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HerHusband HerHusband is offline
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Default bye-bye land line telephone

Naw, just an extension cord running from a nearby light fixture to
the nearest UPS! I.e., 4 or 5 feet would suffice to connect a nearby
floor lamp to the UPS for this computer!


I wouldn't have thought to do that, but we don't have any table or floor
lamps. All of our lighting is ceiling or wall mounted.

I do have an LED lantern that runs off of 4 D-cells though. I haven't
changed the batteries in years and it's still going strong. We also have
a few rechargeable lights that come on automatically when the power goes
out.

It depends largely on what we are "trying to get done" when the outage
strikes. E.g., if SWMBO has settled down to watch a movie, it's
annoying not to be able to *finish* that movie. In that case, I'll
drag out one of the larger laptops and let her watch it "in her lap"


Yep, I have a laptop with extra oversized batteries that I use for
similar things. I typically pull it out when the power goes out during
the day when I'm home alone. There's nothing else to do, so I'll fire it
up and watch a movie or something.

Likewise, if you'd made time to read a book, you want to continue
reading -- not have to return to it at a later time that's more
convenient for the electric company!


Book? That's one of those rectangular paper things, right?

If I'm "writing code", I can quickly copy the file(s) onto a thumb
drive and move over to a laptop to continue (none of my systems can
stay up for that long even on the larger UPS's -- can you spell
"powerhog"?)


If I'm writing code, I usually just save what I'm doing and do something
else till the power comes back on. My laptop isn't really set up for
programming, and the interuption kind of ruins my thought process anyway.

Depending on what my computer is doing, I can run between 60 and 90
minutes on my UPS (my computer uses less than 60 watts in normal use).

If it's daylight, then, chances are, we're outside or away from home
and don't really care about the outage.


Around here, it always seems like it's rainy, snowing, or extremely windy
when the power goes out. I'm not about to go outside!

As for "time together", that's already built into our schedules. So,
we each know what time we can expect to address our individual
wants/needs while still ensuring that we don't become "just
roommates".


Sex at 7pm, check.

The "backup" is important as you may want to USE that phone during
the outage. E.g., to call to REPORT the outage! :


I've called to report an outage twice in the past. Both times they said
"we already know". I think it's an automated line these days, but I'm
more likely to use their web site than their phone line anyway.

We *welcome* not hearing from people. But, aren't eager to be
cut off from our ability to phone others! "Why don't we do our
grocery shopping NOW and get it out of the way. Do you think
stores X, Y and Z are suffering outages? Would it be a waste
of time to drive over? Perhaps call first??"


I hate phones and almost never make a call out. We don't get many
incoming calls either, and those that do can wait till later.

We're several miles from town so they usually always have power when ours
is out. Sometimes I do take care of shopping when the power goes out, but
it always seems like the power goes out AFTER we have just gone shopping.
I don't shop unless I have a specific thing I'm already going for.

Anthony Watson
www.watsondiy.com
www.mountainsoftware.com