Power outages can be a good thing...

Tuesday, July 17, 2012
I was in the middle of posting my blog when the power went out.  My first concern was whether or not I’d need to be rewriting the thing since I didn’t think I’d saved it.  It was 9:30 and almost completely dark.  Since I was in my office where I store all my camping gear…including my headlights…I knew I’d have the light I needed to find my way around.  Not so for the rest of the people in the house.


Both Holly and Savannah were on their computers at the time of the outage.  I made my way outside to see if it was just us or the entire neighborhood.  I could see houses on the street behind us and theirs were out, as well.  It seemed to be city wide and probably the result of everyone and his mother running their air conditioners on a the hottest day of the year.  My next door neighbor walked out into his drive and yelled over that he thought it was time for a pool party.  I agreed.


Ten minutes later, the pool was full of adults and their teen-aged kids.  Lawn chairs, chips and beverages gathered around the pool and we all started laughing and sharing stories of what electic device we’d been using when the lights went out and how none of us were interacting with others of our species.  I commented on how I thought sometimes life was just a lot better when we didn’t have electricity and did the kind of things we were doing right now.  The outage lasted for two hours and we stayed together the entire time.  I think it will be a night we’ll remember for many years to come…something that could not be said if the electricity had never gone out.


I’d gone to the park earlier and run 10 minutes after doing 70 push-ups and some dips.  I did a second set of each since they didn’t seem to hurt my elbow, though I would feel it later.  I was curious what I could still do with the injury and needed to be able to communicate that to the surgeon.  Now I knew.  The knee felt fine during and after the run.  Maybe the pain I’d been having following the last couple of rides was a figment of my imagination…I don’t know.  I’d do a hard ride tommorrow, which should piss it off and give me something to share with the doctor.


Run Duration: 10 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 130 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 150.