HI Mike,   
      
   On Tue 2012-Oct-30 10:51, Mike Roberts (1:261/1381) wrote to Richard Webb:   
      
    RW> Our neighbors with their all electric kitchens were moaning too,   
    RW> while we had burgers on the grill, pancakes on the camp stoe the next   
    RW> morning, and hot coffee to drink, bottled water of course.   
      
   MR> You weren't standing there flipping the Pancakes with a big smile on   
   MR> Your  face, were You Richard? ;-) Flipping the old pancakes and   
   MR> holding Your cup of  coffee and giving them a nod of the head and a   
   MR> good mornin to ya.. 8-)    
      
   MR> Heheh, then they stomp in the house and head off for a McMuffin   
   MR> someplace..    
      
   That's exactly what i was doing .   
      
   MR> Probably not what You meant, but the picture I got.    
      
   YEp, but a lot of Des MOines was without electrical power,   
   took out their main generator during the flood, and no   
   running water.  Meanwhile I'm flipping pancakes on the   
   coleman stove, the coffee's hot and tehy had to drive to the burbs for their   
   Mickey D's fix or whatever.  WE were   
   meanwhile doing pretty good.   
      
    RW> Hope you're still alright up there.   
      
   MR> At this point I can say we were really blessed. It was a long night,   
   MR> Only  because had to spend the night in the far end of the living   
   MR> room. I just did  not trust those pines. I ended up listening to the   
   MR> scanner, which despite the  mildness of what we did get here, was   
   MR> extremely intersting and active. Noisy,  some branches down and 1   
   MR> shingle I found this morning. Most odd and  important, we really did   
   MR> not get much rain up by the lake. Almost like lake  affect snow.   
   MR> That high wind seemed to blow that over us and drop it off in the    
   MR> city, And farther inland. Along with that important fact, NO Power   
   MR> loss here.  So Basement was fine. According to the online grid,   
   MR> houses on streets around  me were losing power, but we were blessed   
   MR> to have ours. County just lifted  the state of emergency about an   
   MR> hour ago. Locally mostly as I thought, some  downed trees, flash   
   MR> flooding and about 26000 out of power this morning. So  for the most   
   MR> part, this part of the storm was kind to us. My heart does go  out   
   MR> to those on the coast and to the folks getting that blizzard. We may   
   MR> get  soaked the next few days, but thats like a splinter compared to   
   MR> what those  poor folks have gotten and are waking up to.   
      
   YEp, I'm monitoring the Salvation army ham radio network as   
   well as usual.  Nope, I don't do television of any kind, old blind man doesn't   
   have any interest, but I'll probably   
   listen to some radio news later.  Glad you made it through   
   anyway.   
      
   Regards,   
              Richard   
   ---   
    * Origin:  (1:116/901)