Friends, Romans, Countrymen:
Lend me your ears. I have returned with comments about our lovely Northeast weather, which knocked out power to, roughly, 250,000 people early Friday morning. Now, I'm sure there are many of you out there who have lost power due to weather conditions. Many of you are in Florida, or, Hurricane Central.
One of the main differences is the time of year. Really. The temperature got up to 23 today and it was windy. People move to Florida to escape the term, "wind-chill factor" for a reason. It can be brutal. And though the people who work for National Grid (NY State's chief power company) were making double and triple-time pay, they deserved their money for what they had to endure, out in the elements.
One of the frustrating things about this one was that you'd have power outages on alternating streets. 60 % of the City of troy was without power, with many people being told that it may be 5-7 days before you might get power back. It doesn't sound so terrible (compared to New Orleans with Katrina), but freezing temps and no heat can cause big problems.
One of the problems I had is that when it did get warm and stuff melted a bit, I had water coming up from our sump that the the pump couldn't pump out without electricity. My main concern as the water rose was, that it would get high enough to douse the pilot light on our furnace. At that point it becomes a pain-in-the-ass drying all the mechanisms out, replacing parts, and getting things running again BEFORE your pipes freeze and burst. Tonight it'll be in the teens, so that will become a problem for many.
Initially, our power came back on at around 8:00 p.m. on Friday. Only to go out again about 5 minutes later when there was a power line explosion behind the Middle School. Eventuall, the power came back on, for good, at 12:40 a.m., 21 hours-or-so after it went out. The temp inside our house got down into the 40's.
Things Never To Underestimate When Contemplating Life:
1.- Heat.
2.- Electricity.
3.- Warm water.
4.- Hot food.
5.- Heat and warm shelter when it's 17 degrees outside and the wind is blowing around 20 mph.
6. -Heat.
7.- Heat.
8.- Outside temps ABOVE 50 degrees.
9.- Good neighbors--which should be Number 3.
When you have extra money and you're thinking of things to buy for your house, consider the following, in no particular order: Flashlights with fresh batteries; a generator (for running a sump pump or your refrigerator); A shopping bag or two with toiletries and the like, in case you need to go somewhere quickly.
NEVER, NEVER, NEVER bring your charcoal grill INTO your house for warmth. Some idiots around here did and had to be rescued from Carbon Monoxide poisoning. Natural Selection? You bet.
I'd like to publicly thank our very good friend Mary Burgess for giving us a place to keep warm for a couple of hours...which could have turned into an overnight.
I'd also like to thank our very good friend, Don Van Keuren, for bringing home a generator for us to use, so I could pump out my basement before the furnace needed repair. Super timely.
Sometimes you get the chance to Pay It Forward. Tonight, one of Connor's buddies is with us because his family's house has no power yet, even though they live 1 minute's drive away. We've had our power for 17 hours longer than them. Again...extremely difficult in the cold weather.
ONE MORE CELL PHONE PET PEEVE
Look, lady, I don't need to hear the ENTIRE conversation you're having with your white-trash, multi racial, whatever family, from 3 aisles over when I'm trying to grocery shop. Are you people kidding me? Tell me, do people actually look around to see who's around when they're on their cells? I understand having it on you so you can be reached whenever and wherever you are. But, Jesus Christmas, can you hold it the freak down please. Is there no limit to the lack of consideration with some people? We can now file this under the category, The Len Is Right Wake The Fuck Up!!! Moment. "Uh, Hello? There's other humans in the immediate area!! I don't need my 11-year old hearing about your yeast infection, okay?
More sporadic posts to follow. Good luck to my good friend, Roy, the G.B King and his wife, Sue. They still have no power. They Do have a place to stay, though. Good size family, and good people.
Hey, if you have similar experiences to share, please feel free to post them.
Peace to my People on Earth.
I am,
Len Tollerton
Remember, my loves, LEN IS RIGHT.
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A friend of mine is an astronaut and cosmonaut. She flew on MIR and the Space Shuttle, including the return to flight post Columbia. One day during a very contentious meeting at NASA HQ (there was yelling, foul language and projectile coke cans) dealing with the issue of what crews would fly the next missions I turned to her and said "what is your take on this???!!!!"....her response was noteworthy, she paused for a moment and calmly said "gentlemen, we have power, oxygen and the added bonus of gravity....I am very content". You see she had been on MIR during the fires in space when the crew would wake up to russians yelling to abandon ship. Like Len's comments on Maslovs basics, it always provided me a with a valuable perspective. Appreciate life. Stay Warm.
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