Random:

           I'm sitting at the pub in the next "town" east of me. The power is out at home because of a wind storm and one of my neighbors tress, my house is running on battery backup now.
Sitting in the dark with my Feline companion reminds me of how empowered I am. The fact that I have the know how, the tools, and the will to do something about a lack of Mains power is some what, Surprising in our society.
I remember in Ice storm, I think it was 1996, when my parents house was out of power for about 2 weeks in the middle of February. It was a cold spell, a warm spell, then a cold spell. There was about 2 to 3 inches of ice on every thing. It took down trees, powers lines, well a lot of stuff.  Thousands of people where with out power and scared shitless. But not my family, we took it as a something fun. We cooked dinner on the fireplace, took hot bucket baths, had kerosene lights, and my brother rigged up a battery powered TV. I remember that time as all kinds of fun because it was like a post apocalyptic kind of thing. I guess I'm wired that way. When I found out how scared other people where, to the point of breaking down from what I heard, I was rather surprised. I wondered what would happen if it was worse, if all of those systems we depend on just slowly broke down and no one fixed them? What then?

So in that I count my self blessed that I know now to make it all  work, one way or the other. I count my self lucky that I grew up "strange" and found this kind of thing fun. If for no other reason because I can help those who don't know how, because I'll have my shit taken care of.