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elfsThere's this rule that says that every time Elf gets the flu, the power has to go out at my house. It's kinda like clockwork: in 2004, when I had that horrible fever that got to 102.6 or so, the power went out and not only was I cold, but there was no heat in the house, Kouryou-chan was half the age she is now, and Omaha was gone for the weekend.
This time it wasn't so bad, and I was more or less over the whole thing by Saturday afternoon, and the power didn't go out, so that was nice. I continued to have little aftershocks, though, mostly of really bad "I'm freezing!" spasms. The flu always knocks my internal thermostat around.
Sunday, however, Omaha and Kouryou-chan had a D&D game to go to, so I had the house to myself. I'd been spending most of the weekend in bed, reading (comfort reading, no less: David Weber books), so I'd decided to take the opportunity to actually sit down and write. I spent a while with the laptop on battery power at the dining room, figuring I could always get the power cord from the other room eventually when I needed it. The battery got used up a lot faster that I'd anticipated; I'd left some flash app running on Firefox and it was murdering the battery.
It was 6pm, I was down to 40 minutes of battery life. I had written about 1000 words of a story idea (actually, a story idea rewrite) and was musing to myself that, really, I should go get that damned power cord when I heard a loud explosion to the north and the power went out. I figured out what was killing the battery, and put my computer into laptop mode properly to preserve it as long as possible. I wasn't too concerned. I had a spare battery and was sure it was full.
I walked out and looked for damage, but couldn't find any. I called the power company, they said it looked bad and we wouldn't have power back until 10pm. Not even the spare battery would last that long. It was getting dark.
I discovered the spare battery hadn't been recharged. Bummer, that.
Eventually, I camped out in my own bedroom, two flashlights mounted to the headboard with bungee cords, a glass of wine, and a lot of blankets, guiltlessly reading Honor Harrington wankery. I couldn't do anything else after all. After spending most of the weekend either too sick or too busy to geek, the hours I had allocated to laptopping were instead spent with no electricity at all. The wine, a cheap local flavor bomb known as "Proprietor's Red," had rusted a little after I'd opened it a week before, but was still better than some expensive chardonnays I'd bought.
Omaha and Kouryou-chan got home around 8:30pm, and I made a fire in our upstairs fireplace. Lisakit had given them a ride, and even as we sat there, warming toes by the fire, a big truck pulled up to my house and started tinkering with the neighborhood distributor box. Good: the power company is here. Bad: they're blocking Lisakit, who must eventually go home. Worse: "Even if we fix the transformer, the real problem is the underground cable that feeds the three houses on your block. It's getting up there in years. We'll repair the fault this time, it's down at the end of the street, but eventually we're gonna have to replace the whole thing." Oh, and we get an update: 4am. The job is gonna take a midnight backhoe. But they will be out of Lisakit's way by 10:30pm, which is fine. Soon, she's on her merry way, Kouryou-chan goes to bed, and Omaha goes to sleep as well.
Eventually, I break up the fire and ash the coals and go to bed myself. The house, remarkably, retains most of its heat. Sometimes around 3:45am, the loud thunk of the spring-forced gas line being pulled open by its electromagnets jolts me awake, but only enough to be happy we have power and heat once more.
This time it wasn't so bad, and I was more or less over the whole thing by Saturday afternoon, and the power didn't go out, so that was nice. I continued to have little aftershocks, though, mostly of really bad "I'm freezing!" spasms. The flu always knocks my internal thermostat around.
Sunday, however, Omaha and Kouryou-chan had a D&D game to go to, so I had the house to myself. I'd been spending most of the weekend in bed, reading (comfort reading, no less: David Weber books), so I'd decided to take the opportunity to actually sit down and write. I spent a while with the laptop on battery power at the dining room, figuring I could always get the power cord from the other room eventually when I needed it. The battery got used up a lot faster that I'd anticipated; I'd left some flash app running on Firefox and it was murdering the battery.
It was 6pm, I was down to 40 minutes of battery life. I had written about 1000 words of a story idea (actually, a story idea rewrite) and was musing to myself that, really, I should go get that damned power cord when I heard a loud explosion to the north and the power went out. I figured out what was killing the battery, and put my computer into laptop mode properly to preserve it as long as possible. I wasn't too concerned. I had a spare battery and was sure it was full.
I walked out and looked for damage, but couldn't find any. I called the power company, they said it looked bad and we wouldn't have power back until 10pm. Not even the spare battery would last that long. It was getting dark.
I discovered the spare battery hadn't been recharged. Bummer, that.
Eventually, I camped out in my own bedroom, two flashlights mounted to the headboard with bungee cords, a glass of wine, and a lot of blankets, guiltlessly reading Honor Harrington wankery. I couldn't do anything else after all. After spending most of the weekend either too sick or too busy to geek, the hours I had allocated to laptopping were instead spent with no electricity at all. The wine, a cheap local flavor bomb known as "Proprietor's Red," had rusted a little after I'd opened it a week before, but was still better than some expensive chardonnays I'd bought.
Omaha and Kouryou-chan got home around 8:30pm, and I made a fire in our upstairs fireplace. Lisakit had given them a ride, and even as we sat there, warming toes by the fire, a big truck pulled up to my house and started tinkering with the neighborhood distributor box. Good: the power company is here. Bad: they're blocking Lisakit, who must eventually go home. Worse: "Even if we fix the transformer, the real problem is the underground cable that feeds the three houses on your block. It's getting up there in years. We'll repair the fault this time, it's down at the end of the street, but eventually we're gonna have to replace the whole thing." Oh, and we get an update: 4am. The job is gonna take a midnight backhoe. But they will be out of Lisakit's way by 10:30pm, which is fine. Soon, she's on her merry way, Kouryou-chan goes to bed, and Omaha goes to sleep as well.
Eventually, I break up the fire and ash the coals and go to bed myself. The house, remarkably, retains most of its heat. Sometimes around 3:45am, the loud thunk of the spring-forced gas line being pulled open by its electromagnets jolts me awake, but only enough to be happy we have power and heat once more.
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Date: 2009-03-24 09:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-24 06:49 pm (UTC)