My Kingdom for a USB keyboard

So, here I am, trying to get the tools up and working for a client. The whole process has been long, technically challenging and somewhat satisfying journey, but it's certainly been fraught with difficulties.

But now we're in the home stretch. Crunch time is here, as the system goes into a full launch on Monday. Those index cards I'm so fond of? I have about 60 or so full of notes of things to do for this system.

And that doesn't include the five sheets of paper full of notes I need to review to make sure I haven't missed anything. Or the forums I'm sure to be full of, "what about this?" and "did you consider that?" and "this doesn't work for me, how do I?" messages that I'll need to address quickly.

So when one of my development systems needed updating, I went ahead and did the update. I'd like the system to be as up to date as possible, right? It's an Apple computer, what could go wrong?

Well, the system didn't come back up.

Um, not quite though. It came up for about 10 minutes, then went back down.

And I started kicking myself for doing the update in the first place. Argh! What was I thinking? Oh, sure, the update went smoothly, the system restarted, everything looked fine.

Did I mention I don't have a monitor or keyboard hooked up to this system, and that I've been doing all this work remotely?

Didn't think so.

So, the system doesn't come up, my stomach also goes south, and I'm starting to pull out my hair. After 80 minutes of various debugging, looking for a freaking USB keyboard, a working monitor, testing the network cable, checking out the DNS and IP addresses and generally pulling out all geekery I can muster, I look over at system.

It's asleep.

The little light on the front of the computer is pulsing.

The little POS went to sleep!