the roof is on fire

there was a fire in my bldg tonight.

for all the annoying fire drills that happen at work (seriously - having a cube right next to the light that flashes you blind is no good) - and even the EXTREMELY annoying fire drill that happened at the gym, in the winter, WHILE I WAS SWIMMING (and consequently forced to grab my stuff and shiver dripping in my swimsuit) - it turns out that my apt bldg apparently doesn't have a building-wide fire alarm or evacuation system. or if it does - not everyone knows about it and it wasn't used tonight.

so i heard all this thumping outside my door for awhile, but didn't really pay attention because i live near the garbage closet and it's not uncommon for people to throw their trash away at all hours of the day. (but then i thought it was kind of odd that EVERYONE was throwing their trash out at once). then after awhile it didn't go away so i got out of bed and opened my door - and smelled smoke.

so at this point i thought maybe it was a cooking thing (smoke wasn't that bad) and didn't think too much of it - but then i realized i had heard a bunch of sirens (eh, sirens in nyc aren't uncommon), and now there were more. i opened my window and there were flashing lights everywhere - and started looking for my jacket and some warm clothes.

i threw some stuff in a bag and headed out the door and down the stairs. i met a lady a couple floors down, and she was hopping mad about not having been notified, and from the 4th floor onwards, it was sopping wet. when we got to the lobby, we were met with firemen and disgruntled residents.

at the end of the day - it appears the fire was on the 4th floor and was put out. cause is unknown, and as we went back up, i felt sorry for the person who got off on the 5th floor because it smelled TERRIBLE.

so this leads me to that sg icebreaker question - if your house was on fire, what would you grab on your way out?

it's funny because what you think you would take in a premeditated question (presumably indicative of what is most valuable to you) doesn't necessarily translate to what you would take in the moment of panic. i had always said i'd take photo albums

you know what? photo albums are bulky and i have a freaking lot of them. and in the age of digital - i can always print another one. (someone else currently is working on my backup hard drive, so i guess that's why i didn't worry too much about my sentimental or vital files).

so in the end, i was surprisingly practical. wallet, cash, glasses, watch, phone, blackberry, camera, camcorder. i guess the last 2 indicate how much this tournament has overtaken my life - i actually had the thought of "i haven't transferred the latest scouting footage of my opponents yet and need to study them". plus the fact that the camera was given to me by my small group last year (and later replaced after a dropping incident). no jewelry (not that i have much anyways)...well besides my new nike watch...which surprisingly, i grabbed instead of my real watch.

ooh...they're going to hear about this at the next shareholder's meeting...what if it had been a real fire that couldn't be contained? crazy...