2 is the company name that Bdale and Karen Garbee use on the rare occasions
3 when we engage in consulting work.
5 We are not currently looking for new work.
7 ## Black Forest Fire 2013 ##
9 Our home which was the hosting site for gag.com fell victim to forest fire on
10 or about 11 June 2013. Our house was <em>very</em> close to where the fire
11 started, so we had very little warning and feel very lucky to have escaped
12 with our lives, our pets, and a few of our most precious possessions. This was
13 the second really significant forest fire in the Colorado Springs area in less
14 than one year, and is the worst fire in Colorado history in terms of
15 structure loss... the count of destroyed homes is over 500.
19 For those of you who have asked how you can help us restore and rebuild,
20 thank you. We are working on several wishlists and a registry of items we
21 need in the short term. Please watch this space as we will update the list
22 of lists and the contents of the lists as we find more time to work on them.
23 Here's what we have so far:
25 * [Crate and Barrel Registry](http://www.crateandbarrel.com/Gift-Registry/Elizabeth-Garbee/r5059713) *COMPLETELY FULFILLED*
26 * [Bed Bath & Beyond Registry](http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/regGiftRegistry.asp?wrn=-280550117&) *COMPLETELY FULFILLED*
27 * [Amazon Wish List](http://amzn.com/w/2UTFPG4214HV4) *COMPLETELY FULFILLED*
29 Many of the others in Black Forest who lost homes actually need help much
31 we do. The [Pikes Peak Community Foundation](http://www.ppcf.org)
33 [emergency relief fund](http://www.ppcf.org/products/emergency-relief)
34 that specifically benefits victims of this fire.
36 If you'd rather send money to help us rebuild, PayPal transfers to
37 bdale@gag.com may be the easiest way to do that.
39 We are also deeply indebted to the three local fire departments that we know
40 were directly fighting the fire on and around our property:
42 * <a href="http://www.bffire.org">Black Forest Fire/Rescue</a>, the
43 department that serves us directly and were likely first on the
45 * <a href="http://www.wescottfire.org">Wescott Fire Protection District</a>,
46 an adjacent district whose personnel were fighting the fire literally
47 along the edges of our driveway when we tried to drive out, and who
48 ended up walking us out through the already-burned area to safety.
49 * <a href="http://www.falconfirepd.org">Falcon Fire Protection District</a>,
50 whose members showed us immense generosity in the days following the
54 * 2013 December 16<br>Got our "last" set of questions answered by our
55 contractor, and signed the contract for constuction of our new house.
56 * 2013 December 10<br>Met with contractor to review cost estimates for our
57 revised plan. We're within budget now, so gave him the go-ahead to
59 * 2013 November 25<br>Met with contractor and architect to deliver our
60 proposed updates to the plan and discuss. We're actually happier
61 with the revised design, they both seem to like what we proposed,
62 and everyone is optimistic it will come in within budget.
63 * 2013 November 18<br>Met with our contractor to discuss costs. Not too
64 surprisingly in hindsight, what we designed would cost more to build
65 than we are prepared to spend. Back to the drawing board, literally!
66 * 2013 November 2<br>Met with our contractor to provide information he needs
67 to put cost estimates together for us in parallel with waiting for
68 structural engineering work to be completed.
69 * 2013 October 21<br>After several iterations, we now have floor plans and
70 elevations that accurately represent what we'd like to build.
71 * 2013 September 19<br>First draft of main floor plan received from the
72 architect we're working with.
73 * 2013 August 16<br>Demoliton work completed. The remains of our house, shed,
74 and greenhouse are now gone.
75 * 2013 July 26<br>The remains of the two cars that burned were removed from
76 our property and sold as scrap metal.
77 * 2013 July 21<br>After a week spent interviewing contractors who might help us
78 build a new house, we made a decision! We'll be working with Doug
79 Strecker, dba <a href="http://www.rampartcustomhomes.com/">Rampart
80 Custom Homes</a>. At his suggestion, we'll be using David Woody as
81 the architect tasked with turning our sketches into working plans.
82 * 2013 July 4<br>all web sites formerly hosted returned to normal
83 * 2013 July 3<br>gag.com web presence returns to normal
84 * 2013 June 28<br>gag.com mail service returns to normal
85 * 2013 June 20<br>Intenet service connected in the apartment
86 * 2013 June 18<br>First night sleeping in the apartment
87 * 2013 June 17<br>Started populating the apartment, almost entirely with
88 donated things. Initial registry links posted for things we could
89 use immediately to re-establish ourselves in the apartment
90 * 2013 June 15<br>Signed lease on 2-bedroom apartment in Colorado Springs.
91 * 2013 June 11<br>House destroyed by forest fire
93 <center><IMG SRC="http://blackforestauto.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/bfs.png" width="300" height="300"></center>
95 We're not sure who created the original artwork, but thanks to Eric and the
97 [Black Forest Automotive](http://blackforestauto.com)
102 * [Bdale Garbee](bdale/)
103 * [Karen Garbee](karen/)
105 ## Things We've Done ##
107 Some interesting projects completed by Garbee and Garbee:
109 * Ongoing package maintenance for the [Debian](http://www.debian.org) project
110 * PCMCIA modem support, device drivers, serial console support, and other
111 kernel work for BSD/OS in embedded systems
112 * Communications system design
113 * GPS data collection and GPS/GIS integration
117 * [Colorado Digital Eclectics](http://www.gag.com/code/)
118 * [Empire Digital Instruments](http://www.empiredi.com/)
119 * [Rockets](rockets/)
123 This site is powered by [ikiwiki](http://ikiwiki.info),
124 running on [Debian GNU/Linux](http://www.debian.org)
125 and [Apache](http://www.apache.org).