{"id":1698,"date":"2008-06-06T11:00:44","date_gmt":"2008-06-06T16:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=1698"},"modified":"2008-06-06T10:14:07","modified_gmt":"2008-06-06T15:14:07","slug":"zap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=1698","title":{"rendered":"“Zap”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Planet Earth,<\/p>\n

You owe me a new wireless router and a network interface card. <\/p>\n

Do be more careful with the lightning bolts in the future. I don’t really see a need for such dramatics. <\/p>\n

Your humble inhabitant,<\/p>\n

Shamus<\/p>\n

P.S. Lose the humidity. It sucks.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It was a really freaky storm. Most of the day was sunny, with smothering humidity. We heard the low rumbles in the distance as the storm went through its warmups. It was still during work hours and the storm sounded a ways off, so I didn’t worry about it. I usually power down during really bad storms, but this didn’t sound like much so I ignored it and kept working.<\/p>\n

Then there was a single devastating crack<\/em>. I powered everything down. There was twenty minutes of rain, and then it all cleared up again. Ignoring the rumblings in the distance, that single lightning bolt was the only one. But it sounded close<\/em>.<\/p>\n

When I brought the power back on I discovered that my wireless router was screwed up, as well as the built-in network card in my computer. The computers themselves are behind multiple surge protectors, but (duh) the router itself was plugged in directly to the wall. The lightning found and exploited that weakness in my defenses. <\/p>\n

This is annoying, but I count myself very<\/em> lucky. The odds of getting struck by lightning are low, but once it happens the odds that it will only obliterate part<\/em> of a computer are even lower. This network card is built into the motherboard, which means a flood of untamed energy came in and then stopped once it had destroyed the cheapest and most easily replaceable integrated component. It took me longer to isolate the problem than it did to swap in a network card from another machine. <\/p>\n

The spike or surge or whatever it was also blew a circuit breaker for the kitchen, which won’t reset. <\/p>\n

Strange thing to have happen. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Planet Earth, You owe me a new wireless router and a network interface card. Do be more careful with the lightning bolts in the future. I don’t really see a need for such dramatics. Your humble inhabitant, Shamus P.S. Lose the humidity. It sucks. It was a really freaky storm. Most of the day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}