It's just a thing, right?
Things can be replaced, right?
What thing am I talking about?
That’s a frustrating story, but I think I'm ready to tell it.
I arrived back in Cambodia from my whirl-wind trip to the US on May 31. My trip was for the sole purpose of taking the boys back to the US and getting them settled. We got driver’s licenses, registered Troy for college, delivered Tyler to Camp His Way, and various other things, but that’s all for another blog post. Suffice it to say that the trip had very little down time and I was looking forward to getting back into some sort of routine, although we’d be venturing into new territory as empty-nesters.
My first week back was not what I hoped. Each day of that first week back had its own challenge. (brings to mind Matthew 6:34 – don’t worry about tomorrow…each day has enough trouble of its own) Anyway, most of the issues were things that just had to be prayed over or worked out or patiently left for time to heal, but one in particular is a financial blow for us.
On Wednesday of my first week back at work, I began my day at my desk as usual. As I pulled out my laptop, I thought about plugging it in. I didn’t want to deal with the plug blocking my desk drawers, but I remembered that Wednesdays are a long and full day with meetings back to back from lunch on through the rest of the day. I knew that by lunch my battery would be low and I’d wish that I had plugged in. So, I decided to be proactive and plug in my laptop.
As I got the laptop started up, a message came in on my phone. As I sat there dealing with things on my phone, my laptop was just open on my desk with the “desk top” screen on and nothing open yet. Suddenly the power went out, which is normal, and the back up generator kicked on. There were only two unusual things that morning. 1 – my laptop was plugged in (I rarely worried about it because my battery lasted quite a while), 2 – the power didn’t just go out. For some reason, it went off and on a couple times in just a few minutes. Each time it went off, the generator kicked on.
Suddenly, my screen sort of flashed and then it just went black. I was still using my phone, but my laptop was right in front of me, so I saw the flash. When it went black, I had a good feeling what had just happened, although I had never seen physical evidence before. Of course, I had heard about it, I’ve lived in developing countries for more than 5 years now. A power surge! I told myself that it was definitely just a fluke. Maybe it had gone to sleep, even though that feature was turned off. Maybe it just had a glitch. Surely it was fine.
I waited a few minutes, thinking maybe it needed to rest and recover. I tried not to face what my gut told me had just happened. Finally, when I had no further ideas to try, I called Floyd. His building is just down the street, so he asked me to bring it over, but he also had that gut feeling. My laptop was blown.
After he gave a diligent effort to see if any of his ideas worked and Googled for other ideas, we had to face the facts. Floyd’s research determined that the surge must have hit the motherboard because if it had just hit the power source, the computer would be responsive in a few ways. Mine was just completely dead. That night Floyd was able to open up the computer and get the hard drive out. He safely retrieved all of my files! (Thank God for his former years as an IT guy; he knows hardware!) And, I did have access to a laptop that I could borrow.
The bad news is that my laptop is pretty new (this is bad because that means the value is still pretty high and we weren’t budgeting to buy another any time soon). We bought it at the end of 2017 just before coming to Cambodia. The airline restrictions had gotten tighter on the weight of carry-ons and my former laptop was quite cumbersome. It was also several years old, like back when I was teaching in public schools in Texas old. The fact that mine was so new makes the loss sting a little more.
We just moved into the new school building in April and all the plugs are supposed to be grounded and protected from these issues. I don’t know if there has been any progress to determine how this happened, but regardless my laptop took the blow. The good news is that the Lord has always provided for our needs, so I’ll trust him to provide the funds for a new laptop when we make it back to the US for furlough later this year. Until then, I’ll also be grateful that there is a loaner that I can use in the meantime, no matter how much slower or heavier it happens to be. 😏😃
Things can be replaced, right?
What thing am I talking about?
That’s a frustrating story, but I think I'm ready to tell it.
I arrived back in Cambodia from my whirl-wind trip to the US on May 31. My trip was for the sole purpose of taking the boys back to the US and getting them settled. We got driver’s licenses, registered Troy for college, delivered Tyler to Camp His Way, and various other things, but that’s all for another blog post. Suffice it to say that the trip had very little down time and I was looking forward to getting back into some sort of routine, although we’d be venturing into new territory as empty-nesters.
My first week back was not what I hoped. Each day of that first week back had its own challenge. (brings to mind Matthew 6:34 – don’t worry about tomorrow…each day has enough trouble of its own) Anyway, most of the issues were things that just had to be prayed over or worked out or patiently left for time to heal, but one in particular is a financial blow for us.
On Wednesday of my first week back at work, I began my day at my desk as usual. As I pulled out my laptop, I thought about plugging it in. I didn’t want to deal with the plug blocking my desk drawers, but I remembered that Wednesdays are a long and full day with meetings back to back from lunch on through the rest of the day. I knew that by lunch my battery would be low and I’d wish that I had plugged in. So, I decided to be proactive and plug in my laptop.
As I got the laptop started up, a message came in on my phone. As I sat there dealing with things on my phone, my laptop was just open on my desk with the “desk top” screen on and nothing open yet. Suddenly the power went out, which is normal, and the back up generator kicked on. There were only two unusual things that morning. 1 – my laptop was plugged in (I rarely worried about it because my battery lasted quite a while), 2 – the power didn’t just go out. For some reason, it went off and on a couple times in just a few minutes. Each time it went off, the generator kicked on.
Suddenly, my screen sort of flashed and then it just went black. I was still using my phone, but my laptop was right in front of me, so I saw the flash. When it went black, I had a good feeling what had just happened, although I had never seen physical evidence before. Of course, I had heard about it, I’ve lived in developing countries for more than 5 years now. A power surge! I told myself that it was definitely just a fluke. Maybe it had gone to sleep, even though that feature was turned off. Maybe it just had a glitch. Surely it was fine.
I waited a few minutes, thinking maybe it needed to rest and recover. I tried not to face what my gut told me had just happened. Finally, when I had no further ideas to try, I called Floyd. His building is just down the street, so he asked me to bring it over, but he also had that gut feeling. My laptop was blown.
After he gave a diligent effort to see if any of his ideas worked and Googled for other ideas, we had to face the facts. Floyd’s research determined that the surge must have hit the motherboard because if it had just hit the power source, the computer would be responsive in a few ways. Mine was just completely dead. That night Floyd was able to open up the computer and get the hard drive out. He safely retrieved all of my files! (Thank God for his former years as an IT guy; he knows hardware!) And, I did have access to a laptop that I could borrow.
The bad news is that my laptop is pretty new (this is bad because that means the value is still pretty high and we weren’t budgeting to buy another any time soon). We bought it at the end of 2017 just before coming to Cambodia. The airline restrictions had gotten tighter on the weight of carry-ons and my former laptop was quite cumbersome. It was also several years old, like back when I was teaching in public schools in Texas old. The fact that mine was so new makes the loss sting a little more.
We just moved into the new school building in April and all the plugs are supposed to be grounded and protected from these issues. I don’t know if there has been any progress to determine how this happened, but regardless my laptop took the blow. The good news is that the Lord has always provided for our needs, so I’ll trust him to provide the funds for a new laptop when we make it back to the US for furlough later this year. Until then, I’ll also be grateful that there is a loaner that I can use in the meantime, no matter how much slower or heavier it happens to be. 😏😃
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