Mexico City Quake

      

Photo property of AFP/Getty Images.   Families early Sunday morning outside their homes.

     In the past few weeks there have been rather a lot of minor earthquakes everywhere from Crete in Greece to Alaska.  Some of my preparedness acquaintances have been worried about these being pre-shocks to more powerful quakes perhaps even in other areas.
              This morning,  initially a 6.0 earthquake, which was later downgraded to a 5.8 occurred in Mexico.
This occurred in the vicinity of Mexico City and presently there are no major damages or collapses reported other than widespread power outages.
                Without being too alarmist, this would be a good time to review your family earthquake plan, whether you think you have earthquakes in your area or not.  Place a couple of readied evacuation bags somewhere, or if you already have them, review them making sure that things are correctly packaged and not spoiled.
                Remember that in Fall, 2011, Central Virginia had a quake which destroyed a high school, broke nice homes in half, damaged the National Cathedral in DC, and damaged monuments there.  The University of Virginia's rotunda sustained in excess of a million dollars worth of damage. Most people here did not realize this was a possibility in this region.
                  Remember also that the magnitude of an earthquake can be misleading.  A shallow earthquake of 4, could do much more damage to your personal home, than a very deep earthquake of 6.  Also the motion of one earthquake may not be identical to another.  In one, glassware may be fine, in another, all the windows and glassware may be destroyed. 
                  Take this time to pro-actively assess your home, what might need anchoring, and what might need some "museum gum" to keep things more stable on shelves.   " A word to the wise is sufficient."


Our other blog posts on the topic of Earthquakes:

This one is very important to read just now.

 http://rationalpreparedness.blogspot.com/2011/09/assessing-your-home-for-earthquake.html

and others related to earthquakes:

http://rationalpreparedness.blogspot.ca/2011/12/widespread-earthquake-in-mexico.html 

http://rationalpreparedness.blogspot.com/2011/09/assessing-your-home-for-earthquake.html

 http://rationalpreparedness.blogspot.com/2012/04/expanding-our-knowledge-on-earthquakes.html

http://rationalpreparedness.blogspot.com/2012_01_01_archive.html


 http://rationalpreparedness.blogspot.com/2012/05/this-is-handiwork-of-this-particular.html




From another one of my blogs:

http://learnedfromdaniel.blogspot.com/2011/03/earthquake-and-tsunami-in-japan.html

The Obama Regime Has Made it Difficult for Most Americans to be Angry with Edward Snowden

           

Edward Snowden       For his sake, we better hope he doesn't look anything like this now.

 

   My heart breaks for Edward Snowden, and for his family.   Most Americans, when they hear the entire story, are synpathetic toward him, and not for the Obama Regime, which is seen by more and more Americans as dark and shadowy, much like the segment of the government who developed the Treadstone project in the Bourne Identity series.   Many people I know are calling Snowden a hero, a true patriot of the internet age, if in fact, all we are being told is true.
               As a mother of children in their twenties, my heart breaks for him.  Snowden is a twenty-nine year old man.  He was originally a high school drop out who parlayed his obvious intelligence and computer skills, in a time when those with advanced degrees can't find work, into a highly lucrative job as an infrastructure analyst for a US government contractor. . Some sources say he was making more than one hundred and twenty-two thousand dollars a year. He had a lovely girlfriend and a rented home in Hawaii.   He also had a rather high security clearance.  Much has been made by mainstream media of this man's lack of collegiate education, but as a college instructor I can tell you that to be as successful as this man was, you would need to be very intelligent indeed.  Research indicates that he took six years of computer classes at Ann Arundel Community College, and simply did not apply for graduation.  The value of many community colleges is obvious as illustrated in this matter, but of course now, the Obama Regime is likely to be monitoring all community colleges now as a hotbed of defiance, employing scores of NSA agents.
                Edward Snowden apparently became disillusioned with his high level government job and revealed that he is actually a true patriot.  He apparently listened and read the Constitution, and he knows not only what it says, but how it is being sidestepped.  He expressed his concerns to UK Guardian.   In explanation, these are the things he is alleged to have said:


#1 "The majority of people in developed countries spend at least some time interacting with the Internet, and Governments are abusing that necessity in secret to extend their powers beyond what is necessary and appropriate."

#2 "...I believe that at this point in history, the greatest danger to our freedom and way of life comes from the reasonable fear of omniscient State powers kept in check by nothing more than policy documents."

#3 "The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to."

#4 "...I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."

#5 "The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything."

#6 "With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your e-mails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your e-mails, passwords, phone records, credit cards."

#7 "Any analyst at any time can target anyone. Any selector, anywhere... I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President..."
#8 "To do that, the NSA specifically targets the communications of everyone. It ingests them by default. It collects them in its system and it filters them and it analyzes them and it measures them and it stores them for periods of time simply because that's the easiest, most efficient and most valuable way to achieve these ends. So while they may be intending to target someone associated with a foreign government, or someone that they suspect of terrorism, they are collecting YOUR communications to do so."

#9 "I believe that when [senator Ron] Wyden and [senator Mark] Udall asked about the scale of this, they [the NSA] said it did not have the tools to provide an answer. We do have the tools and I have maps showing where people have been scrutinized most. We collect more digital communications from America than we do from the Russians."

#10 "...they are intent on making every conversation and every form of behavior in the world known to them."

#11 "Even if you're not doing anything wrong, you're being watched and recorded. ...it's getting to the point where you don't have to have done anything wrong, you simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call, and then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you've ever made, every friend you've ever discussed something with, and attack you on that basis, to sort of derive suspicion from an innocent life."

#12 "Allowing the U.S. government to intimidate its people with threats of retaliation for revealing wrongdoing is contrary to the public interest."

#13 "Everyone everywhere now understands how bad things have gotten — and they’re talking about it. They have the power to decide for themselves whether they are willing to sacrifice their privacy to the surveillance state."

#14 "I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under."

#15 "I don't want to live in a world where there's no privacy, and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity."

#16 "I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong."

#17 "I had been looking for leaders, but I realized that leadership is about being the first to act."

#18 "There are more important things than money. If I were motivated by money, I could have sold these documents to any number of countries and gotten very rich."

#19 "The great fear that I have regarding the outcome for America of these disclosures is that nothing will change. [People] won't be willing to take the risks necessary to stand up and fight to change things... And in the months ahead, the years ahead, it's only going to get worse. [The NSA will] say that... because of the crisis, the dangers that we face in the world, some new and unpredicted threat, we need more authority, we need more power, and there will be nothing the people can do at that point to oppose it. And it will be turnkey tyranny."

#20 "I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant."

#21 "You can't come up against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and not accept the risk."

#22 "I know the media likes to personalize political debates, and I know the government will demonize me."

#23 "We have got a CIA station just up the road – the consulate here in Hong Kong – and I am sure they are going to be busy for the next week. And that is a concern I will live with for the rest of my life, however long that happens to be."

#24 "I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions, and that the return of this information to the public marks my end."

#25 "There’s no saving me."

#26 "The only thing I fear is the harmful effects on my family, who I won't be able to help any more. That's what keeps me up at night."

#27 "I do not expect to see home again."   ***



                What breaks my heart is that this man was one of the best and the brightest who understood the concept of what America is supposed to be.  By sharing this information with the UK Guardian, he did begin a dialogue worldwide concerning whether we wish to live in a surveillance state for the purpose of avoiding a few terrorist acts.   However, he does expect, from his commentary, to be killed by our government for this, and he could be right, knowing more about its workings lately than the rest of us do.
                The saddest thing to me is that Edward Snowden's courage will not be used in the future as a future Steve Jobs, a future Congressman, a future Governor, or in another role while requires intestinal fortitude and great courage.  At a time in US history when we need patriots and men with both courage and vision, he will spend his remaining days running from our governmental officials, as they scramble to discredit what he says, his intellect, and his sanity.  He cannot contact his parents, because the same US machine who monitors all of our communications, is monitoring his parent's phones and e-mail addresses also.

               I cannot condone the leaks perpetrated by Julian Assange and I have not read them.  My concern is that he endangered those who were working for the US in other nations.    However, I can't say that I am completely unsympathetic to Edward Snowden.  To him, all he did was trade his life and his future to sound the gong in advance of the death knell for the United States as we knew it.
               The best thing the United States can do is completely dismantle the Prism system which monitors all US communications.  They need to admit that the Constitution grants us the right to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  It does not guarantee a safe world, or a completely safe nation.






*** These quotes were found at

 http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/27-edward-snowden-quotes-about-u-s-government-spying-that-should-send-a-chill-up-your-spine


Furthur information:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/11/nsa-surveillance-us-behaving-like-china




http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/11/edward-snowden-russia-asylum-request

An Expansion of Practical Gift Giving

          

This gift was seen on frugal-living-now.com   It uses tissue paper as a base and a newspaper comic as an accent covering and then lots of matching ribbon.  The wrap is inexpensive, but very smart and attractive.

  One of the things I like about blogging is that it never ceases to amaze me, that some of the blog posts I think are best, don't see a lot of traffic in the weeks and months following their posting.  However, some of the blog posts which I thought might be casually interesting consistently draw traffic from all over the world, sometimes for years afterward.  It isn't easy to predict which posts will become worldwide favorites, and which posts will simply get some traffic for a day or two after they were written.  A few "catch fire" some time after they were actually written and posted.   One of these subjects which has consistently drawn worldwide followers is my post on practical gift giving.  Each year, even in a tough economy people receive things that don't fit, aren't suitable, or are of too personal a nature to be useful to the intended victim, or shall I say, giftee.   It can be hard to select a gift within a week or a couple of days for someone you don't know well, or even sometimes for those you do.  Other factors can make gift giving even more difficult.  At Christmas time, for example, I like to give gifts people can eat, but several of those people are diabetic.  Giving a box of good chocolates, something I might very much like to receive myself, simply underscores something my friend or neighbor may not have at all !   My daughter have several friends from college who live in very small spaces. Giving them a gift that is not very space efficient is going to ensure that the gift is given away or donated.   Gift giving is quite a difficulty, for women, and especially for many men.   With this in mind, I am expanding upon some ideas I introduced in a prior post written some time ago regarding practical gift giving.

Inexpensive packaging as shown on 33shadesofgreen.com

             One of the first things I would like to suggest, is gift wrap.  Rather than buying gift wrap each time you must give a gift, and paying three to four times the amount it should cost, go to a Dollar Store, or English Pound Shop, as you likely have one nearby.  Select some lovely generic gift wrap which will be suitable for many occasions. Sometimes the best is in rolls, and other times, there are packages of multicolored tissue papers which are folded flat.  Pick up a roll of cellophane tape,  and some inexpensive scissors and some ribbon which matches your one or two rolls of different all occasion gift wrap.  I place these in a large clear freezer bag that says "Generic Gift Wrap Kit".   This means that I can have a gift ready without leaving the house.    One of my sons uses a roll of brown paper wrapping for all the gifts he gives and uses nice yarns as the ribbon on them.  They look fantastic !   Many men would do quite well to do this too.  Check out the price of a roll of brown paper, and some lovely yarn at a Dollar Store, and this too is very inexpensive.
             For Christmas I do exactly the same thing, only with more rolls of paper, and I place them in a Christmas Wrap Gift box.  For added savings you might want to assemble a Christmas wrap kit after Christmas, when the items are 50-75% off.   This week I actually bought some Hannukah wrap and Hannukah cards for some of our Jewish friends. These were 90% off  at this time of year.

This yarn was glued to paper for a really innovative design.  www.babble.com

             The next plan I have is that I keep a "gift box" in the attic at home.  When I see something at a really excellent price deeply discounted at a department store, and it's really nice, I pick it up for The Gift Box.
My gift box was cleaned out in the past year when my daughter bought a home, and also as her friends begin to buy homes, to marry or to have babies.   Some of the things that were in it were:   A lovely set of bone china English mugs, a gorgeous English teapot, an exquisite set of stainless steel measuring cups in a gorgeous box, a very nice set of measuring spoons and the accompanying rack,  copies of the books I have written,  a gift selection of different teas, a gift selection of different coffees,  a small but good Metric and SAE tool kit, a Victorinox Swiss Army Knife with attachments,  a good make of three saucepans nestled together, etc.
To find a place in my gift box of incidental gifts, the gift has to be something I would like to receive myself. It has to have been well priced or deeply discounted, and in a perfect box.   There need to be things that can be given to men, women, and to children.    Of course, depending upon where you live, or who your friends are, what is in your gift box could be different from mine.   My builder, for example, would probably enjoy a bottle of wine and a good measuring tape to help to compensate for the ones he occasionally leaves at job sites.  Giving him measuring cups might not be the right choice.  Most places around the world have something excellent and unusual that the rest of the world does not have. Spend a little time thinking about what your neck of the woods offers. I have a friend in Canada who gives maple syrup she buys in bottles to people.  It costs a fortune in the American South, and is a great gift.  Think about what types of things you have where you are.

          Rather than buying a card each time I need to send one, I bought a box of nice cards.  Some of them are blank for a personal message, others are birthday cards, condolence cards, get well cards etc.   A lovely card with a few kind words doesn't have to cost three or four dollars.   Remembering the person with a card is what counts.  My entire box of really exquisite cards cost five dollars on sale.  Many of the cards I bought as well as some of the gifts have come from an American discount store called Tuesday Morning, where department store items and particularly nice gifts, glassware, clothing, luggage, computer accessories, furniture, rugs, toys, bed linens, towels, storage, photo albums and frames, and excellent cards are sold.  You can explore the best values where you are.


          Sometimes, it may occur to you that a certain person would like a certain gift.  I keep a folder in which I have a sheet which lists names and a gift idea for someone.   I can't possibly recall all the times through the year when it occurs to me that someone in my family might like something.  I have to write it all down !
My folder might have a sheet in it which might look like this.

my daughter                           Six black towels and matching washcloths    (for her guest bathroom)

my husband                           Small portable Air Compressor from Home Depot

friend Sally                             Set of blue and white China, as she admired mine.


        My notebook also contains  a few small catalogs.   The Emergency Essentials catalog which you can get by going to www.beprepared.com has some wonderful and inexpensive things which can be terrific gifts.  I have given the sprout starter set with seeds several times.  It's an inexpensive, educational, and practical gift. Who wouldn't want to grow sprouts easily and quickly on the kitchen window in a jar for salads and sandwiches, especially if you are thinking about health and preparedness ?



         Since my business is preparedness, I am not afraid to give a gift which directly reflects this.  I certainly don't mind if you give a preparedness oriented gift !  I hold no copyright on the practice !   When you need to select a gift for a man, a set of nice LED flashlights can be a good one.   A person or couple setting up a house might need a NOAA radio.   A close friend or adult child might benefit from a starter sprout kit with a variety of seeds.  Keep another sheet in your folder with great and inexpensive gifts listed, so that when you do need one, you have some ideas in advance.

          One of my sons always makes his gifts for everyone.  Of course, the things he makes are quite wonderful, and I am not half that artistically talented.  However, many people are more talented than I.   I have a friend who graduated from the Cordon Bleu and everything she makes from her jams to her chicken salad are exquisite.  If you are a good cook, then make some extra jams, package them attractively, get some personalized labels and give those as gifts.   If you paint well, then make small paintings, well in advance to give as gifts.  My father-in-law was a fine woodcrafter.  He used to make wooden calendars with multiple pieces for the dates, holidays, etc.  His calendar is a prized possession for us along with a beautiful walnut paper towel holder he made for us.  Consider what your talents are, make something and then package them well, perhaps with a customized tag.   I do make wreaths for front doors, of many different types, and I have given a few of them as gifts in the past also.

            Books are almost always a wonderful gift.   www.half.com is a wonderful source of books at very reasonable prices.  A rare book or one that is out of print can be given as a gift even if used.  Inscribing the inside with kind words explaining why you selected such a book for them is also a lovely personalization.

          If you need to give a gift to a child, then consider the internet.  Some amazing toys can be found on many sites, very inexpensively, and it can be sent in very little time. I once bought one of my sons the entire set of a Lego pirate ship for much less money than it was in the stores.  There are some excellent internet buys on dolls, legos, building toys and lots of the components for the Thomas the Tank Engine Train Set.

Tuesday Morning has great merchandise which is deeply discounted from the original department store price. Then, they run specials on those prices also. This is a great place to get wedding presents.  Find out where the best places to buy reasonably priced gifts are, in your area. www.tuesdaymorning.com

Harbor Freight could probably best be described as a "toy store for men". No matter what your hobby, your interests, there will be something you need in this store. There are small tools, small electronic items, solar lighting, security systems, large tools, etc. You can check out www.harborfreight.com

            Money is too hard earned for everyone, to simply grab a gift when you are hastily trying to get something for a birthday, a friend retiring, or a Christmas present.  Gifts should be attractive, but also utilitarian.  I hope this post has given you some ideas to contemplate.  Paying too much for the wrong gift is a waste of money in times when wasting money is foolish.  Lets see if in the next year we can give great gifts that we acquired economically.


This is my original post on practical giftgiving:

http://rationalpreparedness.blogspot.com/2012/07/making-transition-to-practical-gifts.html

This is my cat Tosh, who eventually fell asleep as he waited for me to finish writing for this blog.

Researching Flood Detectors

             

This is an up close and personal visit with a flood detector.  Wet Switch is thirty five dollars and can be wired to turn on a sump pump automatically.

   One of the great things about doing a blog on preparedness, is that I am always having to learn something.  (It's either that or I am unfortunate enough that plenty goes wrong and that I'll have to learn it anyway) I knew that industrial buildings and computer rooms used flood detectors. When my husband designs a system for a computer room, he does have to consider the flood detectors.  I knew that for industrial purposes, these were expensive.   I did not know until I talked to our homeowner's insurance company, Nationwide, that flood detectors are available relatively inexpensively for home use, and could be very valuable in a circumstance like the one which occurred here last night.
                   When the Serv-Pro professionals arrived to help us strategize our water extraction and clean up, they reiterated what Nationwide had said.  Apparently, although it had never happened to us in twenty-five years, the leakage of pipes or a major appliance is a fairly common household problem.   Dishwashers can malfunction and leak. Hot water heaters can rust, or not rust and simply leak. Washing machines can leak or leak when one of their hoses dry rots or ages and then leaks lots of water in your home.  Pipes can also leak, as can a well tank or a water filtration system. Refrigerators with a cold water or ice feature can also occasionally leak.   Serv-Pro also thought a flood detector could be a good idea as some of the homes they provide service to, have called them for three or more flood situations from household appliances.  The worst damage occurs when no one is home or no one knows a leak has occurred and water continues to flow.
                   Where a flood detector should be placed would vary between the home you are considering.  In my house, locating one in the mechanical room could be a good idea, because there is a tank where the well pumps water, as well as a water filtration system, and the hot water heater. A leak there could be quite a mess.     A flood detector would also be a good idea at the plumbing junction area in the basement closet which was the site for this particular leak.
                   Most units work by detectiing water and then alarming in a manner which is similar yet a different sound compared to a smoke detector or a carbon monoxide detector.
                  These are some of the inexpensive units I have found:

This is a simple flood alarm for $12.96 plus postage from Amazon


This is a three detector flood alarm system on Amazon for twenty-five dollars with free postage.


This is a ten dollar Basement Watchdog flood detector also from Amazon
 This one detects as little as 1/32nd of an inch of water, and notifies you with a 110 decibel alarm.
Early warning is the best chance we have of avoiding what happened to us last night.


The First Alert Three-Pak.
Like most of these, this one is battery operated, so during a power outage your leak detector is still functional.


There are many other types, so take a look and select one that is best for you.     

After we pay for this flood fiasco this next week, along with the repairs to our refrigerator which is still waiting, I will have to get some flood detectors.  I'll let you know which one I try and how we like it in terms of ease of operation.



This post is a follow up to my prior post:

http://rationalpreparedness.blogspot.com/2013/06/a-personal-disaster.html

A Personal Disaster

              

Some areas are underwater and others were not. It's hard to assess the extent of the damage at night, and so quickly.

    
  As my regular readers know, I really do pride myself on being ready for most situations, and it's no wonder.  Again and again over the years, my family has been challenged by one thing after another.  Serious illnesses,  three earthquakes, the latest of which was a 5.8 with the epicenter in a neighboring county, local tornadoes, hurricanes which wiped out power in our region for three weeks, and winter storms have kept us busy.  Since we have a farm and might need to evacuate animals, wildfire is a big concern here.  About the only thing we don't worry too much about here is flooding.  The farm is located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  We are miles from a significant river.  The house, and the outbuildings sit above the acreage here.  We have a number of acres cleared around the house, barn, kennel and garage, but then thirsty forest surrounds it all for many acres.  The full basement here, which is finished, has a lifetime B-dry system and so nothing short of a flood of Biblical proportions would afflict us.   Building the house in this manner was smart from a standpoint of avoiding flood, but it wasn't so smart from a standpoint of lightning.  Apparently, we live in an area with quartz, iron, and old goldmines in the region, and when we built structures on hills we became sitting ducks to lightning.   One of my sons was struck by lightning in 2011 inside a solid building here.  He survived, but is still having significant disabling medical problems as a result.  The next step was to have a lightning abatement contractor work on each building as well as the house and tallest trees.
                  I normally go to bed fairly early as I need to be up early to take care of horses, alpacas, dogs, ducks, chickens and cats.  This evening I was unsettled.  Last week I broke a molar and I plan to see the dentist in about a week as I need to hold on to my money to replace the compressor in our refrigerator. We have been without a frij for two weeks while repairmen negotiated who would come all the way out here, and whether we really needed an Electrolux certified repairman or not.  The tooth was fine for a couple of days and now tonight, there is nerve pain.  By midnight, I couldn't shut it out and I was tossing and turning. From the master bedroom, you can hear water as it's being drawn from the spigots outside the house, or from the barn or kennel.  It's a sound rather like heat or air conditioning coming through ductwork.  I don't mind that I can hear it because I have been able to catch when someone has left a hose on, once in a great while.  At midnight I heard that sound.  I assumed that my son who doesn't sleep well post the lightning strike was showering. When the shower went on past twenty minutes, I mentioned it to my husband who was trying to sleep. When it continued past thirty minutes I became convinced that someone had left water on in a barn or perhaps the kennel.  We keep alpaca water in tanks with a separate pump and periodically we fill that too.  Perhaps my husband left it on ?  When my husband woke up, he also listened to the sound, and decided to check out the barn, the kennel and the other buildings.  That took twenty minutes and the sound continued.  When he came back to the house he was concerned.  He decided to check the lower level despite the fact that we believed two of our sons to be asleep in bedrooms on the lower level.  When we got there, he found water quickly filling the lower level.  The finished basement houses many of our most valuable areas.  There is an art studio with projects and paintings. There are several bedrooms, a large bathroom, a homeschooling room we call "the library", a workshop, a mechanical room with house essential systems, a walk in linen closet, two off season clothes closets, a family room, a large hallway,  and a rather well appointed and large disaster supply room.  There was some confusion upon the discovery of about 500 gallons of water on the oak floors. The red metal handle which we were told was a total water shutoff to the entire house when we built it, did not function as such.  Water kept on coming.  It took us about six more minutes to stop the water from pouring into the house, like a ship that had sprung a leak.  "Oh my God !" I thought.  I am standing in water and there are a number of live  electrical cords in contact with that water !
Fortunately, we were able to disable those electrical outlets while preserving the lights above our heads.  This is when you wish to know that your electrical box is correctly marked !
                   In our finished basement there is a closet in which a plumbing junction box of sorts is located. When the barn, the kennel and two other outbuildings were built, this is where the plumbing connection from the house branches off from the house where it is buried underground to each of the buildings.  Inside there is a plastic to plastic connection which somehow came loose and has allowed a substantial amount of water into the house.  My eldest son repaired the plumbing issue by installing a bronze plumbing fixture to the plastic fixture, and it appears to be functioning properly now.   However, there is such significant damage, I just want to sit and cry.   I called Nationwide Insurance at one am, for guidance as much as for encouragement.  They related that we are covered for an immediate pipe malfunction such as this, and their opinion was that we needed to call Servpro or a similar company to suck out as much of this water immediately as possible in order to avoid mold. They are apparently a 24 hour operation.   My husband doesn't want to do this, and so he is sucking up as much water as possible using a large wet vac.  He worries that our already pricey homeowners will go up with a claim or worse, that they will cancel us.   Being allergic to mold this is a chance I am not willing to take.  There is water underneath the oak floors and unquestionably the lining underneath designed to minimize the clacking noise while walking on the wood is saturated.  Nationwide also said that we should have had a flood detector in the closet where the plumbing junction box is located.
                 My greatest sorrows is not only the probably loss of the oak floors in the basement, but a lot of supplies and food in the disaster supply room.  Did you know that fifty pounds of rice absorbs water really well, saving other items ?   Two giant bags of flour waiting to be placed in plastic buckets, and a large carrier bag of sugar also became saturated, and were thrown out.   I was able to rescue a box of photographs in frames in a box.  Some were wet, but they were wiped quickly.   Many things in the disaster supply room were in shelves or were above the water.  The items on those rolling shelves from Sam's Club are fine.
Some homeschooling books in a box on the floor of the library were not so lucky.  The softcover books were destroyed.
                I am most upset however, that my husband is fine taking the chance that mold could grow in this house rendering it impossible for me to live here.  To me, that places money above the people who live here.
I plan to call Servpro in the morning, and find out how much they would charge to assess the situation.  We have also set up a number of large fans that we would normally use for the alpacas in Summer.

               This is what I learned tonight...

  1.  When plumbing modifications are made for an addition, garage or anything else, consider having a flood detector installed in the region where the modifications were made.
  2.   Verify water shut offs in advance of an emergency and make sure everyone who is a teen or adult knows how to find them and use them.
  3.   Try to get all disaster supplies on shelves asap.   The temptation to use floorspace is great, but resist this whenever you can.
 4. Consider calling Servpro or a similar service, without first consulting your husband or wife.  My husband has a history of not seeing potentials in disaster and for minimizing circumstances.  He is a good man who can't see trouble coming. A lot of people are just like this.
5. Do what you need to do to preserve your home and property.
6. Everyone should own a Home Depot or Lowes  wet vac for just such emergencies.  It's too late to think about buying one in the middle of the night.   Everyone should own some good fans for just such emergencies also.
7. Find out how well you are covered with regard to homeowners insurance, for an incident very similar to this one.  Nationwide said this is a common occurence.
8. Friends tell me that they have had similar things happen when dishwashers have failed or when washing machine hoses have leaked.  Perhaps you should check both of those in your home now.

          We were very lucky that this is fresh clean water.  I hope my husband made the right call.

                                                     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


  UPDATE:  After two hours of sleep I convinced my husband to allow me to call Serve-Pro for at least an assessment of what they believe will be necessary to prevent mold.  They told us we have already done a substantial amount of work all night.  The technician will be here to check everything and advise us with the wood floors, in fifteen more minutes !  
Many things in the disaster supply room are destroyed, however paintings and watercolors my eldest son did were stored high enough that they are intact.  One small oriental rug is drying outside. 

Dear Mr. Obama

  

Wouldn't you think they would have better things to do ?

 
  Dear Mr. Obama.

                I read today from the UK Examiner, that the NSA on behalf of your administration is collecting phone call information from the cellular customers of Verizon.   This would particularly apply to calls between the US and another nation, or another nation to the US.  Apparently, you believe that the Patriot Act gives you the ability to collect hundreds of thousands of phone calls and look for patterns.
                Of course, the mainstream media in the United States is too incompetent to report this to us. It took a rag from the United Kingdom to bring us the truth, and now, once again, we are a laughing stock as everyone from Deutche Welle to Russia Today are reporting this in horror.  It seems foreigners don't like their personal conversations with length of time spoken recorded when they call here !  They apparently don't trust that you won't get the wrong end of the stick !         
               As  Verizon customer who calls internationally on my cell, I am not thrilled either.  You are wasting the valuable tax money I have given you, to monitor my calls, when in fifty years, I have never had as much as a parking ticket.    Have you heard of probable cause ?      I have decided, so that you might feel comfortable stopping this practice to tell you the nature of my international calls, right here and right now.  This way, you can place your attention on what I see as more important things, such as perhaps the economy,  cutting government down, unfunding Obamacare, relinquishing presidential war powers, cutting the IRS down to size, and that resignation speech for you and Mr. Biden, which is due in just a few weeks.

I don't recall the dates, but these are the phone calls I made on verizon internatiionally so you can cross me off your list of potential terrorists.


All of my international calls on Verizon were to Canada in the last couple of years.


Call #1     Call to plumber to have system flushed in our summer house and turned on for our visit.

Call #2     Call to caretaker to let him know when we are coming.

Call #3      Call made from our Verizon cellphone to home to make sure kids at home are ok while we are there.

Call #4     Call rec'd from Harbor Freight while in Canada.  They wish directions for delivering some farm equipment to maintain our tractors. I referred them to our son at home in the US.

Call #5    Call to our home in US again to check on adult kids and teens and animals.

Call #6     Call to Bank of America to assure them that it is ME trying to use my credit card in Canada
               and telling them that I already notified them that I would be here. They must be friends of yours.

Call #7     (From Canada to Canada, using US Verizon phone) Call to plumber to have water tank in summer house replaced.  Rubber diaphragm inside tank is not used often, and this ages the tank faster than usual.

Call #8     (From back in the US to Canada)   Calling caretaker to see if our house, his family and his home is intact after terrible storm which did significant damage to the area in Canada where our house is located.


       There may be a couple of dropped calls as I began to make the calls as listed above.
Now that you can see I am not any type of threat to anyone, perhaps you can stop monitoring my calls for where and who I am calling.    This will save your recognizing patterns for numbers I am calling and getting some judge to record my conversations only to find out that my greatest crime is leaving a small bag of trash at the house in Canada which was not divided into the six different groups of trash necessary in Canada before turning them in for recycling.   Fortunately, our caretaker took care of it, and so I am not wanted in Canada for a failure to properly recycle in a timely manner.

         I'm glad we had this little conversation.  Don't you feel better ?  By the way, my audit from the IRS last year came up completely clean......Surprize !   Perhaps you can look into that chocolate price fixing the mainstream media mentioned today.







     Sarah Slean                                          Napoleon   (Remind you of anyone ?)
   

As We Roll Toward Being a Banana Republic...

This is Rep. Bridenstine's assessment of the Obama Regime with regard to the present state of American affairs.

       I would add to this, a blatant disregard of basic economics and a spending of money for lobster, travel, vacations, and things like a fully equipped television studio in a Maryland branch of the Internal Revenue Service.  I would also add a bevy of Executive Orders created in an attempt to sidestep Congress.  We have also not yet heard about all of the people who oppose the President and who have been audited by the IRS in an unusual and exceptionally aggressive fashion.  I would also add the misadventure of Obamacare.  Tell me again, how is it legal to force any American to buy any product for any purpose, let alone insurance ?

      So tell me, if Barack Hussein Obama and Joseph Biden are removed through due process, who is next ?
Could Democrats and Republicans ever work together long enough to do such a thing, even for the good of the United States of America ?

       Tell me, which place do you think would be nicer to live, Costa Rica, Belize, or Uruguay ?