Mark Lloyd wrote:
On Sun, 25 Feb 2007 20:44:10 +0000 (UTC), Jonathan Grobe
wrote:

We just had a ice storm and I had no electricity for 22 hours. I
was mostly unprepared and didn't like the experience at all.


The last one we had that long here was when it was really cold (icy
out). I was glad to have a gas water heater.

BTW, a corded phone helped too (that was not out).

Years ago, I used to have this Sony cordless phone that had two
identical batteries: one in the phone, and one in the base. The
charger was in the base, so the idea was that when the phone battery
gets low, you swap them. This had a number of benefits:

(1) You don't have to hang up the phone when the battery dies.
The phone was actually built so it would hold the call for
a good 30 or 60 seconds while you switched batteries out.
(2) With the old NiCd batteries, the memory effect was still
significant and you wanted to discharge batteries all the
way whenever possible. This made that easy.
(3) When there was a power outage, the battery in the base could
power the unit and you could still talk in style on your
cordless phone, unlike all the suckers that had to revert
to using an old-fashioned phone with a cord.

Of course, like all Sony products, one day it just stopped working
for no apparent reason.

- Logan