Last night, our area was plastered with high speed winds. This must have eventually resulted in knocking down a few tree limbs or somehow knocking out the power on my street. Luckily, I was able to grab a hot shower before the power went out, but when it did my heart stopped.
I was immediately covered in darkness (this is at 4:45am) and didn’t have a flashlight, or, more importantly, my Blackberry nearby to cut through the dark blanket that was thrown on top of me without warning. I quickly scrambled and stumbled to our closet where I keep my MAG light (doubles as a night-stick too). I switched the light to on and spread the lamp to it’s widest point so that I could see all around me. And it was creepy!
No clocks blinking, no street lights out the window, no coffee dripping. Just moonlight, shining through the window, reminding me that it was my only source of hope at the moment.
Then, while standing in the glow of my flashlight, I made the decision to walk around our building to make sure everything was ok. When I stepped outside, I had to really plant my feet on the ground if I didn’t want to be blown away by the wind. I made my way around the building and lingered around the area where all of the wiring meets the electric meters. I shine my light up the side of the building, looking for anything that seemed to be out of the ordinary, but found nothing. I pushed my way through the wind and made it safely back inside.
So, now what?
I just stood there, in our kitchen, catching my breath, thinking of what I should do.
I need to call the electric company to report the outage. No problem. I power up my Macbook to hop online and find their number, and then I remember that modems and routers need electricity to work. Not to worry, I find the phone number just as quickly by using the web browser on my Blackberry. After reporting the outage I am again stuck on what I can or should do.
I light candles. Need to have light and it only makes sense.
I considered washing the dishes, but remember that the hot water heater also relies heavily on electric.
Coffee? No. Not even french press (electric stove).
Read by candlelight? No. Still too dark.
Read by MAG light? No. I was afraid the light would burn a hole through the pages.
Add audio to a screencast? No. Scratchy voice in the morning does not make for good audio.
Thank goodness for my Blackberry. I was able to reply to a few emails I had received while sleeping. Follow a few new followers on Twitter. And consume about an hour conversing with my Tweeps on Twitter using SocialScope on my Blackberry. I was also able to catch up on a few blogs using Viigo.
Then I started to think. If I did not have my Blackberry, I would not know what to do! I would have been bored to tears and probably would have started to actually cry.
We rely so heavily on technology that it is scary to think of a world without it! Just the two hours this morning of not having the ability to be as productive as I usually am because of technology scared me. Imagine a complete day, or multiple days. Or…longer.
Let’s not go there.
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Filed under: Technology | Tagged: Twitter, Social network, Blackberry, Electric outage, SocialScope, Viigo, Macbook, Web browser, MAG light
