"Swingman" wrote in message
...
Nonny wrote:

Again, thanks for the words. In fact, the house was totally
destroyed by a fire that began outside the shop, in an
adjoining garage. Within about a half hour, it was a
smoldering ruin. We had good insurance and I had many
documentary photographs, since I came from a profession that
had to deal with insurance matters for borrowers. We knew that
while we would have the insurance proceeds to rebuild the home,
what were we going to put on the shelves or hang on the walls.
If you have a library with around 4000 books, what books do you
buy to replace the burned ones?

We felt that the most simple and emotionally favorable solution
would be to simply NOT rebuild, but to sell the lot. We'd never
lived in the SW, so Las Vegas was a good candidate. We
literally. . .literally. . . put every tangible thing we owned
at the time into half of a small U-haul trailer, hooked it to
the new van (the cars were burned in the garages) and pointed
the nose west toward the desert.

I enjoy writing, and now that I think about it, I think I'll
write a monograph about some of the insurance issues we faced
with the many things I'd built that were lost in the fire and
how we worked it out with State Farm. It just might help you
or some of the other good folk here in the newsgroup and r.w.w.
if they get into a similar bind, have a tornado or other
insurable disaster.

Sorry to the hear that, but know the feeling ... we lost our
previous home, and all but a few possessions, to flooding in TS
Allison back in June 02. Like you, instead of rebuilding in the
same place, we sold the lot and basically started over from
scratch. Dealing with the insurance was indeed a trip, and we
could probably compare stories. Fortunately I'd been insured by
the same company, USAA, for 40 years, and did have flood
insurance, so, other than ineptness of some of the younger
staff, there was no one overtly trying to screw us, AAMOF, just
the opposite ... although I did catch them in a quite a few
errors, strangely all in their favor. In my usual manner I had
unimpeachable documentation, including photographs, to the point
that they ended up using my spreadsheets as the basis for the
settlement. We came out almost whole, but I'll never have
another ACV policy on my home contents ... live and learn.

I would not wish the experience on my worst enemy, but we made
lemonade out of the lemons and actually came out stronger
overall ... we all probably need a shaking up on a regular basis
to appreciate life, as much as the process may hurt at the time.

Good talking to you, Nonny ... you guys have a good holiday.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/22/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)

Like you, I had a history of photos and inventory sheets dating
back to the 70's. My boss then was a very good and smart fellow
who had a lake cottage burn to the ground with nobody within 10
miles of it. He told me about his frustration in documenting even
what he'd lost, let alone remembering it. I went home that night
and did 35mm slides of everything, and the actually kept things
updated and in the safe deposit box.

Like you also, I felt that State Farm went out of its way to be
honest and fair. In over 1800 line items, I had nothing
challenged, since I had photos and documentation. As I said, I
think I'll write a few paragraphs about how to do it, since it
sure saved my fat rump from problems.

--
Nonny

ELOQUIDIOT (n) A highly educated, sophisticated,
and articulate person who has absolutely no clue
concerning what they are talking about.
The person is typically a media commentator or politician.