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Winter Storm 2000
A little before 2:00 am on Sunday morning, I awoke to the sound of three beeping UPS's. The power had gone out, so dutifully I got up and shutdown our PC's and LAN. Before I could return to bed, the power came back on. "Oh well, better safe than sorry", I said to myself as I settled down to rest. I awoke again an hour or so later to the thunderous sound of a tree crashing down in our back yard. The sound shook the house, and I was certain that we had sustained damage. The power was out again, so I wondered about the house with my flashlight, peering out of windows to assess the situation as well as I could without going outside. One of our largest pine trees had snapped about half-way up. The top branches landed in our neighbor's driveway, but no damage was done to our house or theirs, thankfully. We got up at 7:30, and the power was still out. I put some batteries into a radio and tuned in News Talk WGST which announced their coverage of "Winter Storm 2000", "over 300,000 Georgia Power customers are without power", etc. So much for our web surfing plans. The day before, while at Home Depot for some other things, I picked up a couple of flash lights and a case of fire logs. I thought they would be nice to have, but had no idea that we'd have a use for them so soon. The fire logs kept the house at just below 60 degrees all day. Our weekend activities are usually dominated by electronically enhanced activities. In spite of the power outage, this day would not be much different. We played with Jane's new remote control car until the battery died. After it did, I plugged the charger into a UPS and charged it back up for another go. We went out side to look at the beautiful ice sculptures that the storm had created, and I took some pictures with my digital camera. After my flash card was full, I used my RIM pager to exchange e-mail with friends at work. The power came back on at about 7:00 pm, so after dinner we watched the DVD that we had rented for the weekend...while we had the chance.
A tree snapped in a yard across the street and a large portion of the trunk logged itself into the side of a house (not ours). January 23rd, 2000, 10:38 am	A nice holiday ice sculpture January 23rd, 2000, 10:39 am	Another shot of the neighbor's house with the tree sticking out of the side January 23rd, 2000, 10:41 am	An icy arch in our back yard January 23rd, 2000, 10:42 am
Ice sculpture January 23rd, 2000, 10:42 am	Ice sculpture January 23rd, 2000, 10:43 am	Ice sculpture January 23rd, 2000, 10:53 am	Ice sculpture January 23rd, 2000, 10:54 am
Ice sculpture January 23rd, 2000, 10:55 am	Ice sculpture January 23rd, 2000, 10:57 am	Ice sculpture January 23rd, 2000, 10:57 am	Still no power January 23rd, 2000, 10:58 am
Ice sculpture January 23rd, 2000, 10:59 am	Ice sculpture January 23rd, 2000, 10:59 am	Jane loved all of the ice January 23rd, 2000, 11:07 am	Ice sculpture January 23rd, 2000, 11:07 am
Jane grabbing for icicles January 23rd, 2000, 11:08 am	Jane, with her icicle January 23rd, 2000, 11:12 am	Mei's parents January 23rd, 2000, 11:13 am	Ice sculpture January 23rd, 2000, 11:13 am
Ice from our mailbox January 23rd, 2000, 11:21 am	Knew those logs would come in handy January 23rd, 2000, 11:27 am	Cold toes, warm fire January 23rd, 2000, 11:39 am	The stove works...time for lunch January 23rd, 2000, 11:41 am