Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Survival, Day 8
The weater is warming up (Boo! Hiss!). It's also overcast and raining today (Boo! Hiss!).
We're still without power and it's hard to see ever growing glow of civilization and wonder when are we going to get power? Why have you forsaken us? Smirk though, still has no power, and yet has to endure the Vegasequse glare of power from the next street over.
The Kids got bucketfulls of smack candy from Trick-or-Treating
last night at the Mall, so we have a week or so of dealing with sugar fueled
kids.
Did I mention we still have no power?
Also, it's National Novel Writing Month but given the events of the past week, and the fact that we're still without power at Casa New Jersey, I don't think I'll be signing up for it this year (not like I ever finished the previous years I signed up).
Other than that … not much else to report.
Hacks
Oh, I did receive email from an old friend of mine, Bill Lefler, someone I've known since middle school (the only friend I've known longer is Hoade). He wasn't hit so hard this year from Hurricane Wilma, but he did get hit from last year's Four Horsemen of the Hurricanes.
He related this story from last year:
We were out for about a week and and half last year and because we're on a well we had no water flow either. The water in the kiddie pool that we were bathing in was getting kind of nasty by the time my father-in-law showed up with a generator.
Then I decided to contribute to the injury stats by trying to cut my leg off with the chainsaw. I felt like a complete doofus at the emergency room because all they were getting were chainsaw and saw injuries from people not used to doing the that kind of work. It took me a few years of chainsaw experience to get to an injury like that dammit!
What happened is that I let myself get overtired cutting up all the limbs. I was cutting and stepping over the cut branches and had let up on the saw trigger so that it was going from full speed to stop and brought the saw down just when I was stepping forward over a branch. By the way, I was wearing shorts.
I felt the saw hit my leg and I remember a thought process something like this …
“Something just hit my leg.”
“That was the chainsaw hitting my leg.”
“I just hit my leg with the chainsaw.”
“My leg doesn't hurt … so I guess the chain was stopped.”
“I better take a look at my leg to make sure it's ok.” Takes a look at leg in question. “That doesn't look good.”
“Is that what the inside of my leg looks like?”
“Oh crap. I better do something about that leg.”
It was very strange as there was really no pain at all and it wasn't really bleeding, but I had had cut my leg right above the knee about three inches wide and about an inch deep.
To top this all off nobody was home but me and the kids and they were over at the house (luckily outside) several hundred feet away. I called the kids and pinched my leg together to keep everything inside while I hobbled to the barn. I had one of them go get the neighbor and another go get the phone and a washcloth. I was sitting on a chair in the barn when the phone and neighbor arrived (I just wanted an adult there in case I keeled over, but like I said there was really very little bleeding and no pain). Amusingly, one of the kids asked me if was feeling dizzy. “No,” I said. “Well, I am,” he replied.
Anyway, the oldest [kid] called [my wife] (I was still holding my leg closed) and told her that I had cut my leg with the chainsaw. “I'm all right,” I called to the phone several times as he didn't offer her any further explanation. “Tis only a flesh wound,” I added.
I think she set the land-speed record getting home to take me to the emergency room. Incidentally, she had been in the middle of a hair cut which I'm sure made us quite an interesting couple showing up to the hospital.
I got a nice ego boost at the emergency waiting room when I sat down beside some eight year olds holding still holding my own leg shut. “Whoa …” they exclaimed when they found out that I'd chainsawed myself. But in their head I'm sure they were finishing the thought. “… what a doofus!”
Other than that, his family is doing well, and they're in the process of adapoting two girls from Liberia. They were planning on vacationing down here in the Keys, but as Bill relates:
We heard news from the condo on [Key] Marathon. Apparently they had an eight foot surge go through which flattened the condos not on stilts (ours was), did the same for the office, and somehow burned down the clubhouse. (What kind of water-reactive chemical were they storing in there?)
So, I guess they need to rebuild and get occupancy permits again, so that kills our vacation next week.
My guess is that they were storing sodium. But as to why, I don't know.
This wouldn't be so bad …
It's been raining all day today.
Which means that the likelyhood of power being restored to Casa New Jersey today has been reduced to about a thousandfold.
And the phone here at The Company has been ringing off the hook, only there's this annoying “beep … beep” at the other end. Not sure what that is, but it's getting about as annoying as the lack of power (okay, I'll shut up about that now).
I've also concluded that while I'm not going to participate in this years National Novel Writing Month, I should however, set the goal of actually writing about my trip to Las Vegas back in July. I have the layout I want to use. And the notes. And the pictures. But none of the actual text. I started to write it, back in late July, early August, but I was approaching the material in a voice not my own and it really showed (awful … just awful stuff).
So screw it. Write it the way I write (and lately, I'm not very enamored with the way I write) and get the thing done this month.
Just as soon as I get power back.
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Survival, Day 9 (or: The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades)
The sky is cloudless. The weather is nice. I was able to get gas with no wait last night. And there's Good News™ about the power situation. But first, I must backtrack a bit.
Back when we lived in The Facility in the Middle of Nowhere, we met Bubba (his real name is Rob, but to keep him straight from Rob the ex-roommate, we'll call him Bubba—he doesn't mind), a nice fellow that still hangs around even though both of us moved away from The Complex. He comes by at least once a week now, at least for the weekly D&D game I hold on Sunday.
Well, this past Sunday, Bubba called Lake Worth Power and posing as the Mayor of Boca Raton, berated Lake Worth Power for their tardiness in restoring power to his friends' house. They told him that power would be restored by Tuesday.
An amusing stunt, but I would only believe it when I see it.
Well, Tuesday (while I was at work) FPL stopped by (note, it was FPL and not Lake Worth Power) Casa New Jersey and told Spring & Co. that they would be coming by tomorrow (which is, today) to restore our power. Hmmmm.
Another small digression: the street we live on is rather short, perhaps a half mile in total length, with a major road bisecting our street in half (we live at the south end of the street).
Well, as I was leaving for work this morning, I saw a power truck (that I took to be FPL, although I couldn't make out which power company it really was) at the far north end of the street.
So it's likely that we'll be getting power today, but no later than tomorrow.
Also, I just received the follow email from Spring:
The Lake Worth Power dude came to our place about noon or so and went up in the bucket truck. He then proceeded up the street, upstream in the power supply. He projects we'll have power tonight.
He also lamented that LWP are not as beloved as FPL and are not able to score the good free food like the big guys can. We offered him blueberry muffins and coffee, but he said he just ate.
Things are definitely looking up …
O frabjous day!
Just got the news: We have the power!
Woot!
