So this blows

"jariten1781" (jariten1781) 06/13/2014 at 10:49 • Filed to: None

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Lightning hit one of my neighbors trees Wednesday night and apparently arced into the power lines. Sounded like a canon went off and shook the wholeI didn't realize the extent of the damage until I got home from work last night. The FIOS OTN box is completely fried, my phone is toast, fridge is down, microwave dead, and my main laptop kaput. HVAC, TV, game systems, 3 other computers, wife's phone are all fine. It must have been a really strange excursion because none of the breakers flipped...Voltage only? Dunno. The laptop was on an UPS, the OTN box had a dedicated surge protector, microwave and fridge are on dedicated breakers.

How is this car related? Well, it means I probably will miss Le Mans. That blows, had been looking forward to it all year as normal. No internet and no phone mean I'll be totally disconnected. Already scanned to see if any of my neighbors had unprotected Wifi with no joy. Also car related, my battery tender got fried.

Electrician will be out in the morning to make sure there's no hidden damage and all the breakers are actually functioning. Verizon gave me a window of 7am to 9pm to be out to fix the OTN. Thanks for the well defined time guys. If they show up early I'll be in business, but if not I guess I'll play GT5 or something to stifle my annoyance.

Also I'm going to have to go talk to the neighbor who's extremely combative and normally wasted to get him to bring the tree down. It's pretty destroyed and I doubt it will live. I have no desire for that thing to come down next time it gets windy and take out my fence. This will probably be a losing battle because: 1. He's always drunk and won't remember it; 2. He does no yard maintenance (waits for the county warning to mow, has at least 8 inches of leaves in the backyard because he never clears them); 3. it's ~60ft tall so that ain't going to be cheap and I don't think he has a lot of free funds.

And there's my whining for the day.

shop-teacher > jariten1781 06/13/2014 at 10:53

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That sucks!

PS9 > jariten1781 06/13/2014 at 10:59

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So you gonna share with us what exactly you did to piss off Thor?

Mattbob > jariten1781 06/13/2014 at 11:00

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surge protectors FTW. That is what they are for. Breakers aren't for real fast voltage spikes, they are for large current draws. Also see if you can get the appropriate authorities to tell him to take it down because it is a hazard. Good luck, and remember to use protection (surge protectors) next time.

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > jariten1781 06/13/2014 at 11:07

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God dammit, I've been on Twitter too much and you say "FIOS" and I immediately think "fault in our stars" which I am so glad finally came out so I can stop HEARING ABOUT IT.

jariten1781 > Mattbob 06/13/2014 at 11:10

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Microwave and fridge were not on surge protectors. Computer, OTN, and phone were. Granted the phone's was a cheapo chinese strip that may or may not do anything even though it has a protection light. The others were on decent, relatively new APC units. I got hit 50/50 either way.

Mattbob > jariten1781 06/13/2014 at 11:11

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I'm sure you already checked, but did you check the surge protectors to see if they just needed to be reset?

jariten1781 > Mattbob 06/13/2014 at 11:20

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Yep, reset everything. The surge protectors are still functioning as well and I believe the APCs are supposed to fail open on a catastrophic fault. I'll be replacing them anyway.

Mattbob > jariten1781 06/13/2014 at 11:24

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ahh. About the laptop, Is it the laptop, or just the power supply? I would think that just the supply would go. Then again if it is non isolated it might take the computer too.

M54B30 > jariten1781 06/13/2014 at 11:32

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I had this happen to a neighbors house a few years ago. I happened to be outside when it happened (it hit about 35 feet away and 15 feet up from me) and it scared the hell out of me.

It caused the power line going through the tree to shoot off a shower of sparks for about 30 minutes

jariten1781 > Mattbob 06/13/2014 at 11:34

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Definitely the laptop itself. I haven't had time to mess with it a bunch but I was able to get it to POST and into the BIOS. Won't go into the boot cycle though. Tried CD, an Ubuntu live stick, and the hard-drive. Was too tired to futz around with it after that, but that's my project for this evening. I always have lots of parts laying around so I'm hoping I can cudgel it back together without too much of an issue.

jariten1781 > PS9 06/13/2014 at 11:43

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I do feed crows. Perhaps he and Odin are having some sort of disagreement and I got to bear the brunt of his anger.

Mattbob > jariten1781 06/13/2014 at 12:13

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weird, if you can get it to post, then you should be able to get it working. Maybe memory fried?

Ferrero1911 > jariten1781 06/13/2014 at 14:32

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That sucks man. I hope it all gets fixed in time for Le Mans. I have some friends that have had this happen to their house twice. Both times it fried all their appliances. Home owners insurance should pay for it right?

jariten1781 > Mattbob 06/13/2014 at 15:21

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I'm guessing it's that or maybe a capacitor or something popped. I haven't really played around with computers since leaving the industry back in 2004 (used to work for DEC, then Compaq, then HP) so if I end up having to open it up I may get some PTSD.

jariten1781 > Ferrero1911 06/13/2014 at 15:30

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It would but my deductible is pretty high so I won't be going that way. I'm a tinkerer so I'll probably end up trying to fix it all. I've had luck with my HVAC system getting it running after the repair guys told me it was impossible so I'm hoping I can get this stuff put back together for the price of something like a few capacitors or something.

Worse comes to worst I get some shiny new appliances. Wife'd be happy with that. Just means I'd have to put off the garage expansion for a bit.

Axial > jariten1781 06/13/2014 at 23:30

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Hey, but at least it sounded fucking incredible for a second, so there's that.