wag of the finger

sometimes i want to punch people right in the face. two of my closest friends from undergrad had their homes burglarized

in both cases, the event occurred in the middle of the day, in a residential neighborhood. one was in northern baltimore last july 3rd (yea, happy independence day) ; one was last week in arizona. electronics, jewelry and other miscellaneous valuables were taken. both of my friends were/are working on major research papers, stored entirely on their stolen laptops. my baltimore friend was able to recover enough data from previous drafts to finish months of work in a few weeks. my arizona friend has been straining to recall all the research articles and updates she had from the week prior to the robbery using her saved emails. punch in the face to the jackasses that caused them grief

the difference in the two scenarios: only one friend had homeowner's/renter's insurance. i was completely shocked by this bit of information, as it seems that every apartment i've had requires some level of renter's coverage. financially, it's not the worst thing for my friend, but still it's useful so you don't have to pay out of pocket. to offset some of the cost of replacing her laptop, the one friend is selling some of her prints on etsy

i have not done the research, but i always thought renter's/homeowner's insurance was required for renting/purchasing a home. perhaps i've just been at fancy shmancy places that don't want to be liable for accidents and what not. regardless, wherever i live, i would never consider not having insurance. in my opinion you can never be too safe. so for anyone who is on the fence or doesn't think it's worth the expense, i wag my finger at you. it's 100% absolutely worth it, especially if you have a lot of valuable items. or are prone to setting your kitchen on fire when baking cookies. or have carpet on your staircase that constantly trips your visitors. or things of that nature... you can get a large amount of personal liability and possessions coverage for around $10 a month. plus you can get discounts if you have multiple insurance plans with one insurer. for anyone who's moving into your first apartment, make sure this is on your list of things to purchase. also on that list should be an external storage device, whether it's a 2 gigabyte thumb drive or a 3 terabyte external hard drive, you should keep electronic backups of all your important files. you never know when your laptop will crash, get a virus or go missing. and make sure you keep your backup storage in a safe place

as an aside: if anyone's looking at apartments in baltimore/anne arundel (or wants information about an area), check out apartment ratings and police statistics data (typically, reported online by each county). i've found both to be quite useful in my searches. i'll step down from my box now :) hope your weeks are fabulous