Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

A little fun with a Philly cityscape

Yesterday was an up and down day. I got good news from the scale, that I was finally making progress again with my weight loss after a month recovering from a weight gain of several pounds.

I had a busy day with extra assignments and such, which is a good thing but does eat up time I could have used for other pursuits. Like, for example, working on a solo performance for the hafla, or Middle Eastern dance party, my belly dancing class is throwing Thursday night.

While I didn't get very far with that, I did manage to find a song to use and started to brainstorm what to do.

I also got a call from my brother, who said I looked good in the recent photos from my dad's visit. Unfortunately, I was working and couldn't talk longer.

When The Gryphon IM'd me from work to tell me there would be a thunderstorm in the evening, I said, "Yes? And?" I didn't think it would affect me much, because in my old place I experienced very few power related surges. But soon I would discover this was not the case in the new place.

I was working when the storm began raging outside. Power cut off for a second, just long enough to restart my computer. Of course, then I had to start from scratch, opening up all the programs and getting back to where I was working. Just as I was ready to begin again, the power cut out another time for one second.

"Arrrrrgh!" I said, channeling Charlie Brown. Then I padded downstairs to ask The Gryphon if I could use his laptop, which uses a wireless network. I was hoping this would be immune to random power surges.

He quickly agreed and came up to my office to get it set up. But his computer was acting funny today. It wouldn't recognize how much power the battery had left, even though it had just been charged.

By this point, it sounded like the thunderstorm was moving away anyway, so I told him I'd just take my chances and finish on my PC. Fortunately, I was right, and I didn't experience more power blips. But it wasn't the last of my problems. The thunderstorms also caused havoc at my employer's office, making the completion of my task more difficult.

The upshot was that, while I'd hoped to be done early enough to spend a little time with The Gryphon before bed, I had to just wake him up where he'd fallen asleep on the couch and get to bed. Hopefully, today will be a bit better.

Plus, The Gryphon tells me that this weekend we can look into purchasing a UPS, or uninterrupted power supply, which plugs in the wall and which you then connect your power strip to. If the power cuts off, the UPS maintains enough power that whatever is plugged into your power strip does not automatically shut off. You have time to, for example, shut down a computer in case of a blackout, or to continue uninterrupted in case of a power surge.

I really love living with an IT expert.

Copyright 2005 by Alyce Wilson

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