Trial By Fire
Dealing with the unthinkable
“I’m sitting at a friend’s dining room table, writing this on the M4 MacBook Pro I got in mid-December. Thank goodness I changed my mind about waiting for the M4 MacBook Air to be released, or you wouldn’t be hearing from me for a while. That’s because—as many of you already know—my wife Ellen and I lost our home to the Eaton Fire, along with almost everyone in our cherished Altadena neighborhood. Our town itself has virtually been erased from existence.”
That is how I started this post on January 15th … and then I stopped and just sat silently for several minutes before getting up and walking away. I couldn’t write because I couldn’t think or feel or even figure out what I wanted to say. I could still smell smoke in the air; still hear the sirens that would make my stomach clench; still involuntarily shudder at every gust of wind. I was still numb. I remember thinking “just give it a few minutes and try again.” As it turns out, I needed a few months, not a few minutes. If you are one of my loyal subscribers, thank you for waiting until I could get it together enough to post again.
If you’ve been reading my wife, Ellen Snortland’s Substack or following her on Facebook, you know what has happened to us since January 7th. For those of you who haven’t, here’s a quick recap.
The 4-1-1 on a 9-1-1 Situation
We preemptively evacuated our Altadena home at 4:00 p.m. on January 7th—many hours before things got dire—thanks to the always-accurate advice of our hyper-local weather guru, Edgar McGregor, and his “Altadena Climate & Weather” Facebook group. Days earlier, he predicted how insanely fierce the winds would be that night and that if a fire broke out, it would be apocalyptic.
So, merely as a precaution, we packed up the dogs and threw a few other things into our Prius, thinking we’d be back the next day. So many of our Altadena neighbors told us they said the same thing. None of us took as much as we might have been able to take as we’d seen fires in the area for many years and they never came close. At the same time, unless we had a moving van and a crew who worked quickly, how much could we really take?
That night and for two days after, we stayed with Ed and Susan Johnson, our dear friends and fellow choirmates in Coventry Choir at All Saints Church, Pasadena, in their Old Town Pasadena loft. Then, another choir member, Greg Kovatch (who sits to my right), offered us a room in his East Pasadena home, and we stayed there for about a month. Ed, Susan and Greg were lifesavers, and we cannot thank them enough.
Finally, after weeks of searching for a place that takes pets, we found the Alexan Marmont apartments in Monrovia. (For more info, here’s Ellen’s column about this residence, which we refer to as “Hipster-Ville.”) A plus for me is that it’s a block from an A Line station, previously called the Gold Line, which enables me to get to many places on my own that I usually wouldn’t be able to. As someone who doesn’t drive due to eyesight issues and has used LA public transit my entire life, this is a Big Deal: a small silver lining in an otherwise very dark cloud.
The Tech Daddy Rises Again
Since this is a tech-based column, I thought you’d like to know what I have in my office space, as I’ve slowly been able to piece one together over the last two months. Besides proximity to the A Line, another bonus of living at the Alexan is having an 8 Gbps (up and downstream) Internet connection thanks to Giggle Fiber; it’s 20 times faster than the Spectrum plan I had back in Altadena yet costs less! Who knew Monrovia was a hotbed of fiber-optic Internet?
To create a laptop-based desktop system, I continue to use the remarkable M4 Max-based MacBook Pro, which is now in a vertical stand and connected to the remarkable Ivanky FusionPro 3 Thunderbolt 5 dock and an Asus Pro Arte 27 monitor that’s a decent stand-in until the Apple Studio Display arrives. The monitor, an Apple Touch ID USB-C keyboard and mouse, another Ricoh ScanSnap ix1600 scanner, and an HP Enterprise M712dw laser printer are all plugged into the dock. Having the HP back means I can print music scores and parts again! For color printing, I was dismayed to find that HP had discontinued my beloved PageWide 552 color printer. Why? Because it had been cannibalizing their color LaserJet Pro sales! (Heaving big sigh here.) However, I have to say that the HP Color LaserJet Pro 3201dw I got is almost as good. The price is right and the print quality is the same, but the single-sheet manual feed isn’t a tray but rather a slot, which is harder to use… oh, well.
I also replaced my Elgato StreamDeck XL, got some workable Logitech speakers, the new OWC Envoy Ultra Drive (which can achieve 120 Gbps transfer speeds when using a Thunderbolt 5 port) and a Mophie Snap + 3-in-1 charging stand for my iPhone, Apple Watch and Airpods. I have the phone in nightstand mode while charging so I have a handy clock in front of me. All of this is sitting on a Flexispot Essential E6 Bamboo Standing Desk that Ellen assembled for me (she’s the best!) and it ALL fits in this apartment bedroom/office… wow! Also in the office is a second desk for clients, part of a set of substantial furniture my long-time friend and Tech Daddy client Laurie McFarlane gave us. She is another lifesaver.
Don’t Let This Happen To You
Now, let’s get to this column’s “do as I say, not as I do” portion. In response to what happened, I will give you some Tech Daddy “Disaster Commandments.”
1st DISASTER COMMANDMENT: Make an evacuation list now, regardless of where you live.
Many of you have asked me if I was able to save various essential items in my old office, especially my backup drives and all my archives. The answer, sadly, is “no.” Ellen and I had made lists on that fateful day but were not thinking clearly. The prospect of having to evacuate your home automatically short-circuits your brain.
I was going to say, “if you live in a fire-prone area, make an evac list NOW; don’t wait for something to happen.” The thing is, because of climate change, we all now live in some “disaster-prone” area, and we all need to create an evac list! Again, when you are clear-headed and not in the throes of a dire emergency. Had I done this, I would not have lost so many precious files on my archive drives and other tech-related items that were important to me, items that we could have taken.
2nd DISASTER COMMANDMENT: Make a detailed home inventory now and not “some day”
In case of a burglary or natural disaster, all home insurance companies urge their policyholders to do this, but most of us rarely do. And the reason why is simple: it’s a pain in the ass! However, as is often the case, a little pain now is much better than a lot of pain later.
I’m grateful that I insisted that our home insurance policy with Farmers was as good as possible. Even so, they still want a detailed inventory list, room by room, of every item we had in our home. Even the idea of filling out their supplied spreadsheet with thousands of items has us paralyzed. Had we done this already, it would have made our lives less stressful than they already are.
Most insurance companies have such a spreadsheet; the required information is standard. The good news is that “home inventory apps” can help you log your stuff in a way that meets insurance company expectations. The one I wish I had started using years ago is Under My Roof, which has gotten high marks on the Apple App Store (for both Macs and iOS devices) for many years.
A major plus in using the app is that, if you have an iPhone, it can use the iPhone’s camera to scan barcodes on anything you buy (before you take the label off) or if it’s something that already has a barcode like books and DVDs, etc. The app is comprehensive; the company says it allows users to log everything from purchase and warranty information to photos and receipts to descriptions and serial numbers. Under My Roof also stores essential data about your home, such as the assessment history, warranty information, square footage (area), photos, and more. As we were asked for this information multiple times over the last two months, that would have been good to have.
After test-driving the app, my only caveat is that it has a higher-than-normal learning curve. This means that you have to read the manual and/or watch the tutorial videos they supply—you can’t simply launch the app and start using it effectively. Like many things in the tech world, an hour of study will yield a year’s worth of rewards, so—as Nike says—Just. Do. It.
That’s A Wrap!
Even though we have suffered an unthinkable loss, I am still grateful for many things: that Ellen, I, and the dogs are alive and doing OK even though we are in exile with many of our Altadena neighbors here in Monrovia. I am grateful we have many supportive and caring friends who have stepped up to help us. I am grateful that I am starting to take Tech Daddy clients again—slowly at first, as I’m still not at 100 percent. And I am thankful that I can still connect with you, my fabulous readers. Now that I have “broken the dam,” you’ll (hopefully) once again be hearing from me every week.
In my next post, I’ll discuss the new hardware Apple released last Wednesday, why it’s so important, and why I’m returning to a proper desktop system based on the M3 Ultra Mac Studio. Stay tuned! Until then, I remain…
Your friendly neighborhood Tech Daddy
Many of you have asked if there is a GoFundMe campaign to help us recover from the devastating loss of our home and possessions. The answer is yes! Our dear friend Jenn Melyan has created a GoFundMe for us, which you can access here
Tech Daddy Substack Founding Members
Leigh Adams Edgar Johnson
Ken, sending you best wishes on your birthday, and wishing you all the support & resources you need as you & Ellen recover from this devastating loss. Thank you for recommending the Under My Roof app. I had not heard of it before, and even though the idea of doing my inventory is daunting, you’ve inspired me to get started and update it consistently.