[AT] OT: Firey End to My Car

[Phil Auten]

Woah! Sorry about your VW, Dudley! That must've been a shocker!
Allen, you were truly lucky.
I had a similar experience years ago. I had just bought the first surge 
protector for my new 286/12 PC.
Came home from work and smelled electronics burning. Went into the room 
where the computer was
set up just in time to see sparks and flames shoot out of one of the 
sockets on the surge protector.
Yanked the plug out of the wall and went to clean out my shorts! Took the 
thing back and it was
replaced free, but I never trusted that replacement, even though it never 
gave any problem. Nothing was
harmed other than some soot smudges on a plug. The thing was just 
defective. Guess it just wasn't
time for my house to burn down.

Phil

At 04:41 PM 11/2/04, you wrote:
>Last night at 3am I woke up and couldn't get to slep. It was raing outside 
>and I was trying to read myself back to sleep. I wound up waking p my wife 
>unintentionally, good thing too. she thought she heard something 
>downstairs. On investrigating, we foun my Dewalt battery chager snapping, 
>crackling, popping and smoking. Fortunately a fire had not started (yet). 
>If one had and neither of us was awake, I probably would not be writing 
>this. Let's be careful out there and make sure you smoke detectors are 
>working and have fresh batteries.
>
>Take care,
>Allen Pruehs
>SE Michigan
>
>At 01:50 PM 11/2/2004, you wrote:
>>Rob,
>>
>>When you say "fiery end" you're not kidding.  That had to be a shock when
>>you turned in your' driveway.  The only thing more shocking I can think of
>>would be to come home and find it was your' house that had burned to the
>>ground.
>>
>>Dudley