[Taceas]

I'm here, kinda. =P

I went and puchased a Verizon Wireless Broadband Access PC card for the laptop, since it was disconnected at the time and suffered no damage (thankfully).

The wireless internet unit is on a 30' extension pole that's mounted on top of our 35' tv antenna, to get above the trees surrounding our property to get a clear shot of town where the main ISP unit is on our local radio station's tower.

I had just gotten in from gardening and called the dog to come in just as it hit, and went to turn on the tv to see about the weather since it was 6:30ish and thats when they have the weather on our local news. I no sooner got the tv turned on and an instantaneous flash-boom hit. The power stayed on, but the tv in the kitchen went dead. I tried to turn it back on, nada. So I unplugged it and plugged it back in and it turned on, but the tv antenna or coax is clearly shot as I didn't get any signal. The tv in the basement has this funky magenta & lime green flame design (ironic I know), even while watching VHS or DVD, so I'm pretty sure it's shot. Just bought it the day after Christmas.

I went downstairs and tried to turn my computer on, nothing. All of the peripherals work, but you push the power button and its dead in the water. Both mine and Matthew's relatively new custom built computer are dead. I can't see any burn marks on the ethernet card or the motherboard, so who knows what's wrong.

We called the insurance company today and they said they would have an adjuster call us and they would have to take the computers to determine what exactly is bad (cheap-butts) so goodness knows when we might get our computers back or what they might even replace. But as is typical with insurance companies, the adjuster never called back.

The internet company is supposed to come on Friday afternoon to determine what damage has been done and maybe replace the unit. It'll be $268 out of pocket for a new receiver-transmitter and replacement of the ethernet wire into the house. But they said homeowners would more than likely cover that when we filed our claim. They're also going to install a $25 surge protection unit for the ethernet cable, something I think they should have done when they put it up 2 years ago.

But where the coax for the tv signal came in the house under the soffett/eave the area surrounding the coax is blackened by smoke/fire, something not too terribly comforting. The contacts on the ethernet wire from the internet is blackened and charred as well, no clue if our router is still good or not.

The storm yesterday was pretty peculiar, it was dark as hell and it blew like a hurricane. There were some pretty strong down drafts and it was blowing straight from the west and the rain was pretty fine but a LOT of it, we got over an inch in about 20-30 mins. The lightning was like nothing I've never seen before, it was so intense and close. The left side of my truck was plastered with dead leaves and wild cherry blossoms that were blown from the west and it knocked a large maple tree over our road.

So that's my status. It sucks not having your own computer. =/