Online Auctions During a Heat Wave

Not a great idea.
I had been checking Craig's list daily looking to score a pair of storage cabinets to keep some of my inventory clean and organized. One posting led me to an auction company running an online auction for a large office that closed. I found just the items I wanted and placed a pair of bids on 2 steel storage cabinets that would be perfect for my needs.

All went well till the auction was about to end. The auction rules were that if a bid was placed in the last 2 minute of bidding, they would add 2 more minutes to the closing time, and another 2 minutes if another bid was placed, and so on. GREAT idea, stops all the blasted sniping that goes on over on Ebay.  Also the closing times for the 91 items in this auction are spaced @ 1 minute apart so you can easily keep up with numerous lots that you are interested in. All in all this auction was well put together.

Now comes the problem. We are having one of the hottest, most humid days in Chicago this August. probably about a gazillion A/C units are all straining to cool off every enclosed space in the area. Just about 10 minutes before my first item was to end we have a little blip in the electric service...and shuts off my computer.
RATS! So I start going through the steps needed to get the computer back online and BAM the power dips again! Now I'm getting frantic...and ....upset ( I'll use the nice word to describe how I was feeling). SO 3/4 of the way getting back online ... yep... the #$&&@!! power dips AGAIN!! Now I'm livid, I'm ready to jump in my truck and look for an electric service truck in the neighborhood and let the guys know what I think of their service! GRRRRRR.  I finally get logged back in and I've been out bid...but it's not closed yet so I slam in a bid and wait the two minutes....YAHOO....I won!  But wait .... my tale is not over.... I still have one more item coming up to close, in 28 minutes.

Now what are the odds that approximately 10 minutes before the close of my second item is to close that ANOTHER power dip shuts off my computer? Well it happened......and AGAIN half way through powering up the computer. COME ON!!! What did I do to deserve this?? Only 2 shut downs this time and I managed to fend off another bidder and win the second of my cabinets.

Now that a day has passed I'm a little calmer, but still in disbelief that five times yesterday my computer shut down at a critical time, and those were the ONLY times it did that.