I clocked off work a bit earlier than usual that fateful Thursday; I had managed to drag my sorry self out of bed before my usual time, thus I had more time in my afternoon to enjoy the sudden rain storm. Holly and Emma were out at a swimming party, ironic that the heavens would open up to overflow our gutters and flood our streets with their thirst quenching rain. I opened a couple of windows, grabbed a fiction magazine I have been wanting to read and set my mind upon relaxing. Before I could even sit down and settle in a loud explosion crashed through my neighborhood: the freak rain storm was in truth a thunder storm. Even better! We don't get much in the way of thunder and lightning, and it's always a treat to watch it from a safe distance.

The thunder was growing louder, more menacing, and combined with the vicious wind and the drenching onslaught of even more water I grew a bit nervous. I was in the precautionary process of turning off and unplugging equipment when it happened. A loud boom right over my house near simultaneous with a brief but intense flash of pure white rattled my senses. Immediately I was was assaulted by the shrill ringing of bells akin to that of a home alarm, preceded by four firecracker pops coming from my garage. It took me a moment to realize the alarm which we never use was the source of the bells; another moment passed before my brain was able to connect the right synapses and I tore off into the garage to rediscover which breaker to flip to silence that annoying and utterly useless ringing.

Stress does mighty strange things to people. In this instance it caused me to not even see there were breakers that were tripped. Mind you, it wasn't that I didn't notice them, nor that I ignored the fact that some were not like the others. I didn't even see them. It was not until some hours later while utterly heartbroken that our new-to-us range was dead that I thought to take stock of the state of everything in the breaker box (and lo the range was fine once I restored power to it).

Being the former SysAdmin that I am, and all around geek, the first thing I did was look in my office to ensure my UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply, or battery backup) had worked as advertised. I was happy to see my iMac was running as if nothing had happened. I then began going about the house checking things, this soon grew into an inventory of the dead. It was an odd list, for the things we found dead were plugged into surge protectors, and other gear on the same strip were unscathed. Our cordless phone was dead, our DSL modem was damaged, a network switch was dead, our garage door opener would not respond, and to my utter horror and total dismay my server was down and not resurrecting. This was the most troubling part as it was most assuredly plugged into the UPS, and yet no matter how many times I pushed the power button it was silent to my pleas.

I am no ordinary geek I suppose. I self-host just about everything, meaning all my web pages, email, and chat rooms are on my server in my house under my complete control. In a sense a goodly part of my life is wrapped up in this server. I've taken reasonable precautions to protect my data and my services, but it is heart-rending when all your careful plans and protective measures are circumvented without the least bit of effort. It was devastating to look at the list of things in our house that we had come to rely on that we needed to replace, and even more disheartening considering what it would cost to replace them. There is nothing quite so stressful and depressing as having to decide what not to fix or replace or worse, what to deprive your child of. This is the month that Emma outgrows her car seat, and due to legislation we are forced to buy a new one at a cost roughly equivalent to the repairs to my server (in a worst-case scenario). And all this happened a mere two days before Emma's first birthday.

I am still in the process of fixing and replacing things. I'm finding that some of my equipment was under a two year warranty, and being 14 months old that's a blessing. My UPS has an equipment protection program wherein if it failed they will fix or reimburse my dead server. Sadly I could not wait for that 30 day process, so I ordered replacement parts and have my server up and running. It was then, after the stress chemicals laying siege to my brain subsided, that it dawned upon me that the majority of our dead equipment was all connected to the phone line (or wired network). This I fear will mean my UPS worked perfectly and I did not protect my data lines. I suspect a surge of electricity screamed up through my phone line on a search-and-destroy mission.

There is a silver lining in all of this. The damage done to our DSL modem made it impossible to get my wired network onto the Internet. Were it not for a little bit of lateral thinking and a spare iBook (which we are trying to sell) I would not have been able to even reliably do my job. We contacted Qwest, since we had seen advertisements of fiber Internet available in Salem; my thought was if we could upgrade to fiber we might need a new modem, and we'd use that one, otherwise I'd have to go buy a new one anyway. To my sheer joy they were offering 5 times the bandwidth we had for only $4 more a month; to sweeten the offer that price was locked in for life. Not only this but I have a brand new UPS courtesy of the manufacturer as part of the claims process, meaning I got a new battery for the cost of shipping.

I fear I will be fixing things for another week yet, but I have not yet decided if this has put a damper on my enthusiasm for storms. I'll protect my phone and data lines now, but I think I'll still eagerly embrace any storms that come my way and enjoy the spectacle. What will be will be, and Job has taught me to accept whatever God wills, even if it seems as if my utter destruction is at hand. The best thing of all is my family is alive and well through this, and Emma only looked a bit concerned when she arrived home, but Holly reported she was silent and didn't wail. I think God might have given us a brave little girl, perhaps even a dare-devil.