A storm blew through our town last night and dropped some of the heaviest hail i've seen in years. Not too much damage to the property (it was mostly 3/4" to 1") but there was a LOT of it. Power didn't go out when the big storm went through, and we don't loose power that often, so it was just a wild little thunderstorm that added some entertainment to the evening.

Of course, it was just the first of many cells that rolled through the area, none of them as serious as the first one. The problem came a few hours later when a lightning strike hit something electrically important nearby and sent my drawing table into darkness. After an hour of getting flashlights and candles out, and seeing what the weather radio had to say, it was becoming clear that power was not going to be coming back on for a while. The UPS system for the computers and backup systems worked great, just like they are supposed to.

The weird thing was that after a few hours, several things beeped in the house, and as i went around to look i noticed that one of the light bulbs in a lamp was glowing very very dimly. After doing some checking, i could see that there was power trickling into the house, but it was very, very low - the kind of thing that can wreak havoc on appliances and sensitive electronic equipment. Needless to say, i scrambled around the house unplugging things, then realized that the best thing to do was to snap off all the circuit breakers on the main panel. This done, there was little i could do but wait for the power to come back on.

I've tried it before, but it's just not possible to draw comics by candelight, so i wasn't able to work any further on the comic last night. I'm actually at the warehouse right now where i am typing this update (and have a working internet connection - even the coffee shop up the street from our house that i usually fall back on for net access was without power). The power company has no estimate on when power will be back up, and i haven't seen any power trucks in the neighborhood, so i'm a little worried about it coming back on today. Hopefully by the time i finish the drawings, the power will be back and i can scan and clean up. If not, I'll try to move things to the warehouse and see if i can get the comic done here.

I used to think that Murphy was a direct relative of mine somewhere in the past, but now i'm convinced that i'm actually a reincarnation of the hapless fellow. The cavalcade of 'things that go wrong' has been so ridiculous over the past few months that i dare not actually list it all for fear that people would swear i make this stuff up. :P Hopefully, power will be back up later and i can post the comic tonight. Next week i'm going to attain some sort of schedule come hell or high water. I'm betting on floods next week.