I just got an unexpected phone call from Brett - he would have called Charlie but it is late in Maine.

Seems Brett and Wakana came back from doing errands (including getting utilities set up for their new place) to find that their new place had been burgled! Wakana's laptop was stolen, but the guitars are safe down stairs. Not only did they toss the joint and steal an indeterminate amount of stuff, but they then set the house on fire. So when Brett drove up it was all charred and smoke damaged. The fire was started at his computer station where a pillow had been left to burn from the heat of a monitor (the burglars had to turn the system on and place a pillow on it to make this happen, so Brett reckons it was arson. Police and Fire officials are still working it.) The whole upstairs is smoke-damaged and charred, especially where the computer was.

What all this means, unfortunately is that Brett is sleeping on a borrowed floor somewhere in Guam, the t-shirt and shorts he has on being the only clothes not smoke-damaged or burned. I guess all those nice clothes he bought in San Diego are layered with smoke from burning CRTs and such...jaisus!!

He wanted me to post a report to you all and say it will be a while before he'll get to a borrowed computer and post to his thread.

I told him he was living an awful interesting sort of life with all these catastrophes in it, and he managed to laugh, so I guess he ain't broke, but it isn't as if he needed this extra chaos in his life!!!

Well, that's about it -- we couldn't talk long as it was his nickel from way the hell overseas. He sounded okay, considering all he's been through, and asked me to pass his warm greetings on to all his friends, so consider them passed to you.

Best regards,

A