Millions of people lost power in my area. Since I didn’t have a power generator, this slowed down my game development for a bit. The power was out at my house for at least 4 days! I had to throw away everything in the refrigerator. There was no gasoline, since there was no electric to pump it. Only a couple of restaurants had power, and the waiting lines were extremely long! I waited for an hour to get a meal from McDonalds. We had one or two grocery stores open, because they had huge generators keeping everything running. It was crazy, let me tell you. You couldn’t buy batteries or ice, and the shelves were starting to become really empty. All of this was due to an 80+ mph wind storm left over from IKE that the local media neglected to warn us about. There were a LOT of trees that came down on houses and power lines around here, it was like a war zone!
I managed to do OK at least. I got some much needed reading done. I charged my PSP at a friend’s house that had a generator, so I was able to play some games. I had plenty of candles and good flashlight batteries. I was able to get some cold beer at the store. I made a 100 foot cable with a cigarette lighter attachment on one end, and a power connection on the other end that would fit my little portable TV. People walking down my street all had to ask what the heck the wire was doing hanging out of my car, and coming into the house. A good car battery will run a radio and a small TV for quite a long time! Even if I would have drained the car battery and needed a jump start, it was still worth it.