[geeks] home equipment inventories

[Bill Bradford]

On Tue, Jan 08, 2002 at 10:24:26PM -0500, Ken Hansen wrote:
> I suspect this may be like collectable car insurance, you may need/want 
> to have a declared value - imagine this, your house burns down, you file 
> a claim, and the adjuster says "PDP-11/34s have no value, so no payment 
> for that loss". It may not be that severe, but in the *real* world, 
> things that we value get tossed as trash every day...

I'll lose geek points for this, but if my house burned down, the only
systems I'd want to immediately replace:

- SunBlade 1000 w/flatpanel
- Mac G4 w/flatpanel
- Amy's PC w/flatpanel
- Amy's laptop
- Cisco switch, cablemodem, gateway router, etc.

I use these systems every day.  The PDP-11s *are* replacable; they're
not like Dave McG's Crays, for example.  If I had a house burn down,
my "collection" doesent matter *one bit*.  EVERYTHING (except my wife
and my pets) is/are replaceable.  I could replicate my PDP11 collection
off eBay in less than a week with sufficent funds (<$1K).

In any case, the agent (Liberty Mutual *KICKS ASS* btw) asked what I
had, I told her, and she said that they were covered for replacement
value under our "personal possessions" coverage, which is about $85K.

Sitting here, I dont think that the "rest" of our stuff, apart from
the computers, is worth more than $10K (and this INCLUDES furniture).
We just dont own that much stuff.  Lots of junk, but not much "essential"
stuff.  All of our office furniture is Steelcase, but from the office
surplus place down on 5th ($50/desk, $35/chair).  I dont own no stinkin'
Aeron. 

For $50K, we could replace everything we own about 2-3x times over, and
even then be at a higher "quality of stuff" than we're at now.

> If it is "not an official company/organization" how can you prove that? 
> I am not trying to be argumentative, but honestly if it comes down to 
> your word against the investigators findings (you list it on your 
> resume, etc.), the guy with the checkbook may not agree with you... You 
> may want to define exactly what sunhelp.org is, so there will be no 
> question...

"A web site I run as a hobby".  But, like I said, the SunHELP stuff is 
sitting downtown, and wouldnt be affected by any happenings at the house.

Bill

-- 
Bill Bradford
mrbill at mrbill.net
Austin, TX