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Jani Zoom

@janizoom

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I said good day. I like stuff and the American rat terrier dog. God bless Latvia. 🇺🇸🇱🇻
Camera operator. Day wine drinker. @mr.bossy_the_rat_terrier

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Latvia. Kuldīga and jaunpils castle. #Latvia #kuldīga by @janizoom

This is the progress so far on our rebuild. It’s going up fast and hopefully we will be back in by this fall. It’s very strange walking around the rooms that will be our home soon. It’s completely different than our old two bedroom 1940s house, only a little bigger but a smaller footprint to give us more yard …we did not get to hire an architect and design our dream house but right now our dream is just to get back home and this house will be amazing when it’s done. We will have great views of the city and the mountains above now too. #altadena by @janizoom

A photographer took our picture at our “house” recently… We break ground in a couple days on a new house. It’s definitely been interesting staying in our burned out neighborhood for a good portion of the last year. I won’t miss it though. This year can’t go by fast enough. #altadena #eatoncanyonfire #homesweethome @kevincooley_ by @janizoom

8 years of college, over 25 years of operating a camera for a living and this is where I’m at. Wrestling a big penguin on stage. #valorant #vct #payingthebills by @janizoom

One year ago today almost to the minute I stood outside my house and took a shot of the wind blowing around the big oak trees in my front yard. I loved those trees. They held squirrels that tormented my dogs, bobcats that looked down on us at night, decorations for Halloween and Christmas I even tried to make wreaths to wear on our heads on Latvian holidays. … they are gone now. We only took a few things that night cause we had never had to evacuate before. Rebecca kept putting things in the car and I told her to stop because we would be right back. We went to a hotel for the night. By morning everything would be gone, even the giant oaks that had seemed invincible. I’m still angry no one came to fight the fire. People all over Altadena fought to save their houses while the “fire fighters” stood by and did nothing. My biggest regret is not staying to try to save my house. …The months that followed were not much better. We were left to chase looters out on our own with little police presence. A year later and we are still here on a muddy lot. No house yet. The things we treasured did not magically return. We have been featured in media articles which is weird but I’m proud of rebecca for all the hard work she’s put in helping our community rebuild. …We still have a while to go living this nightmare but at least we made it out alive and are moving forward with getting back in a home. #altadena by @janizoom

#altadena by @janizoom

This year has been rough but I still have a lot to be thankful for. People I have not seen in years or even met have been extremely generous and compassionate to us and I’m very thankful for that. I have the hardest working wife who will work non stop and has been interviewed by magazines, news papers and been on Podcasts for her work helping people rebuild even though she hates attention. I’m thankful she’s ok living out of a small rv most of the time. . I’m thankful for my dogs who have adapted to a life of constant change. We are lucky we are going to be able to rebuild a house and hopefully this time next year it will be done. by @janizoom

We have not taken our rv many places this year. We mostly just stay in it where our house was. .. but we finally used it for its intended purpose. Parking it at a winery with the intent of being over served and forgetting about our problems. #winnebagolife #tobinjameswinery #pasorobles #jani by @janizoom

We live here now. Our house has shrunk and it has wheels. ….It was important for us to replace our rv right away as an escape from dealing with losing everything. We have not used it much to travel but we stay in it a lot to get a break from city apartment life. I will trade being woken up by the owls and coyotes over the traffic noise any day. Hopefully we will get an actual house here again someday but until then this will have to do. #winnebagolife #winnebagoview #ratterrier #jani by @janizoom

The last thing I found before our “house” was cleared was my father’s ring from college. I had been digging in a spot looking for his namejs (Latvian ring) but this was all I found. Everyone keeps telling me it’s just stuff. But until you are crawling around on your hands and knees in a white jump suit looking for any broken piece of pottery or melted piece of metal to keep… I don’t think you can understand what it means to loose absolutely everything you own. Having our lot cleared is bitter sweet. It was a pile of burnt junk but there was still hope of finding little things… but now on to the next step. Hopefully we can rebuild but not sure that’s possible. #altadena by @janizoom

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has reached out to check on us, donated to our gofundme or just offered help. I am sorry if I don’t get back to everyone’s messages or thank you personally. I owe a lot of people hugs ( and if you know me you know how I feel about hugs) … I don’t even know how to express how much everyone’s generosity has meant. We went back for a bit yesterday to see if we could save anything. There was nothing but a couple random burnt up things we took as souvenirs. I don’t want to go back while it’s like this I don’t like seeing my neighborhood so destroyed. by @janizoom

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone that’s reached out and offered to help us. We are ok, our needs are met right now. Rebecca’s work has been kind enough to offer us an apartment while we figure things out. We have insurance and have been getting that all figured out. It’s going to be a while before things get back to any kind of normal but we will be fine. This was our drive up through our neighborhood before they closed it all off. Even more was gone the next day when we snuck back in. #altadena #altadenafire by @janizoom