Back to the Stone Age

While I was starting my P90X workout yesterday, the lights and TV started to flicker a bit, and then the TV turned off while the lights remained.  No problem I thought…just have to boot up the PC again and keep on going (I have my PC connected to the TV to display the video and the PC powered off during the power surge).  I pressed the power button, but no lights or fans started spinning.  I pressed it again and again, but nothing.  I unplugged the PC, plugged it back in, and still nothing.  At this point, I was starting to think about the angry things I was going to say to the apartment front office about breaking my new PC when I walked around the apartment and noticed that the fridge had also ceased to make any sounds and the microwave lighting was quite a bit dimmer than usual.  So I got the new kill-a-watt meter that I had recently bought and started testing several plugs around the TV room and found some interesting readings.

So apparently the plugs in the TV room and kitchen were reading around 60 something volts AC, which is pretty much half of what a normal 120V AC output should be.  Interestingly enough, the bathroom and my bedroom seemed unaffected by the power surge as all the lights were bright as usual.

After getting some busy tones trying to call up emergency maintenance, I finally got through, and the maintenance person said that the power had indeed gone out and the apartments were running on the backup generators, and they were working as fast as they could to get things back to normal.  At this point, I really couldn’t complain since there wasn’t much I could do.  Unfortunately, there were some people that were stuck in the elevator during the power outage, and the local fireman had to be called in to rescue them, so I’m sure they’re going to give the management office an earful after this.

On the other hand, earlier in the day I enjoyed a good Korean BBQ buffet lunch over at IlMee’s.