Gotta Have Music!
One of the things that appealed to me about having the house burn down was that I could start afresh. There were many things that I knew that I should get rid of, but doing so is time-consuming and making decisions about which "perfectly good" things to get rid of is very difficult for me. The fire sort-of solved that. At first I didn't want anything more than things that were of obvious sentimental value like the family clock or immanently practical like my passports.
One thing that I did want ASAP was to have my music back. My music, though it was on two hard drives, was the only data that I had that wasn't backed up off site. I lucked out and was able to recover that server, intact, and just plugged it in at the new place and it worked.
Less than two weeks before the fire I had bought a new Squeezebox Boom and Squeezebox Touch, so I almost immediately went back to Amazon and just re-placed the order. I put the Boom by the bed and the Touch in the living room.
I soon wanted the option of having music in both the living room and the den/rumpus room (the place has built-in speakers in both rooms), without dragging the Squeeze between the two rooms, so I got a Duet. And then, there was no NPR in the bathroom, so I had to get Squeezebox Radio. I'm a huge fan of the stuff.
Oh, and then I got a custom Timbuk2 messenger bag that will hold the Radio and Touch, plus a router and hard drive. The Touch will act as a server, so if I go to a cabin or whatever, I can have a portable multi-room music situation. It's a bit much, but it's brought some solace.
