It was pretty obvious from my last entries that I don't like living without power.  I have always been pretty honest about the fact that I am not much for "roughing it".  That's the beauty of living in the USA where, for the right price, you can obtain the comforts you desire. 

So today, the electricians came out to wire up my shiny new generator into the main breaker panel.  I have been waiting for this day, and every passing wind storm that has blown through over the past 3 weeks has left me feeling more uneasy about the stability of the power grid.  So, now I no longer have to worry as much.  If the power goes out again, I will have enough standby power to run critical electric (e.g. Coffee Pot, Heat, Lights, Microwave)...notice those items were listed in order of importance. 

Being the "tool and gadget" guy that I am, I thought I would share a bit about how this nifty little system works.  It all boils down to a simple circuit breaker that enables the power to flow from the generator into the main breaker panel supplying power to any of the available breakers in the box. At the same time, it disables the flow of power from the main utility line.  The generator gets hooked up to a port on the outside of the house using a weatherproof 20 ft cable.  So, power goes out >> fire up generator >> flip some switches >> light the place back up. Beautiful! The nice thing about this design is that it lets me control which breakers I choose to run based on the load that the generator can handle.  In my case, 7000w running and 12000w peak should be enough to run everything but the 30 and 40 amp breakers, of which there are 3.  If I get really serious about running everything and want to upgrade to a 15000w generator... no problem, just have to change the generator. I added some photos below to illustrate the point. 

So, in the event we have another storm like the one on December 14, I will be better prepared than before.  If not, well then I can now successfully run any household appliance in the middle of nowhere.  Either way, I think I'll sleep a bit better at night knowing that my family will be warm if something does happen again.

So I have been getting a lot of emails and IM's inquiring about where I have been since my last blog post.  Turns out, 5 days without power sort of threw me out of my normal rhythm and only now do I feel things returning to normal.  If you add to that the usual hectic holiday times, vacation, and then getting back into work... time tends to fly by.  So for those of you paying attention, here's what's going on with me.

Christmas and New Years went well, we did get power back a few days before.  So, final preparations were sort of hurried and it seemed like it flew right by.  Look for some updated photos coming soon in the new photo album.  We had some visitors during the holidays, which was nice.  My dad joined us for a bit, followed by Christa's mom.  Both got to experience the power outage, and since they are both veteran hurricane survivors... it was more of an inconvenience than anything.  Both enjoyed the visit with the grandson more than the parents... I am pretty certain of that. :-)

The high note was of course watching Chris discover the joys of Santa Claus' generosity toward children that are good all year long.  I doubt that he comprehends that the pile of toys under the tree is much more than just that, but it sure was a blast watching him stare at everything when he first came downstairs. 

Generally, we love Christmas... it's our favorite time of the year.  We made the best of it despite the setbacks and Santa made sure that next year, backup power will be available if this happens again...<wink>  Seriously though, we felt pretty fortunate to have the exciting and rewarding year that we experienced in 2006, and we are excited about our 2007 adventures.  So, keep reading... and feel free drop a comment from time to time.