Weird Goings On

I'm having a slightly weird electronics day. Given my and my family's history with electrical 'incidents' this is slightly ominous.

So far, it's just little things today. For example, I found my computer on when I came into my office today. I shut it off every day when I leave work, and I wait for it finish shutting down before I walk out the door, so there's no chance I simply left it on over night. This isn't the first time I've had this particular thing happen, so I didn't really think much of it.

But then I went to flip off the power strip where the coffee pot is a little later this morning (I bought my coffee from the shop today). Nothing happened - the clock on the coffee pot showed it was still getting power. I flipped the switch again, and still nothing. I tried a couple times with no luck. Then, a few minutes later, I saw one of my coworkers walk by and flip the switch - and the damn thing turned right off.

And most recently, I had left my office for about 45 minutes, so my monitor had gone into sleep mode, as it's supposed to. I came back into my office, saw it was sleeping, set down my sunglasses on the other table, and when I looked back up, the screen was on and it was waiting for me to enter my password - as in it was acting like I had already hit Ctrl-Alt-Del. I hadn't even touched the keyboard or mouse yet!

I always get a little nervous when things involving electricity start acting strange. We have kind of odd history with electricity in my family. I've lost count of the number of times I've electrocuted myself over the years, some of them my fault, some not so much. My dad was holding on the tailgate of a car when it was struck my ball-lighting (think massive static discharge from the sky). He was fine, but it fried the rear-defroster pretty good. And my brother just being killed when an undergrad at his school lab pulled the safety tag and flipped a breaker back on while my brother was working on installing a junction box about 30 feet off the ground. So, when I say we have a healthy respect for electricity, you know I mean it. And when things which use electricity start acting strange around me, I take notice. For example, I am currently keeping myself well grounded through the metal frame of my desk while I'm working on the computer. It took me long enough to get this new machine, I'm NOT going to fry it if I can avoid it!