Off the grid

As others have mentioned, there was a big wind storm last thursday and a huge number of people in the seattle area lost power, including the main microsoft campus for over 24 hours (which is just unheard of). We lost power for one day which was not a huge deal because we have family in the area with a generator, so we stayed over at their house one night and by Saturday morning we had power back. Even though there are massive trees right next to our house, we were very fortunate in that none fell down, there was no damage to any houses in our neighborhood.

Far more annoying, to us, was the lack of internet access from home until yesterday... I think I would rather have no power (I can put on a sweater) than no internet. I wasn't able to finish my christmas shopping for my family (all done online), nor was I able to ship the existing packages I already had to them (USPS.com carrier pickup, scheduled online). It was strange.

A coworker who was at work on Friday with no power explains what it was like:

"I came in on Friday just to charge up my laptop and cell phone. The offices didn't have power - but some of the hallway outlets were hooked up to the generator. People clustered around them like they were campfires. And someone strung a bunch of power strips together to make an extension cord to one of the coffee machines."

Ahhh, that's the life: roughin' it.