The electric squirrel effect

Here's something kinda cool: Right now, we are online courtesy of our minivan.

A few minutes ago there was a very loud BANG! and all our power went out. The whole neighborhood, in fact. Luther took it as an opportunity to test some equipment.

We get some big storms here, and we also have some really stupid squirrels. I don't really know why Toronto squirrels never blew up power sources at the same frequency as these Southern squirrels do, but there you have it. We are one squirrel down in Miller Hills, and the power is out, and there are bits of leg and a tail remaining on a cross bar at the top of a light pole out there.

Given the possibility of something larger than a squirrel taking out our power (you know, something like a hurricane), Luther a while back bought a little power converter, and today we are testing it out! The van is running, and the little box is hooked up. An extension cord leads from the van to a power strip in the den, where we've plugged in our cable modem and wireless router. Then another extension cord runs upstairs, where we've plugged in our laptops, though of course we could have done just fine with batteries for a little while.

And then *blink* look at that. Power is back.

But it's nice to know next time we have a hurricane, we can still recharge our laptop batteries. The cable would probably be out (something we didn't have to worry about today), so there'd be no highspeed internet. But we could get the homework done, at least.

Just another strange little snippet of life with Bekbek in the South. The electric squirrel effect. I'm thinking... BAND NAME!