*Garbee and Garbee* is the company name that Bdale and Karen Garbee use on the rare occasions when we engage in consulting work. We are not currently looking for new work. ## Black Forest Fire 2013 ## Our home which was the hosting site for gag.com fell victim to forest fire on or about 11 June 2013. Our house was very close to where the fire started, so we had very little warning and feel very lucky to have escaped with our lives, our pets, and a few of our most precious possessions. This was the second really significant forest fire in the Colorado Springs area in less than one year, and is the worst fire in Colorado history in terms of structure loss... the count of destroyed homes is over 500. ###Helping### For those of you who have asked how you can help us restore and rebuild, thank you. We are working on several wishlists and a registry of items we need in the short term. Please watch this space as we will update the list of lists and the contents of the lists as we find more time to work on them. Here's what we have so far: * [Crate and Barrel Registry](http://www.crateandbarrel.com/Gift-Registry/Elizabeth-Garbee/r5059713) *COMPLETELY FULFILLED* * [Bed Bath & Beyond Registry](http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/regGiftRegistry.asp?wrn=-280550117&) *COMPLETELY FULFILLED* * [Amazon Wish List](http://amzn.com/w/2UTFPG4214HV4) *COMPLETELY FULFILLED* Many of the others in Black Forest who lost homes actually need help much more than we do. The [Pikes Peak Community Foundation](http://www.ppcf.org) has established an [emergency relief fund](http://www.ppcf.org/products/emergency-relief) that specifically benefits victims of this fire. If you'd rather send money to help us rebuild, PayPal transfers to bdale@gag.com may be the easiest way to do that. We are also deeply indebted to the three local fire departments that we know were directly fighting the fire on and around our property: * Black Forest Fire/Rescue, the department that serves us directly and were likely first on the scene. * Wescott Fire Protection District, an adjacent district whose personnel were fighting the fire literally along the edges of our driveway when we tried to drive out, and who ended up walking us out through the already-burned area to safety. * Falcon Fire Protection District, whose members showed us immense generosity in the days following the fire. ### Journal ### * 2013 December 10
Met with contractor to review cost estimates for our revised plan. We're within budget now, so gave him the go-ahead to write up a contract! * 2013 November 25
Met with contractor and architect to deliver our proposed updates to the plan and discuss. We're actually happier with the revised design, they both seem to like what we proposed, and everyone is optimistic it will come in within budget. * 2013 November 18
Met with our contractor to discuss costs. Not too surprisingly in hindsight, what we designed would cost more to build than we are prepared to spend. Back to the drawing board, literally! * 2013 November 2
Met with our contractor to provide information he needs to put cost estimates together for us in parallel with waiting for structural engineering work to be completed. * 2013 October 21
After several iterations, we now have floor plans and elevations that accurately represent what we'd like to build. * 2013 September 19
First draft of main floor plan received from the architect we're working with. * 2013 August 16
Demoliton work completed. The remains of our house, shed, and greenhouse are now gone. * 2013 July 26
The remains of the two cars that burned were removed from our property and sold as scrap metal. * 2013 July 21
After a week spent interviewing contractors who might help us build a new house, we made a decision! We'll be working with Doug Strecker, dba Rampart Custom Homes. At his suggestion, we'll be using David Woody as the architect tasked with turning our sketches into working plans. * 2013 July 4
all web sites formerly hosted returned to normal * 2013 July 3
gag.com web presence returns to normal * 2013 June 28
gag.com mail service returns to normal * 2013 June 20
Intenet service connected in the apartment * 2013 June 18
First night sleeping in the apartment * 2013 June 17
Started populating the apartment, almost entirely with donated things. Initial registry links posted for things we could use immediately to re-establish ourselves in the apartment * 2013 June 15
Signed lease on 2-bedroom apartment in Colorado Springs. * 2013 June 11
House destroyed by forest fire
We're not sure who created the original artwork, but thanks to Eric and the gang at [Black Forest Automotive](http://blackforestauto.com) for the cool bfs.png! ## Who We Are ## * [Bdale Garbee](bdale/) * [Karen Garbee](karen/) ## Things We've Done ## Some interesting projects completed by Garbee and Garbee: * Ongoing package maintenance for the [Debian](http://www.debian.org) project * PCMCIA modem support, device drivers, serial console support, and other kernel work for BSD/OS in embedded systems * Communications system design * GPS data collection and GPS/GIS integration ## Other Stuff ## * [Colorado Digital Eclectics](http://www.gag.com/code/) * [Empire Digital Instruments](http://www.empiredi.com/) * [Rockets](rockets/) ---- This site is powered by [ikiwiki](http://ikiwiki.info), running on [Debian GNU/Linux](http://www.debian.org) and [Apache](http://www.apache.org).