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So yesterday Ithaqua, the Great Old One known as the “Wind-Walker” knocked out my electric power and internet connection. What a vindictive jerk. Well, the generator kicked in but it caught me flat-footed. I hadn’t loaded my post for yesterday or the night before’s, “Photo of the Day.” So, apologies.
I went through the whole dance. I charged up an old flip phone I keep for just such situations and tried calling up my truly useless power utility and my truly useless cable company. And spent about fifteen minutes with each trying to escape from their AI and get information from an actual human being. Completely in vain. The power company told me it was after their business hours so no actual humans at all. The cable company had humans but they are actually worse than the AI. They know nothing, they care about nothing and they sound so bored all I could think of was the, “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” monkeys. I noticed that both outfits promised to call me when they knew something about restoration of service.
Power returned almost 24 hours later around 3pm today. And ten minutes after restoration the flip phone rang and both companies called to say that service would soon be restored. Words failed me.
Being cut off from television, the internet and any news of the outside world was at first annoying. But by late this morning I think I was starting to enjoy it. I watched a movie on DVD (Mel Gibson’s Hamlet) and some music on an MP3 player (Traveling Wilburys) and felt relief that I wasn’t entranced on YouTube or X. But all too soon Camera Girl saw a convoy of utility trucks heading down our road. So, she dared me to get up and follow them. I drove about a mile up the road and there was a truly colossal white pine being sawn into manageable pieces and stacked by the side of the road. An hour later the generator cut out and the phone started ringing and civilization had me by the throat again. Oh Ithaqua, we hardly knew ye.
So now I have to find out what I missed. As far as I can tell, nothing. Democrats prancing around trying not to look irrelevant, ridiculous and despicable, but failing. Trump and his merry band running around breaking stuff and calling out world leaders as losers. Cable news companies firing their half-witted staff by the bucketful. Check, check, check. So basically, nothing happened while I was hurled back into the nineteenth century (well, kinda).
But there was some progress. We got some warmer (if windier) weather and the majority of the ice melted off the bottom driveway. So, I went out there with various shovels and hammer-sliced it off the blacktop and piled it on the grass. And I went to see what condition the west field was in. It’s the wettest area of the fields and in spring it can be 6-8 inches of mud that makes it a bad idea to walk on it. But it’s drying nicely and maybe tomorrow I might go back there and cut down the older raspberry canes and put down fertilizer for their spring growth. And I took out a pair of binoculars and looked at the trees and sure enough the buds are ready to bust open anytime now. So, ignoring the world for a day was a great thing as far I can tell. But I’m back and ready to chronicle whatever tomfoolery the usual suspects get up to. But it’s good to see the world is finally shrugging off winter and Dunwich is ready for spring, renewal, new life and all that crap.
My power come via a local EMC and I’d have to give them a solid A for their reactions to power outages. Plus their website shows their coverage area identifying the number of individual account out in a certain area updated in close to real time. Just by looking at that, you can get a feel for how things are progressing.
Professionalism is a great characteristic for a power company in hurricane territory.
Our power company is a diabolical consortium of weasels and idiots encouraged by the state to torture us into giving up the use of electric power through frustration. Eventually we’ll reenter the caveman age and depend on animal skins and animal fat to keep warm.
Yet another success story for the Peoples Republic, huh?
Yes. The result of punishing the use of fossil fuels for heating and power has resulted in outrageous jumps in the cost of electricity and natural gas. Even the imbeciles who vote for these things in New England have been screeching lately at the ruinous costs. It’s pretty funny.
Here’s a video exposing the policies that led to the enormous cost hikes back when they were things being bragged about.
https://youtu.be/QgSDayaPx_I?si=csAsqLmi6667j58_
Our power is provided by a co-op. It keeps the costs down, and they do a wonderful job of keeping the infrastructure maintained and free of trees. Unfortunately, due to our location, our electricity is provided by a huge energy company, needing profits, and selling our electricity to our co-op at what I’m assuming is the usual reduced rate for large customers. Unfortunately, that means we’re low priority, and I’m suspicious the time to restore our power is deliberately long to leverage the 658 customers in our area into wanting a different supplier. When it’s the co-ops problem, it can… Read more »
Well, that’s mostly good. You get a better rate and as a larger buyer you probably do better than Dunwich when it comes to the power company prioritizing things. Essentially the area I am in is invisible even by Dunwichian standards. We’re a black hole inside of a bigger black hole. On the map there is a note that says “Here be monsters.”
Just looked at the average consumer cost per kWh in Massachusetts, $.25. And here I am griping about my rate of $13/kWh in a rural area where the EMC might have to install and maintain maybe 10-15 customers per mile of transmission lines and substations. That compared to more urban areas that might have 1000’s of customers per mile. They get power for right at $.10/kWh.
But we have nuclear, coal, gas, some renewable. Hard leftist politics hasn’t gained a foothold in our power industry.
Well, at long, long last, the cost of energy and fuel has begun to crack the thick skulls of even the climate change true believers. They’re breaking out the torches and pitchforks and screeching about their empty pockets. But guess what? There’s no short term fix when you’ve built up a “green energy” wall around your region. No pipelines, no LNG infrastructure increases, no coal.