Christmas Update

Ice Storm Chronicles, day four...

It’s Christmas day and the electricity is still out.  Additionally, the phone has gone out, so nobody can call.  My mother-in-law was due to phone in as the kids opened their presents, but can’t.  Nor can the few others who generally call to say hello on this special day.  So much for that.

Still, we are much better off than a lot of folks this Christmas.  Without power, a lot of people run into real trouble.  So many houses have been switched over to automated heating systems that require electricity to operate.  No power, no heat, and it’s about fifteen degrees Fahrenheit for the high today.  How many have had to flee their homes, and will return to broken water pipes at best when the power is restored?  It is a sad thing that so many people have become helpless in the face of a minor disaster.  While I’m not shaking the value of modern conveniences, it is best that everyone possible be prepared, and have a backup in place to provide the essentials in case of such an outage.

I suppose I’m fortunate to be in a position where loss of power is merely an annoyance, rather than life and death.  A generator gives power for a few hours here and there (no sense wasting fuel or burning the thing out), and heat is all still wood supplied by hand.  Everyone here is warm and well-fed, while we wait for the crews to get the lines cleared.

Now for updates.

With the generator running, I finally got the chance to watch Enemy of the World on Christmas eve.  I was so hyped to see it that I was worried that it might not live up to my expectations.  Many other fans seem to have had the opposite reaction, as the story was held in low regard in general.  The surviving audio and telesnaps hadn’t done it justice, or so goes the consensus amongst fandom.  I, on the other hand, have always liked the story, and after seeing the actual episodes I must say it lived up to my expectations for the most part.  Still, I don’t know if my father will ever appreciate it.  He’s never liked Patrick Troughton’s portrayal of the Doctor for whatever reason.  Oh, well, you can’t please everybody.

This morning (Christmas morning) I went outside and took a few pictures of the ice.  I’ll be sharing those in the next few days when I get around to uploading them to my computer and formatting them for the blog.

With the amount of ice damage, there’s no telling when they’ll have power restored to my house.  It’s slowly coming on here and there, though it will take some time for them to get down every side road.  On that note, I’d like to take a moment to thank all of the crews who are braving the elements to fix the lines and remove the trees.  I’m sorry that many of them will be missing out on Christmas for the sake of our electrical infrastructure.