Ahh, precious sleep!
Aug. 16th, 2003 10:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newschickI'm feeling much better today than I have in the last week. Much more rested, much more at peace with the things going on around me. Sleep is a wonderful cure-all.
So as everyone already knows, the lights went out just after 4 on Thursday afternoon and didn't come back until mid-day Friday (depending on where you live) Thursday was fun! I had just send off a job application to another new station in Kitchener from home when it first went out - more of a flicker, but enough to knock my computer out. So I just figured I'd blown a fuse or something in the apartment, what with the a/c on and all. So I shut everything off, went to check the fuse - it's fine. The lights came back, two seconds later they went out again. Started feeling a little peckish, remembered I have a free 12" sub coupon in my car, so off I went to Subway for dinner. While I was over there, I figured I'd stop by the station for a second. Once there, I start to realize it's not just a Chatham blackout. "Hey, we just got a call - Dresden's out" "Hey, my wife just called - London's out" "Did you hear Windsor's out too?" Into the newsroom I go to see what's going on there, they're bound to need a little help answering the phones (as people ALWAYS call the newsroom when their power goes out, why they don't call hydro first is beyond me.) Then it comes across the wire - ALL of Ontario is affected. Next bulletin - Michigan, Ohio and New York are without power as well. Holy mother of god, this is big! So I answered phones for a few hours, ended up doing some live updates on the Rock (man I miss the Rock) for an hour, then head home to try and find some food that doesn't need cooling or heating (ended up with crackers and peanut butter) and tried to go to bed. You'd think it'd be easy to sleep when there is not a scrap of light around, but no! It was hot, and I was very worried my backup battery alarm would die in the night, and I'd be late for work. Matty and I sat around for a few hours chatting about work things, then he and his girlfriend went to wander around town in the dark - I wish I could have gone, it looked really neat. So I lay in bed, awake, until just after midnight - woke up a few times before my backup alarm went off at 2:30. Showered (a cold shower at that) by candlelight, went into work. Paul and I worked away on the two newsroom computers hooked up to the generator, and then just before 4, the generator blew. Apparently the damn thing is from 1941 (!!) and just couldn't handle the strain anymore. All backup power was gone, all three stations off the air. Luckily, absolutely no power means no phones, so Paul and I got a bit of a break from that headache. Carl (owner) Walter (assist. GM) and Ron (technician) came in and did various things (hooked CFCO up to Carl's motorhome to give George and I enough power to get back on air, and brought in a backup generator from the transmitter site, etc) and I had a brief chat with the guys from Hydro One - they were working to supply essential sites (hospitals, nursing homes, and such) with power first, and added us to the list, so we had total power back by about 6:30. Then there was the issue of fixing newsroom (the wire went down with the backup power, so we had no news to work from) Then the phone calls started up again. If I had been able to just do the morning show and go home, it would have been a great morning. The show was kickass - nothing like breaking news to make for some amazing radio. George and I were having so much fun - fly by the seat of your pants radio :D We had Matt in to help with the phones and call around for updates (hospital, police, mayor, stuff like that) But then the sales people and mid-day/afternoon on air people started coming in, complaining about how tired they were (kiss my ass) wanting to know when the power was going to be back, and basically acting like listeners. The frustration level grew and grew until I had to get out of there before I smacked someone. Came home, napped, and went over to a friend's house for a barbecue, drank lots, came home and slept. Now I feel muuuuuuch better :)
I will not worry about work things this weekend. I will not stress myself out about things which are beyond my control. I will RELAX dammit! :D
So as everyone already knows, the lights went out just after 4 on Thursday afternoon and didn't come back until mid-day Friday (depending on where you live) Thursday was fun! I had just send off a job application to another new station in Kitchener from home when it first went out - more of a flicker, but enough to knock my computer out. So I just figured I'd blown a fuse or something in the apartment, what with the a/c on and all. So I shut everything off, went to check the fuse - it's fine. The lights came back, two seconds later they went out again. Started feeling a little peckish, remembered I have a free 12" sub coupon in my car, so off I went to Subway for dinner. While I was over there, I figured I'd stop by the station for a second. Once there, I start to realize it's not just a Chatham blackout. "Hey, we just got a call - Dresden's out" "Hey, my wife just called - London's out" "Did you hear Windsor's out too?" Into the newsroom I go to see what's going on there, they're bound to need a little help answering the phones (as people ALWAYS call the newsroom when their power goes out, why they don't call hydro first is beyond me.) Then it comes across the wire - ALL of Ontario is affected. Next bulletin - Michigan, Ohio and New York are without power as well. Holy mother of god, this is big! So I answered phones for a few hours, ended up doing some live updates on the Rock (man I miss the Rock) for an hour, then head home to try and find some food that doesn't need cooling or heating (ended up with crackers and peanut butter) and tried to go to bed. You'd think it'd be easy to sleep when there is not a scrap of light around, but no! It was hot, and I was very worried my backup battery alarm would die in the night, and I'd be late for work. Matty and I sat around for a few hours chatting about work things, then he and his girlfriend went to wander around town in the dark - I wish I could have gone, it looked really neat. So I lay in bed, awake, until just after midnight - woke up a few times before my backup alarm went off at 2:30. Showered (a cold shower at that) by candlelight, went into work. Paul and I worked away on the two newsroom computers hooked up to the generator, and then just before 4, the generator blew. Apparently the damn thing is from 1941 (!!) and just couldn't handle the strain anymore. All backup power was gone, all three stations off the air. Luckily, absolutely no power means no phones, so Paul and I got a bit of a break from that headache. Carl (owner) Walter (assist. GM) and Ron (technician) came in and did various things (hooked CFCO up to Carl's motorhome to give George and I enough power to get back on air, and brought in a backup generator from the transmitter site, etc) and I had a brief chat with the guys from Hydro One - they were working to supply essential sites (hospitals, nursing homes, and such) with power first, and added us to the list, so we had total power back by about 6:30. Then there was the issue of fixing newsroom (the wire went down with the backup power, so we had no news to work from) Then the phone calls started up again. If I had been able to just do the morning show and go home, it would have been a great morning. The show was kickass - nothing like breaking news to make for some amazing radio. George and I were having so much fun - fly by the seat of your pants radio :D We had Matt in to help with the phones and call around for updates (hospital, police, mayor, stuff like that) But then the sales people and mid-day/afternoon on air people started coming in, complaining about how tired they were (kiss my ass) wanting to know when the power was going to be back, and basically acting like listeners. The frustration level grew and grew until I had to get out of there before I smacked someone. Came home, napped, and went over to a friend's house for a barbecue, drank lots, came home and slept. Now I feel muuuuuuch better :)
I will not worry about work things this weekend. I will not stress myself out about things which are beyond my control. I will RELAX dammit! :D
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-08-16 02:42 pm (UTC)at least today's not been too bad...calls about netrover though - users can't log on - rumour has it that they've gone under and haven't told anyone...or they just got hit really hard by the blackout...i don't know, i'm with bell :)
shopping tomorrow! huzzah! shopping - the true cure-all
no subject
Date: 2003-08-17 05:08 am (UTC)Weird about netrover though...perhaps I'll mention it to Paul on Monday.