Chapter 7: Touch and Go

A fierce mid-October ice storm followed by high winds took out my county-fed electric. Then the storm surge wiped out the road. It cut a hole through the land spit that supported the road! There would be no going to town for coffee and a newspaper for a while. It proved to me that I needed a power boat for emergencies. The big question was where could I shelter it? I had plenty of propane to keep the generator running, as well as all I'd need for cooking and heating but the experience demonstrated to me how vulnerable I was. I could go perhaps six months without external support before I ran out of fuel, food or patience ... And booze <grin>.

A phone call to my local civil contractor gave me a definite time frame for getting the road repaired. I spent the next three weeks of forced isolation finishing off finding storage space for the pile of possessions that I'd had shipped in from Illinois. There was a brand new futon couch somewhere under that mess, as well as all the components necessary to build out a small electronics lab. I wanted to re-purpose a guest bedroom for the lab. It was dangerous to have in a multi-purpose room. You see, when populating a circuit board it's natural to snip off the excess length of leads on the components. Those little bits of wire tend to fly amazing distances. The ends are sharp—like little chisels. One does NOT walk around barefoot near an electronics bench without getting perforated feet. Rugs and carpeting are out of the question, both to limit hiding places for the bits of sharp wire and to eliminate static charges in the winter that blow out those dinky little chips you're trying to get to work in concert. Once I drilled through the window sill in the new lab I used a water hose and lots of water to drive a copper rod into the soil next to the foundation to provide an earth ground. I also hung several antennas. I didn't have a ham license because all my previous dwellings were apartments and I was funny about doing it 'right' (or at least my vision of right) when setting up my antennas. I sent away for the latest ARRL yearbook and their approved license study guides. Nebraska sales and surplus had the components I needed to make an excellent antenna match box. I had to buy new bottles of styrene doping compound because my old bottles had solidified in storage. Styrene syrup hardens to something like epoxy putty. It's used to keep things like windings on coils from moving about and changing values on you. Think of it as industrial-strength fingernail polish. I wondered how they were going to deliver it to me? By air drop?

I made a few odd-ball dishes from things I had in storage, such as fruitcake, lasagne, meatloaf and dried-apple pie. I spent some quality time with my library. I realized that I was missing a library table and chairs as well as a kitchen table and chairs. All I had was a small table and chair near the shelved cook books that I also used as a dinner table. I placed a call to my interior decorator to remedy this.

My cable TV and internet went out. They were hosted on the same buried cable. I made plans to have the thing re-run with some protection: it was to be encased in a pipe that was attached to concrete footings. I wanted the power line run in a similar but separate armored cover. (Electric lines and data lines do not favorably co-exist with each other, either by electrical code or in reality.) This technique should ease any future installation of data fiber, whenever it hit the area. I also made plans to have rubble-filled giant synthetic bags dropped in place to restrict further storm erosion. It should provide a cheap yet effective sea wall.