Date: Tuesday, July 03, 2012 10:45 AM

Subject: EXT :Things I've learned

1) When the room temp has been 90 degrees for a few days, toothpaste comes out really fast! (and syrupy) Hopefully, green is its natural color.

2) This morning, the sky and my pool were the same color. Partly, to mostly, cloudy.

3) Each level of my home has its own ambient temperature: Ground floor = stifling, first floor = torrid, second floor = inferno.

4) You never have enough towels.

5) There's rarely a nice breeze when you need one.

6) My water heater can keep water comfortably warm for (at least) four days.

7) Certain books can only be read a limited number of times. Then they become. . . trash.

8) It takes one full charge of my laptop's battery to recharge my iPhone. At least the phone is easier to lug around town.

9) As I said in an earlier post, old habits are tough to break. Four days in and I'm still flipping light switches!

10) I hate birds.

Please let me know if you'd like to be spared any future rants or ravings, and I'll take you off of distribution. I don't want to piss anyone off, I'm just trying to share the joys of suburban life.

Date: July 3, 2012 5:43:21 AM EDT
Subject: Misery update. . . Day 4

It appears that my close, personal friends at BGE had a banner day, yesterday. At 7am, Monday, there were 66k county residents without electric service. By 7pm, there were. . . 69k! Yeah, you read that correctly  And all without the benefit of additional inclement weather. Are you kidding me? Whoa, guys, you're going the wrong way!  To be fair, as of 40 minutes ago, that number had plummeted to just shy of 59k. At this rate, I should have power by. . . the All Star Break! (for you non-fans, that's next Monday.) By that time I'll be crazy as a shit house rat, but at least I have a time table.


Additional sounds have entered the 'most hated' list:


That pesky fly that snuck in and keeps strafing me. I hate when it does that.

The sound of skin peeling from a leather sofa after having bonded there during nearly 3 hours of sweat drenching, fitful 'sleep'.

When you're peeing, in the dark, expecting to hear liquid hitting liquid. . . and you don't. (Post-storm cleanup is going to be tougher than I anticipated.) I know, I know. Just sit down. But old habits are hard to break.




Visual delights have also entered the Loathing Zone:


NO ICE signs. (I get that one a lot. I have recently cultivated a PA 'connection', though. Whoever thought they'd have to smuggle ice?)

Field mice taking refreshing dips in the pool.

BGE trucks parked ANYWHERE but a job site. I know the guys have to eat, but isn't that why we have two hands? It's called multi-tasking! Embrace it.

The 'no wi-fi service' icon on my laptop.

My laptop, which now serves basically as a 17" iPhone that can't make calls.

Sheer, utter. . . darkness. I'm glad there's a moon. And candles.


(If you read all of this, thanks. I guess it's just a coping mechanism. I'm really not crazy. Really. No, I mean it. I'm not. I AM NOT CRAZY!  Probably. Not. Crazy.)


I wonder if the BGE folks have the day off on the 4th? That would be nice. Spend some quality time with friends, family, state officials, crack whores, in air conditioned environments. I love those guys.


Kirk out.

Date: July 2, 2012 10:06:46 AM EDT

As it inches s-l-o-w-l-y toward hour 60 of the electric outage, I've noticed a few sounds that are just pissing me off. They are, in no particular order of loathing:


The constant droning of other peoples power generators. Mine sounds like a well tuned Ferrari. Well, it would. If I had one.

Birds. Can't they just shut the fuck up for a few minutes? Geez.

The ominous quiet of my pool filter is deafening. At least to my sensibilities.

My 29 year old son sounding like a 12 year old Valley Girl, yelling, "It's hot."

Ice melting in the cooler. Yes. I can hear it. It's terrifying.

That delightful little sound my iPhone makes when it's about to die.

The derision in the grocery clerks voice as he (gleefully?) informs me that they are out of ice.

Stuff making dripping sounds in what I used to call a 'freezer'.

Anyone, and I mean ANYONE, sounding like they are having 'fun'.

That monotonous drone of the BGE automated reporting systems voice telling me there had been an 'incident'. I knew that. It's why I called.



Ah, thanks. I feel much better.

Happy Independence Day!!!

Due to encouragement from a few friends, as well as having a butt-load worth of free time available and an addled brain that just won't shut the fuck up, I decided to take a mini-step and join the blogosphere. It may last a day or two. It may last a decade. We'll find out.

This all came about within the past week. For those of you that don't live in the mid-Atlantic US, there were some horrific thunder and wind storms that blew through the area last Friday night, June 29th. We lost electric service. Shit, nearly 70% of the greater Baltimore area lost electric service. After a couple of days of just stewing in the swamp that used to be my TV room, I decided to let some folks know how I was coping. More accurately, maybe, how I was failing to cope. Thus began a string of messages that somewhat chronicled Day 2, then Day 3, then 4. . . and 5. They will be the first entries that I post. No sense letting all those hours of thumbing my iPhone to death go to waste. Let alone the dozen recharges it had to go through just to stay viable.

So, now what? I do enjoy writing. I enjoy trying to make others laugh. I enjoy gin. I guess I'll just write about what's on my mind. I'll try not to preach or pontificate. I will do my best to remain staunchly apolitical. I'll try to keep my opinions to myself. My joys, my sorrows, my thoughts, my friends, my enemies, my likes, my dislikes? They're up for grabs. I am a movie fan. I am a pop/rock music fan, if you obliterate the past 30 years or so. I am a baseball fan. I love college hoops. I will share what I think about those subjects, and others.  I. . . actually I don't know how this is going to fan out. We'll just wait and see.

What I would like is feedback, if possible. If I pissed you off, fine. Agree or disagree, let me know. A couple of points, though, if I may. I'm not an academic, an english teacher nor a grammarian, so please don't bust my nuts about writing 'errors'. I tend to over-punctuate. I write the way I think. If there's a pause in my head then there's gonna' be a comma, or two, on the page. (See?)

I'm also not sure how this site works.  The blog name is I'm just saying.  That includes the period at the end.  I think.