Made it home in about an hour flat. Daughter managed not to hurt herself or the house while I was gone. So, let's count that as two things that've gone right today. The first being that the site seems to be capable of running while the new webserver is running and in the same room with it.
This really is like a nightmare I just can't wake up from. NLB is brand new to me and I'm getting a heckuva crash (no pun) course in it. Beginning to wish I'd have just spent the $10k+ and gone with a hardware solution, but figured $10k+ sure could buy a lot of horsepower when it's needed.