Matt Mc_Carthy wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:

 MMC> 14 Nov 2003, 12:11, Roy J. Tellason (1:270/615), wrote to all: 

 MMC> Hi Roy.

 RJT> Some of you folks might have heard that it got a bit windy 
 RJT> around these parts yesterday...

 MMC> Did it ever!  Mother Nature was bummed all across the country
 MMC> yesterday, besides who ever heard of a foot of _hail_, and in Los
 MMC> Angeles at that!

Yeah,  I caught a bit of that on the tv news.  People saying "We've
never _seen_ anything like this before!"  From the angelenos I've
known,  I can believe that.  I've just recently re-established contact with
a brother I'd misplaced who's living in LA somewhere (I haven't found out
just where offhand),  this should make for some interesting converstations
if I can get my email working again (it's on the box that's down).

 RJT> At one point the electric glitched,  and several machines 
 RJT> crashed,  but all came up okay.

 RJT> Last night,  a bit after 11,  all power went off,  and stayed 
 RJT> off for maybe 2 minutes or so.  

 MMC> Lots of people will be without power for a few days if not longer,
 MMC> what a mess from a "plain old front"...   :-((
 MMC> ...................

I *really* need to get a UPS here!

 RJT> What,  battery dead?  Ok,  but that should make any difference if 
 RJT> I don't shut it off,  right?  Wrong.  I'd go through and put all 
 RJT> of the settings in,  and then hit "save and exit" and I'd get the 
 RJT> _same_ message!  Go back into setup, and there's nothing there 
 RJT> but the default settings.

 MMC> I've seen several do that.  Can't prove it, but I suspect that the
 MMC> battery is _needed_ for the 'save' function.

Thought of that,  but a new one didn't help any.

 RJT> Checked the battery,  it's a common coin cell,  CR2032,  and 
 RJT> measures 0.5v! Never saw one get that low...  Pulled one off 
 RJT> another board that was laying around here that I can't use for 
 RJT> other reasons (keyboard connector's in a strange place),  and 
 RJT> checked that -- 2.8v -- but it gives me the same result.

 MMC> That 2.8V on the Lithium batteries is just as good as the .5V, 
 MMC> means _dead_ to get anything less than 3.0V.  That 2.8V reading 
 MMC> comes from stray bits of materials within the cell, there's _no_
 MMC> current associated with the voltage reading.
 MMC> .........................

There's no current draw per se with that stuff anyhow,  I did a test on
that once with a ram chip and measured something like 0.5uA,  as long as
the inputs were all disabled.  Didn't matter,  I found another one that
measured 3.12V, stuck that in there with the same results.

 RJT> Or maybe not,  I feel lousy,  probaby have that bug that's been 
 RJT> going around,  and won't be going anywhere today...  :-(

 MMC> Hope that's 'only a feeling' and nothing serious comes of it. 
 MMC> Lots of bad medical news coming from the far western end of PA.  
 MMC> :-((

Oh yeah,  I heard about that.  No,  this is some bug that's been going
around in the family,  two of the grandkids that have been here had it, 
grammie had it,  and now it's my turn.  I guess I'm about over it at this
point but not completely,  as my gut still churns from time to time (like
about a minute ago).  Gotta get some food through my system again to clean
out any residue of what was there,  I guess.  Last night was the first time
in a day or two I sat down and ate a real meal again.  This morning is my
first cup of coffee in a few days,  we'll see how it goes.

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