Windstorm 2015

File this under "you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone"... Tuesday afternoon, we had a freak windstorm come through Spokane, knocking out power to the vast majority of residences and businesses in the area, including my house.  Wednesday morning was a little chilly in the house, but work still had power, and all the amenities I might want, so I figured no big deal... until power dropped at work on Wednesday morning.

Bereft of modern conveniences, I resorted to pulling out my old Sony Walkman for its radio, and fired up my 3DS for a little entertainment.  That first night wasn't so bad.

Thursday morning was cold enough to convince me that, cat warmth or no, I should be getting my full winter bedding set out and set up.  Didn't have to hang around the house for long, since power was restored at work, but that just meant a brief opportunity to recharge phone and 3DS, while handling any server issues that cropped up.

Thursday night was a little unpleasant... I have a fireplace in my house, and I tried burning some DuraFlame logs to combat the chill.  That was just enough to keep the temperature in the house from falling further, while the fireplace was lit.  Of course, that was in the living room... getting into bed was actually briefly painful, before body heat and good bedding took hold.  That, and having cats snugged up so close as to cut of circulation in one of my legs, well, let's just say it wasn't a good night.

Friday morning, the house was down into the 40s, convincing me to take up an offer for some free firewood for the night's fire.  The day itself was pretty crappy for the most part, between coworkers equally grumpy from their own power troubles and out-of-area employees perturbed by the loss of services from our power outage... did manage to get a shower in at work (in what I'm pretty sure is the smallest shower I've ever seen, including in my Navy days), so it wasn't a total wash (so to speak).

Friday night, I relearned the ways of wood fires, using the DuraFlame logs as fire-starters.  I couldn't make a really big fire (visions of chimney fires and the house burning down and all that), but at least I gained a few degrees back in the living room, where I set up my bedding on the couch for a not-very-restful night... it was warmer by the fireplace (while the fire continued to burn), but lack of mobility and cats maneuvering for space atop me limited my sleep greatly.

Saturday morning was the coldest yet, with the house at a balmy 44 degrees, effectively laughing at my prior attempts to heat using the fireplace.  No matter... this day, without work to distract me, I could concentrate on fire management, maybe get the living room up to the mid-50s before all was said and done.  Then, a couple of utility trucks passed in front of my house, and I dared to hope... and a little before noon, power came back, and with it the furnace (which did more in a half-hour to heat the house than I had managed all morning) and all the other amenities, including the Internet.

So, now, I do the laundry that's piled up, in preparation for taking a proper shower, and catch up on what I can of what's passed over the past week.  I don't know that "thankful" is the right word for what I feel for modern amenities at the moment, but I sure know it's a damn sight better than the alternative.

Yet another no-buy brand: Vizio

OK guys, I know, consumer electronics is a cut-throat business, but it wasn't that long ago that I held up LG as a no-buy... so, why, Vizio, why are you so intent on one-upping their crappiness?  I mean, bad enough you're also "opting in" people to your spying schemes without their consent, but analyzing displayed content, regardless of source, to better feed advertisers, and tying that information to the IP address where the TV is in use, the better to let advertisers use that info to shape ads for other devices in the house... "intrusive" doesn't begin to describe it.

At this point, I almost hope more manufacturers take this track, if only to create sufficient market for a "dumb" TV to flourish again.