Life without the internet - or power

[vilakins]

When we woke up yesterday morning there was no power over a huge swathe of the city which was a bit annoying as we couldn't make espresso coffee or a hot breakfast. It got more than a bit annoying though as the day went on and we shivered in the 14C of the current antarctic blast. I read with a blanket over me and Greg took to bed with his radio for most of the afternoon. I have a camping stove that went all round Europe with me so we could boil water, but in the evening we drove to a suburb with power and had some dinner. That drive was the first time I'd been warm all day.

The power's still out today but it came on at work so that's where I am. I heard home should have power late tonight but I'm not holding my breath after all the other false predictions.

And what do we got for compensation? Maybe $50 but probably zilch. Why yes, I'm somewhat pissed off to say the least.

I have to say though, that the Kindle's great for reading after dark. [hugs Kindle]

Comments

[kerravonsen]

Ugh. Though if power was out for that long for me, I would be a complete wreck.
But (shivers) cold with no power, my sympathies.

[vilakins]

It came back this morning so I had a nice warm shower.

It would be a lot worse for you; lots of people had to be taken to hospital because they were dependent on electrical equipment of various sorts. I hope your supply's more stable than ours. The suburb I work in has been hit by a lot of failures this year.

And now to catch up with Dr Who and various other TV!

[grins at your icon]

[kerravonsen]

Our supply does go out in big storms (especially the very windy ones) but they usually have the power back within a few hours. It's been a very long time since I've had a case where it was out overnight, and it's never been out longer than that.

I keep on meaning to investigate solar electricity, but I haven't gotten around to it.

[vilakins]

Our Green Party says they want to offer loans to get it, and I'd take them up on that like a shot. Electricity is ridiculously expensive - and somewhat unreliable.

[mab_browne]

Ouch, I seem to know a whole bunch of people affected by this. Good luck with getting power back at home.

[vilakins]

It came back early this morning: hot shower, yay! I think almost everyone has power now.

[pebblerocker]

Ooh, nasty! We are having to think a bit about what we'd do in a long powercut; we have a woodburner to keep warm, and it is possible to heat water or even cook on top of it, but we are on tank water and without the pump to get water out of the tank and into the house, things could be tricky!

Does your Kindle light up in the dark? My partner's Kobo has a backlight, but mine is the no-frills version and I'm perfectly content with that most of the time - it's no different to an ordinary book, except that it needs charging every few days.

[vilakins]

Water is much more important than power, I've found during various outages. Maybe you could invest in a small generator just so you'd still have it.

Yes, my Kindle is back-lit, and I only had to have it at a low brightness at night. It's a feature I really appreciate now.

[feng_shui_house]

*hugs* I feel for you. It could be worse, though! When power was out for more than a month following a hurricane (damage made worse than necessary because the power company had been putting the maintenance money down as profit instead of doing any maintenance for 20 years) well, the power company decided that they could not have a loss! so they ESTIMATED how much your bill WOULD have been if there had been power, using the year before as a basis! And sent out the bills to the people who were still sitting in the dark.

That was just all kinds of wrong. They didn't do it to me, thank heaven. I was without power for a month, but at least I didn't pay for it!

[vilakins]

What was that? I don't remember you being out for that long; how absolutely awful! Was it warm? I found when I was in Indonesia that hot water really wasn't a necessity in that climate, but water certainly is in any - losing that for a day a few years ago was not good.

Our power company has no sympathy for consumers, but at least they're not downright corrupt like that. A spork on them!

[feng_shui_house]

That was Hurricane Andrew, in August of 1992. It was hot. So hot. I remember sitting out on the lawn on beach chairs with my parents, hand-stitching the binding on a quilt I'd just finished while we watched the neighbors wandering around aimlessly looking at the mess. Still have the little quilt somewhere, it was made from a souvenir tea towel printed with cats & I stitched cat names on it and the words 'Cats Have 9 Lives, Andrew Spared Us' cuz a lot of people had much worse than no power.

We didn't even have mail for days- the first mail delivery was on a SUNDAY (never before or since) and it included a bunch of big zines I'd ordered, so luckily I had a lot to read by lamplight.

You couldn't even go much of anywhere since the gas station pumps were all without power (they passed a law requiring them to have generators after that). And if you did find a store with supplies, their cash registers weren't working, etc. etc. So mostly you just sat at home and listened to chain saws cutting up the trees that had fallen.

Fortunately the water & the gas stove were unaffected, so when I needed a wash I'd boil a pot of water, dilute it and have a basin of warm. Putting on my contact lenses by candlelight, I recall melting a plastic washcloth holder in my bathroom.

A month without internet was hard- I was Avon at the time, and wound up writing a series of postcards that I mailed to 'Blake' after photographing them, in which Avon was stranded with dinosaurs, and had no power. :^)

[vilakins]

Wow, a whole month, that must have been hard! and no wonder I didn't know about it; it was about 10 years before I knew you.

Who was Blake and what were you doing with him? An RPG or something similar?

[feng_shui_house]

Oh, I see I was sleep typing again and conflated 2 hurricanes.. Everything about Andrew was right, BUT the series of postcards was mailed to Z's 'Blake' years later after hurricane Wilma (that was a VERY active season with lots of storms). Just checked back in my LJ (I used to use memory, so found things.) Hurricane Wilma October 24, 2005. Power was out for 5 days. Internet was mostly out with random moments of nearly usable for 35 days.

And these are the posts with the Dinosaur pics. LJ lost some of them, but most are here. http://entropy-house.livejournal.com/116789.html http://entropy-house.livejournal.com/117233.html http://entropy-house.livejournal.com/117292.html

[vilakins]

I love the ones where the dinos are in present-day settings!

[feng_shui_house]

I still have the remainder of that book of postcards!

I think it originally was 2 each of 15 different photos, and I only used the first dozen I think.

It's Dinopix by Teruhisa Tajima. I bet you can still find copies of the book they came from on Amazon- was printed in the U.S. in 1995.