Darn it! I always forget about the Memorial Day garage sale event!

Garage sale.There’s a ton of people that will be wandering through the town over the next 3-4 days, shopping garage sales.

Normally I wouldn’t think about this kind of thing because Jerry wouldn’t let me sell or throw away anything. So aside from thinking about the Men who died in battle, including some friends and perhaps having the day off depending on my employer. Memorial Day blows by me.

Last year I wasn’t in any shape to consider it. This year I‘d planned to drag crap out of the garage and basement and sell it. Trouble is, I completely forgot about it.

It took me a minute to figure out why there was so much traffic, while I was walking the dog. Then I remembered and now as I’m cooling down with a glass of Iced Tea, contemplating what I’ll have for lunch, I’m also wondering if I can make quick work of some of the boxes of stuff.

I’ll make that decision after I’ve decided what’s for lunch.

I might have to unplug the surveillance camera in the front yard just because of the traffic. The poor think is pinging like crazy.

Not really helping Edison…

Electrical transmission.Southern California Edison is trying something new. Instead of killing our power for “Scheduled Maintenance” in the daytime. This time they did it at 2am. Sigh!

At least they sent out appropriate notices. It’s still a pain in the ass. I still have make sure I shut everything down. The alarm system still beeps and announces that electrical service has been lost.

In preparation for bed last night I powered all the sensitive stuff down. At around 2 am the dog and I were startled awake by the female voice from the alarm announcing power loss. We managed to get back to sleep.

Sometime after 4am the predawn silence was broken by Power being restored. The stove alarm was chirping, the refrigerator kicked on, the blower kicked on trying to warm the house to proper temperatures, and the alarm lady announced power had been restored but that WiFi was still not up.

At this point the dog jumped off the bed and wedged himself into a quiet protected spot between the bed and the sliding glass doors.

After all the clicks, clunks blower sounds had started it took me a minute to roll over and go back to sleep. I decided I wasn’t going to jump up and reset clocks or restart electronics because Edison often has false starts. I didn’t want to get everything powered up and reset only to have to do it again.

The dog jumped back up on the bed around 5:45 am. He was feeling cuddly and wormed himself into my arms with his head against my chest. I cuddled him until he fell asleep, then dozed until the 6am alarm signaling it was time to start the day.

After resetting the coffee pot clock, wake up brew time, and starting a manual brew I started powering things back up. Fortunately, everything appears to be working properly so I’m not fighting through some esoteric technical issues.

For that I’m grateful, but I still feel “off” I guess my sleep being interrupted, even if only for a few minutes has an effect.

I do wish Edison would publish an entire schedule of their “Scheduled Maintenance” so I could maybe plan better. As it is, they’ve been sending out notices 2 or.3 days in advance. That’s great, but 3 times in one month is a pain. The first two power outages were in excess of 8 hours. The last one screwed up the ice maker in the refrigerator and took some effort to correct.

Not to mention that they always send the notice that they’re turning power off  for 8 hour spans, literally the day after I’ve purchased groceries.

Ah well… Gotta stumble through my day.

Here we are again! Power is out.

Edison claims they’re replacing power poles.

The power will be out until 4PM but Edison being Edison, means it will probably be out longer.

I powered everything down this morning prior to them turning the power off. The power doesn’t just go off. There’s this weird dribble effect. It’s like someone is rubbing two bare wires together but not holding them still.

I don’t think that’s what is actually happening. I suspect, it’s all the solar panels on the houses around here. I’m betting that their switching systems aren’t all detecting the power outage the same way, and are allowing the various panels to feed power into the grid for a minute after the power is gone.

Technically, that shouldn’t happen, all the systems should switch over to either battery, or disconnect the panels from the grid instantly, that may not be happenig as designed. I don’t even know if my panels switch off properly because I wasn’t here when the installers were doing the final inspection.

The dribble effect is interesting because the alarm on the stove grumbles to itself until the power is completely gone.

I’ve got the HAM rig running on battery, I’m listening to a country music station out of Las Vegas. Which means my Ham Rig is a very expensive FM radio at the moment. Oh well…

I can broadcast on battery, I just don’t want to talk to anyone. It’s times like this when I do wish I had the bluetooth mic but obviously I don’t want it bad enough to have spent the money on it. I could lose the whole day playing on the radio.

When the power is off, all the usual interference is gone and I can hear, and talk to folks a lot further away, even with my shitty little antenna.

I’d planned to get a nice “Permanent Antenna” and mount it in the back yard. But there’s not much point in doing that if I’m gonna move. I could do some kind of portable long wire solution but I don’t need another distraction. I other words, if I could screw around all day on the radio I would. I’d get nothing done! Looking stuff up on the computer is bad enough. I swear I’ll try to look up one little thing to help with cleaning or fixing stuff. Then I look up & 2 hours have gotten by me.

Nah, I’ll wait on antennas, and radio gear till I get fully settled, either here, off the mountain, or in another state.

I’ve been doing chores around here, those that don’t require power. I’d reached a point of annoyance / frustration with one chore and decided to take a break to finish my coffee before it got cold.

Time to walk the pup.

Have a great day.


Update: They didn’t get the power back on until 6:15 PM or so. Gee Thanks Edison!