Man, what a week!

Two big news worthy events took place this past week. And I was involved in both of them.

First this past Monday, my PC, which recently got upgraded to Windows XP, kept shutting down for no apparent reason. It happened whenever I was online. Sometimes it happened within minutes. Other times it took place in a half hour or so. It was driving me crazy. I didn't know if it was my Windows XP program was acting up or my ISP or what. I remember being up late on Monday night searching up everything I could on my hard drive and online ( for as long as I could stay online) trying to find the problem with no luck. I didn't know what to do.

Then the same thing happened again on Tuesday when I got home from work. I was stumped. I didn't know whether I should go back to Windows 98 SE or take my PC to the shop. Then I was watching the news and it mentioned something about a computer virus that affects PCs that have Windows. After seeing the report, I logged on again and again my PC shut down on me. This time though, I looked at my Norton's AntiVirus program before it shut down and it mentioned the Blaster virus and it was exactly what was mentioned on the news.
Crap! I said to myself, along with several other obscenities. I couldn't believe some dumbass hacker who's pissed off about Windows and Microsoft could mess up my computer along with everyone's else who has Windows XP, 2000 and so on. So anyway, I found out what I needed to do to prevent getting shut down again, which in my case involved enabline a Internet firewall connection for my PC and downloading a safety patch to avoid getting hit with that damn virus. Good thing Norton's took care of the virus and eliminated it from messing up my system. Once that was done, I was back online and all was right once again.

Until Thursday.

I was at work around 4pm when I saw the lights flickering overhead. After a few moments, the place was in the dark. Me and my co-workers were thinking it was a power surge at our place (it has happened before) or even someone had knocked out our power, since there was construction going on nearby. But when one of my co-workers mentioned that he had heard on his portable radio that not only our area was affected, but other places like New York, Toronto and Cleveland were in the dark as well, we all got concerned. All kinds of thoughts raced through our head, with another terrorist attack topping the list.
What freaked me out even more was the fact that I couldn't call home and check on my mother and see how she was doing.

I've come to find out that a major power failure had hit most of the East Coast. They say some freak thing happened at a power grid either in New York or Ohio and it caused a cascade effect that knocked out everything from where I live to NYC to Cleveland to Toronto and other areas in between. The fact that it was one of the hottest days in the summer also set off the blackout.

Anyway, what happened the rest of the day pretty much sucked. First of all, me and my fellow co-workers had to clear out the store and then lock it down. Then we had to store up and cover all fruits, produce and dairy stuff we could. It was a pointless task, I would later learn, but we didn't know how long it would last. Then they let us go home early.

Once home, I'd find out that there was hardly enough water, candles and flashlights around. My dinner that night consisted of lukewarm pop and a bag of Cheetos. Good thing I had a big lunch earlier in the day. I played around with my portable Pac-Man electronic game after that until it got dark. And when it got dark, I mean it got really dark. I had never seen the area like that before in the five years I had lived there. The only thing I had going for me was my portable radio and my tapes. With nothing to do, I called it a night at 11pm. I had never been to bed that early since I was a kid. And with the humidity and heat, it was a brutal night to even attempt at getting some sleep. I think I woke up several times that night and spent one full hour (around 4am to after 5am) laying on my bed watching the candle in my room burn out. Needless to say, Thursday night was one of the worst nights I've ever had.

When I woke up Friday, the prospects of this blackout coming to an end didn't seem good. There was talk that it could go into Sunday or Monday. But then, came some promising news. While in line with several others to grab some water from the apartment complex's swimming pool to help fuel our toilet, I had heard that one of the stores nearby was open. That was great, meaning that we could get some more supplies to try and make do until the power came back on. Then at around 1pm, just as me and my mom were about to go to the store came a wonderous sight: the lights at our apartment complex had come back on! Was the power back or was it just a test? After going to the store to grab some things, it turned out that it had indeed come back.

Whohoo!!!!

Now we still didn't have any running water and our power was somewhat limited, it was a hell of a lot better than what was the case Thursday. It was enough for me to plug back in my TV, radio, VCR, DVD player and PS2. Then after midnight, our water had returned. The worst of it had passed.

Saturday, the store I worked at was back up and running and I returned to work and later that night, I had plugged back my PC and went back online. There is still a boil water advisory where I am and there are still a few places in the dark, but as it stands right now, the Great Blackout of 2003 is over. It was an experience I know I'll never forget and neither will some of my friends who were affected by it. I'll share some of their stories in a future blog.

So, as you can see, this was quite a week for me. First dealing with the Blaster worm virus and then enduring the Great Blackout. It was one wild and crazy week. I just hope the week to come will be a lot tamer.