So wow, the night got interesting. We were having a little thunderstorm here when I saw an amazingly bright flash of lighting and immediate piercing thunder, loud enough to make the deck outside creak. So I looked outside, to see if I saw anything bad, but nothing caught my eye, so I headed back to the comp. About 20 minutes later I hear a rumble coming up the hill, and sure enough, I see the flashing lights...once I made it to the window I saw several fire trucks and a few police cars and ambulances come flying up the road.

So I run outside and smell the smoke. Sure enough, lightning hit our neighbors four houses up the road from us.

Good news is the house wasn't actually on fire, we were just smelling the smoldering bricks. But yeah, from what we could see, the lighting blew off a good portion of the chimney, and blew a hole in the roof. The power was off too, so who knows how much more damage was done inside. They finally taped off the entire lot a little while ago, and we could see people picking up debris in a 100 yard radius around the house. I guess lightning makes things explode hardcore like that. Creepy.

The thing that gets me is that we all live in rather tall houses on the side of a mountain. And none of us have lightning rods. So...I'm thinking...damn, I live in the attic. Uh, Mom, can we put lightning rods on our house, please?