About 6am the power went out in El Casa Grande – and it’s just come back.  The the classic scene was my 8 year old walking into the bedroom with the controller for the PS3 with a forlorn look on her face.

I had everything packed up ready to take kids and computers to my moms where there’s power and internet, when the lights flickered back on to the cheers of the kids.

The take away for me is how utterly crippled the big house is without power.

• Well water means no flushing.  A bad thing in the morning…
• No coffee…or anything off the stove for that matter…
• No heat…
• The double wide garage door weighs a lot more than I’d ever considered…
• Gotta remember to keep an analog phone laying around so I can at least tell if the phone wires are affected.
• Side note: remember to charge the cell phone *before* the storm…it’s a bad time to get caught with an empty battery.  Esp. when you’ve got enough juice for one or two calls and your friends start to call to yack…
• The nice thing about living on a hill is that while you may not get the truck back up the driveway when it’s unplowed, you will probably get down it in one form or another. Just don’t stop at the bottom – try to time it so you can swing right out onto the poorly plowed road.