A New Meaning to Working Oneself to Death

I was nearly struck by lightning today. As you know, we have a laptop set up, along with two televisions, in our tent at the County Fair. Since the computer is on dial-up, it's hooked into a phone jack that hangs from the roof of the tent (where the wall and roof meet). We had had various rumblings of thunder and lightning throughout the early afternoon and none of the Information Services staff said anything about unplugging equipment, so I didn't think to unplug the modem during the day. Sure enough, while I was writing in my journal, I caught a bright flash of light out of the corner of my eye and heard a popping sound. That was followed by a very loud, prolonged crashing of thunder. My co-workers thought I was still taking pictures until I walked from behind the table looking pretty shooken up. No one wanted to sit near the computer and television equipment after that even though I had unplugged everything. When the weather cleared for a bit later on, I turned stuff back on only to find out that the modem had been fried. I'm hoping they'll replace it tomorrow. And this was a lesson learned...