The power failed at my home three (3) times yesterday (between about 5:15pm and 7:15pm) ... the last time for about 40 minutes. I'm guessing this had something to do with Monday night's storm .. perhaps TXU Electric Delivery was swapping out transformers or something? About 10 minutes into the last outage, I called to see if there was a projected repair time, and reached TXU Energy instead of TXU Electric Delivery (ah, deregulation). Guess I should update my hardcopy of Emergency Contact Numbers, eh? About half a dozen items changed in the 5 years since the Y2K update!
Fortunately, I found things to do around the house which didn't require electricity. It was all so very Amish. During the outage, I could hear traffic on the street outside, which was odd. In the summertime, I'm used to hearing the various fans (ceiling, air conditioner) and little else.
When I grew up (and pterodactyls roamed the Earth) we'd sometimes lose power for days at a time, after a storm (either thunder- or ice-) and it became second nature not to open the refrigerator or freezer unless you really had to do so (so the stuff inside wouldn't thaw and spoil). There were no portable phones in those days; today, my cordless phones depend on a powered base station, so they failed yesterday and I had to resort to one of my (gasp!) wired phones.
Good thing I didn't have to cook anything; I don't even own a Coleman Stove! And if the outage happened at night, I'd have been Up A Creek Without A Paddle, since I don't own a Coleman Lantern either (although I do have a sleeping bag around here somewhere).
I guess I should run a controlled test some day, to see what else depends solely on Electric Juice. Example: I'm certain the garage door can be opened manually, but how would I access the PDF of the manual to find out?
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Re: the garage door
There should be a rope hanging from the trolley. You pull the rope to disengate the trolley from the chain / gear / whatever and then you can raise and lower the door manually.
I'm very familiar with this rope because it has a handle on the end that is constantly whacking me in the forehead when I'm walking through the garage. You might think I'd learn to avoid it after 8 years of getting bonked, but only if you don't known me.
I know I have a regular corded phone around here somewhere. I kept it for just those occassions where the power goes out, leaving the cordless phone base stations (and, therefore, the phones) dead.
The important question is whether I could find it in the dark. I'd put finding it on my todo list, but I'm too lazy.
Unrelated Q: does "todo" rhyme with "dodo" (the supposedly extinct bird)?
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