An Interesting Day

It's been a day with no power...and I haven't left the country yet. 

There was a thunderstorm this morning, which didn't drop too much rain, but did generate a lot of wind.  I woke up at 7:19 AM to the tree in my parents backyard splitting in two with one side crashing to the ground (which fortunately hit nothing but the ground...but now half of the backyard is taken up with tree).  About 5 or so minutes later, the power went out (probably because another tree didn't aim as well).  So today has basically been a constant quest to find places that have backup generators and free wi-fi.  [I'm really not that shallow, but my only communication device that works without electricity (aka my cell phone) had one bar of battery left...so it's more been looking for places to charge my cell phone...because my parents are out of town camping in Wisconsin, and I need to ability to get in contact with them if necessary...and as long as I'm looking for somewhere with available working outlets, I might as well look for somewhere I can entertain myself as I wait for the slow cell phone to charge.]

My first thought was Starbucks, because I was planning on meeting a friend there for coffee around lunch time anyway.  So I drove to the one by school, where I usually hang out.  It was closed.  The one down the road had a truck out front selling drive through coffee only, but that didn't help me.  I went further down the road to Barnes and Noble and there I got lucky for a while...however, once I got a partial charge on my phone, I was nice and gave the outlet up to someone who had their computer die on them.

I came home after meeting with my friend (we talked for over two hours, it was good times), cleaned out my car because A.) it had to be done some time in the next 9 days and B.) it doesn't require electricity to clean (until I get around to vacuuming, so that hasn't happened yet).  I read for a little while, wrote in my journal for a little while, played a game of Monopoly on my iPad (which started the day with a full charge, and still had a pretty full charge)...and then went with my sister to Panera for dinner.  And as we were looking for a table (both carrying laptop bags) a woman asked if we were looking for an outlet, and said she was just about ready to pack up...good timing.  So I'm currently in Panera with access to an outlet (and it's air-conditioned in here - bonus!)  Once my phone is charged, we'll leave, and I probably won't have to look for anything tomorrow, because the phone should hold the charge for a few days...and hopefully by that time, the power will be back on.  Talking with people who talked with ComEd...that may not be for up to 5 days.  I'm hoping it's sooner, but until then, there's not too much I can do about it (other than going out and finding free wi-fi and electricity).