So, I woke this morning to my microwave beeping. What time is it? Alarm clock blinking “12:00”. Check the wall clock: it’s 6:45. Turn on the computer to check the mail. Power goes off mid-boot. Decide to sit on the couch till it comes back on. It does; I jump in the shower. Lights go out mid-rinse! My bathroom doesn’t have a window in it, so the only light was filtering in through my condensation-heavy bedroom window (and it wasn’t quite light out yet, either). Power comes back on, I step out of the shower. Dry off in the dark. Lights come back on. Lights go off while I’m shaving, come back on 15 minutes later. Start the sandwich maker. Power goes off just as the sandwiches are ready! Woot. I mean, I’m a couple of days late on my utility bill because I forgot to pay it before I went to Victoria, but this is one hell of a way to tell me. Turn on my computer to pay the bill online as I normally would, and the power goes out as soon as the desktop appears. Vunderbar! So I call Simon — turns out he had the same problem. He’s been losing sleep.
After I got to work this morning (I had to scrape my windshield!) I asked one of my co-workers if he experienced any power problems. “No,” he said, “I live quite a bit further away, and I’m on a different exchange. What you’re probably experiencing is rolling brownouts. It happens on really cold mornings like this one, when everyone’s using their heaters.. They just sorta sh….” “shift?” I interrupted, “Yeah,” he laughed, “shift the power around.”