Yeah, I know, I’m shmall kine late with the blackout report, but I figgah since errbody else already blogged about it up in here, I’d try to present a different angle for all y’all, 3 days aftah da fact. *grin*
Now I don’t consider myself a geek by any stretch of the imagination, but I do have geeky tendencies. LOL! Below, you’ll find what one pseudo-geek did to pass the time of what literally turned out to be “Black” Friday.
Unless you make your home far far away, I don’t have to tell you what happened to most of us during Friday’s fiasco. What I do want to tell you (and what I also want to hear from you) is how we (you) spent our (your) day battling the dark “night”. Get it? Pretty good play on words eh? *patting self on back* Anyway…
The night started with some false alarms. The flickering of the lights. Some subtle hints warning of the impending doom, er gloom, ah, blackout. Wifey and I rushed to get our dinner a-cookin’, but the electric gods were not with us.
*POOF*
Power be gone!
Ain’t no thang. We were kinda mentally prepared for it actually. But it did suck, as, I’m sure it did for the rest of us. (One story I heard was of those stuck in the “Bodies” exhibition when the power went out. That must’ve been nuts yeah!? Talk about real life haunted house! LOL!).
Thanks to all of the candy and treats our friends, family and neighbors gave to us for the holidays, we pretty much had a jubilee of options for a replacement meal. And although Chex snack mix is not the ideal meal, we at least had 30 days worth in case the power didn’t come back for another month. 😛
With no electricity, there was no form of entertainment to speak of. Like errone else, TV, Internet and Phone were all down, so we were reduced to working on our Thank You cards under candlelight (My eyes are still burning). 8)
When the vision started to go and the fumes from the marker became too much, I took periodic “Virus Buster” breaks on the trusty DS. Staring at a bright screen in pitch black darkness however, is not so guaranz balbaranz, so I had to take a break from taking a break, naw-mean? So it was off to find the next thang to do. Hmm, let’s check the Internet on my phone…
Awww yeeeeeaaaaah!
Da buggah works!
So what do I do? I check my email, read my feeds on Google Reader, do a lil’ bit of Facebook, and then pop on to Twitter.
WOAH!
Note to self (and others): Twitter, during island-wide blackouts, is the place to be son!
Thanks to the (Hawaii) Twitter community sending constant updates about their situations and the news they’ve gathered from others, I was not in the dark, while in the dark, if you know what I mean. I was able to piece together what was happening all ova the island without electricity and witout moving a muscle (except the ones in my thumb). Apparently, the Hawaii blackout related messages (marked with “#hipower”) was the number one tracked term on Twitter search at the time. Pretty amazing.
I gotsta give mad props to @johngarcia (John Garcia from the Advertiser), @hawaii (Ryan Ozawa), @KGMB9 (Jared Kuroiwa is that you?), and a few others for holding it down and keeping many of us afloat when we were looking for something, anything.
The next morning, the power was still not back for us “Milsville” peeps, so it was time for more geekiness. We busted out the ol’ crank radio to listen to Perry (on the left) and Price (on the right) on KSSK to find out what the dealio was, and mixed in a few more rounds of DS and Twitter for good measure…
Funniest quote of the day (from wifey): *pouts* “I’m washing dishes for food we didn’t even eat!”
Talk to me!
* Is that geeky enough for you? Were you even geekier than me?
* How did you end up spending your night/day?
* What area do you live and what time did your power end up coming back on at?
* Any other thoughts or feedback on the blackout or weather in general?
Holla!
World Wide Ed 