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Aug. 15th, 2003
Yeah so that power thing
Aug. 15th, 2003 02:10 amSo at about 4:15 today the power went out. Fortunately the doc was only in the middle of a cleaning and not, say, drilling. We sat around for a bit and waited but the doc wasn't too optimistic as we're on one of the busiest streets in town and he said the only time he could remember being without power for long was when a guy literally fried himself on the wires in front of our office.
Either I called my folks or my folks called me, but either way we talked and discovered that not only did they not have power but Older Brother, who works in Manhattan, had just called them to ask if they were having a power outage, then had to split. That was when we started to get a bit worried. More phone calls then another touching base with the 'rents provided the news about it being in Toronto and many states.
My first thought, upon knowing it was a blackout covering many blocks and even NYC was that it was all the air conditioners. My second thought, upon finding out it was hitting multiple states and Canada too, was terrorists. My third thought, which followed immediately after, was that Bush did it on purpose to shore up his credibility. Fourth and final was me wondering if power stations would be hurt by that MSBLAST worm since what the hell do I know about A) worms or B) power stations?
My boss actually blamed me. Not because I am gay, though obviously the gay thing means that the outage is, of course, my fault. But because I was sick all day - er, sick beyond being gay I mean - to the point where I was seriously thinking about going home early. So when the power cut out the boss figured that clearly I had done something to stack the deck in my favor.
To which I responded that clearly this was a sign from God that not only should I go home but that he, the doc, was a heathen, since I, the girl who grew up Christian, was getting this divine intervention while he, the lapsed Jew, was not. To which the patient, who was still in the office and actually standing between us, said he was so not getting in the middle of this.
(For those of you playing at home, obviously I was joking.)
Anyhoo - closed the place down and went home to check on the cats. I took as many side streets as I could to avoid dealing with malfunctioning traffic lights. In the end I only had to hit about 3 and most people were very good about it. There was only one street which was a huge intersection that was too hard to co-ordinate through spontaneous courtesy, so people did it kind of catch as catch can.
There were people at a few intersections directing traffic though, which was cool.
Went home, checked the folks again, agreed to go over to their place b/c they had a gas grill (unlike my BBQ which requires charcoal that I'm currently out of) and a gas stove which put them way ahead of me in the food game. My apt is pretty well insulated so the cats weren't in danger of overheating. So I dumped down plenty of food and water, packed up enough clothes and books for a couple of days just in case, and prepared to walk the few miles to the folks since traffic was starting to look scary.
Fortunately that had cleared up by the time I left due to more people being nice enough to direct traffic, so I went back to my place for my car keys, grabbed some sodas out of my fridge and made a point of stopping to give those to a few of the volunteers when I could since it was freaking hot and they were doing it anyway. Granted soda's not great for hydration but I figured any portable cool drink in a storm.
Then passed the time with the folks. The news was spectacularly unhelpful. The last I heard, which was maybe a couple of hours ago, was that Canada's blaming us, we're blaming them, a few people are blaming a lightening strike in Niagra and all the meteorologists are saying that the lightening strike people are on crack and couldn't correctly identify a lightening strike in their own ass with a picture book to help them.
Mind you I might be paraphrasing a bit.
Older Brother walked 2 hours to get home to Brooklyn, where Mouse and my extremely pregnant sis-in-law (as in she's due on the 17th) were fortunately safe and sound. I'm told those working in Manhattan are strongly encouraged to take tomorrow as a "snow day" so to speak, and I had tomorrow off anyway so there we are.
Power's back on now so I'm home with the kitties. The food in my fridge was still cold so yay for not having to throw away a freezerful of hard work.
And that's about that. Though I'm miffed that I had to miss the Fab Five on Leno. Phooey.
Either I called my folks or my folks called me, but either way we talked and discovered that not only did they not have power but Older Brother, who works in Manhattan, had just called them to ask if they were having a power outage, then had to split. That was when we started to get a bit worried. More phone calls then another touching base with the 'rents provided the news about it being in Toronto and many states.
My first thought, upon knowing it was a blackout covering many blocks and even NYC was that it was all the air conditioners. My second thought, upon finding out it was hitting multiple states and Canada too, was terrorists. My third thought, which followed immediately after, was that Bush did it on purpose to shore up his credibility. Fourth and final was me wondering if power stations would be hurt by that MSBLAST worm since what the hell do I know about A) worms or B) power stations?
My boss actually blamed me. Not because I am gay, though obviously the gay thing means that the outage is, of course, my fault. But because I was sick all day - er, sick beyond being gay I mean - to the point where I was seriously thinking about going home early. So when the power cut out the boss figured that clearly I had done something to stack the deck in my favor.
To which I responded that clearly this was a sign from God that not only should I go home but that he, the doc, was a heathen, since I, the girl who grew up Christian, was getting this divine intervention while he, the lapsed Jew, was not. To which the patient, who was still in the office and actually standing between us, said he was so not getting in the middle of this.
(For those of you playing at home, obviously I was joking.)
Anyhoo - closed the place down and went home to check on the cats. I took as many side streets as I could to avoid dealing with malfunctioning traffic lights. In the end I only had to hit about 3 and most people were very good about it. There was only one street which was a huge intersection that was too hard to co-ordinate through spontaneous courtesy, so people did it kind of catch as catch can.
There were people at a few intersections directing traffic though, which was cool.
Went home, checked the folks again, agreed to go over to their place b/c they had a gas grill (unlike my BBQ which requires charcoal that I'm currently out of) and a gas stove which put them way ahead of me in the food game. My apt is pretty well insulated so the cats weren't in danger of overheating. So I dumped down plenty of food and water, packed up enough clothes and books for a couple of days just in case, and prepared to walk the few miles to the folks since traffic was starting to look scary.
Fortunately that had cleared up by the time I left due to more people being nice enough to direct traffic, so I went back to my place for my car keys, grabbed some sodas out of my fridge and made a point of stopping to give those to a few of the volunteers when I could since it was freaking hot and they were doing it anyway. Granted soda's not great for hydration but I figured any portable cool drink in a storm.
Then passed the time with the folks. The news was spectacularly unhelpful. The last I heard, which was maybe a couple of hours ago, was that Canada's blaming us, we're blaming them, a few people are blaming a lightening strike in Niagra and all the meteorologists are saying that the lightening strike people are on crack and couldn't correctly identify a lightening strike in their own ass with a picture book to help them.
Mind you I might be paraphrasing a bit.
Older Brother walked 2 hours to get home to Brooklyn, where Mouse and my extremely pregnant sis-in-law (as in she's due on the 17th) were fortunately safe and sound. I'm told those working in Manhattan are strongly encouraged to take tomorrow as a "snow day" so to speak, and I had tomorrow off anyway so there we are.
Power's back on now so I'm home with the kitties. The food in my fridge was still cold so yay for not having to throw away a freezerful of hard work.
And that's about that. Though I'm miffed that I had to miss the Fab Five on Leno. Phooey.
mmmrrffffh?
Aug. 15th, 2003 12:54 pmPower? Still on. This is a good thing. Looks like some of the radio and TV stations are still affected though. There's a few NYC channels that aren't broadcasting, which is interesting b/c I was able to tune them in on my walkman last night (er - the TV ones I mean, my walkman can pick up the audio signal) so I know they are broadcasting, just apparently not in any way which can reach cable.
Was too wired last night to fall asleep early. Thank goodness for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kita0610 and butterfly who were able to amuse me by supplying me with more AlphaCrack reading from the Bible to help get rid of my evil homosexuality. Did it work? I give you exhibit A: most of the power is back on. Now if I can only stop writing the gay porn.
Speaking of which, I had huge plans for today which I have scrapped thanks to the blackout. The power's back on but something tells me this is not the day to go out and run errands. I can do most of those on Sunday so there we are.
This means I'm inside for all of today. I could be doing productive things here, granted, but now that I'm not blackout-wired anymore I'm starting to feel that exhaustion that was making me sick yesterday so I'm foreseeing a day of doing not much beyond naps, TV and computer stuff. I'm trying to poke the brain to see if I can wake it up enough to get more of Strategy written, but we'll see how that goes.
And that's about that. I believe a nap is calling to me. Catch y'all later.
ETA: Okay, just got off the phone with Mom and found out my grandmother, who is in Flushing, is fine and with power as of this morning but Older Brother, who is in Brooklyn, can't be reached. So either they're still without power and the phone lines are screwed up thus giving all the busy signals, or there's going to be a new member of the family by the end of the day. ;)
Was too wired last night to fall asleep early. Thank goodness for
kita0610 and butterfly who were able to amuse me by Speaking of which, I had huge plans for today which I have scrapped thanks to the blackout. The power's back on but something tells me this is not the day to go out and run errands. I can do most of those on Sunday so there we are.
This means I'm inside for all of today. I could be doing productive things here, granted, but now that I'm not blackout-wired anymore I'm starting to feel that exhaustion that was making me sick yesterday so I'm foreseeing a day of doing not much beyond naps, TV and computer stuff. I'm trying to poke the brain to see if I can wake it up enough to get more of Strategy written, but we'll see how that goes.
And that's about that. I believe a nap is calling to me. Catch y'all later.
ETA: Okay, just got off the phone with Mom and found out my grandmother, who is in Flushing, is fine and with power as of this morning but Older Brother, who is in Brooklyn, can't be reached. So either they're still without power and the phone lines are screwed up thus giving all the busy signals, or there's going to be a new member of the family by the end of the day. ;)
More updates
Aug. 15th, 2003 06:44 pmJust heard from Mom. Older Brother & co are fine. They just got power back but otherwise did not have any problems. Turns out they didn't know their phone wasn't working because they were able to call out this morning. But at some point after that, unbeknownst to them, their line went dead, hence why we kept getting busy signals.
He also said that someone on the sixth floor of his building brought a BBQ all the way downstairs, put it in the courtyard and left a sign saying people should feel free to bring their food out and cook it on that if their stoves weren't working. No clue if it was a gas or chargoal grill, but either way a cool gesture. OB said it then turned into an impromptu gathering of sorts for everyone.
I've got to say that it's neat how well we as a community (and here I'm obviously talking about a very large community that encompasses several states) handled all this. Yes, there was a little looting but apparently only a few stores were hurt and nothing like the damage they had up in Canada (which was enough to make the news as an item in and of itself, whereas the looting news down here was mostly a footnote). Otherwise people spontaneously generated traffic, helped out with donations of supplies to their neighbors - the works. Quite a sea change from the last big blackout to hit this country.
Personally my guess is that we've got some 9/11 left in us. We may fight like hell amongst ourselves when things are okay, but when the chips are down we put it aside and work together. A sappy obvservation, I'll grant you, but still. It's neat.
He also said that someone on the sixth floor of his building brought a BBQ all the way downstairs, put it in the courtyard and left a sign saying people should feel free to bring their food out and cook it on that if their stoves weren't working. No clue if it was a gas or chargoal grill, but either way a cool gesture. OB said it then turned into an impromptu gathering of sorts for everyone.
I've got to say that it's neat how well we as a community (and here I'm obviously talking about a very large community that encompasses several states) handled all this. Yes, there was a little looting but apparently only a few stores were hurt and nothing like the damage they had up in Canada (which was enough to make the news as an item in and of itself, whereas the looting news down here was mostly a footnote). Otherwise people spontaneously generated traffic, helped out with donations of supplies to their neighbors - the works. Quite a sea change from the last big blackout to hit this country.
Personally my guess is that we've got some 9/11 left in us. We may fight like hell amongst ourselves when things are okay, but when the chips are down we put it aside and work together. A sappy obvservation, I'll grant you, but still. It's neat.
