We were having a team meeting at work yesterday morning and then the power went out. To the entire campus. We’re in the basement of the library building, so it was absolutely pitch dark for about 10 seconds. The backup generators then kicked in, turning back on about 20 percent of the lights. Our colleague living in nearby Daly City also reported an outage, so this blackout didn’t seem like the quick fix type.
I immediately sent a text to my housemate to check on the power status at our house. I live incredibly close to campus so it wouldn’t surprise me if we lost electricity as well. Fortunately, our side of 19th Avenue was unscathed. After hanging around campus for about 30 minutes just to see if power will come back soon, I walked home to wait out the rest of the blackout. That’s the flex of living so close to work.
Turns out they sent almost everyone home in my department. It took about three hours for power to return to campus. I of course volunteered to come back. In fact, the three people that live closest to campus came back, which is kind of funny in a way.
The intermission caused by the power interruption was very nice. I got to move my car back to its usual parking spot after the street cleaning from earlier in the morning (no need to do it after work). I ate a proper lunch at home, and I read for about an hour. A sort of Spanish siesta in the middle of the work day. Had the power outage gone on longer, I would have done some grocery shopping at Whole Foods.
A welcomed deviation from the normal everyday work routine.
Breakfast for dinner.