On Dec 28 I put on a Musica Donavania event. After only my two overnight guests were still here, Tom sacked out in the entrance room. Peggy and I, as usual, spent the night talking. Usually we call it quits at first light and get a couple of hours sleep. This time was mid-winter, so we cut it off a little early.

On Dec 29 In the morning, Peggy, helped me put the house back into breakfast configuration and do first pass clean-up. Then I cooked breakfast and we talked until 1:00pm when Tom and Peggy have to head back to Las Vegas, because their cats would never forgive them for being home late.

They hadn't cleared the driveway yet when I turned on the hot water and found it dead cold. The water heater would not restart. It's insured, so I called the Sears Home Services, but they couldn't get a guy out to fix it until Tuesday morning - so two days suffering without hot water. How primitive!

The service guy arrived early, and complained, "I usually do HVAC, and for some reason they sent me out for a water heater" - but he was highly competent, took out the guts, cleaned it up and had it working within 30 minutes.

So I was back to being a (reasonably) modern human. Problem is, by Friday I realized I was coming down with a (moderate) cold. Peggy admitted to not knowing she was coming down with one during the event and accepted responsibility. So, on to recovering.

Monday night 6 Jan the wind was really bad, about as bad as a Santa Ana gets. As usual, during the day it dropped back to just pretty bad.

Then, Tuesday. one of my oldest clients (and one of the last 4 or 5) called in desperation, the company's server was down. So, want to or not, I had to go out and fetch it. Found the power supply had partially failed, so I put in a replacement. This was it's second power supply replacement. Running Debian 3 (Sarge), it has run 24 hours a day for 18 years. Did a back-up and done!

By this time the wind was blowing pretty hard. I made a soup for supper and set down and started eating it. The lights went out. "Oh, not again." The last big wind it was out for a day and a half (not safety shut down, system damage). So, I turned off the computer and communications UPSs, finished my soup, washed the dishes, turned everything off and went to bed. Noticed an hour later the power was back on, then an hour after it was off.

Now I was down to the cell phone, which I barely know how to use, and which turned out to be swollen and had burst its case, but it still worked. It got a disaster warning that demanded "immediate evacuation", but it said "La Cañada Flintridge", the rich people's enclave, and that's 2 miles away, so I ignored it. The fire was actually in Altadena, about 5 miles as the crow flies.

That night the wind was incredible. This was no Santa Ana, way worse. The wind velocity down my driveway was at least the 100mph / 161kph stated as the max.

In the morning, electricity was still out, I packed up the server. I looked in the direction of La Cañada. Holy Shit! There was a HUGE mass of black smoke. There were bits of white smoke around it, but black smoke means houses are burning. The wind was starting to subside, but the damage was done.

I took the server to the client and set it up. On my drive to and from, most major intersections did not have working signals.

Came home and again engaged in recovery, made a big pot of my special chicken soup. Fortunately, like any good Cave Man, I cook over fire. Had some soup and went to bed.

Thursday morning, still no power. My best client was to come by to talk business, then party. Turns out, he had just had a serious run-in with his mother-in-law and was in no mood to talk business. He did bring a bottle of 15 year single malt (sorry, Peter, it doesn't taste like paint stripper. I've tasted paint stripper) so we did party. Business and then party next week.

More of the Chicken soup and off to bed, but the water bed was getting a bit cold, so not as delightful as usual.

Friday morning, still no power. Tom and Peggy made their usual 10:30 weekly phone call to the cell phone. Then on to the problems of the day. The freezer compartment of the kitchen fridge was getting close to 0°C. The ancient GE in the garage was doing just a little better. Something needed to be done.

I went up the hill to Smart and Final. Their big Dry Ice bin was empty, so I bought 4 7 pound bags of ice. I partitioned one of them into small bags I could slip into the (almost full) freezer compartments, and put the rest in the lower sections of the two fridges.

I finished with the garage fridge and came back into the house. I opened the freezer compartment of the kitchen fridge to check if all was good - then wondered, "What is that noise?".

So, after 80 hours, back from the Paleolithic to the 20th century (yes, I'm a Luddite and haven't yet crossed the century line).

Of course, it could have been worse. The water heater could have gone out during the power outage. That's probably what was planned, it just didn't work out that way. Or it could have been really, really worse. I could have lived in a modern all-electric home with an electric car on the charger.

Unfortunately, long time friends, with financial, health, and family problems, lost everything in Altadena. All they have now is two cars, possibly their cats, and an extremely difficult daughter.

Now to post - ahhh-shit, Internet (and phone) down again - so much for the 20th century.

So, next day.

. . for many, not so much.

I have a little cleanup to do around the property, but not much else. My new roof is certified for 150 mph, so it's all OK.

My Altadena friends have been put up by someone out in the San Fernando Valley - where they can start the long and difficult process of rebuilding their lives.