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I've been worried sick.

Yeah yeah. It defeats the purpose of having a blog so people can keep tabs on you if you don't update it regularly, doesn't it?

Well, it's like this, see...I'm deployed. (I may have mentioned this.) Things can become a unpredictable when one is deployed. With the Army. Depending upon Army power.

We've been having problems convincing people to coordinate digging permits around post. This is a little thing you do--stop me if I lose you--if you decide you need to dig anywhere for any reason. It's a simple concept, really: check with anyone who might possibly have something buried where you're thinking of digging (off the top of my head, I'd say this would include such agencies as the water works, power and communications) so you don't LALALALALALA backhoe right through something important.*

* In the interest of clarity, I should add this applies to things that might be important to your neighbors, as well--not just you.

We noticed this little problem a couple of weeks ago when a bunch of soldiers were trenching parallel to some of our conduit (looks French, doesn't it? We've been pronouncing it kon-DWEE). We'd see their progress on the way to chow and back. One day, they apparently decided the current direction wasn't working very well and cut a hard left, right across our conduit. There were shards of our late conduit lying around as testament to the goof. Then they cut back across it, because they hadn't done enough damage the first time (I guess).

Jeff went and had a couple of involved conversations with the Army Corps of Engineers concerning this blunder, and suggested we all try playing along with the digging permit thing. You know...pretend we're on the same team or something. Since then, we've had a couple of people pop by and request signatures on digging permits. Even when they make it clear they think this is silly ("I know there's nothing buried there already!"), they still show up, which is good.

So Tuesday afternoon, we were working merrily along in our offices when everything went dark. That was around 2pm. We immediately switched to military "our lights went out" mode, meaning we we immediately ceased all productive activity. By quitting time (7pm), the lights were still out. The bonding that occurs when people's computers are taken away was a good experience, but schedules and responsibilities wait for no man.

Our lights were still on in our quarters, and all over post, pretty much. The next morning, the Power Pros had gotten power to the main comm building via generator. They didn't know the modulars (where we are) were still dead'ern a doorknob until we reported the oversight. We were powerless another day. By afternoon, we were running out useful things we could accomplish without power.

That night at chow, we learned that we were the only people on post without power. Someone had severed a line in the Army power grid and we were the only unit affected. Apparently, no one could figure out where the line had been cut, so they didn't know how long we'd be down.

Maybe there's something I'm missing here, but wouldn't it be where someone had been digging? Maybe? Y'think?

It's still down. It may not come back up anytime soon. Why? Because it isn't the Army's problem. It may be part of their grid that's down, but they all have power.

Ah, teamwork.

I'm guessing they'll eventually find the broken line through means of curious soldiers: "Hey, guys! Look what I--" ZOT. Then his well-meaning but mentally-challenged buddy will try to help him and ZOT. And voila! There will be a string of electrocuted soldiers leading directly to the severed cable.

d