Hi Folks,

Some of you may have noticed that Gerry was unavailable for about 24 hours.
We had some severe thunderstorms on Wed afternoon in the DC area, and lost
power. We just got it back a few hours ago.

I was kinda of excited about it, because after the time we had that 1-day
power outtage in December '04, I bought Gerry and I a generator for
Christmas. Oh, and of course I told the wife if was "for the family". :)

Once the storm was over, I fired up the new generator for the second time
ever...but it quit putting out power after about 15 minutes. Engine ran,
rotor in the head turned, breakers not tripped, but no output. :(

What really frosted me was that when I bought it, there were two models that
I looked at from Pep Boys with the same output rating - the Coleman
Powermate that I bought, and a Chinese made one for $100 less. I figured it
would be worth the $$ for the Coleman and the 2-year warranty it came with.

Oh, and the reason I wasn't able to jump in on the off-kilter posts this
weekend was that I had knee surgery on Friday (replaced an ACL, serviced the
cartlidges). With all the painkillers I was on, the list was on autopilot.
I'll review the whole thread tomorrow and see if something needs to be done.
So if you screwed up, your not off the hook!!!

You should have seen me cussing yesterday, after hobbling around in a knee
brace to 30 minutes, stringing extension cords and bypassing UPSes that
didn't think generator power was clean enough to pass through to the
servers.

BTW - the generator will be outta the shop in a few weeks (so they say) with
a new gen-head unit. Pep Boys now has a larger unit for sale, so I'm
considering selling the one I have and upgrading. If you are interested in a
Powermate 3750 for $350 (they are $400 new, which I gladly paid) and are in
the Washington DC area, lemme know!

Regards from your list admin,
TomC
tcarrington@relitech.com
http://volksweb.relitech.com
http://checkerweb.relitech.com
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