Freaky Friday

Well, they finally cleared out the contents of the house and pulled up all the carpets by Thursday evening. It basically took them less than 48 hours round the clock. Impressive. Today we have a stripped-bare, fire damaged house.

Shondra's folks came into town this morning from Tennessee and we all spent the majority of the day at the warehouse picking through all of the items deemed "total-loss." I'm not sure how they determine these things because we were able to salvage a lot of things, tools, pictures, laundry supplies. We've lived in our house 9 years as of July and I knew we had a lot of stuff. Today as I looked across a warehouse floor full of boxes of stuff I got a very real sense of absolutely how much stuff we've accumulated over the last 10 years of marriage.

By the way - as you can see from the photos, we did have some areas of the house that survived the fire relatively unscathed. Some of the walls in our bedroom looked disturbingly normal - except for the soaked floor and the chunks of ceiling on the bed. :)

This last photo just strikes me . It's looking out through our kitchen and into the backyard. You can see the ripples in the water on the kitchen floor as the water continues to drip from the ceiling.

Piles.

Looking over piles of Pictures and various knick knacks into the kitchen. There were just piles of insulation and rubble everywhere - sorting through it was like some twisted treasure hunt - where the treasures are your memories and the stuff that marks the spot is the remains of your house.

Shondra digs through the rubble

Shondra picks through the remains of the debris in our home office.

Christmas up in smoke

Our christmas decorations, melted together by the heat in the attic.

Lightning Strikes

Around 4pm on August 28, 2007 our home was struck by lightning. The attic area of the house caught fire and firefighters were able to put out the flames before it spread lower into the main areas. Here are some photos:

This first photo is the front of the house. You can see the fire damaged the upper portion of the house. Most of the lower areas look pretty good... until you look closer.

The second is a picture of our piano. You can see that much of the damage was caused by the water from the rain and from the water used to put out the fire.

The third photo is of our new skylight. Taken from one of the rooms in our second story.

On my way

Waiting at the rail station in downtown on the way into the med center.

Wind on the fountain

Watching the wind blow the spray around on the fountain outside the South campus research building at MDA. I'm waiting for my bus ride back to the office.

Costumes

Shondra in her Saloon Girl outfit with Steven.

Gig at the Armadillo Palace

Shondra had a gig tonight here. She was dressed as a saloon girl and had to interact with the patrons of this bar in character. It was for an acting class.

Bass Pro

After the rains

A beautiful morning in the med center after yesterday's torrental rains.

the new job

My new employer- MD Anderson cancer center in Houston.

Shopping Casualties

Two guys who have lost the shopping war with their wives in borders bookstore.

Boobs

Shopping for boob holsters with the wife. What a vacation!

10 Roses

10 anniversary roses for Shondra. Happy 10th!

Finished!

Shondra and I finished the puzzle today. (mostly Shondra)

Spidey!

A late night photo of the honking big spider protecting us from skeeters on our front porch at the b&b.

Spiderweb

A big web cast to catch us on our front porch this morning.