What I did for the blackout
Last night the power was out in my neighborhood for about a total of 4 hours. My specific grid had it the worst for the longest, since that's where the problem arose initially. I don't know how or why, but the transformer at the corner of Dublin and Hampson caught on fire just after dark. I couldn't see the evidence of it until this morning, but it also caught the building's roof on fire below it. I didn't wander outside to investigate until after about 20 minutes with no electricity, and by then there was no fire, just fire trucks on their way out. I am happy to know they responded so quickly. I don't quite remember the whole sequence, but the electricity kept coming on and going off. I noticed the time approaching 9 PM and I started to get worried that I'd have no electricity to power my TV to watch the seaon finale of Nip/Tuck. It came back, but then at 8:58 pm (I kid you not on the time) the power went out again.
I was madder than a cat with her tail on fire at first. I decided it was time to pull out the candles, so I wouldn't burn out the batteries in my 15 LED light sources. The end product is what you see in the photo above. Fire is soothing, and staring at a flame can be hypnagogic...and before long I was in a trance-like state getting a lot of things out of my head and onto paper. Then I read. And read some more. I was more productive in that 2+ hour span without power than I have been in quite some time. I was actually angry when the lights came back on.
Maybe I should start purposefully turning my power off at night to save money and prevent distraction.
Oh, and the outage spread from St. Charles past Claiborne all down Carrollton. I'm not sure how many blocks it consumed on either side of Carrollton, though, but I couldn't see any sign of light staring down Maple facing towards Tulane. It was like a horror movie. Pitch black with a bunch of people stumbling around slowly amidst heavy fog. Everyone except me, that is, because I am prepared. I have a 1 watt LED on my keychain now :-)