What's the latest in people's lives?

[Vic]

I can only echo RK in as far as this site is concerned, it's one of the few places I actually feel comfortable.

[IanKennedy]

Thank you both. To think that Graham and I wondered if it was worth adding a forum to the site. It's pretty quiet around here these days, but at it's peak it was very active.

[McAvoy]

I had a good Thanksgiving this year. Went of my cousin and his wife's house this year. Once my side left, I left as well since it was all his wife's side at that point. Took home alot of leftovers thiugh. Even have a lot of leftovers from the potluck Thanksgiving from work.

Though with potluck at work, I got to have some different dishes due to different heritages, like Puerto Rican and Mexican. Not to mention the Italian, German ones.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

I made a turkey sandwich for my biological mother. She asked for it, so I made one for her. Then I went to my stepmother's and had a small dinner with her too. Nothing fancy, but it was good.

[McAvoy]

Well my bank account got hacked again tonight. Nothing big. Just a small time phishing thing. They ordered Dominos in LA. My bank shut that down real quick.

The reason is because two months ago someone tried to order I think 8 iPads off of Amazon and then the same thing on eBay. Bank of America shut that down quick. The hard part was the Only Fans account they set up to pump $400 in there. That was a it harder, but got my money back. Plus a $50 voucher. Lol

But yeah stay on alert with your accounts. Look at your emails.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Thanks for the warning, McAvoy. I hate hackers.

[Teaos]

Merry Christmas DITL!

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Merry Christmas! I got TNG on Blu-Ray.

[IanKennedy]

Merry xmas.

[Tinadrin Chelnor]

Merry Christmas everyone.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

I made it through another holiday season. I go on vacation January 4th.

[IanKennedy]

Happy new year, everyone.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Shift is over... vacation!

[McAvoy]

So... I thought 2025 would be a new year and the end of 2024 which was a very bad year for me. Lost my mother, my apartment burned down and lost two of my cats.

Well, last night I woke up at 1 am to go use the bathroom. Wondered about a strong burning plastic smell. Looked around and found the back patio was on fire.

What remained of six trash cans, two regular, two paper and two metal recycling trash cans was on fire. The cans were completely melted down. I was able to put out the remaining fires. That was until I saw the side of the house.

The fire touched the side of the house and burned through the vinyl siding but luckily couldn't get past the original siding. See this is a early 1960's house with asbestos siding that they kept up when the vinyl siding was put up back in the late 90's. Well that asbestos siding worked as expected and saved the house.

From what the fire marshall figured out was the outside electrical outlet sparked and caught fire. Incidentally because this was a mass produced house back in the early 60's the electrical wiring is all over the place when it came to what circuit breaker works what. Which means when we thought the outside outlet breaker was tripped, it should not have been hot but yet it still was.

Long story short, old house. Our power was shut down from the breaker panel and had to get a electrician to figure it out this morning before out pipes froze.

So, all in all, only the vinyl siding was affected and part of a adjacent door that was affected. The garbage cans ard gone but easily replaceable.

Could have been much worse.

[IanKennedy]

Oh my, what a horrible story. Thank goodness you woke up and spotted it. Sure the asbestos would have kept it at bay for a while but it would likely have grown and gone around it!

I'm very glad you got it under control. Do you have insurance? Hopefully you do. So glad you're ok.

When we were young we had a house that caught fire due to an old oil heater being left on overnight at the bottom of the stairs. I think we went out of the window that night. I was only like 8 or something.

Our current property was built in the 1930s. Before we moved in we had every pipe and wire removed and a fresh electrical and plumbing installation. The existing insulation on the electric was so bad it was crumbling. It was not something I would be happy to have a modern home work on.