Blam!

So, I was sitting at my desk preparing to swap the SSD in my mac laptop, my pre-schooler son was watching TV in a different room (but I could still see him.) My screwdriver touched the first screw on the mac case and BLAM! Some kind of explosion sound loud enough to make me jump.

Eh, what just happened?

Kid heard the noise, but wasn’t freaked out. It wasn’t anything he was doing, so he quickly turned back to his show.

I frantically tried to figure out what happened. Sounded kinda like a balloon popping, but maybe something electronic giving up the ghost. So, I start checking all the electronics in the house. Multiple laptops, ipads, kindles, and echoes all checked out ok.

Was it the fridge? Seems to still be running. Was it the washing machine? Probably not, its still chugging away, mid-cycle. HVAC? doesn’t seem to be the case, AC is running and blowing cold.

Was it something right outside my front door? Hmm, nothing out of place in front of the house. Walking back in, I saw the stroller parked at the front door was looking a little weird.

Oh, yeah, there’s the problem. Spontaneous blowout of one of the tubes.

Yeah, that was pretty violent, it blew the tire off the rim and shredded the tube pretty good. Why it decided to let go at that time is a mystery; stroller hadn’t been outside yet today and it wasn’t super hot yet.

I’m gonna write it off as a cheap tube failure. This is the second blow out in a month. The other time, the stroller was in use and somewhat less surprising but still loud and scary in the moment.

For what its worth, the tires have a recommended pressure rating of 40 PSI, but I only run them at about 35 PSI. I was already worried about heat based blowout potential when rolling over 150°F pavement which is pretty common in AZ summertime.

Ok, hopefully the rest of the day will be less eventful.