[Hammarlund] Where Duane Has Been

[Duane Fischer]

When It Rains, It Pours! And I Ain't Talking About Salt
Either!

When that true tale is completed, you can read about my
misadventure 'in progress' on the HCI web site. It has been
said, that the difference between humor and tragedy is in how
one spells the words. I personally think that all humor is
borderline tragedy, it is as hard to cry as it is to laugh
sometimes. Let ya know when the tale is written and posted -

We had a severe thunderstorm roar through Genesee county in
southeastern lower Michigan during the evening of Thursday
September 22nd. There were two cells to the storm, one right
behind the other by about four minutes. The winds hit seventy
mph and the rain was literally torrential. We got over 3.5
inches in less than thirty minutes. The city of Flint had
water five feet deep on some streets.  The expressways were
under three feet of water, it was even deeper under the
overpasses.

Many expressways were closed down due to being impassable and
traffic simply stopped and waited. The NWS put the entire
county under a flash flood warning. We are not in a flood
prone area, but this much water in such a short period of
time makes any location a potential flood site.

I am a member of ARES for Genesee County and serve on the Sky
Watch team as a relay station for keeping the local NCS
appraised of the minute by minute changing weather conditions
of approaching storms from the west. Then warning the County
east of mine of what is headed in their direction.

What I did not know, was that the rain being blown by the
seventy mph wind, was driven underneath my roof shingles. The
water ended up in my attic and on the rolled insulation
between the rafters. Eventually it soaked through the 5/8
inch ceiling drywall and started to drip onto my office desk.

I had been hearing an odd sound since Sunday September 25th,
but was never able to positively locate it. It was near where
my computer and monitor set vertically stacked on a custom
built tower on my desk, but the peculiar sound came and went.

It had started to rain on Wednesday September 28th when I
heard it again. I reached out my right hand toward the
computer and got a surprise, water hit me! There is a talking
clock/calendar ten inches to the right of the computer
keyboard and a cassette recorder beside it, I touched them
and both were wet. They had been dry moments before when I
used my Abacus sitting on top of the cassette! naturally
everything was powered up, I just pulled all the plugs,
ignoring proper shutdown procedures. The UPS emergency backup
unit and power strip were directly under the desk where the
water was now dripping! I was more concerned about an
electrical fire than shutdown protocol!

I removed everything from the top of the solid Oak desk, and
custom built dog leg, as well as all the disks, tapes, CDS
and etc. that I stored underneath the "L" shaped part of the
two piece desk. "Where did I get all of this stuff from?", I
remember thinking as I filled a laundry basket up! (chuckle)

Six hours later at 3:00 AM the next morning, I finally
completed the salvage mission. I had only removed a fourth of
what was in the 13X13 room and could not believe how I could
have all of that in there and still have it looking neat, not
cluttered and overcrowded! (You can ask Al Walller, K3TKJ who
has seen it three times, W5JT, Jim Thayer who has seen it
twice, K0TNP, Don Power who has seen it once etc.) When one
is blind, methodical detail and organization is the only wa
to survive. Like when you are in a compromised position and
discover there is no more toilet paper on the roll, and
living alone, like who are you going to get help from, heh?

The next morning I got the insurance people on the one
still working phone line and explained my crisis and
potential impending doom. (The published phone number and
line for the computers, only come into my office.
There are also two dedicated wall outlets for the computers.
This room is dedicated, as all rooms are here. Simply because
I am totally blind, live alone these days and maximum
organization is the difference between independence and
dependence.)

My insurance company was mighty prompt, as five hours later I
had a Contractor here to tarp up my roof, inspect the damage
and estimate the cost of repairs. I got him to drain the
water out of the sagging ceiling. (I was told by several to
not do this myself, that I should let the insurance person or
a roofing guy do it, but I was not going to wait and have it
collapse either!) I got the Contractor to do it, about a
gallon of water came out of two small holes he punched
through the soggy ceiling with "my" Phillips screwdriver.
(don't these guys carry their own tools nowadays?)

If all goes as planned, the roofing guys and the drywall crew
will both be here bright and early Monday morning. The damage
to my roof will be repaired and the 3X10 foot area of ruined
ceiling drywall will be replaced. Along with the soggy
rafter insulation will be removed and replaced. Then they put
the mud on the seams etc.  If I am fortunate, it will be done
by Wednesday, but not painted. I can live with that! Painting
it is the least of my worries right now! The mud has to cure,
so I am told, must be high tech mud! (Didn't they used to
call that spackling or some such thing?)

Now the NWS is calling for a 40% chance of showers and/or an
isolated thunderstorm after midnight tonight and into late
Monday morning. (DBF to weather entities! Please send those
blasted dripping clouds to Lapeer county and route them
to totally miss Genesee county, and stop staring into that
Doppler screen like it was some kind of tacky cheap peep
show! For if you let that rain land on my roof, be warned, I
will most assuredly arrange for a flock of southbound
Canadian Honkers (Ducks for the Avery impaired!) to fertilize
your Davis Instruments rain gauge, if you catch my drift!)

So now you know where the blind dude has been. Despite the
rumors: not abducted by Aliens, not enslaved by angry tribal
natives of Pango Pango for spelling the Chief's name wrong in
my DX logbook or kidnapped by ambivalent amphibians and being
held for a ransom of unlimited free tickets to Long John
Slithers all you can eat Clam Bake special. Nothing that
dramatic, sorry. Just a stinking cesspool of soggy insulation
and fermenting drywall that is making my sinus cavities feel
like I inhaled fog made with a component of acid rain.

It sure is quiet here, too quiet! No talking computers, no
talking calculator, no talking digital answering machine, no
talking clock ... No talking anything! Quicken V8.0 only
works in DOS, there is no Windows version that works with
screen reading software, so no bills get paid either until
I have my computer healed! Being as I owe the insurance
company their deductible, and they know that until my
computer prints checks again, they do not get paid, I expect
that problem to be resolved within seven days. (patented
Fischer smirk)

I hope to be back on-line by Wednesday or Thursday, so keep
your toes crossed for good weather!

Duane Fischer, W8DBF