Almost Back

The grey pin on the map below is for "Dragon Way Farm".

Remember this Yard Critter post about horses? Well those horses were on Dragon Way Farm.

And the white triangle in the blue circle. That's our place. 

Not good.

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July 6th. Not a good night.

It started out ok, with lots of lightning off in the distance. I like lightning. When it is off in the distance.

When it hits the power pole at the end of my driveway, not so much. 

Not good.

I woke up around midnight and noticed the clock was off. Not good.  I rolled over and went back to sleep. But it was just a matter of time. Until the alarms started going off. The alarm for the the sump pump, telling me the system was on the back up battery (an alarm that can't be turned off. WTF!! I know the power's out, there is nothing I can do. Grrr ...). The alarm for the alarm system, telling me the power is out. Thanks. At least this one can be turned off. As can the alarms on the UPS systems, telling me the batteries are drained.

Both UPS systems failed by the way. APC units. I won't be buying that brand anymore.

Not good.

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When I took the screen shot shown above, it had an estimated power restore time of 10:00 am. 

Always take the over. Always.

Around 9:00 am a truck pulled up. A Comcast truck. They have a large box on the pole. It was not in good shape. "The transformer's blown", the Comcast guy said. Not good.

Then he hooked up a generator.

It was not enough.

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A JCP&L truck came to a stop at the end of my driveway. A little before ten. Myself and my neighbor went to see what was going on. 

"Move back fellas", he called out from up in the bucket, "I'm gonna try to recharge this transformer. There could be a loud bang." We moved away. There was a loud bang. He tried again. There was a second loud bang. He came back down. "That's not good," he said, "the transformer's blown."

Not good.

It you took the over ...

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... you won!

A 4:00 pm they arrived in force. Two bucket trucks. Three pickups.

They were quite efficient. One guy went up to remove the blown transformer, seen here in the truck driving away.

And the other bucket operator was bobbing and weaving amongst the trees and wires to winch up the new transformer.

They were done by 5:00.

My fun was just starting.

Not good.

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The good news, we had power.

The bad ...

... the alarm for the sump pump would continue until the battery was recharged ... through the night.

... my cable modem, on a UPS and surge suppressor unit, was non-operational.

... my Mac mini, on a different UPS and surge suppressor unit, on a different circuit, was non-operational.

... Both were APC units ...

... but, most everything else plugged into these units, and other surge suppressors, survived.

...  I lost a hard drive enclosure, but the four drives inside seem to be ok. But I wouldn't learn that until I got my Mac mini back.

... and one of the APC units was now showing that the battery had failed. And the battery isn't user replaceable. Not that I'd want to. That alarm ended when I unplugged it.

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I ordered a new modem and router, Comcast told me my old one was obsolete anyway.

The Mac went to the Apple store ... and three weeks later came home.

In the mean time ... July 21. Around 2:30 PM. 

Not good.

💥 ⚡️ BAM! ⚡️💥

Power is out. Thunder outside and inside.

A GFI outlet blown. As was my brand new router. I actually heard a loud bang in my office, over by the router.

Not good.

The power was restored that day, although if you took the over you're on a winning streak.

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The Mac mini arrived home last Friday. The offsite backup drive had arrived the day before (Backblaze, check them out).

The new (non-APC) UPS unit is up and running as are the new modem and new new router (Comcast was right, they are better than the old modem). Update: the new UPS unit is failing with a charger fault. Not good. 

Today my new surge suppressor arrived.

Tomorrow my new drive enclosure arrives.  (Two stand alone hard drives are acting flakey, and will need to be replaced, but they are redundant drives, with on and off site backups, so I'm not too worried. Still - not good.)

And then I'll be 100%-ish back.

And that is a good thing.