Had Me A Little Mini-Adventure...

After Wendy went to sleep I picked up Tomb Raider Legend, and with Brian's occasional advice and constant support I got pretty far! :D

I don't remember exactly what time I started playing (probably around 6:00 pm or 7:00 pm) but I know I stopped playing right around 11:58 pm.

I know this because that's about the time our power went out.

Brian had laid down to get some sleep for maybe an hour when everything went dark and silent. Not just in our appartment, or in our appartment complex, or even on our block! The whole grid must have gone down!

It was probably weather related, because of the recent freeze and subsequent snow. I don't think it's freezing anymore because I went out into it.

And the first thing I did when the power went out was start taking notes, lol. (It's in my blood to observe and document things. Can't help myself.)

So here's my little micro-adventure based on those notes:


11:58 pm, 1/16/07

Complete blackout. For at least a block.

Very cool. :)

No mechanical sounds at all. In fact, my ears are ringing, almost as though I just came out of a Rock concert. And I was being quiet because Brian is sleeping! It's amazing how much inorganic sound buzzes through our ears at every given moment of our lives. Even at night!

When the power went out I was playing Tomb Raider Legend... Which is cool because it gives the black out a sort of adventurous feel. I'm grateful I wasn't watching 24 (as Brian spent the largest part of his day doing today, lol) because my first thought would probably have been that we were under attack by terrorists. (That show makes you paranoid when you watch it in large swaths! I'm not kidding. Try it, if you don't believe me. Watch 6 hours or more, then pay attention to how your mind processes unexpected things -- the TINIEST unexpected things, lol.) But since I was playing Tomb Raider the blackout was more of a playful thing to me, hee-hee.

I even got off on the fact that I was writing these notes with pen and paper by candle light! :D

The little tiny TV Kelly gave me years ago came in handy when I decided to try to get an idea how pervasive this blackout was. After 15 minutes or so I could easily imagine all of Austin blacked-out, so I decided to seek information. (Even without 24 my imagination can be grandeose, lol. It's the little kid in me.) The blackout was local, because I was getting all the local TV signals. But the local NBC and The CW affiliates were running severe weather crawls like crazy. But those crawls didn't meantion my neck of the woods, so this had to be a very localized thing.

12:07 am, 1/17/07

I realized that if the power wasn't back on in a couple of hours I could amuse myself by watching 2 back-to-back syndicated episodes of SCRUBS on the NBC affiliate! That was a fun thought: Watching SCRUBS because there really isn't anything else to do! It reminded me of the Olden Days -- you know, the Days of Yore -- before cable when you flipped through, like, 3 channels and you just watched the best thing that was on at the time. (When I was a kid I had a black & white TV with an antena in my room, and if I didn't want to watch what Mom and Dad were watching I had to do with what my set could get. It was kind of fun... like roughing it, hehe.)

Of course, there was tons of stuff I could have watched or listened to on my iPod, and the battery on my portable dvd player was fully charged, so I had at least 2 hours there. But in this time of darkness and silence it felt appropriate to maintain some link to the rest of the city until the power came back.

I also mused that we really need to replenish our candle supply.

Also, I had this odd instinct to partol the appartment every 10 minutes or so. Which is just a silly idea because our appartment is so small that without fans and AC/heating and the fridge and whatever else running, I could not only hear everything going on in our appartment, but what was going on outside and some of what was going on in adjoining neighbor appartments, lol! Most likely the only thing I would have done is disturbed Brian's sleep by wandering through the living room every so often (he sleeps on the couch... by choice... it's a Brian-thing) breaking the perfect darkness with a flashlight beam.

Though it was freezing outside, it was oddly warm in my room, without my fan running. Wierd.

12:22 am, 1/17/07

Time for a mini-adventure!

I wanted to get a better idea of how far the blackout extended, and pick up some candles in case it went on for a few hours. Nowadays, almost half an hour is a VERY long time for a blackout to last.

So I set out (leaving my notebook abd pen at home, wisely as it turns out) and gingerly decended my 3 flights of stairs, whish were frozen solid and slippery as... something that's not obscene and has nothing to do with sex or personal lubrication.

It was amazingly bright, with the clouds scattering the moonlight.

Before I was even half a block outside the appartment complex I could see that all the residential houses south of us were out, streetlights included, but half a mile east of us the power was still on.

This same thing happened a few New Years back.

It was COLD out there! I have remained cozily inside the appartment since Sunday night, just before the freeze. But I had bundled-up, so I stood a decent chance of avoiding frost bite.

Actually (as I stated above) it wasn't really freezing any more. I noticed that the ice had melted at the inside edges of the sidewalk, and there was a lot of running water. So the ice was probably thawing. But more than that, it wasn't that bone-chilling cold. It was merely flesh-piercing, this cold.

It was a groovy -- if SLOW -- little walk. It was cool to see so few people on the street besides me. I passed a fire engine (no sirens) and 2 cop cars, so I felt like we were all being watched after.

Since it was after midnight I knew H.E.B. would be closed, so I headed straight for Walmart.

As I walked I remembered Marc Zicree's MAGIC TIME novels. They're really cool! Something mysterious happens and complex machinery stops working, and some people turn into mythological creatures, and some gain "magical" powers! A very groovy world to hang in! (For the reader, at least.) I mean, the effect wasn't complete, naturally, since I could see lights up ahead, and everything was calm and quiet. But still...

I don't wanna drag this out too much more than already have, so after very carefully making my way over icy sidewalks, not-so-icy streets and VERY icy parking lots, then venturing through some frozen grass (more traction, but you never knew when you were gonna break through into a puddle) I arrived at Walmart to discover that it was closed due to the weather!

But further down the vast parking lot was a conveince store/gas station, and they had 2 boxes of emergency candles left. I bought them and headed back.

On the way back it started gently raining -- a little more than sprinkling, but you don't feel honest calling it "rain". A few blocks from my appartment I looked down and noticed that the patches of rain on my jacket appear to have frozen. Maybe the freeze isn't over just yet. (Which would make you right, Gnomey Goddess. Hee-hee :D )

2:25 am, 1/17/07

At home I peel off my ice-dusted outter clothes. I noticed that the power was back on long before I got home. There were huge wodges (Is that a word? I think I got it from Douglas Adams, but that doesn't mean it's a word, necessarily.) of neighborhood that I could see now that had been a black hole in the horizon on my way to the store.

From the clock in my bedroom and the VCR in the living room I can estimate that the power must have come on 2:31 am, because clocks always restart at midnight after a power outtage.

We have plenty of emergency candles now, tho'. Should this ever happen again.

Which, of course, means it probably won't.

I'm exhausted now. I didn't realize I had been walking for 2 hours until I looked at my cell phone, jotted down the time for my notes, then looked up at the time of my last entry.

I wonder if I'm now physically fit... I should go weigh myself, lol.