Apple's New iPhone

At the risk of sounding judgmental, I have to admit that the whole time I was reading this article and watching the included video, the expression "shitforbrains" kept popping into my head. I suspect that if the people involved knew me and knew much about me, they would be thinking the same of me for a whole different set of reasons.

Lightning

Back when I worked for the local electric utility company, there was a lot of talk about lightning. There were even people whose job it was to use a computer program to keep a data base on lightning strikes. Lightning is a definite concern for electric utilities in the southeastern USA.

Recently, it became a definite concern for me as well. On Saturday April 24th, about mid morning, a single stroke of lightning burned out my desktop computer, cable modem, wireless router, magicjack and digital TV converter. There had been a moderate thunderstorm earlier in the morning and I had turned off and unplugged the computer while it was going on. I did that because in 2009 I had lost three desktop computers during a thunderstorm. Anyway, the thunderstorm on the 24th had passed, I thought, and I had hooked the computer back up and was reading some emails when there was a bright flash, a wisp of smoke from the computer and a deafening clap of thunder all simultaneously.

It has taken me until this week to get everything back working. I've got my fingers crossed but I have also been shopping for some surge protection.