Friday, June 16, 2006
Electrons on Strike
Well, it happened again. I woke up, luckily in time for work, to the sounds of internal silence and chain saws buzzing in the background. Seems the power went out again. I was awoken by some loud buzzes at around 6am. At the same time, the fan slowly rotated to a stop and the clock by my bed winked out. I went downstairs and my UPS was beeping to tell me, as if I hadn't already figured it out, that power was gone. I shut if off, grabbed my battery alarm clock and returned to bed. Unfortunately, I hadn't noticed the clock's battery was dead and the alarm didn't buzz. On my way into work, I could see the power company working on some fallen trees in the next block. One more stately old tree gives up the ghost - no winds, no rains, no lightening, just a quick crack and the giant is dead. The power company will "trim" whatever is left; leaving not much more than a stump, a pile of sawdust and wood, and deep ruts in the yard.
I'm really hoping it won't take them the weekend to get things back to normal. They usually get power back up in hours, but it has been know to take days - and tomorrow the temperature and humidity are supposed to be in the high 90s - so having air conditioning would be nice. I showered and shaved by candlelight this morning - thankfully, I have a gas water heater. I skipped breakfast to keep the fridge cool and made sure everything was off that should be off. Of course I kept flicking switches to turn on the lights knowing full well they didn't work. Hopefully I won't have to give my new windup radio a workout when I get home tonight.
