GatewayRedbirds.com

Looks like my dad and his girlfriend will be starting the cleanup and deciding what to do next this weekend. One of these days I'll have to figure out how to post pictures here. The last picture I got was from 12/31 and the water was all the way up to the roof and apparently it went even higher than that. My dad is supposed to send more pictures where the house was maybe a foot away from being completely under water. Only the peak of the roof was above.

Thankfully I found out they were actually able to get flood insurance so as long as there are no problems with that, they'll come out of the situation pretty nicely financially since the house is worth (and insured for) nearly three times what they have into it. The house had been foreclosed on and pretty much stripped so they got it cheap and then my dad and his friends did all of the work themselves. The worst part is all of that work. They'll be ahead with regard to money and they have options on places to stay while they figure out their next move thankfully.

I've found it pretty funny that the first thing out of a few people's mouths when I showed them pictures is that the roof looked brand new. Sure that's all you can see but I still found it amusing that more than one people said the same thing. And they were kind of right. Not brand new but only a couple of years old.

Jim, how is winter in Chicago? Here it's getting cold! Mid 20-s in the night

Pretty awful dill. It's been a block of ice for over a week. Lots of rain, then it froze everywhere. It's horrible, as usual.

edit - but compared to the suffering of folks in SO. Illinois and Missouri, it's a day at the beach. There is annoying stuff, and then there is real life changing stuff. In retrospect, no complaints here.

Jim, how bad was Chicago weather this morning? Here wind chill was 13! It was horrible this morning. I hate this weather.

minus something. Windows wouldn't roll down on the truck. Exposed skin stung in seconds. Getting ready to go shovel a couple of inches of fluffy stuff. Very cold tomorrow.

Looks like my dad and his girlfriend have decided on what their next step is. They signed a one month lease on a house (on higher ground) last week and started moving in this weekend. When they get their insurance check (I think FEMA has already cut them one but they're waiting on their insurance company now) they will be able to pay cash for the new house after the one month lease is up.

Man, it's terribly cold here.. They are saying some arctic cold wave or some BS is coming here. These guys know how to cook up stuff when it's cold.

I thought my phone was broken when I woke up this morning and saw a temperature of five degrees. I almost wished it was broken when I realized that was correct.

tlombard wrote:I thought my phone was broken when I woke up this morning and saw a temperature of five degrees. I almost wished it was broken when I realized that was correct.

It was -21 when I got to work this morning. Wind chill was -40.

It's slowly warmed up all day. It's up to -1 now, which is the warmest it's been since Friday around lunchtime.

3-5 inches of snow here today. I've already had enough and it hasn't started yet.