Electronics dependency

Finally! Back online.

About a week ago, our house was struck by lightning. It was during a weird thunder-sleet storm.

In a split second, we lost nearly every electronic device in our house, plus some in the shop and the barn.

It hit with a blinding flash accompanied by a deafening crash that brought Maddie screaming out of the basement. After a quick look around, we discovered the tv, stereo, tivo, and dvd player were toast. We also found one of our dogs, Murtagh, who has an unreasonable fear of loud noises, under Maddie’s bed.

It was not a comfortable night, I can tell you. The scent of burned plastic and ozone hung in the air, reminding us that there could be some little spark, somewhere in the house, that wasn’t quite history. I kept waking up, expecting to smell smoke, but luckily, that didn’t happen.

Since then, we have also found that the phone line was fried, along with the satellite radio and stereo out in the shop, and the fence charger down in the barn.

The internet guys were out today and they discovered our wireless router was pretty much melted. They did get us connected back to the net, however, which is a big relief.

I suspect that somehow Keith engineered the whole thing. He’s been lobbying for months now to get a new, big flatscreen tv. I felt that our old tv was quite good, and big enough, but Keith has really been wanting a new one.

Finally, awhile back, I offered a compromise – I’d give my full agreement for getting a new flat screen if he replaced his four-foot-tall 1970’s-era speakers (all of them) with some of those tiny, very efficient new speakers they have on the market now. Some of them can even be flush-mounted into a wall, or placed high in corners of the room.

He didn’t want any part of that, however, so we were at a stalemate. Well, we were until that lightning strike. You probably have already figured out that the first thing that was replaced was our tv – and with a nice new flat screen.

I’m still working on the speakers.