Yesterday, I figured I’d sleep in a bit – maybe even as late at 7:00. Fritzi, however, had other ideas so I got up at 5:00 instead. Oh well, more time to play with the new TV in my office. So that was good, until approximately 6:29 AM, when the power went out (and it got very dark). It seemed odd, since the weather was fine (no wind or any kind of precipitation). I found out later the cause was an apparently drunk 24-yr old woman had crashed into a utility pole in a Dodge Neon at 2:30. The road curves and goes up a steep hill, and she apparently went straight (but not for long). She needed to be airlifted to the hospital but they apparently expect her to live, which is a good trick. I don’t know how fast you need to be going in a Neon to break a utility pole, but I’m thinking it’s pretty fast. I saw no skid marks in the road (just her tire tracks in the wet grass she plowed trough), so I guess she was definitely going for it. Anyhow, I guess 6:30 is when they had to shut everything down to replace the pole.

So I waited around in the dark for a while to see what was gonna happen and then checked the power company’s website on my iPhone and found out it wasn’t just me, and they were estimating they’d have the power back on at 10:00. Well, I figured his would give me the opportunity to run my generator, which I’d never had the opportunity to run – other than testing. The good news is that I’d just had it running the day before to make sure it still worked and the gas was good. The bad news is that it seemed to be pretty low on gas. So, off the gas station it was.

Unfortunately, I got stuck behind a guy driving an enormous dump trunk filled to the top (and more) with mulch. A very cautious driver, he was. We have lots of hills around here, and as slow as he was going uphill, he was even slower going down. I suppose this is prudent when driving a dump truck full of mulch, but it’s a pretty annoying thing to be stuck behind. To make matters worse, the road through the village was closed (thanks to the aforementioned drunken pole whacker), so both I and my friend in the truck had to take the long (and quite hilly) way around, and after an interminable amount of time, I was finally able to wave him goodbye (with one finger) and get to the gas station.

So I got to run the genny for a couple of hours and get the Internet and teevee back, and the power came back on a little before 10:00 (much to the credit of the folks at NYSEG), so it was finally time to start my top priority weekend project – installing the dishwasher.

I won’t bore you with all the gory details (yes, there was blood spilled), but suffice it to say I expected it to be a pain in the ass and it most certainly was. After 3 trips to 3 different hardware stores and spending more on fittings than I did on the damn dishwasher (well, not really, but it seemed like it), it was finally up and running at about 6:30. I kind of wasted a warm sunny day stuck inside, but at least it’s done.

Unfortunately, now all my shit hurts – especially my neck and shoulder (and back, and I got the foot thing going on again, probably from going up and down the stairs 500 times). Oh, and my hand, too. So I was up at about 4:30 this morning, ‘cuz there was no position I could find where I wasn’t lying on something that hurt.

What remains to be seen is if I’ll get around to project #2 this weekend – tractor PM. I’m supposed to do my 500 hour maintenance, which means replacing the fuel filters and changing the oil. I have the filters, but I need to go get a gallon of diesel oil. It would also be a good time to put the chains on and maybe stick the plow on the bucket, just to make sure I remember how to do it (though we’re not supposed to get any appreciable snow this week).

Or maybe I’ll just sit on my ass all day and watch NFL Sunday Ticket. If the power stays on.