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[Al Degutis]

"The night was hot, wait no, the night, the night was humid. The night was humid, no wait, hot, hot. The night was hot. The night was hot and wet, wet and hot. The night was wet and hot, hot and wet, wet and hot; that's humid. The night was humid." (stolen from "Throw Momma from the Train")

Okay last night it was storming, REALLY STORMING... the non-stop lightning was the only light on this hot, humid night. We were awaken by the loud claps of thunder at around 1:35AM. The wind was ripping leaves and branches off the perimeter trees. Then it happened. The power started fade in and out and then... gone. It was ridiculously dark in the house. I heard my stepson stumble and bump his way through the house in search of a candle or flashlight. I sat up on the edge of the bed, felt around and found it... the keychain red light that I got with my subscription to the new Night Sky magazine (which I subscribed to so I could better understand everything that Joe says and I what I read in Astronomy and Sky and Telescopes... I digress)

The night was hot, wait no, the night, the night was humid. The night was humid... no wait... I did that part already...

I had considered throwing this cheap red light away a couple of times. Since you have to hold the button down for the red light to shine I didn't see a use. Now, with it in hand, I held the button and safely made my way to my astronomy equipment and grabbed my Maglite flashlight. I removed the red filter and headed back to the bedroom. No bumps, no bruises. I put it on my wife's nightstand for her.

As we layed there trying to fall back asleep, I said to my wife "good thing I never got around to cleaning up my nightstand like you keep pestering me to."

Astronomy... comes in handing at night!

In case you were wondering, power didn't come back until 10am, almost nine hours later.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

;D The night was hot, wait no, the night, the night was humid. The night was humid...

That was quite funny. I bet when it gets dark there...it really gets dark! And goes to prove that astronomy and astronomy related activities and associated tools save the day again! Hooray for Al and keychain illumination!

As much as I enjoy the dark, I get somewhat anxious when the electricity goes out. The whole house now reverts to non-electrical coping..and rather feels quite vulnerable and loss of control. I had always thought to purchase a generator, but never got around to it. I have my flashlights, radio and other vestiges of modern comforts, but when the lights go out, I always consider first that the problem is within my own domain. I run to the fuse box and check all, with dog in tow. Then I check the power lines leading up to my home. If all is in order, I then look around and peer into my neighbors windows to see if they are without power.

(In 1999, we had a great snow storm in Chicago, many feet in few short hours in March. In that storm, my third power wire, the neutral wire, broke in two. When that happened, the front of the house went up in amperage, the lights brightened up tremendously, while at the very same time, the back of the house dimmed to 20 watt illumination. Quite scary. I pulled the main cartridges and unplugged all I valued, but had a few items fry. Surprisingly, the electric people came out in the midst of that terrible snowstorm and repaired it within two hours. Amazing!)

Last August, in preparation of my weekend errands, I was stopped by a big thunderstorm in the late afternoon. I decided to wait it out before venturing to my stops. As I was looking at the downpour, leaning on the hood of my car, a thin thread sized lightning bolt shot past my face and hit a transformer in the alley 1/2 block away. Blew it up, and with it...the electrical power for the neighborhood. The force of the bolt was astounding, the noise deafening and grateful that I was not the target for the day. The sound it made passing me was akin to banging two silver half dollars together very fast.

Astronomers shall lead in the dark...and sleep during the day.

[Al Degutis]

Chicago said:

As much as I enjoy the dark, I get somewhat anxious when the electricity goes out. The whole house now reverts to non-electrical coping..and rather feels quite vulnerable and loss of control. I had always thought to purchase a generator, but never got around to it. I have my flashlights, radio and other vestiges of modern comforts

Yes it DOES get dark without moonlight. As for modern comforts, without power we have no running water: working water faucets OR flushing toilets! We have a well which uses an electric pump to feed the water lines. I keep telling the family that when the power goes out we need to have designated bathrooms for liquid and solid wastes. Luckily we have 4 toilets!

With this latest (and longest) power outage in the past year we're talking about a generator. Sears has a portable one with enough power for our main appliances for around $700 but we'd then need to pay an electrician to integrate it into the house wiring which will probably cost at least half as much as the generator otherwise we still wouldn't have running water.

[NatureDevil]

The flooding we had on Friday night in that storm was so bad that when I was driving dfown one of the neighborhood streets at 2am trying to get home, the water passed halfway up the tires and greeted me on the floor inside the car.

Very scary. I literally backed out and danced my way back home, going up and down several streets, some backwards just to avoid the damn flood waters.

In the morning, you would never have known there was anything less than a light shower if you looked outside.

NatureDevil