Friday, August 15, 2003

admitted i was powerless ...

Thousands of CT residents without power

NORWALK - More than 34,000 Connecticut residents are waking up without power Friday morning, following what's being described as the largest blackout in U.S. history.


Fortunately, we got our power back last night in time to watch the news, where we were told that although the power was back on, it wasn't fully restored so please please please don't use a lot of it. So we didn't. So it's not our fault that another transmission line into CT went down again this morning about 6am. Honest.

We haven't turned the a/c back on. At least it's a little more bearable, weatherwise, today.

I didn't mind being off the net so much -- though I really really wanted to watch the news on TV! The radio was fine, though NPR kept doing these reports on stupid stuff instead of devoting full coverage to the blackout. They're limited that way. I can't tell you about one single thing covered on All Things Considered or even Marketplace from yesterday evening, even though I listened to it all.

It was kind of interesting having actual conversations again. Alice came over to find out what was going on because she couldn't find her portable radio, and we (Stanley, Alice, and I) just talked for a couple of hours. Then we sent her home with a flashlight and a little portable radio we had, walked the dog (we could see the Milky Way!), had ham sandwiches, and, um, retired for the evening.

Yesterday, after the blackout hit, we thought somebody crashed into a utility pole or something and knocked the power out locally. Which happens once in a while. So we were going to head to WalMart or Staples to get a bag for our new laptop (we did not get the Dell. We got a Toshiba Satellite P25 instead) and maybe the power would be back on by the time we got home so we could finish working. And we heard LOTS of sirens and saw cops galore speeding toward the Post Road, so we assumed they were in a hurry to direct traffic. (Turns out that there was a bank robbery on the Post Road!! But we don't know the details yet since our local newspaper, The Norwalk Hour, is a joke.)

Then Stanley fished out the portable radio and we heard the big news. So I guessed WalMart was out of the question. Then Mom called from Michigan (the unaffected part) to ask if we were ok--THEY got to watch it on the TV NEWS!!

So the only people in my family that escaped the blackout were the Boston-area contingent and my parents. Family that lives in Ann Arbor, Dearborn Heights, Wyandotte, and Brownstown Michigan were all without power -- and I think still without power. The Ann Arbor branch headed up to my parent's house, so they're OK. I have no idea how everyone else is faring. Probably Wyandotte is OK since that town generates its own electricity and is, except for a couple of lines, off the grid. From what I can gather, the main problem is water since the pumping stations failed. I'm surprised there aren't back-up generators at the pumping stations since water is pretty crucial during any disaster. Very strange.

My favorite "Wha' happened?" theories: hackers did it or the blaster worm got into the computers and shut 'em all down.

What horrified Stanley and I the most was the thought of those poor people being stuck on those extreme roller coasters at Cedar Point in Ohio. Spending a few hours hanging 200 feet in the air ...

OUR COMPUTER STORY
On the day it was supposed to ship our new Inspiron, Dell let us know there would be a delay -- like two weeks. Putting delivery well past our departure date. Why the delay? THEY RAN OUT OF HARD DRIVES. Stanley was really steamed -- why couldn't they have let us know sooner? So we canceled the order. Headed to Circuit City the next day and this lunatic salesperson sold us on a Toshiba Satellite P25 -- more expensive than planned, but also a very cool machine. A 17" monitor. Definitely a "desktop replacement" machine rather than a notebook. But we can put absolutely everything we need on it. And it came with XP Pro, so that saved us the $180 we'd have to spend to upgrade one of the other machines, so ultimately, we didn't spend a WHOLE lot more than we'd planned ... yeah, that's right.

What I like best about it are the blue LEDs. So alight, that's totally stupid. I haven't really had a chance to put it through its paces yet since it's still being set up (Stanley wants it done properly), but I'm almost reluctant to since I can easily get addicted to the speed and begin to hate my very decent desktop machine.

How does a computer manufacturer run out of hard drives?
posted by lee on 08/15/03 at 08:54 PM

miscellaneous everything • (0) commentspermalink 
Page 1 of 1 pages