Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

The weather widget on the phone says it's 20 degrees here in Austin.  We've been having "Rolling Blackouts" since about 6:30 am here.  We know that's when they started because the tv modem back up battery started beeping and the smoke alarm started going off.  I don't know why the smoke alarm keeps going off, but I finally got them to stop by disconnecting the upstairs one.  I have new ones to replace them and just haven't gotten to it.  Now is the perfect time!


I'm a little confused about the definition of a "Rolling Blackout."  Between 6:30am and noon that seemed to me 10-15 minutes of power followed by 30-45 minutes of no power.  Thankfully we have gas hot water and range.  At least we can cook on the stovetop.  The heat is gas too, but with no electricity for the fan or thermostat -- there's no heat!  The electricity has been on for a couple of hours now, so hopefully that means they have sorted things out.  We don't have any ice or wind and in the 17 years I've lived in this house, we've never had this sort of power issues!  I know it's nothing compared to other parts of the country, but still makes it uncomfortable.


Monday we managed to convince the VA to do a brace for Johnny's leg on shoes he already had instead of waiting 4 weeks for the custom shoes to come in.  He has an appointment on the 15th for his first fitting.  Assuming the brace works (keeping all the fingers and toes crossed for that), they will transfer it to the custom shoes when they come in.   All that means he should have a working brace in 2 weeks rather than 6.


Otherwise not much too report.  Stay warm out there everyone!

4 comments:

  1. Can't believe how cold it is here in AZ either. Now high 30's and windy. Supposed to be worse tomorrow.

    If it is any consolation, the Groundhog did see it's shadow this morning so we can expect an early Spring. I say we are due!

    Wondering how Granddaughter is over there in Burnet. They might be having brownouts too?

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  2. Yes, we had the rolling outages until about noon, then they just quit, so I sure hope they got it all settled. Our batteries in the RV do run the furnace, so we were never in any real danger, but not having water was a real trial. Hope Johnny gets his brace soon and that it works well for him.

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  3. Burnet had lots of power outages with extreme straight line winds taking out power lines, trees, roofs, etc.

    We've had power on now since a little after noon so hopefully they have it figured out.

    Stay warm everyone!

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