for those of you who haven’t seen it, check out failblog.org.  it’s a laugh riot!

here’s my submission to the blog, a little pic i took in the building next to mine

so sunday morning i took a shower and left my rumor downstairs on the coffee table.  well, marek took an interest in it and so now i have an iphone.  let me say, it rocks!

rumor got puppied

yeah it was like 2 weeks ago but we didn’t have power for 6 days, then my pc was having issues so i’m just now getting around to writing about it.

let me just say that i really feel for those poor souls down in TX that got completely jacked by ike.  i have a much greater sympathy for them now since i’ve been through this minor ordeal.  not having power sucked for sure, but not having a home at all must be the worst feeling in the world.  so all my love and support to those people that have lost it all in any kind of catastrophe.  also, this is going to seem like minor shit in comparison to their troubles.

that said, here’s my thoughts on our little “adventure”.

for one, it was pretty cool to see the wind blowing like it was.  it was amazing to look up into the sky and see the low lying storm clouds flying by at amazing speeds, but then up above them the higher, wispier clouds just standing utterly still.  i really wanted to see something come crashing down, but i missed it all.  we did have some debris fall near our place though.

debris 1

debris 2

there was some pretty sweet damage other places around town too.  saw this tree brutally ripped basically in two and leaning on another tree next to it.

tree damage

not having power is definitely very shitty.  of course, K and i had just bought groceries the day before we lost power.  by tuesday (almost 72 hours without power) we had eaten what we could and thrown out the rest.

i didn’t really miss tv all that much.  i really only watch a couple of things on it, so i didn’t feel like i needed it to be entertained.  you think “oh, i can read or play a board game or find something else to do” until you are actually in the situation.  have you tried to read anything by candlelight recently?  it fucking sucks.  it gives you a headache after a few minutes.  games are ok but they can be hard to see by flame also.  what we ended up doing was either going to other friends who had power, or else going to bed at like 9pm.

losing power also made me realize just how fragile our society really is.  at first it’s kind of fun.  you get to “camp out” in your own house and burn candles and all that shit.  after a couple of days it starts to get old.  after a few more you think that you’ll never have power again.  i started to think about what it would be like if we lost power for a longer time (or even forever).  it would be hard to feed yourself.  you don’t realize how much food you have that needs to be refrigerated until you don’t have one anymore.  peanut butter (but no jelly, because it needs to be kept cool after opening) and bread gets old fast.  so does slightly cooler than room temperature beer.

let me explain how our little condo neighborhood is arranged.  there is a road that runs around a cluster of buildings, with other buildings around it (see my oh-so-awesome mspaint diagram below).  what happened was, one night while K and i were out running errands the power came back on.  we drove by and saw a neighbors porch light in.  in elation we decide to go get dinner out one last night. this was on weds night, around 6pm.  by the time we made it back home at 7 the power was out in our building and a few others (in black below) while other buildings in our area had power (in yellow below).

let me tell you how annoying this was.  from our back window i could see buildings on the other side of the back street  with every goddamn light on possible. i swear these people went into every room in their condo and turned on every fucking light possible.  it was like they were flaunting their power to those of us a mere 20ft away.  i really felt bad for the people directly across from them that didn’t have power.

powah

so since we saw other people around us with power we knew something must be up.  K calls the power company and lets them know we don’t have power, our neighbors do, etc etc etc.  they tell her that we should have power.  she assures them we do not.  they tell her they’ll look into it and get back to us.

by the next day, we still didn’t have power.  this annoys us greatly, so we call again.  again we get the “you should have power” line.  we tell them again that we do not.  we even go so far as to say we saw someone outside (a neighbor possibly, we weren’t sure) with a flashlight checking out boxes on the poles.  we’re afraid someone is going to try to fix it on their own.  the lady at AEP tells us thanks for the info and she’d put a note in our account.

that same day one of the neighbors comes by while i’m out back grilling.  he introduces himself and asks if we’d called the power company.  i tell him yeah we just did and also that we’d called the day before.  he then tells me that his wife had called, got the whole “you should have power” story so they decided to go around to every neighbor they could find to tell them to call AEP to let them know that there actually is a problem here and we don’t have power.

a few minutes later the previously mentioned wife comes by and tells us that one of the other neighbors she talked to was told that there weren’t enough units out in our area for it to be a “high priority” and that we shouldn’t expect power until early in the following week.

this news disheartened us greatly because we were planning on having a bday party for K on the next day (friday).  we decided that power or not, we were having the party and started to plan accordingly.  we went out and bought about 66lbs of ice and filled our coolers with beer.  we had already gotten rid of pretty much all the food so we went out and stocked up on snacks and stuff for the party.  we came back home around 830 or so and started getting everything packed into the coolers.

of course, about 10 minutes after moving coolers around, filling them with beer, getting candles out and ready what happens?  the fucking power comes back on!  the next day (friday) we had our party, with power, and all was well.

all in all it was an eye opening experience.  dealing with the power company during an emergency can be a real pain in the ass.  the worst part about it is, they’re the power company, so it’s not like you can threaten to get your power from someone else.  you are totally at their mercy.  i’m just glad we didn’t have to go for a full week without power.  the 5 days we did go was bad enough.

this commercial has started playing a lot lately here.  while i don’t really find the content of the ad obectionable (i always think public awareness is a good thing) the tone of it is way too fearmonger-ish. the website has some useful information, but i really wish they would have toned down the ad some.

the main concern seems to be over avian bird flu (which has been spotted in ohio, though in low risk cases only).  i guess some warning is better than no info or head in the sand syndrome.

but just remember… IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN *dum dum duummmmmmm*

i took a trip (almost two weeks ago now) that i’ve been meaning to write about, but had to digest it a bit, masticate on it if you will, let the enzymes and parasites (symbiotic) do their thing to it, to extend the food metaphor, before i could write about it.

well either that or i’m lazy… oh and did i mention K has been gone since i got back from vaca?  her to california for work and me back here with mr. puppy.  he takes a lot of time/energy/patience.  makes me glad i have a partner in this doggy experiment. but i digress…

the trip was to the pacific northwest, what i would consider the last “region” of the continental US that i have not been to.  i’ve seen the southwest, both desert (arizona) and mountains (san diego).  i’ve been to the upper midwest (duluth, mn — cleanest american city i’ve ever been too.  eerily similar to munich germany in cleanliness).  of course the “eastern” midwest like illinois, indiana, ohio, pennsylvania, michigan.  been to the northeast (nyc) and midatlantic (dc, balitmore).  seen the south too (florida, louisiana, and texas even).  i guess really the only place i haven’t seen in person is the plains states, but i’ve seen pictures so i think that counts. although from what i’ve heard lawrence, ks is a cool town.

we flew into portland, which is a great town.  oregon in general reminded me a lot of ohio, actually… in a weird way.  portland itself is a lot like ohio towns of similar size (minus the street cars and healthy people - you could probably pick portland up and set it down in ohio and i doubt many people would think it didn’t belong).  just the way the buildings are built and the city was laid out, just somehow seemed very midwestern to me.

the people in portland, well orgeon in general, are a different thing entirely though.  i think you find a lot more “hippy types” out there (maybe “west coast types” is less insulting).  the lifestyle definately appeals to me.  there are more “local” type produce places or grocery stores.  what seemed to me to be a lot fewer fast food joints and a lot more non-chain-eateries.  they’re very bike friendly there as well (i learned ten speed bikes are now called “road bikes” and mountain bikes are “all terrain bikes” or “ATBs” for the concise) which is cool.  i keep thinking i’ll buy a bike here at the bike co-op but then always think it’ll be a waste of money.  again i digress…

we met K’s friend… K2… in portland the evening we got in.  i also met a long time internet friend, D.  (i’ve written on meeting people from the internet before)  again, i was not disappointed meeting this dude in person.  he was very nice, very cool, and had interesting things to say.  i think that overall you are more likely to enjoy someone in person having spent time to get to know them online beforehand.  this is probably because online friendships are so easy to break, so if you don’t share something in common with the other person, the friendship will dissolve quickly.  however, if you do share something in common, then it’s easy to pick that up in person.

ps. portland has amazing donuts.  many people already know this.

the drive from portland to eugene was amazing, even though i spent a lot of it with my nose in a book.  (an aside about the book, i wish i would’ve read it before actually going to portland… c’est la vie)   we spent the day going down the “back roads” and hitting up some pretty good wineries.  i learned a lot about wine that i did not know before, and seeing the countryside and areas surrounding the wineries was very cool.  only one of them was in a semi-urban area, in mcminnville.  they all had good wine and i ended up lugging back 4 bottles in my checked baggage.  i’m amazed it didn’t disappear (more on that in a bit).

eugene was a nice town.  again, very reminiscent of the midwest (to my eyes).  eugene is similar to columbus in many aspects.  college town.  younger population.  lots of culture and all that jazz.  oh yeah, great beer too.  actually, better beer in eugene than in columbus, sadly.  i tried a few new brews there, including one by ninkasi brewing and of course fat tire.  i had a couple others that i can’t quite remember, oh yeah, except that excellent burton barton that i found.  fucking delish.  one thing i did miss though, and this goes back to that whole “west coast type” of people i think, is that they do not have fried anythign on the bar menus.  i wanted some good ol’ fried cheese, motz sticks, but alas they were not available.  maybe you can find something like that somewhere in eugene, but not the places we went to.

our gracious hostess took us to the coast for an afternoon of walking, wishing it weren’t so windy, remarking on how windy it was, hiding from the wind, and eventually going up a “hobbit trail” into the hills that butt against the beach (where there was no wind).  i cannot stress how windy it was.  i mean, this is like a constant wind.  not some puny breeze.  i’ve felt the ocean breezes on the east coast, and while it can be mildly windy for a couple hours, most people would still describe it as a breeze.   i think the correct word for the wind in oregon would be a “gale.”  a fucking endless gale screaming over from the far east, to wrend asunder the great west coast.

wind aside, it was one of the most amazingly beautiful places i’ve ever seen.  the forest runs right up to the water.  there are a lot of rocks and sizable waves that make for some very cool sights and sounds.  the beach itself is eroding from the banks, and there are these ledges, probably 10 or 12ft high, the walls of which are made up of something similar to sandstone that people carve their names into, or pictures, or whatever.  i wish i’d taken a picture of that.

my trip back was mostly uneventful.  i had the typical regret of flying american airlines.  they stuck me in midway for an extra hour or 4, but i did make it home without having to stay overnight.  of course, i did walk through the door to our apartment at 130am, but i’ll let that slide.  in chicago i saw my first drug dog while sitting by our gate (the 3rd of the evening).  i was reading and listening to my ipod when i heard some weird noise. i look up to see 3 cops and a dog directly in front of me.  one of the cops is talking to an african woman nearby.  the woman is holding a small child.  another cop directs the dog to sniff the woman’s bags, while she keeps her children at a safe distance.  the dog sniffs.  nothing happens.  the cops leave and the woman looks very scared.  i wonder how something like that happens. to me she looks like a completely normal person (wearing a headscarf, but normal.  not threatening in any way).  is it possible that some racist or otherwise insensitive person has called these cops on her?  mentioned a head scarf and foreign accent?  it was unsettling to say the least.

let me recount my experience once back in columbus.  i get off the plane, go pee.  the airport is dead (it being like 1230am on a tuesday).  i walk to the baggage claim to get my bag.  the bags start coming.  the bags keep coming.  i’m watching this one goddamn black suitcase that looks a lot like mine go around and around (each time, “OH there’s mine… SHIT”).  i watch the staff come and collect all the unclaimed luggage without seeing my bag.  i’ve played this role before, so i go to the american baggage office to start the tedious process of lost luggage (what color is it, what brand, what was inside, is your name on it, do you have your claim ticket?).  there is a girl there lining up the bags that just now were orphaned.  i decide, on a whim, to look through the bags already there to see if mine… there it is!  nice!  the girl says something like “found your bag?” and i reply with “yeah, it’s weird that it beat me here but i’m glad it’s here.”  her: “yeah, don’t complain!”

i get home.  i figure i’d better check the 4 bottles of wine that i had so carefully packed the night before in eugene.  i mean, i had this fucking system where i think my bag could’ve fallen out of the plane at 60,000ft and those bottles would’ve been secure.  i open the bag and my shit is a complete mess.  the bottles are all crunched down in the bottom of the bag, not nicely secured amongst dirtly clothes with books perfectly positioned to keep them all in place.  “FUCK”, i think to myself.  i check each one, nothing broken, no clothes sopping wet and stained as if by blood.  it looks like my suitcase has been ransacked, then i see this…

goddamn government.  thanks for nothing.  at least you didn’t steal and/or cause my shit to get broken.

by the way, “Smart Security Saves Time”?  are you kididng me?  did this particular crop of beaurocrats just not read 1984?  could they be any more overtly orwellian?  *sigh*

check out some pics here