Hope the power comes back soon

[Delphinus]

As you may have heard by now there is a major outage of power in the east. I'm out here in it although luckily for me I am not in one of the major cities (I am visiting a small town north of Detroit). The building where I'm working has a deisel generator so I can still surf (priorities, ya know..)

Hopefully the power comes back soon. It sounds like big cities are a real mess right now. Rush hour traffic, no traffic lights, no subways, people stuck in elevators. What a nightmare. Hope this resolves quickly.

[Troy F]

Why aren't you out among the looters?

[kari]

DareDevil Tony

North of Detriot

If you get close to Detroit, I suggest tieing a string from your car to your toe and have a gun in hand ready. Take the safety off because the shooting starts when you open the door. Better to have more one gun.

[Delphinus]

Yeah, Detroit's a wild place. It's actually pretty neat place though. They have the oldest public aquarium in the U.S. (which I thought was pretty neat). And Tropicorium (Dick Perrin's coral prop facility.) Right now though I'm in Port Huron actually (about an hour north). Right at the mouth of Lake Huron. The river is not that wide around here, although it must be really deep and swift given that the volume of the great lakes is passing through it. It's really amazing to see, these HUGE ocean going tankers and freighters (and I mean ... HUGE) travelling a river that is not a whole lot wider than the Bow River. I swear there are places those boats could be turned into a bridge by steering them sideways. I don't think they could even be made to go perfectly perpendicular .. they look longer than the river is wide [although I'm sure it's not really]) Anyways I forget what my point was. Oh right, I'm in Port Huron. I think there's maybe about 1000 people here. It's a pretty small town actually. One of the guys I'm working with, is a part time state trooper in his spare time. That just boggles my mind. I mean, I've heard of people having two jobs, maybe moonlighting a bit at Rona or something for some wee extra spending cash or something ... but a part time police officer????? I thought that was one of the more unsual things I had heard ... until I learned that there are in fact two guys working here who are also police officers (but in different forces). So, get this, you've got like State troopers, U.S. Marshalls, Highway Patrol, Sheriff's Department, and of course municipal police forces as well. Although mostly they have different jurisdictions, there is some overlap. And, this to me is the strangest thing, if one cop sees another cop speeding, for example, he can actually pull that guy over and give him a ticket. I mean ... gahhhhh?? This is so amazingly different than what I'm used to seeing that's for sure.

[Quinn]

Aren't the state troopers just reservists? But I hear ya, the Americans have an insane amount of defense/policing levels. I've heard they have over ten different "secret" bureaus, like NSA and CIA. We have one, CSIS, who has within it the CSE, which no one knows about. And we have the RCMP. They must have ten different equivalents to the RCMP, FBI, DEA, AFT... and the AFT even has its own SWAT-type people, with black body armor and M16's, good grief, do you need automatic rifles to bust someone with illegally imported cigarettes?

[pluff]

In the States anything is possible

[Troy F]

...do you need automatic rifles to bust someone with illegally imported cigarettes?

Yes, absolutely and without a doubt.

[EmilyB]

Christy just called, and she is delayed in Vancouver airport, as the flight crew couldn't get there from Toronto as a result of the power outs.

[Samw]

What public companies upgrade power grids in N. America? Looking for some stock tips.

[Samw]

Prophetically, I bought a battery operated air pump last weekend in case we had a power failure in Vancouver. Having oxygenation is most vital in my tank.