Today was a day that didn’t go exactly as planned. I think the only thing that did go as planned was my Dental appointment. My original plan today was to get things done around the house and yard and also to work on some writing projects before and after my mid-day dental appointment. However, two  separate outages today changed my plans. This morning I got up and read the paper and checked e-mail. I was just starting to do some research for an article in my Religion in Family History series when the Internet went down. I later saw the repair truck from the cable company in the neighborhood. No TV or Internet, so I picked up a book to read. My choice for this morning was American Tapestry, which is a generational biography of Michelle Obama’s ancestors.

About an hour later, the cable came back on so I was able to get a little bit of research done. I was just about ready to go out and mow the lawn with my electric lawn mower when the power in the house went out. I was expecting that maybe it would be out for a few minutes, but the minutes ticked by. I checked with my neighbor across the street and she had called the power company and found out that due to construction, the power would be off until late afternoon. I was assuming that this meant somebody had been digging on a construction project and cut a cable. I called my Dentist and found out that my appointment was still on as they had power, despite being only a short distance away.

Luckily, there was enough light to get ready by and you don’t need electricity to take a shower :-). I then was off to get my teeth cleaned. I came back home after the dentist appointment and passed by where the power company was working on the power for our subdivision. They were installing a new power transformer. It made me wonder if this was a planned outage that they didn’t communicate.

I went back home and checked to see if the power was back on. The power was still out and the house was stuffy without fans running and I knew that I shouldn’t open up the refrigerator since power would probably be out for several more hours. I then decided to go to the mall for lunch and to hang out where it was cooler. While on the way I decided to stop and take a few pictures of the work that was going on to restore power. They had the old transformer loaded up and ready to haul away.

I took a long time eating lunch as I was reading a book and then went down to the bookstore to read a few magazines and tap into their free Wi-Fi.

When I got back home the power was back on, but my Internet was down again. I had to figure out how to get everything reset and I am now back on-line. Now to let it cool down a bit and maybe I will go out and mow the lawn. Or maybe wait until tomorrow when it supposed to be cooler :-).

Hopefully the outages are over for the day.

Steven