Kissing about $10k goodbye.

We had a thunderstorm this weekend. A huge, nasty thunderstorm. It's Saturday morning, I'm taking my Integra in for an oil change and it's about 70 degrees outside. Beautiful and sunny. I pull into the shop, and my buddy Rich goes out for a smoke. I linger by the car, always watchful for the presence of that one bastard mechanic who will "accidentally" jab a flathead screwdriver into some tender area of my car and then explain that the hole was already there, but that I shouldn't worry because they can fix it for $100.

As I'm standing by my car, I hear the all too familiar sound of rain on sheet metal. Not much of it, yet. Richie's cigarette isn't even burned down halfway (For those of you who don't smoke, an average cigarette takes about 5-6 minutes to finish). It's still sunny out.

[Editor's note] The next three minutes have been removed, as they are completely boring, and would be a waste of your time to read.

Richie's cigarette is now finished. There are torrents of water rushing down the sides of the road, and my oil change is done. (6 minute oil change. Kickass.) We get in the car and start the 15 block journey back to my apartment. Most of this drive was done in a state of blindness, due to the fact that the windshield wipers couldn't respond fast enough to the vast amounts of water that seemed magnetically attracted to them.

I flick on the right blinker to pull into the apartment complex. The right front tire touches the outer limits of the parking lot, and as if synchronized to some all-powerful weather device, the rain stops. No, I didn't say it was drizzling, or that it slowed down a little. There was no longer any water falling out of the sky. None. By the time we get to my parking spot (about 40 seconds later), the majority of the sky was blue. How much a mindfuck is that? Seriously.

So I come into work today at 9:00 AM, and nothing works. Hm....... call IT.

I pick up the phone and dial the extension.

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IT: "Yeah, what's up?"

Me: "Yeah, not sure if you guys know or not, but the entire server seems to be down..."

IT: "Uh, yeah. I just noticed it. [Laughs]"

Me: "So..... why isn't it working?"

IT: "Ya know, I was just wondering the same thing."

Me: "Do we have an ETA?"

IT: "Well, like I said..... oh, hold on, I got someone on the other line."

[Editor's note] The next two minutes have been removed. Chris spent the majority of this time staring at his computer screen, drooling slightly on his keyboard. He may need a TardGuard(TM).

IT: "You still there?"

ME: "Yeah, what's up?"

IT: "I guess the air conditioning in the server room broke last night and the temperature is pushing 105 degrees. All the machines are blown. We think it's because of the thunderstorm yesterday. Probably won't be fixed until tomorrow."
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Even though I got the distinct impression that the IT person I was speaking to had an IQ similar to that of a fruit fly, I have to give the rest of his team credit. They managed to find and replace the fried parts in all of the machines that weren't completely blown and get them up and running by mid afternoon. That, along with the server boxes they had to completely replace, and the air conditioning system took the company for about $10k. And I got to go home early.