All gag.com web sites are offline due to the wildfires in Black Forest,
Colorado.
Our home which was the hosting site for gag.com fell victim to forest fire on
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 now appears
to be 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:
Many of the others in Black Forest who lost homes actually need help much
more than
we do. The Pikes Peak Community Foundation
has established an
emergency relief fund that specifically benefits victims of this fire.
If you'd rather send money to help us rebuild, either PayPal or Google
Checkout/Wallet transfers to bdale@gag.com should work.
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 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 for the cool bfs.png!