In article ,
John wrote:
Now, my house, his house, and town are roughly in a triangle
geographically, with each side of the triangle being about 3, maybe
even 4 miles. How the hell could this have happened and more to the
point, just exactly *what* happened??

You had a voltage reduction and those things sensitive to this shut down
while others - like a kettle - carried on. Some devices with a clever
power supply can cope with a much greater voltage reduction than others
and carry on working normally. Had it been dark and you'd had lights on
you'd have noticed a reduction in brightness. Probably.

--
*If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.