Note: the text below was originally started nearly a week ago, when it looked like we'd need a substitute diarist, but brillig managed a miracle and it wasn't needed. It may still not be needed, but it's what I have available...
It was a long four days. I was one of hundreds of thousands of customers who lost power during the way-too-early east coast snowstorm on October 29, 2011. And I wasn't the unluckiest of these: there were over a hundred thousand left to regain power the morning after I returned home, and some of the outages continued through until November 7 (the day this diary was originally started).
We'd already gotten some snow several days before, only an inch or so that did little and melted away in a couple of days. And the forecast for the fateful Saturday was initially only for rain. But there began to be ominous warnings that morning, with people being urged to limit their travel. I had been thinking about possibly going to a concert that evening, but instead cut my day short and headed home right after rehearsal, picking up some supplies on the way home as the snow began to mix with rain, and then supplant it. The roads were all white for the final twenty minutes, and driving speeds were down.
I hadn't been home for more than an hour when the first power flicker hit shortly after 6:30 in the evening. It was already dark out, and I reminded me to make sure I knew where all the flashlights were. I even lit a couple of candles just in case. I would need them...
It was an odd sequence leading up to my eventual loss of power. There were another few short flickers, and two times over an hour apart when the power was off for around half a minute, only to come back on. I had foolishly decided to run the dishwasher, though I lucked out and it finished its run well before I did lose power. Finally, shortly before 10pm eastern, the power went, and with it the phone service. Once I was sure this wasn't another of those half-minute disappearances, I checked my cable modem, which was still getting a signal. Sometimes you just luck out, and in this case, the tree or tree branch that took out the power line and the telephone line stopped or bounced before gravity took it through the cable. So I powered down my iMac, to reduce the drain on my backup power supply, and left only the wireless router and the cable modem on, and powered up my laptop for as long as it—or the signal—would last. In the event, it was over two more hours, until shortly after midnight, during which time I wrote five comments in the night's Top Comments diary, including the highly descriptive Don't mind me, I'm just posting here in the dark.
It's frustrating being cut off like that. Just about the only time I wish I had a smart phone is in rare situations like this one. The rest of the time I'm perfectly happy with my very dumb (and very inexpensive) cell phone. Still, the dumb cell phone still made calls, and when I awoke the next morning, Sunday, to a still powerless universe, I called my brother who lives much nearer to Boston. He hadn't lost power, and I was able to find out that National Grid, my electricity provider, was "assessing condition", and there was as yet no estimate of when power would be back. (A call to their 800 number yielded like information.) I was offered a place to stay for the duration, and when the daylight eventually began to wane, I checked again, and with "assessing condition" still the official word, I packed up various necessities (including clothing, toiletries, and my MacBook), and headed east for the duration. I didn't take any perishables from my refrigerator or freezer, though: when I pulled them out, they felt practically room temperature, even if that was now about 58 and falling, and not worth the risk.
I would eventually return home four days later, on Wednesday, when the power was restored. National Grid's power outage site was next to useless in terms of predicting when power would return until a town actually got its power back on; on Monday, the whole of Worcester County, sixty cities and towns in all, was supposed to get its power back, apparently en masse, at 11:45pm on Thursday, November 3. Except for approximately ten towns in the southwestern corner, which would have their lights on at 9:00pm that same night. Heh. Needless to say, this was arrant nonsense.
Some of you may be wondering at the title of tonight's diary. It's from a wonderful book by the late Diana Wynne Jones entitled Archer's Goon. In the Author's Note, which is the first thing you come to after the title page, she wrote that the book would "prove the following ten facts", and the third is "All power corrupts, but we need electricity." While there have been any number of times recently when that particular fact has proved and reproved itself (pun semi-intended), it's been one that I've appreciated since I first read the book shortly after it was published over twenty-seven years ago. Another fact that the book claimed to prove was "When an irresistible force meets an immovable object, the result is a family fight." It made a pretty good case for that one, too.
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There were a few comment nomination tonight, so a big thank you to those who remembered us before that daily deadline of 9:30pm eastern. Our email address is:
TopComments AT gmail DOT com
(change " AT " to "@" and " DOT " to ".")
Anyone can send us great comments. Be sure to include the direct link to a comment—the URL—which is available from that comment's date/time; we need that to find your choice. Please always include your Daily Kos user name in the body of your message, so we can credit you properly. If you send a writeup with the link, we are able to include that, too, though we reserve the right to edit. Oh yeah: we do accept internal DKos mail to the Top Comments account, but we're still trying to remember to check it, so gmail is a tad safer, unless you plan to be visiting the diary to make sure we looked.
Special thanks to brillig for formatting the comments and downloading the top mojo tonight. She rocks! (And rock and rolls, too.)
From Julie Gulden:
RLMiller nails it in her comment, which can be found in Hunter's front page story Dear Republican Party.
From Dragon5616:
In Hunter's awesome front page rant Dear Republican Party, MarkC takes the masks off the GOP candidates.
From gizmo59:
In reply to a comment by eatbeans, happymisanthropy corrects a mistaken impression regarding Newt, and gives a short and spot-on analysis of his personality.
From sardonyx (your very last minute Sunday diarist):
In cosmic debris's diary Fighting Privatization of Sacred Lands: Occupy Tucson Joins Native Grass Roots 'Protect Chuk-Shon', cai details an impressive thing about the occupy movement.
Please add your own comment finds below!
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Top mojo is from comments made all day on Saturday, November 12, 2011. The listing is courtesy of the wonderful mojo generator created by mik, and only excludes tip jars and other first diary comments.
1) Infiltration of the general assembly? by Danjuma — 164
2) Oh please, oh please, oh please by Empty Vessel — 134
3) Even more disgusting by drewfromct — 130
4) Kudos to Chief Brown by LieparDestin — 116
5) Stunning.... by snapples — 110
6) But for home solar ... wow! by KalHermit — 91
7) That may be a fatal contradiction by Danjuma — 81
8) I think that they are performing the by noise of rain — 75
9) I was appalled by the Penn St. students by davidkc — 73
10) Richard by Major Tom — 73
11) "Dateline" is true crime porn by Richard Cranium — 72
12) We will prevail by ZhenRen — 70
13) And videoing police is illegal in... by PDX Dem — 70
14) There is no contradiction by rocklawyer — 68
15) Just think about all the damage Newscorp by Major Tom — 67
16) when i watched the video on DKOS by LieparDestin — 65
17) "go protest a happy meal!" Insta-classic! n/t by fou — 65
18) Bill's absolutely right... unless.... by Snud — 64
19) So..if BOA can hire rent a public servant cop by emal — 63
20) Thanks, BruinKid by SadieSue — 61
21) hurrah by BlueDragon — 59
22) The only time I worked for Murdoch by Brit — 58
23) Give Rupert Murdoch a Break by JekyllnHyde — 58
24) You should also quote this excellent letter from by Mindtrain — 59
25) "...their last friend left." by luckylizard — 58
26) He was in uniform, working for BoA n/t by Gustogirl — 57
27) As I watched the media Village and political class by LeftHandedMan — 56
28) NO VIOLENCE!!! NO VANDALISM!!! by joelado — 56
29) If the battery becomes universal by wrights — 56
30) Making them removable would separate by wrights — 56
31) Tipped and recommended for the hope. by semiot — 56