Hi Mike,

Wow!  That's all I can think to say about such a massive lightening strike and the negative results.  No, that's not true.  I think you just convinced me to do two things:

1] Buy a UPS regardless of the physical size of the unit and find room for it no matter what!
2] Get myself some renter's insurance, regardless of the monthly or yearly premium!

If I got hit with lightening even only somewhat as powerful as you just described and lost my musical and computer gear I'd be looking in the neighborhood of $5 to $6 thousand to replace everything.  And some of the gear is nearly irreplaceable.  The Les-Paul guitar I own for instance increases in value every quarter of the year.  Models like mine run from $2000 to $10,000 depending on age and condition.  Gibson Les-Paul's are pretty much worth their weight in gold.  Go to www.musiciansfriend.com <http://www.musiciansfriend.com> and take a look at the range of prices and you will be blown away.  Even their "Studio" models, which are basic pieces with all the sonic qualities of the more expensive models, they just lack the physical "beauty" of their pricier kin go for at least a grand and up.

So basically, you have scared the crap out of me!  You'd think with all my years of experience of working professionally with computers I'd know better than to tempt fate.  But at all the large firms I worked at we had *HUGE* power conditioners and a power outage due to any reason just wasn't something we ever had to worry about.  Out of sight, so out of mind basically ....

Do you have any quick methods of how-to size up what power-level of UPS to buy?  I know I can go to google.com <http://google.com> and find the info but if you have some quick method off the top of your head it will save me the time of reading and figuring out for myself what I need.  Not to mention the fact that also I trust your judgment more so than what I might find on the 'net.

Thanks Mike, seriously!  You've knocked some digital sense into this old brain-pan of mine, and for that I am grateful.  I'd be sick if I lost even half of my gear!

Greg