Electrical outages make you appreciate mobile technology

I awoke this morning to the crackle and thunderous crash of a 100-year-old oak tree snapping and falling in my next-door neighbor's yard (iPhone picture above). We're lucky that no people or property were damaged, but the tree fell on a power line knocking out service for my entire street. The local electric utility has said that 45,000 customers in my area ares without service due to heavy wind storms – so it may not be fixed any time soon. And Comcast isn't even picking up the telephone.

Electricity is the backbone of a wired technology and it's kind of weird to wake up without lights, being able to open the refrigerator and my trusty RSS reader. However I was able to get online quickly thanks to my MacBook Air and Verizon UM150 EVDO modem (which I reviewed on 07 May 2008). The problem is that my MBA had only half a charge so I'm now at the local public library charging my batteries so that I can be productive tonight.

The electric utility is telling me that power might not be restored until tomorrow, so it looks like I may be eating chinese food tonight by candlelight and the warm glow of my MacBook Air –at least until the battery runs out.