So close, yet so far... (2 min power outage)

I was in my apartment bedroom, at my desk with the laptop on and messing with a couple of lights (of course!). I was lighting the room with my Mini AA Warm, when the battery started to fade.

I pulled out the TK20 and clicked it on and started to swap the Mini's battery. I suddenly noticed that the central HVAC fan had cut off, and I thought "Hmm, that's odd, I had it set to "on" and not "auto". Then as I stood up I caught sight of my table clock and saw that it was dark, and it finally dawned on my that the power was off! Since I didn't have the room lights on, and the laptop serves as its own UPS, I hadn't even noticed anything except for the HVAC fan cutting off.

I was caught a little off guard and thinking oh crap because I had the Mini with a fading battery, and the TK20 had some old junk NiMH cells in it (It's fairly new so I'm just putting some runtime on the light, not ready for duty yet). I must've been a bit willy-nilly because I had several lights within easy reach that I could've used: A TK12, RiverRock 2C, and a Rebel 3D Mag, all with plenty of battery life left. Instead I went off downstairs with the nearly-dead Mini and a TK20 with untrustworthy batteries! :fail:

Power outages are very rare here, so I guess I was out of my head a little bit until my wits came back! My main thought was to hurry and turn stuff off so that nothing would get fried in case of a power surge/spike when things kicked back on. And by the way, I've been running through all my supply of NiMH AAs lately before recharging them all, so I was down to only 4 left! Plenty of primaries though, as well as other sizes, but still! I was thinking "Stupid Murphy!!!"

And if all this was a bit of a surprise to me, just imagine what my poor neighboors were experiencing! With almost no moon tonight, and a little overcast, it was dark as a tomb outside. There had been some people sitting outside at the building across from me, and down in the parking lot area some kids had been playing. I could hear general sounds of confusion coming from outside as I moved through my downstairs area clicking everything off. I decided that once I got my stuff squared away, I was going to load up with some real firepower with my last remaining AAs and Lithium cell lights, and go outside in case kids or anyone else outside needed an assist to find their way back home. I also had 3 or 4 of the little Lighthound coin-cell LEDs, which I planned to give to away to the kids if necessary. I was gonna be like that guy in the "Darkness Falls" movie with the bag of 20 flashlights

However, the power clicked back on about that time. Just as well; it's a fairly warm night and I wasn't looking forward to trying to sleep in a hot room with no fan. It occured to me after all this that the rise of the cell phone, which is usually EDC'd 24/7 by most people, probably saves a lot of people some grief in a power outage. Most of the screen lighting on those things is pretty bright, and even a dim one would still be useable, and better than nothing, when it's totally dark.

Anyway, looks like everything's back to normal now. The whole duration of the outage probably wasn't more than 2 or 3 minutes, but it made me glad to have my lights nonetheless. It was kinda funny that I didn't hardly notice the power being off, because I almost always use flashlights for indoor lighting at night, and leave the light fixtures off unless I'm showering and getting ready for bed (good thing I didn't get caught in the shower though!! I don't carry a light in there!)

My flashaholic side is glad I'm a cigarette smoker.

Even before getting into "real" flashlights I've always had some form of EDC light.

However, I've ALSO always managed to somehow, maybe a couple times a year, end up in a situation where I DIDN'T have any light on my person and had to resort to the Bic Lighter Illumination Tool!

I occasionally get caught without a light on me, or a light with batteries that are ready to die. I occasionally get caught without a lighter on me, or a lighter that's about to die.

But I've never been without both, or had both die on me...

Dude Dudeson said:

My flashaholic side is glad I'm a cigarette smoker.

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Your pulmonary system side is not.

Back on topic, this is a good example of why you need to EDC a light like the Ra/HDS where it gradually steps down brightness levels as the batteries die instead of just crapping out. You can get a lot of life out of a battery in a Ra even after you can no longer sustain high mode.

sounds like you were worrying for nothing. You had it all under control.
Lesson to be learned, take your lights with you in the shower.

Stress_Test said:

unless I'm showering and getting ready for bed (good thing I didn't get caught in the shower though!! I don't carry a light in there!)

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Looks like you are going to have to get yourself a set of showering flashlights!

I always loved blackouts - great opportunity to show the importance of a good light.
For a month or two we kept getting blackouts as the council was in the progress of replacing generators and stuff. Only lasted about an hour or two - but watching everyone in the house fumble blindly around the house to dig through camping gear boxes and backpacks.
One of my most used lights was suprisingly my little Sapphire.

Sometimes, if I felt an outage was more likely (ie heatwave this summer) I'll put a light on low mode shining into the bathroom from outside while I shower; the bathroom door opens right next to my bed so that's a good spot to put the light.

Getting caught in the shower wouldn't be TOO terrible, as I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have much trouble navigating by touch for just the few steps to the side of my bed. And from there I can easily locate several lights.

Getting caught in the bathroom doing a #2 would be MUCH worse! In fact I only missed that from happening by a couple of hours. This time, since there had just been a brief outage, I did have my L0D on low mode just in case!

nbp said:

Your pulmonary system side is not.

Back on topic, this is a good example of why you need to EDC a light like the Ra/HDS where it gradually steps down brightness levels as the batteries die instead of just crapping out. You can get a lot of life out of a battery in a Ra even after you can no longer sustain high mode.

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Quark Mini 123 does well for this too (which I EDC).

In fact, I really need to acquire a few battery vampire type of lights because of this - I'm always tossing 123 primaries that would probably provide many more hours of use in a low powered application...

Getting caught in the bathroom

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:sick2: TMI!

I always try to have a light or two (that is bright enough for ceiling bounce for a period of time without getting hot but turned off till needed) on sink counter while I have a shower as since there is no window of sorts it is very dark with no lights on even during a sunny day.


Sometimes I hope for a outage so I can have more of a excuse to play with my lights but if it happens while still bright out I usually get annoyed because I may then have to find something else to do besides what I was doing or wanted to do.