Power Outages

Our power went out around 8:30 pm last night, as I was just getting started on making supper. First the lights flickered, and then we blew a fuse (one that we've never blown before). I *think* that its the circuit that the office AC and guest bedroom AC are on (I'm not even sure if its the same circuit). I was about to go check when all the lights went out.

Naturally, that kinda spoiled our supper plans. We hoped for a quick resolution to the failure, but when we heard a large echoing BOOM from the local substation and the sky momentarily lit up, we knew it would be a while.

We tried phoning out for food, but no place near us had power, so it became clear we'd have to forage. By the time we finally headed out to Chenoy's for supper it was nearly 11:00 pm, but we were sure they would be open, because they had stayed open during the ice storm -- they have an electric generator and a gas grill, after all. When we got there, they were closing. The only thing we found on the street that was open was McDonalds (where I'm typing this from) but we didn't want to eat supper there. We walked back to the house and waited for the couple of glasses of wine that taxlady had drunk to wear off before getting into the car and searching farther afield.

Luckily Arahova had power and they are open until 2:00 am on Tuesdays. We ate and returned to the oven our place had become and tried to sleep. I mostly read Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix by candle-light since it was too hot to sleep. I finally nodded off sometime around dawn.

We were all up at 11:00 am, still without power, and after a brief (and refreshingly cold) shower, we headed out for breakfast. Luckily some of the nearer restaurants on St. John have power again, so we could eat at Bocaccino's. I hadn't planned on suddenly having to eat out a bunch, so its really good that I had managed to deposit the money my Mom had sent me electronically earlier in the day. Otherwise I'd be cursing the fact it was sitting on the hard drive of a dead computer, being useless.

After breakfast, we dropped our houseguest T at Chapters because they have power, coffee and outlets for his laptop, so he could do some work. On the way back I was dropped off here, and I'm now its 2:01 and I'm typing this (talk about up-to-date news).

My plans for the day had involved visiting galialuna to buy a couple of monitors, but all of my contact info for her is still on my computer, so it looks like a wash. I mean, she might see this post, but I won't be able to get any news from her till I get power back. Bleah.

The other plan was to go to the Milk and Cookies thing this evening at sfllaw's place, but I'm not sure I'll be up for it considering how little sleep I've had. Plus I haven't found the book I planned to take. Its somewhere in the darkness of the basement, and I doubt very much I could find it by flashlight.

As for the august_writing challenge, I'll just have to catch up when power is restored. I was half-way through writing something when I stopped for supper last night, intending to finish and post it afterwards. I'll have to do some catching up when power is back, I guess.

So, how has your day gone?

He's BAAAAACK

We ended up having to go out for supper again (fun, but not really in the budget) and dallied over dessert on a terrace because it was cool and we didn't want to come back to an oven-like house. (Dessert was entirely essential for morale reasons.)

We got back about 30 minutes ago to find that we now have power. (The clocks claim it turned on moments before we arrived). It took several minutes to discover which was the fuse that had blown and get it replaced, so that I could go and boot the server (It turns out that all power to my office and the guest bedroom are on one circuit). Now that that has been successfully done, everything is back up, and everything seems happy.

On that note, I suspect that it is time to brush teeth and head into my bedroom. Its still quite hot in there, but the big AC unit is chugging away and I'm sure it will be much cooler shortly. When that happens, I want to be there to take advantage of it.

Tomorrow I will have to start catching up on the whole august_writing thing. I'm still bummed about missing the Milk and Cookies thing for a second year running but considering how little sleep I got last night, it just wasn't in the cards.

Flash Bang

Lightning doesn't normally scare me, but we're having a thunderstorm less than an hour after we finally got power back so yes, lightning scares me right now.