Oops!

Woke up this morning about 06:00 by the light of our emergency lights.  They only come on when the electricity is off so something was up.  Ok, it's my job to crawl into my clothes and go outside to check the fuse.  So I go out there and there is our neighbor walking out into the middle of the road to see if he is the only one without power.  Hmmm.  I gave him a shout to let him know he's not alone and went inside to call the electric utility.

About an hour later we headed off to the casino for breakfast.  What should we see but an electric utility truck wandering around the neighborhood.  I was tempted to follow them because they went right past our street but figured maybe they know what they are doing.  I'm not too sure but at least when we returned home from breakfast (and me losing my $5 at video poker) the electricity was back.

We are pretty dependent on the power company - heating, cooling, cooking, pumping water - yep, all electric.  Solar and wind power are each possible alternatives but would be really expensive if sized large enough to run a house.  Running the a/c, electric stove and electric water heater would be out of the question.  The pump might be possible simply because it isn't used a lot but it would really pull power as it is 240V.  Our actual alternatives are go out to eat or buy a really big generator.  Having a generator like that would bring a whole new set of problems so it's out to eat we go.

Here's to investing a bit into the electric grid infrastructure.  Have a good one!