*Poof*...*Poof*

So there we were, sitting in the conference room, when the power goes out...and doesn't come back. And doesn't come back. And doesn't come back.

We sit around looking at each other. After all, this is a high-tech company. Without power, how can we work? How can we contact the outside world? How can we do much of anything, honestly.

We look out the window at Kendall Square, much of which is dark. We see people randomly evacuating some of the MIT buildings. Those in my cube neighborhood wander back to our desks to look outside at the power plant behind our building. We all pull out our cell phones and start calling folk who we know that work in this general area. Some have power; some had no power; some had been having a blackout but had just gotten power back.

We stand around. We shmooze. We wander over toward the elevator lobby. We're much more social with our fellow coworkers than we've been in months.

Eventually, building security announces over the (annoying) PA system that the power company is aware of the problem and that there's a "voluntary evacuation" going on. We look around at each other some more, deciding whether or not to evacuate. Some strong climbers make it up the 13 floors and emerge from the stairwells. We hail them as returning heroes. Or nutcases. Opinions vary.

We stand around some more, anticipating more information. Elevators start running again, many folks emerge from newly-returning elevators. "Great," we think. "Power is coming back.

It remains dark. We stand around and shmooze some more, giggling slightly at the buildingwide announcement that power has been restored. We apparently don't deserve electricity.

Eventually, after more shmoozing, the lights come back on. The assembled multitude applauds. We disperse to see what's going on at our desks.

No e-mail; no Internet access; no access to internal servers. Thus, if none of your work is saved locally, not much to do other than stare at your screen.

Finally, Internet access comes back. Thus, this update. But still no internal e-mail, still no access to our company's internal servers.

(and it's the 27th day of the Omer)

New books :-)

This evening, MAB got me two new books to slake my desire for British history:

1. A Brief History of British Kings and Queens by Mike Ashley (part of the "A Brief History Of" series)
2. A Rhyming History of Britain, 55 BC - AD 1966 by James Muirden

I haven't looked at the first one yet, but the second one is much fun. It's a complete history of the UK in iambic tetrameter. And it's all accurate, too.

Here's an excerpt:

The jewelled lady in the ruff,
Eventually ran out of puff,
And with her sumptuous cortege
They lay to rest the Tudor age.
What was the secret of a reign
Whose like may never come again?
Surely because her rule expressed
The nation's soul. As she confessed:
'Though greater monarchs came before,
And there may yet be many more --
Of all this princely host, not one
Could love you more than I have done.'