Entry 105 - Single Point of Failure: Acts of God and PoE

Single Point of Failure: Acts of God and PoE

Perhaps only the RSS feeds noticed, but hinkybox was down yesterday due to the unfortunate mixture of technology and the wrath of mother nature.

Yes, it would seem that the devastatingly beautiful lightning storm that plodded through the Maryland region on Monday night was too much for my hodgepodge MacGyver-approved network to bear.  I was quite concerned when I walked in my front door to a sharp snoutful of ozone, not unlike what one might encounter in an arcwelding shop, and soon I discovered that not only was my cable modem a handy new paperweight, but my beloved monster of a firewall, hinkystein002, also had bitten the proverbial dust. A motherboard, a NIC, and a CPU was the final body count. This was not the introduction to PoE, or Power over Ethernet I was hoping for.

Alas, being both industrious and perennially surrounded by old computers, I was able to rebuild the firewall in about 2 hours. Yes, the stopgap solution involved a bit of duct tape; then again, I've never met a good stopgap that didn't.

The cable modem, however, required a trip to the local sundry Mart and a cumulative two hours of holding with the fine folks at Comcast. Yes, I heard Kenny Roger's The Gambler FOUR times.

But I'm back, dammit, and all this networkin' schoolin' has, at least in this case, paid off. :) ◊