Lived through my first big thunderstorm at the house today.  And let me tell you, this puppy is BIG.  Since none of the houses around here have lightning rods (mine included), lightning pretty much rails on the street lights.  With one just outside my house, it’s pretty damn loud.  Right now it sounds like there have been 4 or 5 nuclear explosions in my driveway.

Anyway, my alarm system kicks ass.  I found out just how much ass it kicks tonight.

As I’m watching my poor DishDVR continually trying to hang on to enough signal to record Family Guy, the power goes out.  Again.  For like the third time in twenty minutes.  My phone rings.

“Mr. Sheppard, this is NextAlarm.com central station calling.  Your panel has reported a loss of AC power.  Would you like us to call you when power is restored?”

Sweet!  The power goes out, and my alarm calls to tell me about it.  Not useful when I’m home, but if I’m on vacation, I know not to eat the frozen pizzas when I get back.  I told them to ignore power failures for the rest of the night, and life was good.  A few minutes later:

“Mr. Sheppard, this is NextAlarm.com central station calling.  Your panel has reported a line failure.  Your panel is running in cellular mode right now.”

Kick ass.