Power outage!!!

Yesterday, I spent the day at the MINI dealer (Northwest MINI) with my car in service. It wasn't bad (the day) because I was able to work at the dealership. Not working on cars, but they have wi-fi in their customer waiting area and several desks at which to work. They even drove me to a restaurant to pick up lunch. About 4 pm, I was out of there, my credit card debt a lot higher and my MINI all fixed up.

There were several things that needed some fixing, so it added up. But that's not what all this is about. That was just setting the stage.

Evidently, the power at my house went out at about 1:30 pm, yesterday. When I got home, after waiting at swim practice, the power was still out. This was at 8 pm. I had talked to Heather and she asked me to bring home something fast for dinnner. The main road in was also closed because trees were down, mingled with power lines.

We ate by candle light and shortly there after went to bed.

Because I was out all day, my cell phone had died and my laptop battery was low. Both of these, I was planning on charging at home! I have a watch, that I rarely wear, that had an alarm. I have never used the alarm on it before, so I'm a little wary of trusting it to wake up.

The power was still out when I woke up at 5 am. I heated some water for Heather and the kids on my backpacking stove so they could have hot oatmeal or coffee instead of just warm oatmeal or coffee. We headed out to swimming - where I knew the power to be on - 3 cities east of us. The road was still closed, but the power was on on Mercer Island.

I'm writing this post from here and charging my cell phone while I wait.

The power is out at my kid's school (it is right in our neighborhood, so on the same power lines). While poking around on the web, I found a really cool school emergency notification system. It is the Public Schools Emergency Communication System and seems to be somehow affiliated with SchoolReports.org. They show emergency information for school districts and have email and pager/text message notification! Pretty cool! Our school is closed today!

I'm going to have to figure out how to work today (or if I really need to work today - I haven't checked my calendar yet). There is wi-fi at the library, some stores in Issaquah and yes, of course Starbucks.

It will be an adventure.