Strange dream, had an early William Gibson flavor, like Burning Chrome. Tinx and I went up to explore and scavenge an old derelict space elevator. We decided to attach parachutes to the top structure, blow the support scaffolding, remote-control the slow-falling habitat to crash in Death Valley, then we could ping our transponders in the wreck to get our valuables out of the pile.

Ubuntu

My Acer D250 netbook was one of the handful of things we got out before the house burned down. Ron gave me the hidden SSID and password for the office wifi next door. Yay, fast internet; download speed 1.96mbps, that's something. Worked fine for a while, then Win XP started freezing on the desktop right after bootup, when it connects to the net. But with fast, always-on (and free) wifi, at last I could wait out the long Ubuntu download and get off Windows.

Download took about 2 hours, looks like that's really the download servers and not the net connection. So I'm posting on Firefox for Ubuntu, internet working great and now I'm fairly malware-resistant.

house burned down part 2

11 jan continued. tinx still had her phone, started calling people while we were watching the house burn down. my dad showed up, george, tito esmer. around 4am tinx and i put our pitiful pile of clothes in jules's car while we biked to tinx's house. still had my laptop that i'd just finished reformatting when the fire started. i had backed up files to a flashdrive, but that was gone now. one tiny bit of luck was i'd left my portable hard drive at tito esmer's place, most of my stuff was backed up there too.

felt peaky and numb, pulse still elevated. we biked back to the burned-out house when the sun came up, hoping momo got out. biked all over the neighborhood, whistling, nothing. went to tito esmer's place to get my hard drive, had a few movies and series in there. tinx and i watched big bang theory and got some sleep.

all my stuff, gone. couple of hundred books. all my anime, west wing, the wire, gone. talked to bank to withdraw money and replace atm card, thank god that was surprisingly painless as i now have no identification. my files, birth certificate, school records, gone. went to work to arrange for a few days off.

2nd night at tinx's place, couldn't sleep, watched fringe. we'd worked out that i would stay at my dad's old place at diliman. got there in the morning, tita beema got me some clothes, some cash. ron let us in, dad had partially cleared one room of junk. tinx went into obsessive cleaning mode, i helped.

past few days are a little blurred. replaced cellphone, shoes, some pants. we're cleaning up the rest of the house. still miss my cat. we've been back to the burned-up house 3 or 4 times, we've handed out and put up "reward for lost cat" flyers. having trouble sleeping, i'm restless but numb and desultory. sometimes i reach and touch the edges of my grief, and i'm amazed at how much of it there is. we love you, momo. loved you for as long as we could.

hourse burned down

11 jan: around 1am, heard shouting from outside, thought maybe street fight or car accident, was going to take a look, picked up collapsible baton. then banging on gate, someone shouted "sunog!" saw flames coming out the front window of george's room. shit shit! ran back, told tinx to get momo, our cat. george room's always locked, but the door had a small glass window. used the baton to bash the glass. looked through the window, glowing orange inside. pounded on ernie's door, wake up. lights went out, circuit breakers blew, i grabbed a flashlight. got bucket of water from bathroom, tossed water in through window. back to bathroom for another bucket, toss, this isn't working. there was a fire extinguisher somewhere, but that was years ago and the fire's blazing now. started to think, this isnt just the room, whole place is going up. tinx got out, things getting dark. went back in for momo. remembered how smoke kills more than fire, stayed low, smoke already down to waist level. i hurled a cabinet aside like it was nothing, calling out for momo. went out for air, back in, getting thick, no time, pulled tinx out. anguish and fear, opened windows, hoped momo would get out. big tongue of flame in the way, coming out of living room window, had to duck, ran out.

that all happened in a space of about 10 or 15 mins.

outside looking at the house, place went up like the tinderbox it was. fire hazard deathtrap. front door was locked, we had to go longer way around the back. should've moved out. big fire, people shouting that maybe the cars would blow. things happened fast, full blaze by 1.30 when the first firetruck arrived. firehoses, water, a few more firetrucks came in, fire was out around 3am but the house was almost completely burned out.

tinx had gotten an armful of clothes and my acer netbook. neighbors got both our bikes out. other than that i had nothing except the clothes i was wearing.

Actions speak louder than excuses.