Watt's Up?

Well, not our power, that's for sure, but let me backtrack a bit.   Thursday started out to be a VERY promising day.  Guess what arrived one day ahead of schedule?  My iPad!

Luckily I was at home instead of off running errands or else the delivery fellow would not have left it at the door.  Apple requires a signature for these things to be delivered.  I signed for and grabbed that package faster than you could say "Christmas" and had it on my table and unwrapped even faster.

I had already received my Smart Cover earlier along with the device to transfer photos from your camera to the iPad so it wasn't long before I had the smart cover attached to the iPad and I was ready to read the instructions on how to use my new toy.

Gulp!  This was all that was included in the way of instructions.  One little playing card-sized sheet of "instructions."  Not much for someone who likes things written down step-by-step.  Luckily, I had picked up two books at the bookstore last week that gave much more detailed information on how to set up and use the iPad so I forged ahead.

Soon I was synching my new iPad with the help of iTunes and then I was off to the races, so to speak.  One of the first things I did was download the Season Two premiere of "Justified."  I wasn't sure if I should pick the HD version or the standard version.  I had plenty of memory in my iPad since I got the 64 GB version so the only variable seemed to be how fast my internet connection might be.  We have Verizon FiOS, which is pretty darn fast, so I picked the HD version.  Hmmm, I don't think I'm going to do that again.  It took almost 40 minutes to download one episode.  Next time I'll just pick the standard version.  I'm sure glad that I didn't purchase the entire season via HD.





So that afternoon I was enjoying playing with the iPad and also researching what apps would be good to put on it.  I was happily engaged in that activity when my friend sent me a text message.  Hmm, a tornado warning had been issued for our area.  About that time I got a text message from my hubby.  Same thing.....tornado warnings for our general area.  I grabbed the iPad and my iPhone (are you sensing a theme here?) plus my Kindle and headed to the basement.  That's where my hubby found me when he got home from work, in the recliner with my feet up, knitting and watching the Weather Channel.

The Commander joined me as things were starting to get exciting but suddenly the lights flickered.  Oh, no!  Another flicker!  I dashed upstairs to turn off my computer while he dashed into his computer room to turn off his and then I made sure both of the dogs where downstairs as I returned to "Command Central."  We had just made it to our seats when the room was plunged into darkness.  Drat!

To make a long story short, that was around 7 p.m. Thursday evening.  Dinner was heating in the oven so we ate supper by candlelight in the basement.  Luckily, the iPad, the Kindles, and our iPhones had a pretty good charge on them so we spent the rest of the evening reading and playing games on our devices.

Friday morning dawned with still no power.  I headed off to the library with my chargers, iPhone, iPad, and knitting.  I found a nice study carrel with plugs and plugged in things and then settled down to spend the morning.  By Friday afternoon, we were still in the dark.

At 9 p.m. Friday evening, our power finally came back on.  We had already spent time mopping up water around the freezer and the refrigerator where the ice maker tray had leaked.  Now it was time to assess the damage.  Yikes!  Most of our items in the freezer and the refrigerator were not salvageable.  We had to catalog and throw out a lot.  Thank goodness that our downstairs freezer had very little in it and that I had been making a real effort to use up what had been in our upstairs little freezer. It could have been worse.

At least this way, we had an excuse to clean our refrigerator/freezer surfaces, which made the Commander happy, although it wasn't exactly how I planned to spend the beginning of our holiday weekend.

I did really appreciate his help, though with all the throwing out of leftovers that were ruined and washing out the containers.  We made a good team of washers/dryers.  The dogs stood nearby and watched for crumbs.

Moral of the story?  Make sure your electronic devices are fully charged whenever possible because you never know when you might lose power, especially with all these horrible storms that have been sweeping through the country lately.  Second moral of the story?  Buy a generator!