Ice Storm '06

Last Thursday we had an Ice Storm here in Midland that left us without power from Thursday through Saturday evening. It made me realize how much I take electricity for granted. I mean I never think about it. I just continue to use it. Right now for example I'm typing here on the computer while watching TV. It's day so I don't have the lights on but if it were night I'd be using that too. Not to mention the heat and water use.

For last weekend luckily we had a generator handy and a wood stove so all wasn't bad. But I wasn't able to watch the Canadian Men's hockey game on Saturday morning (I guess that wasn't such a bad thing a they blew it agains the Swiss 2-0). But seriously it was really boring. I read some and sat around alot. Once we got the generator going I had the TV hooked up and watched my Simpsons DVD as the cable was also out. I thought about going to a movie and couldn't look up the times on the internet. I had to go old school and look up the times in the newspaper.

To tell you the truth it really wasn't that bad. I mean I had The Simpsons and heat. The only really bad part was lack of a shower and flushing the toilet with melted snow (not fun). I guess all I'm saying is it's funny how fast technology comes into our lives and takes it over. When we first get cables it's like wow there's so much on TV then we want the extra sports channels and MTV 15. When we have internet we want High Speed then that's not fast enough. We want everything faster and faster from intant quotes on auto insurance to Rice Krispy Squares we don't have to prepare ourselves.

I think what I'll take away from my 48 hours without power is that I need slow down and enjoy things. Since the weekend I've taken extra pleasure in turning on a light switch and flushing the toilette. Thank you Consumer Electric.