Whew!

I've never been so happy to see the first stat post on monitors than today's games so far. A monster series of setbacks finally bring us to tonight's session with all our stat toys running. Name it -- it happened: burned out VGA splitter on the first setup, no connection for the initial test, mysterious computer fails, hardware conflicts, software surprises (has anyone else actually seen StatCrew eat its own files? They haven't either -- email me if you have).

Actually, we missed the all-time winner. Back early in the stat monitor days when CRT's ruled the world and only a handful of people invested in these things called ROBOX converters to run VGA monitors at long distances, we rolled our gear into the Roundhouse at UTC.

Learned a lot one night about arena's with mixed power circuits. As in the half of the arena had its grounds lifted on the house AC to knock down ground loop hums for TV trucks. And what happens if you mix grounded and ungrounded monitors with a replacement VGA cable that doesn't have it's ground lifted too.

"Hey Don, why's this power light glowing so bright . . . . "

In one hand, ROBOX with the little red LED blooming like a prize rose. In the other hand, the power adapter plug. In between, the realization that if I don't have the power plugged in for this unit, but it's suddenly powering up, DROP THE BOX NOW.

Across the floor, tiny little Hiroshima clouds, plumes of the exploding capacitors and that unmistakable electronic fire smell emanating from the now fried monitors as AC power sought to find its ground, right through the VGA ports.

Nothing a soldering gun and a REALLY good electrical supply house couldn't fix as we were literally rebuilding ROBOX with new IC chips and other parts.

Ah yes, good times.

Yesterday came close. Things are far more virtual, but the software explosions reminded me very much of those burning chips. I think I could even still smell that acrid odor during the peak of the fun.

But we survived because we've got a very, very, very good stat crew team, some solid tech support behind us from back home and determination that eventually we could overcome. Little I did, much more done by this whole team.

Here's to praying we're done with surprises from Duluth.