And, um, well, huh...

So, my wife swears to me that she tried plugging the computer into all the other outlets on the surge protector strip. I have no reason not to believe her. After talking to my friend Joe, who is one of those people who know a little bit about everything, I was convinced that it would be a quick, easy fix to get the old computer box back up and running.

I had no idea how easy it would be to fix.

I came home and did all my evening duties and then decided it was time to take the computer to Best Buy to get fixed. I tried turning it on once more, with no success. Well, I took everything apart and carried the box downstairs where I decided I'd try the computer in one of the outlets in the kitchen.

On it came.

I don't know what I did. Maybe it was the three pennies I shook out of it (my son has a love of pushing coins into places they don't belong...my old VCR rattles like a piggy bank), maybe it was when I tried to pull the CD-ROM drive open to recover my Civ III disk (I figured I didn't need a lawsuit on my hands as well as a broken computer when some goom at Best Buy scratched my game all up). I got it open a bit, but couldn't recover the disk. Maybe pushing it back open flipped some internal switch.

Needless to say, I'm now back online at home and looking to finish that chapter I started last night. As for how I'm recovered, I have no earthly clue.