After work today, my boss took me out for drinks with a couple other people form work. That was pretty cool.

It will be strange not working for the same company any more. I did work there for almost five years. I can’t help but be excited about starting somewhere new, even with the crappy job market.

Anyway, as a result of leaving the company, I have to turn in my laptop and company phone tomorrow. So you probably won’t see me on ICQ for a while, at least until I get started at a new job and have the money for a new laptop. If you need my new phone number, contact me.

I looked behind the passenger’s seat and saw what caused the noise. It seems there was a can of Diet Caffiene-Free Pepsi left under the seat from long ago. The can must have frozen when the temperature went below 10 degrees last night and then all the bumping around of the hilly drive caused it to explode.

Luckily it stayed cold enough for me to brush most of it out with my snow scraper.

I went to lunch a little early and on my way out I spotted the problem. A large tree had been covered in ice during the freezing rain storms we’ve had the last couple nights. It looked like a limb fell and took out one of the lines.

By the time I was on my way back from lunch, the electric utility crew had cut down all of the old lines and were beginning to replace them. When I got back to the office, all of the power was out; only a few of the safety lights had power remaining. Luckily my laptop still had a strong battery so I could at least get to the internet (and the LCD lights up the room really well). That worked for about a half hour until the UPS on the router died.

At that point the owners of the company broke out the gasoline generator so we could at least get the phone system and a couple computers back up and running. About three minutes after they got the generator running and I rerouted the power cords in the server room, the electricity came back on.

The funny thing about it (and I guess my reason for writing) is that when the power was out, people were walking around in the dark laughing. Everyone was unusually friendly. People who would never otherwise have a conversation with each other couldn’t stop talking.

It reminded me of when I was a kid and the power would go out on the whole block. People would slowly make their way out of their houses and begin to talk. It seemed that there was never more of a sence of community than at those moments. I think it would be great to see what would happen if the whole nation whent one day without electricity.

Soon after the power was restored, everyone went back to their normal routine as if nothing happened: mean looks, bad attitudes and all.

I had grand plans to put some boxes away in the storage room and finish some projects I’ve been working on. All I did today was watch an Iron Chef upset marathon.

Having a day off of work on a Wednesday pretty much sucks. It’s like this little tease of a weekend that’s over before you know it. I guess it doesn’t help that I worked last Saturday so I only had a one day weekend. At least I don’t have any major plans for this weekend. That’ll be nice.