Relocation and robbery

Many readers have written and called, concerned that our web site was down for almost a week, concerned that the Cole's Newswire wasn't published for three weeks. There's a story there.

Back in December, officials of the city of Daly City told residents of 18 homes on Westline Drive that they feared a landslide would destroy the homes. They produced a report from a geological engineer that said that in the event of even a "moderate" earthquake, the homes would collapse. Another year or two of heavy rains would cause the earth underneath the homes to slide.

The solution to this problem was a $25 million to $30 million retaining wall; the city officials pointed out they didn't have the money for such a project and neither did the state nor the feds. Even with hyperinflated Northern California real estate prices, 18 homes weren't even worth half of the money needed.

We lived in one of those 18 homes.

As renters, Shirleen and I had a number of options: In January, we decided that it would be a good idea to start looking for a new residence, which would continue to include an office for me.

As we were looking for a home, the landslide threat became more real. On Feb. 17, the local natural gas utility turned off the gas to the 18 homes plus two others because its engineers believed that the shifting soil was causing too many gas leaks. So, from Feb. 17 until we moved (almost 40 days) we took camping-type showers and shivered in front of electric heaters. At this point, city officials "yellow-tagged" the homes; this designation means that residents have been informed that they are living in unsafe lodgings.

In the only stroke of good luck in this story, we found a suitable abode in our price range quickly, in about four weeks. As the owner also wanted a quick close, we were able to set it up to take possession of the home, in Pacifica, Calif., in mid-March.

Almost simultaneously with escrow closing on the new house, Daly City officials announced that they would "red tag" the now-21 homes, with an effective date of April 17. This designation meant that all the homes had to be completely vacated by that date.. We moved into the new home on March 27.

I left my office in the Westline Drive house, intending to get settled in the Pacifica home and then move. I worked there March 27 through April 7.

The plan was that the movers would come at noon Friday, April 7 and I would keep the web and mail servers there over the weekend. At the same time, I would move a second set of machines over to my friend Chris Gulker's house, where he had generously offered to host my machines until DSL was installed in the Pacifica home.

I arrived at the office at 5:30 a.m. to finish packing and found that six of my seven computers had been stolen overnight. Missing were the desktop machine, the laptop machine, the web server, the mail server and the two backup servers that were going to go to Gulker's.

Additionally, a 20-inch monitor, the DSL modem, a spare ISDN modem, a tape drive, a Jaz drive, an external 4-gigabyte disk drive, a 56k modem, my telephone headset, the fax machine, the credit card machine, the postage meter, a CD player, my wallet, my checks and my 35mm camera and spare lens also were taken.

Unfortunately, I did not have insurance.

Fortunately, I did have some good friends (as did Shirleen) and we begged and borrowed enough equipment to get back on the air. I won't name names, but a laptop, a monitor and some server equipment came to me on semi-permanent loan. My thanks to those who helped.

I tell this story mostly so that I don't have to tell it over and over again; but I also tell this story to thank the dozens of individuals who have helped Shirleen and me through this arduous couple of months. Thanks for your patience and remember this: a house, a computer, a postage machine, a camera -- these are all just things. The important part here is that we're OK and we have good people around us who are willing to help.

Thanks to one and all.

-- dmc

Bit bucket ...

"i think it was the revenge of USA Today designers, but that would suggest paranoia."
-- Charles Cooper, managing editor of The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., after reading about Cole's weird spring (see Page 12), referring to a critique Cole wrote about the redesign of USA Today.

Vendor vibrations: At the Associated Press of New York City, Ruth Gersh has been named editorial director of AP Digital with responsibility for the multimedia AP member news Web site, The Wire, AP Online, AP MegaSports and development of new content areas; previously Gersh was editor of AP's Multimedia Services. She had also served as an assistant to the president and as chief of bureau in Iowa. She joined AP in 1978. Also at AP Digital, Fernando Ferre has been appointed the director of marketing and product development; previously Ferre had been deputy director of AP Business Development. He was a manager at a consulting company, A.T. Kearney, before joining the AP in 1998. Next for AP Digital, Ted Mendelsohn will be the director of sales. Previously, he was an executive in business development. He was a vice president at Burrell's Information Services when he joined AP in 1993. Lastly, Kurt Rossi has been appointed AP Digital's technology director; he had been director of engineering and communications at Associated Press Television News. Rossi, who joined the AP in 1979, moved to the international video operation in London in 1997 after 17 years on the AP technical staff in the United States. ... At Geac Publishing Systems of Tampa, Fla., Bernard Grinberg has been named president; most recently he was vice president of product marketing. Previous to Geac acquiring Cybergraphic, Grinberg was the chairman of Cybergraphic Inc. and chairman and managing director of Cybergraphic Systems Ltd., which he joined as a working shareholder shortly after its founding in 1979. Also at Geac, Phil Lowe has been named chief operating officer; previously he was the general manager for the European office of Geac Publishing Systems. Prior to that, Lowe was managing director of Matrix Publishing Systems, which Geac purchased last year. Warren Fletcher, the former president of Geac Publishing Systems, has "moved forward" to run several other divisions of Geac. ... At Kpmg Consulting, Ron Hay has been named a manager in the Digital Asset Management practice. Hay was formerly with Lexis-Nexis as a product manager for NewsView, and earlier, a systems manager at Texas' Austin American Statesman. ... #

From THE COLE PAPERS, May 2000, Copyright © 2000, All Rights Reserved.