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about Wednesday
2022-Jan-20, Thursday 09:16 amYesterday was another one of those days of cascading failures. This morning it's -24C/-11F outside, but yesterday at least it was a warmer -16C/3F when the power went out at my house.
Not a good thing to happen, but not terrible. It happens around here. That's okay. I can't get to work remotely, but I can email from my smartphone to let my morning appointments know I'm having issues. Then I discover that T-Mobile has cancelled my cellular service at exactly the same time, around 8:15am. I'm "dead in the water" for any form of communication.
I drive to the T-Mobile store, but they don't open until 10am. I drive to the nearby Taco Bell for breakfast. While I'm eating in the parking lot, I use their free wifi to email my coworkers finally. I wait at T-Mobile for them to open. I get inside and try to buy new service. My physical credit card is declined with no reason given. ARGH!
Bonus frustrating story:
I checked the Xcel Energy website, and the morning outage in my area affected 385 people for about 3 hours. Then it happened again around 6pm, but at least that outage was much shorter. I still have no idea what caused either of them.
Bonus depressing story:
As I exited the T-Mobile store the 2nd time (successful account renewal), there were police, ambulance, and fire crew. They appeared to be helping someone on the ground outside. My best guess is a homeless person experienced a trauma in the bitterly cold weather. As I've been repeatedly saying here in my blog and at the Minneapolis Mayor's voicemail, "Isn't it better to have a tent than not have a tent?"
And I noticed nothing when I entered the store, even though that corner was in my immediate field of view. *sigh*
Not a good thing to happen, but not terrible. It happens around here. That's okay. I can't get to work remotely, but I can email from my smartphone to let my morning appointments know I'm having issues. Then I discover that T-Mobile has cancelled my cellular service at exactly the same time, around 8:15am. I'm "dead in the water" for any form of communication.
I drive to the T-Mobile store, but they don't open until 10am. I drive to the nearby Taco Bell for breakfast. While I'm eating in the parking lot, I use their free wifi to email my coworkers finally. I wait at T-Mobile for them to open. I get inside and try to buy new service. My physical credit card is declined with no reason given. ARGH!
- I drive to my bank. The recent charges are all legitimate, but they were flagged as "irregular". I get them cleared.
- I drive to T-Mobile. I easily renew my cell phone service.
- I drove home at 11am, and the power is already restored.
Bonus frustrating story:
I checked the Xcel Energy website, and the morning outage in my area affected 385 people for about 3 hours. Then it happened again around 6pm, but at least that outage was much shorter. I still have no idea what caused either of them.
Bonus depressing story:
As I exited the T-Mobile store the 2nd time (successful account renewal), there were police, ambulance, and fire crew. They appeared to be helping someone on the ground outside. My best guess is a homeless person experienced a trauma in the bitterly cold weather. As I've been repeatedly saying here in my blog and at the Minneapolis Mayor's voicemail, "Isn't it better to have a tent than not have a tent?"And I noticed nothing when I entered the store, even though that corner was in my immediate field of view. *sigh*