Some of you know that I went to Madison Square Garden Tuesday night to watch Coach K attempt to secure his record-breaking 903rd win. While the game was great and it was special to see Coach K get the record, sadly, the night was stained by an unfortunate incident. You can read about it here.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
More Power Outages! Hooray!
In the face of fear that this is quickly going from TheRangaBlog to TheAngerBlog, I would like to point out my most recent frustration with things in general. As you may well know, we had a good old fashioned "Nor'easter" here in Connecticut over the weekend. Anticipating that the damaged trees from Irene were not a good sign once heavy, wet snow fell, I was sure we'd lose power. We rode our luck for the first 12 hours of the storm and had a nice day at home, watching movies, lighting fires, and eating like pigs. After a few teases of a power outage, around midnight, the power went out for good. We called it a night and went to sleep.
At this point, we were pretty sure we were fucked. I held out a glimmer of hope that the outage would be less than our 6-day debacle during Irene. Why? Because our utility, United Illuminating, had only about 45,000 customers lose power, out of the total 320,000 served. Compare that to Irene, when UI had more than 100,000 customers go dark. UI even encouraged this hope, saying that they expected all power to be restored by Monday, October 31st, at midnight. Two days max without power? I can live with that.
Of course, UI overpromised and underdelivered. The table below is a "Town Outage List" that UI updates every 20 minutes throughout the day. When the table first came out, there were 19,000 outages total, and Hamden (my town) represented 2,500 of them. We were definitely on the larger end of the scale, with only a couple other towns like Fairfield, Trumbull, and Shelton being in the 2,000-3,000 range. My frustration stems from watching this table over the last few days and seeing every other town dwindle to less than 100 outages while Hamden held steady up at 1,900 until this morning. Only today are we starting to see some progress in Hamden, which now accounts for 1,100 of the 2,000 total outages. That's right, we went from being 2,500 out of 19,000 total outages to 1,100 out of 2,000 total outages. Why, God, WHY!!! Please give us our power back! All I want to do is take a poopie at home!
At this point, we were pretty sure we were fucked. I held out a glimmer of hope that the outage would be less than our 6-day debacle during Irene. Why? Because our utility, United Illuminating, had only about 45,000 customers lose power, out of the total 320,000 served. Compare that to Irene, when UI had more than 100,000 customers go dark. UI even encouraged this hope, saying that they expected all power to be restored by Monday, October 31st, at midnight. Two days max without power? I can live with that.
Of course, UI overpromised and underdelivered. The table below is a "Town Outage List" that UI updates every 20 minutes throughout the day. When the table first came out, there were 19,000 outages total, and Hamden (my town) represented 2,500 of them. We were definitely on the larger end of the scale, with only a couple other towns like Fairfield, Trumbull, and Shelton being in the 2,000-3,000 range. My frustration stems from watching this table over the last few days and seeing every other town dwindle to less than 100 outages while Hamden held steady up at 1,900 until this morning. Only today are we starting to see some progress in Hamden, which now accounts for 1,100 of the 2,000 total outages. That's right, we went from being 2,500 out of 19,000 total outages to 1,100 out of 2,000 total outages. Why, God, WHY!!! Please give us our power back! All I want to do is take a poopie at home!
As of 11/01/2011 03:10 PM | ||||
| Town | Number Served | Events | Current Number Out | Portion Out (%) |
| Ansonia | 8,514 | 9 | 9 | 0.11% |
| Bridgeport | 57,938 | 6 | 6 | 0.01% |
| Derby | 6,308 | 2 | 2 | 0.03% |
| East Haven | 12,986 | 17 | 17 | 0.13% |
| Easton | 2,869 | 53 | 173 | 6.03% |
| Fairfield | 22,194 | 29 | 81 | 0.36% |
| Hamden | 25,896 | 108 | 1,093 | 4.22% |
| Milford | 26,174 | 10 | 13 | 0.05% |
| New Haven | 54,264 | 40 | 72 | 0.13% |
| North Branford | 3,352 | 6 | 6 | 0.18% |
| North Haven | 11,418 | 39 | 145 | 1.27% |
| Orange | 5,976 | 7 | 60 | 1.00% |
| Shelton | 16,494 | 67 | 81 | 0.49% |
| Stratford | 22,960 | 5 | 11 | 0.05% |
| Trumbull | 13,589 | 81 | 83 | 0.61% |
| West Haven | 24,566 | 8 | 71 | 0.29% |
| Woodbridge | 3,626 | 31 | 110 | 3.03% |
| Totals | 319,124 | 518 | 2,033 | 0.64% |
Copyright 2011, The United Illuminating Company. | ||||
Update: Blogger on a Plane
Thought I'd fill you all in on how my parking at LGA fiasco finished up. I finish up my meetings in Chicago, and because of insane traffic from downtown Chicago all the way to O'Hare, I'm forced to push back my flight by an hour. Now, I'm slated to land at LGA at 10. No worries--home by 12, I think. Still better than the cab/train/drive home combo. My flight lands at the Marine Terminal at LGA (whatever the hell that is), and I'm ready to get the F home after a long week. Deplaning, I ask the uniformed gate agent how to get to Parking P3, and she says, "Go outside to the right, and wait for the Route A bus. That will take you to P3."
"Hey hey!" I think, "No mile-long walk?? My luck is finally turning!" I easily find the bus stop the lady directed me to, and I begin waiting. And waiting. And waiting. 12 minutes later, the Route A bus shows up. 4 of us immediately board the bus, put our baggage on the racks, and find seats. However, the bus does not move. Apparently, this is the beginning of the route, so we're forced to wait some pre-specified amount of time (about 10 minutes) before we can leave. Mind you, at the Marine Terminal, there is hardly any line for a cab at 10pm on a Friday night, so cabbing to Grand Central likely would not have been such a hassle. Deciding to ignore this and instead focusing on the fact that I don't have to walk a mile to my car, I get up to confirm with the driver that I'm on the right bus. "Does this bus go to P3?" I ask, and he says "Yeah." Done.
I quickly notice that P3 will be the bus's 5th stop, which sucks, but whatever. We hit the first stop, Parking P7 and P6. Driver stops, no one gets off, we push off. Over the loudspeaker, an automated voice announces that the next stop is P5, and please tell the driver if you need P5. No one speaks up, so we continue on. Next stop, says the computer lady, is Terminal D. We stop, most of the people get off here. We pull up about 100 yards and pick up people from Terminal D arrivals. We do the same at Terminal C--drop off and pick up. Then, finally, the computer lady says P3 is the next stop. Excited to finally be back at my car a full 45 minutes after I've left the gate, I start gathering my things. As I look up, I see P3 right next to us. Not sure where the driver will stop for P3, I remain seated. He continues to drive, and then computer lady says "Next stop, Terminal B." And I get up and say "Whoa! What happened to P3!" And then the guy looks at me and shrugs his head and pulls the bus over immediately and says "Shoot, man. I thought you already got off. It's right behind us, about a three minute walk." Incensed by my shit luck and as usual, pissed off at LGA, I get off the bus and read a sign that says "Walk to Parking P3: 1000 feet or 10 minute walk." Luckily, 1000 feet really does only take about 3 minutes, and at least it's not raining this time, so it wasn't all bad. But my ONE chance to redeem this whole parking at LGA sham of an operation is foiled, again.
Finally, I get in the car, and of COURSE, my iPhone is dead because iOS5 drains the shit out of my battery. I don't have the old school Garmin in the car, so I'm a bit cut off at the knees. I plug the phone into the car charger, knowing that it will take some minutes to get any juice whatsoever. However, using my common sense, I know that LGA is located on Interstate 278 in New York. When I came from Connecticut, I took 278 West into New York. So, I figure, take 278 East back to Connecticut, where I can then find 95 and get home. As I'm making my way to 278 East, I see signs that say "278 East/Triboro Bridge/Manhattan/Bronx" and I get a bit confused. I'm not sure if 278 East will take me straight into midtown or what. Not choosing to risk that, I ask the now energized iPhone what to do. It tells me to turn around and take Grand Central Parkway in the other direction toward the Whitestone Bridge--and all the roads look green and it says 1 hour, 44 minutes to home. Great, I think, this way I can bypass NYC and all its major headaches. Except apparently, the Whitestone Bridge is under construction after 10pm and has created a 5-mile long standstill of traffic. Google, in all its wisdom and user praise, has crashed the "Let's Fuck Arie" party that my gas station shelter, I-95, the Bridgeport Train Station, and LaGuardia have thrown this week. These 5 miles take me 55 minutes to cover; during this entire time, I can see that 278 East does, in fact, go right past Manhattan and on into eastern New York and up into Connecticut. Needless to say, once I paid my penance on the Whitestone Bridge, I went about 95 mph the rest of the way home to make up for lost time. Still, my plan to land at 10 and be home by 12 turned into getting home at 1:30am. By my calculations, I could have been home by 12:30 on the train. Moral of the story--NEVER drive into NYC, especially when the world hates you.
"Hey hey!" I think, "No mile-long walk?? My luck is finally turning!" I easily find the bus stop the lady directed me to, and I begin waiting. And waiting. And waiting. 12 minutes later, the Route A bus shows up. 4 of us immediately board the bus, put our baggage on the racks, and find seats. However, the bus does not move. Apparently, this is the beginning of the route, so we're forced to wait some pre-specified amount of time (about 10 minutes) before we can leave. Mind you, at the Marine Terminal, there is hardly any line for a cab at 10pm on a Friday night, so cabbing to Grand Central likely would not have been such a hassle. Deciding to ignore this and instead focusing on the fact that I don't have to walk a mile to my car, I get up to confirm with the driver that I'm on the right bus. "Does this bus go to P3?" I ask, and he says "Yeah." Done.
I quickly notice that P3 will be the bus's 5th stop, which sucks, but whatever. We hit the first stop, Parking P7 and P6. Driver stops, no one gets off, we push off. Over the loudspeaker, an automated voice announces that the next stop is P5, and please tell the driver if you need P5. No one speaks up, so we continue on. Next stop, says the computer lady, is Terminal D. We stop, most of the people get off here. We pull up about 100 yards and pick up people from Terminal D arrivals. We do the same at Terminal C--drop off and pick up. Then, finally, the computer lady says P3 is the next stop. Excited to finally be back at my car a full 45 minutes after I've left the gate, I start gathering my things. As I look up, I see P3 right next to us. Not sure where the driver will stop for P3, I remain seated. He continues to drive, and then computer lady says "Next stop, Terminal B." And I get up and say "Whoa! What happened to P3!" And then the guy looks at me and shrugs his head and pulls the bus over immediately and says "Shoot, man. I thought you already got off. It's right behind us, about a three minute walk." Incensed by my shit luck and as usual, pissed off at LGA, I get off the bus and read a sign that says "Walk to Parking P3: 1000 feet or 10 minute walk." Luckily, 1000 feet really does only take about 3 minutes, and at least it's not raining this time, so it wasn't all bad. But my ONE chance to redeem this whole parking at LGA sham of an operation is foiled, again.
Finally, I get in the car, and of COURSE, my iPhone is dead because iOS5 drains the shit out of my battery. I don't have the old school Garmin in the car, so I'm a bit cut off at the knees. I plug the phone into the car charger, knowing that it will take some minutes to get any juice whatsoever. However, using my common sense, I know that LGA is located on Interstate 278 in New York. When I came from Connecticut, I took 278 West into New York. So, I figure, take 278 East back to Connecticut, where I can then find 95 and get home. As I'm making my way to 278 East, I see signs that say "278 East/Triboro Bridge/Manhattan/Bronx" and I get a bit confused. I'm not sure if 278 East will take me straight into midtown or what. Not choosing to risk that, I ask the now energized iPhone what to do. It tells me to turn around and take Grand Central Parkway in the other direction toward the Whitestone Bridge--and all the roads look green and it says 1 hour, 44 minutes to home. Great, I think, this way I can bypass NYC and all its major headaches. Except apparently, the Whitestone Bridge is under construction after 10pm and has created a 5-mile long standstill of traffic. Google, in all its wisdom and user praise, has crashed the "Let's Fuck Arie" party that my gas station shelter, I-95, the Bridgeport Train Station, and LaGuardia have thrown this week. These 5 miles take me 55 minutes to cover; during this entire time, I can see that 278 East does, in fact, go right past Manhattan and on into eastern New York and up into Connecticut. Needless to say, once I paid my penance on the Whitestone Bridge, I went about 95 mph the rest of the way home to make up for lost time. Still, my plan to land at 10 and be home by 12 turned into getting home at 1:30am. By my calculations, I could have been home by 12:30 on the train. Moral of the story--NEVER drive into NYC, especially when the world hates you.
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