swissknife and cut it out, and take it in my pocket. Machines make noises and leave tracks. Where are the rangers in this time?

[kracker]

That's just so sad...
(living within ~5 min of the redwood pk)

EDIT: Though I must say, this is the first time I've heard this, which is strange.

[retina]

Originally Posted by LaurV

Machines make noises and leave tracks. Where are the rangers in this time?

Presumably at home sleeping. Do you expect them to be out there in the dark threatening people operating large dangerous machinery? They need minions to do that sort of hazardous work for them.

[NBtarheel_33]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

Came home 'today' (still up since last calendar date), to find water coming from the ceiling. Will have to vacate the domicile for days. Will likely place most of my possessions in storage for days to weeks. Currently residing with nearby family. The cause was the error of others. Ruined years worth of Astronomy, Air & Space, and Science News magazines. Some collectible ephemera was damaged. The surface that my laptop was on was wet. Except one note which was dropped into standing water during salvage, it appears all my numismatic and philatelic materials survived (including my Scott #244, unused).

Funny you should mention floods induced by others' stupidity...

Today is the 110th day that my mother and I have been bivouacked at a Hilton in Bangor, Maine. In mid-January, we were advised by the neighbors of our home on the coast that our generator had been running incessantly despite everyone else's power having returned following an extensive ice-storm-related outage. So we called the local fuel provider to have them look in on the generator and make sure (at all costs) that its propane fuel level was maintained. In the mean time, our remote access to the thermostats via telephone ominously starts hanging up on us, and one evening, we get a frantic call that our house is on fire! The fire department responds and judges it to be a false alarm. We think it best to head up there and avoid taking any chances. So we leave on the evening of January 17th with enough clothes for a quick 7-day excursion, thinking that there is just a glitch in the alarm system.

We arrive at 8am on the morning of January 18th and upon first look, everything seems OK. But it does seem awfully chilly in the house. Then we see the *exploded* *cast-iron* radiator, and note three exploded toilets with *ice blocks* in the tanks. We hear a faint beeping noise from the basement. Proceeding with caution, we head down there, only to see water *gushing* everywhere. My father's workshop is totally ruined, as in sheetrock so wet it crumbles like paper. Water in the electrical panels, water knocked the light fixtures out of the ceiling, and then we see the cause of the fire alarm - water blew out the heat/smoke detectors. Thankfully, nothing was destroyed that we hadn't already thought about throwing out anyway.

Remember when we called the fuel company? Well, their thoughts were "you'll never empty a 300-gallon propane tank in a week!". No, you won't, unless the fuse providing power to your house burned out at the pole - creating our very own power outage - and you're not there to know it! So they ignored our request to keep the tank filled, the interior of the house dropped to 17°F, and all hell broke loose.

A series of incompetent contractors (enamel paint on interior walls, and 1/2" sheetrock in a 5/8" wall, anyone?) later, we are still three weeks from completion. It is quite funny to explain to folks that we are out of our house due to a broken pipe, without adding the qualifier of when it happened. Thankfully, we have excellent insurance, even if they are remarkably slow in issuing payments. The claim has mushroomed in excess of $200,000, a quarter of that just to fix our driveway which was annihilated by fire trucks, construction vehicles, and 18-wheeler trash trucks attempting to traverse it in the depths of the worst Maine winter in 40+ years.

So, Uncwilly, I know every bit of your pain, except for losing your keepsakes. That is very sad. The bright side is that your numismatic and philatelic materials survived. I have both myself at our home in Maryland, and I really need a better home for them than the boxes in which they presently reside. I am sure that you are aware that such collections need special insurance of their own, as regular homeowner's policies do not cover collectibles.

Be sure to firmly kick the responsible party in the derriere. The sad thing is that the offending fuel company in our case is our usual provider. They are friends of the family. Why they would let us down and put our house in such danger is incomprehensible. I am sure they will get a nastygram from the insurance company when all is said and done.

Do keep your chin up. Hopefully you have good insurance and better restoration companies in your part of the country than here in Maine. Check if your policy offers ALE - Additional Living Expense - coverage. If so, you should be covered for a hotel, meals, and gasoline expense while you are away from home. Our company has even paid for summer clothes and tires for us, since we didn't bring them, and can't interrupt the project to return to Maryland to retrieve them. One silver lining is that we were informed the other night that we are now Hilton Diamond members!

[NBtarheel_33]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

(including my Scott #244, unused)

1893 must have been an interesting year. I am sure that you're aware that 1893 is also a key date for the Morgan silver dollar (specifically, the San Francisco "S" mint mark). So it's fascinating that there is a key stamp from the same year.

Incidentally, what would have cost $4 to mail in 1893? That would have been at least a day's wages for some folks back then.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by NBtarheel_33

Incidentally, what would have cost $4 to mail in 1893? That would have been at least a day's wages for some folks back then.

Wikipedia comments:

Fifteen of the stamps went on sale Monday, January 2, 1893. They were available nationwide, and were not restricted to the Exposition in any way. This was a larger number of stamps than the United States Post Office had ever offered in a definitive series, thanks to the unprecedented inclusion of stamps denominated $1, $2, $3, $4 and $5: no U. S. postage stamp previously issued had cost more than 90¢. As a result, the face value of the complete set was $16.34, a substantial sum of money in 1893. In approximate 2009 dollars,[1] the set would cost almost $390. As a result, only a small number of the most expensive stamps, especially the dollar values, were sold. Unsold stamps were destroyed after the Columbian Issue was removed from sale on April 12, 1894. Over 2 billion stamps, whose total face value exceeded $40 million, were printed by the American Bank Note Company.

Opinion regarding the Columbian Issue at the time was mixed. The set sold well and did not face the sort of criticism that led to the withdrawal of the 1869 Pictorial Issue. However, approval was not universal. An organization called the Society for the Suppression of Speculative Stamps (sometimes called the Society for the Suppression of Spurious Stamps) was created in protest over the creation of this set, deeming the Exposition in Chicago insufficiently important to be honored on postage, while some collectors balked at the Post Office Department's willingness to profit from the growing hobby of philately. Ridiculing the $5 stamp, the Chicago Tribune pointed out that it could used for only one purpose: mailing a 62½-pound package of books at the book rate.

Interestingly, today's book rate for same represents perhaps one of the least-inflationary items in US postage history.

I purchased unused exemplars of #243 and 244 for my otherwise-modest collection around 10 years ago; still haven't convinced myself to shell out the really big $ for the "crown jewel" $5 $245.

[kladner]

Originally Posted by Prime95

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/06/us/cal...html?hpt=hp_t2

I'd vote for the death penalty for this crime -- or at least life with a chunk of their leg or arm carved out once a week.

I'd vote for the slow dissection, with cauterization to control bleeding and infection. Anesthesia would be a needless expense in such cases.

EDIT: May a rock fall on these jerks: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_4988811.html
Actually, let it be lowered onto them very slowly. These were Boy Scout Leaders?! I shudder to think what sort of "manliness" they were imparting to their charges.