MattDanTodd Land is on Fire…no, seriously!

After returning home from Asheville, the family was exhausted and a little sore from walking around all day. Anyway, the kids went to bed fairly early and Christy took a bath to soothe her leg muscles. I began to post an entry about the day for all to see.

As I finished typing (it was a really well-written post…I promise!), Christy came into the office to say something to me after putting on her PJs. She went back into the bedroom and I began to smell something. It sure smelled like the ‘illegal’ sparklers we had used on the 4th.

“Did you just light a candle or a sparkler or something?” I asked – wondering what on earth would possess her to light a sparkler inside.

“No.”

“Well, I smell something.”

“I don’t smell anything.”

“You’re kidding me. You mean you don’t smell that? It smells like sparklers!” By this point I started to panic a little bit because I could definitely smell it and I was starting to get a little light-headed. What’s wrong with me? Am I having a stroke or something? I thought to myself. I stood up to start looking for the smell and got a little dizzy.

Then I saw it.

Smoke was coming out from under our computer desk. That’s right – I said smoke.

I jumped under the desk and began to unplug anything and everything that was under there. The smoke stopped, but we had no idea where it came from. I felt around for a while and nothing felt unusually warm. After a few minutes, the smoke smell was still pretty strong so I kept looking for the source. I finally decided to smell the vent on the back of our computer. The smoke was super-strong, so I took off the cover. I found the culprit. Looks like a wire got too hot for some reason. According to the computer techs on the phone, this is only supposed to happen during a lightning strike or a power surge – neither of which happened Saturday night. Long story short – I’ve been told how to repair it and it shouldn’t cost too much money and it shouldn’t take too long to do – I just have to find the time to do it.

After I discovered that it was the computer that was the source of the smoke, I realized there wasn’t much else I could do that night, so I tried to go to bed. First, I kept worrying about all of the pictures and documents we have on the computer that could have been in danger. After looking at it again yesterday, I don’t think any of that stuff would have been damaged, but we’ll know soon enough.

Then I started to think about the timing of the whole thing. What if that had happened when we weren’t home? Or what if we were asleep and couldn’t get to it before it turned into a fire? What if…what if…what if…

Let’s just say I didn’t have a very good night’s sleep Saturday night. I’m thankful that everyone is OK and our computer should be able to be fixed soon.

Needless to say, posts will probably be sparse over the next few days until we’re up and running again at home.

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