[legion]

Last night the wife and I are in our living room (which is in the half-basement) watching TV during a thunderstorm.

Suddenly, we hear a loud pulsing, electric buzzing noise from the northeast corner of the house. The sound on the TV goes out. I was on my laptop on Pelican of all places. My system tray tells me that I have lost my connection to the internet...

We figure lightning struck somewhere near the house.

I run outside to check that nothing is on fire. I figure anything else can be fixed after the storm passes. I'm met by my neighbor (who lives directly north of me) who is heading between our houses. He was in his kitchen (which faces south) and the lightning appeared to him to have hit at the southeast corner of his house. We figure the lightning hit one of the six trees (four mine, two his) in that area (he has a 100' sycamore and I have a 75' ash in that area). We can't see any damage to the trees or our houses. We each head back into our houses (the brutal electrical storm was still going on).

I turn off the TV and such and turn it back on. Everything works fine now.

I turn off my cable modem and wireless router. After the modem boots back up the power light is flashing (it is normally constantly on) and the "cable" light is off.

At this point, I'm trying to figure out if the cable modem is fried or if it is something with the cable company. As far as I can tell, my neighbor and I are the only two people in the area whose broadband is not working...