I sleep like a rock. I always sleep through thunderstorms and have been known to sleep through a pretty good size rockslide. However, nature has trained me to wake at the tiniest little tinkle of a dog tag or click of toenails on the floor. You see: from previous experience, we close the dog door at night. If a dog is wondering around, that is a sure sign that they gotta go. And since we have had pretty good success with keeping the potty outside,
I have really become accustomed to waking at the smallest dog noise.
So last night when I heard tinkle click click I got up. Both dogs were up (which is odd. Usually only Arlo has the tiny bladder.) I took them out and a tiny little voice in my head said "what's that smell?". They tinkled and came back in. Again: "what's that smell?" Had I been a little more focused... or had my glasses on... or turned on the light... I probably would have noticed the acrid smoke that was beginning to fill the room. But the smell of melting plastic and hot hot hot electronics was really starting to wake me up.
Ellie Mae and I started poking around and noticed the "server" was no longer powered on. Ellie says "The TiVo is off too." At this point I began to panic: No TV!
I looked behind the TV and the UPS had every single LED lit on it in a way that just does not occur. I mean: how can you have over voltage and undervoltage and normal voltage and low battery? I felt of it: smokin hot. I unplugged it. Now the funny thing about UPS's is that unplugging them really doesnt help. They sort of have their own source of power. So I tried to turn it off. The power switch is right there by all of the lights that physically cannot all be on at the same time. I like to call that part "the melted brain". It wont power off.
So here I am at 2:15 in the morning out on the driveway in my underwear, disassembling a burning UPS to try to power it down. Nice image, huh? Anyway, here are the early morning photos. I am sure that if I had not awoken Lassie would have started howling that Timmy was in the well. I am sure of it.
