Wednesday: Better Than Tuesday
Strange goings-on in the city this morning. I was sitting in my room around 8am, reading a book ('Plucking the Apple' by Elizabeth Palmer - the sketchy title intrigued me but it's pretty poor so far and is quite possibly chick-lit AAGH) when the power went off.
Naturally I assumed one of my clever tradesman flatmates was up to something, but they were as mystified as I - and none of us know where the fuse-box/electrical thingamy is in our flat so we all went to work leaving Ange (who works shifts) to deal with it, should the problem require dealing.
An aside. Fantastic Mr Flat has been letting me down a little lately - my room seems to be slightly damp. I sat in there for a few hours on the weekend, and the prolonged exposure had me sneezing and sneezing and coming dangerously close to wheezing. Actually I put that down to the eXtreme dust build-up... so I vaccuumed, and discovered some sort of mould growing, right there under my nose, on the floor in front of the cds and beside my guitar. Clearly there is some sort of organised protest at me neglecting the vast majority of my music collection and never playing guitar. Yesterday Jo and I had an outing to the supermarket at lunch-time, and I bought some damp-rid. I'm quite excited about it. I opened it last night, and have been checking regularly, but there is not yet any sign of the promised 700ml of water.
The traffic lights at my favourite intersection (Taranaki/Vivian) weren't working. What fun! Even better, there was a real police man directing traffic at the Taranaki/Ghuznee intersection. Although I was grateful when he waved me across the street, I was disappointed that he was not wearing white gloves.
I think the power may have been off at work too, as my computer was already on when I arrived. Right, time for work.
Naturally I assumed one of my clever tradesman flatmates was up to something, but they were as mystified as I - and none of us know where the fuse-box/electrical thingamy is in our flat so we all went to work leaving Ange (who works shifts) to deal with it, should the problem require dealing.
An aside. Fantastic Mr Flat has been letting me down a little lately - my room seems to be slightly damp. I sat in there for a few hours on the weekend, and the prolonged exposure had me sneezing and sneezing and coming dangerously close to wheezing. Actually I put that down to the eXtreme dust build-up... so I vaccuumed, and discovered some sort of mould growing, right there under my nose, on the floor in front of the cds and beside my guitar. Clearly there is some sort of organised protest at me neglecting the vast majority of my music collection and never playing guitar. Yesterday Jo and I had an outing to the supermarket at lunch-time, and I bought some damp-rid. I'm quite excited about it. I opened it last night, and have been checking regularly, but there is not yet any sign of the promised 700ml of water.
The traffic lights at my favourite intersection (Taranaki/Vivian) weren't working. What fun! Even better, there was a real police man directing traffic at the Taranaki/Ghuznee intersection. Although I was grateful when he waved me across the street, I was disappointed that he was not wearing white gloves.
I think the power may have been off at work too, as my computer was already on when I arrived. Right, time for work.
posted by Jessie at 21:41
9 comments
9 Comments:
Definitely a city-wide electricity thang as it got us over here in Miramar. So, never fear, you weren't alone in the dark(ish).
Power was cut to a large area of southern Wellington and part of the central business district this morning after a transformer tripped at a substation in the southern suburb of Brooklyn.
That is off stuff - damn that's not very exciting. Actually I don't even know what 'tripped' means. I was at home too, and heard a heap of sirens immediately after. I suppose I shouldn't say damn, could have been someone hitting a power pole.
It was exciting enough trying to get across Taranaki St without functional traffic lights.
Either it fell over, or it dropped a tab.
Just meaningless jargon I presume. Maybe Mr Cryer could elicidate...
Got us in Kelburn too - 12 year old female in bathroom launching accusingly out "Who turned off the power while I was in the bathroom!"
One of life's little mysteries. Now I can tell her it was a tripping substation.
elucidate.
Assume any spelling errors are typos.
".. or it dropped a tab."
Hahahaa!
More cops on the way to work today: they had the Taranaki/Buckle St intersection staked out. I saw someone get pulled over and tried to walk really slowly to hear why but I couldn't pull it off and had to keep moving.
Fuck! I slept in half an hour this morning because I didn't realise my alarm clock was wrong from yesterdays power cut...
One of the meanings of "trip", relates to triggering something (think that the idea of a trip wire is often to activate something else rather than physically tripping someone over). Thus, it's extremely common in eletrical parlance to talk about the activation of a protection device as "tripping". That is circuit breakers and such "trip". Usually caused by spikes or drops in voltage or current.
(Sorry to make that all dull for a moment).
Thanks for the clarification Limegreen :)
Esther - suuure, I bet lots of people used that excuse today!
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