Hi fellow head-fi'ers.
I've received a ton of emails and PM's from my headphone pals, and this means a lot to me. Just to keep things light (although this is hard to do at the moment), I thought I'd let you all know that after 2 years of "aggresive experimentation" with headphones, I've finally settled in a the "perfect" system: UE-10 Pro, Emmeline XP-7, Sony D-EJ2000. It would seem that this system will probably be the only one that I'll have left when I'm able to return to my home. I'm not complaining, because it's a pretty good system!
I've not had any direct contact with anyone in Cayman since yesterday at about 12:30pm, but the news reports are now detailed enough that I know almost for sure, based on location, that my apartments will be a total loss. (No roofs remaining in that location, and 4 feet of standing water or more). Luckily, the apartments are adequately insured, or at least I think so. There has been an ongoing debate with my insurance agent about whether I paid the 2003 premium last August. His records don't show a payment, but mine do. It may be that I wrote a check that was never cashed. I've paid this year's premuim, so I "should" be up-to-date since a renewal policy was issued, but my copy of the policy is probably now lost in flood water in my house. If it turns out that I'm wrong, this will be a big, big loss.
My house may have fared better, but I strongly suspect that flood waters would have entered, and thus wiped out a lot of valuable audio equipment, original artwork, and my university degrees (6 of them) and professional certifications (4 of them) that were hanging on my office wall. As you can imagine, having spent half a lifetime working to attain these credentials, they are more valuable to me than anything. I suppose they can be "replaced" in some manner, but it's probably time that I put them away anyhow. No matter what you may have accomplished in your life, it is important to remain humble and to know that you are only invited to play this game for so long. To the extent that this experience will help me to remove a few layers of pride and to learn to be more others-oriented, I will be grateful. Although my house itself was reasonably well-insured, the contents were woefully underinsured. If you check my profile, you'll see that this will repesent a major loss for me, but they are things that I can do without.
Here are a couple of the links that I have been following for anyone who is interested.
www.caymannetnews.com
www.stormcarib.com/reports/2004/cayman.shtml
If this storm has wiped me out financially, I will bounce back. I pray that when I return, I will find all of my friends alive and well. For those of you who are in the path of Ivan, please do protect and safegaurd your valuables and important documents.
Wayne
