In case some of you were wondering why I wasn't responding this week,
my communications were temporarily decommissioned (to put it
mildly). No one hurt here, the MGA still has its attitude, but the
house and phones and computer took a beating This is my first
moments back on line, so have patience if it takes a while to get
caught up with pending mail.
About 6:50 pm Saturday lightening hit my house, took a very small
bite out of one corner of the roof, started a tiny little smoulder
under the roof sheathing. Firemen siezed the incentive to cut a five
foot hole in the roof to uncork one square foot of smouldering
plywood. Otherwise just a couple of hand cans of water and no hose,
so no significant fire or water damage, and they were gone in less
than an hour. Just that it's likely to take a week or two to get the
roof back together. I rushed to RadioShack just before closing time
to pick up a cell phone so I could call the insurance company and
phone repair service and keep in touch until the land lines could be restotred.
Closer inspection reveals that the lightening took out a lot of phone
wiring, some line filters, a few telephones, an answering maching,
and a driveway lighting transformer. Since the phone wire plugs into
ny computer, that was also toast, having fried two modems, an
ethernet card and the mother board (and one laser printer). Well, it
was an old computer anyway.
The claims adjuster didn't get around on the weekend, so I couldn't
tamper with much for a couple of days. I got the priorities right
and took a nce casual tour with the MG club on Sunday. Adjuster gave
the place a once over on Monday. Phone crew worked on the outside
wiring Monday afternoon, and inside Tuestay morning. Monday evening
I picked up a new computer and got started on the conversion
grind. No harm to the old hard drive(s) so I was able to recover all data.
With a phone line and computer running I found a toasted DSL
modem. That killed a few more hours Tuesday, finally bought a new
DSL modem to avoid the wait for delivery of a warrantee unit. I
stopped to pick up a bag full of driveway lighting hardware and a bag
full of replacement phones and filters and to field several phone
calls about repair work. Then I have been sitting here half the
night getting enough software working on the new op-sys to get back
on line 3-1/2 days after the big bang.
I know this will take three weeks out of my life to get back on even
ground with the computer, but I'm getting better at it with every
computer crash. Rather like the fourth or fifth time you have to
pull an engine out of your MG, still a daunting task, but not so
scarry any more. There's a bright side too. Insurance will put a
new roof on the upper half of my house, and my computer magically got
several years newer.with very little out of pocket.
Then again, when it rains it pours. I also lost first and reverse in
the MGA during the Sunday cruise, so that'll sop up another day,
hopefuly within the next week. Meanwhile I'm back, and some of you
didn't even miss me.
Barney Gaylord
1958 MGA with an attitude
http://MGAguru.com
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