Still not 100%
Well power is back and life is kinda returning to normal. Just a few little anoyances remain. Like the three giant piles of limbs that are laying in my yard waiting to get hauled off. I piled up all the stuff I could carry, but the landlord is going to have to come over with a chainsaw and cut up the bigger stuff. There’s limbs so big laying on the ground that I can’t even drag them. Not that I’m Hanz or Franz, but the fact remains, that they ain’t moving anywhere if its up to me to move them. I could start hauling stuff out with the El Camino, but it’d probably take 15 trips. There’s ALOT of tree on the ground. Times like this I wish I lived in the country and could just light ’em all on fire. Of course if I lived in the country, I probably wouldn’t have my power back yet either. There’s still lots of folks in the dark.
Our cable hasn’t been hooked back up yet. I understand that there’s a lot of customers down, but when we called them to let them know, they wouldn’t even take our address. They just said they’re going to go from house to house and see who’s out. I dunno how long that’s going to take, but I’d guess it could be months. I’m sure they still want me to pay my full monthly bill though. Yeah, it’s a bad deal for everybody, this storm, but I bet if you were losing income off the deal, you’d be a little more motivated to get out there and get people hooked back up. If its not hooked up tonight when I get home I guess I’m going to have to call and be the squeaky wheel. I bet they have a list for THOSE people.
Being without the internet is an inconvience, but it’s not that bad really. I’d probably be more tore up about it if I hadn’t been out of power for three and a half days and realize how nice it is just to have a warm place to sleep. That kinda helps put things in perspective. I’ve still been able to efficiently waste my time. I’ve been playing a lot of Final Fantasy XII and having fun with that game that I’ve been putting off for a while. Watched some movies and lots of Friends episodes with Andrea.
So its not all bad, but it will still be nice to be able to settle back into the old routine again. I suppose it’s good to mix it up once in a while though!
Got power back…kinda.
The landlord called today at work and said he got a generator hooked up to the house. WOO HOO! Its not enough to run the whole house at once. But its enough to run the heater, the fridge and the lights. Probably no TV, but I can live with that until the power comes back on for good.
Just glad not to have to use the dog and cat as an electric blanket at night anymore. At one point last night all four of us were curled up under the many blankets.
So as long as nobody steals our generator, we should be good!
Some new pics of the ice.
Welp. Still no power at the house. It wasn’t quite freezing when we got there this morning but it was close. You could see your breath in the house.
Reminds me of the stories the old folks tell how they’d have a glass of water by the bed when they went to sleep and when they woke up it’d be ice. Ha ha.
It’s a bum deal. Looks like it might be a couple days before we’re back up because they’re going to get all the mainlines up before they start connecting individual houses. 6-9 days before everybody has power they said. But they’re hoping that MOST people will be back up by Saturday night.
We stayed at Jason Marsh’s place last night. He hasn’t lost power the whole time. Wouldn’t you know as we were sitting there the power started to flicker. He almost kicked us out saying we were bringing it with us! It did last the rest of the night though.
According to the website, outages are still being reported faster than power is being restored. About 1,000 more homes are without power now than there were this morning. Over 12,500 houses with no power in Riley County alone right now.
So it’s gonna be a few days before this whole mess is put back together. I’m not too worried about it, because there’s nothing I can do. But it’s pretty easy to get stressed out when you’re basically kicked out of your home. All is good though, couple deep breaths and you just go back to doing whatever there is to do.
Little bit of ice.
Here’s some pics of what happened overnight last night as the ice storm rolled through.
Pretty crazy. I think the El Camino is okay, but I wasn’t going to run out there and check. It was like a war zone man. Trees were literally falling from the sky. You’re hear CRACK! POP! WHAM! as a limb would fall from a tree. A guy could get killed just standing around out there. I had to go clear the driveway so Andrea could get her car out for work and it was like being in a minefield. Just hoping you don’t step in the wrong place at the wrong time.
We’ve been lucky not to lose power yet. Our power lines are pretty vulnerable though. I think they’re running straight through a tree or two. So I’m almost just waiting for it to happen. They’re calling for another half to 3/4 an inch of ice throughout the day. Who knows what I’ll come home to. Good thing the pets have fur coats.
We’re doing fine though. Andrea made it to work, and I’ll head that way in a bit. Nothing is broke yet that I can tell, and it’ll be up to my landlord to figure out what to do with all the big ass limbs. I’ll be nice to pile ’em all up for him though!
I’ve got skillz.
Well in Guild Wars you can get “titles” for certian accomplishments. Some of them more meaningful (relatively speaking) than others. For instance if you beat all the missions you get the title “Protector of Tyria”. One particular title I am persuing is “Drunkard” which you receive for being ‘drunk’ for 1,000 minutes. It’s a pain in the butt because you have to double click an ale every minute for 1,000 minutes to get the title. I thought it was pretty dumb that I had to sit there for 1,000 minutes just staring at the screen, double clicking every 60 seconds.
So with the help of a piece of software called AutoHotkey I was able to write a simple little script that double clicked every 60 seconds for me whether I was there or not! Why do all the mundane work when a computer can do it for you right? I had to go back to the days of old, back when I programmed a coin toss program where you could bet whether or not it would be heads or tails on an old Ti-86 graphing calculator in High School. I figured if I could do that, I could make a computer click a couple times every minute.
So wait, I paid money for a game so I could make a computer play it for me…wha?
12.9.07Lazy Sundays are the best!
I’ve gotten absolutely nothing (constructive) done today. Isn’t that the best kind of day? It almost feels like I am playing hookie!
A couple of weeks ago I finally managed to get spiralfrog all set up and I’ve been downloading songs. On dial up it takes a while, but I’ve got nothing but time today!
The day only gets better….NFL! Hey, maybe the Chiefs will actually win! Ok, so chances are it won’t be the PERFECT day. The next best thing to watching them win, is watching them lose. Ha Ha
12.8.07Cold and Ice
Boy, today was one of those days that you get up, you get on the road and say, “Man I wish I didn’t have anything to do today.” I left the house for a remote today at around 9:00, and the roads were black ice. Saw 4 cars and a semi truck in the ditch on my way over to the radio station. Everybody on the interstate was doing about 40 mph. Except for the dude that thinks its cool to “just drive normal.” I like to think those people are having to get towed out of a snowbank a few miles later down the road. It was SLICK!
Didn’t cancel the remote though. Didn’t have too many people show up, but it could have been worse. There were actually a lot of people out and about. Between everyone Christmas shopping, and K-State graduation, there were a few too many idiots on the road for my taste. I took enough hits in the old car, I don’t really want to start getting this one beat up! I’ve put too much work into it now. =P
Tomorrow is probably going to be better though. Its supposed to actually snow instead of this freezing rain crap. Slush, snow, packed snow, I can dig that no problem. “Just drive normal.” Ha ha!
Internet is on the fritz.
They must be doing “upgrades” somewhere in the neighborhood because every morning my internet practically doesn’t work. It’ll be up for 30 seconds real slow, then down for 5 or 10 minutes. REALLY annoying since I’m such an internet junkie.
It seems to work fine by the time I get home from work, but I hope it doesn’t get any worse. We ditched our cable a while back to save some extra scratch, and if the internet is down, there’s not much to do. I have taken Final Fantasy XII back up in the mornings and am enjoying it even more than the first time I started it. So it’s not all bad. Just if you’re paying for something to work you expect it to work, ya know!
I crave internet!!!!
12.5.07Duane’s nutzo cat.
Here’s everyone’s favorite 2007 cat modeler. Here’s one of the new models. Extra loud. I was talking to mom on the phone the other night and I swear you could hear this cat plain as day. It was going. “HEY! HEEEY!” Looks like a cute cat, although kinda blurry. I hope Bryson isn’t making a kitty “shaken not stirred.”
Miis!
Out station is (supposedly) giving away a Nintendo Wii this Friday. I say supposedly because until today they said they weren’t sure if they were going to be able to get one in time. But I’ll believe it when I see it. Our backup plan is apparently to write “You won a Wii…as soon as a store gets one…someday.” on a paper napkin and hand it to the winnner.
ANYWHO we were doing some promoting on the website so I made Miis for all the DJs at miicreator.com!
Me
Rodney
Jenn
Jeri Anne
Robert
It’s a great time waster. I’m not sure who to make next!