StarHalo
Flashaholic
Just a reminder that Saturday night is your Earth Hour opportunity to test your power outage preparation skills - At 8:30PM your local time, turn off anything and everything that requires mains power, get out your flashlights and lanterns, and dig in for an hour of blackout entertainment.
When the power goes out, do you know which lights you'll use in which application in your house? Or who will get which light? Do you know where the local news station is on your radio? Have you actually practiced/tried any of these things? Now's your chance! For an hour you can turn everything off and see what actually works and what doesn't in practice. If you value *being prepared* and want to know ahead of time what to do the next time the power goes out, this is the crash course you've been waiting for. I'll be relaxing with my family under the ceiling-bounced warm-tint glow, listening to some entertaining talk radio..
Some ideas for your one-hour power outage:
The Battery-Powered Radio: Once you're in an actual power outage, there's no TV or internet to get updates from - How many people are affected by this outage? Is the cause over, or is another problem headed your way? Are there special instructions for staying put or evacuations? If you have a battery-powered radio and you know where your local news station is, you can remain informed up-to-the-minute without skipping a beat. You might get better reception in one area of your living space than another, or one station might provide more updates than another; you won't know until you experiment - it's a good thing you're doing a practice power outage to find out!
When you've found your news station, you probably won't want to listen to it nonstop for this drill, so tune around, see what's out there. There are lots of talk and entertainment shows you probably don't know about, and over on the AM band, you can receive stations from many hundreds of miles away, see what's playing in other states. You can have the radio on in the background while you're doing anything else, so find something fun and enjoy.
Board/Card Games: Been a while since everyone sat at the table and played a game? A lantern or ceiling-bounced light and it's on! (Don't forget the physical copy of the Scrabble dictionary..)
Fondue: No utilities needed for a steno burner; grab some chocolate and some fruit/cookies/whatever and dip in. Everyone feels a lot better about power outages once you get chocolate involved..
Glow Sticks for the Kids: A few minutes in the dark will show you how completely useless glow sticks are for just about anything (something I learned during an actual power outage!) but kids love 'em and are endlessly entertained by them. A fine distraction since they're cheap and don't last that long anyway.
Family Photo Album: A nice quiet time to flip through family pictures by the lantern/EDC light.
Stargazing: You'd be amazed how much better you can see stars just by having your own local lighting out, and not everyone has time/realizes you have to sit out for at least ten minutes before your eyes truly adjust. Be sure to keep count of satellites and shooting stars.
One out of every seven people on Earth in 4,100 cities will be taking part, join in!
When the power goes out, do you know which lights you'll use in which application in your house? Or who will get which light? Do you know where the local news station is on your radio? Have you actually practiced/tried any of these things? Now's your chance! For an hour you can turn everything off and see what actually works and what doesn't in practice. If you value *being prepared* and want to know ahead of time what to do the next time the power goes out, this is the crash course you've been waiting for. I'll be relaxing with my family under the ceiling-bounced warm-tint glow, listening to some entertaining talk radio..
Some ideas for your one-hour power outage:
The Battery-Powered Radio: Once you're in an actual power outage, there's no TV or internet to get updates from - How many people are affected by this outage? Is the cause over, or is another problem headed your way? Are there special instructions for staying put or evacuations? If you have a battery-powered radio and you know where your local news station is, you can remain informed up-to-the-minute without skipping a beat. You might get better reception in one area of your living space than another, or one station might provide more updates than another; you won't know until you experiment - it's a good thing you're doing a practice power outage to find out!
When you've found your news station, you probably won't want to listen to it nonstop for this drill, so tune around, see what's out there. There are lots of talk and entertainment shows you probably don't know about, and over on the AM band, you can receive stations from many hundreds of miles away, see what's playing in other states. You can have the radio on in the background while you're doing anything else, so find something fun and enjoy.
Board/Card Games: Been a while since everyone sat at the table and played a game? A lantern or ceiling-bounced light and it's on! (Don't forget the physical copy of the Scrabble dictionary..)
Fondue: No utilities needed for a steno burner; grab some chocolate and some fruit/cookies/whatever and dip in. Everyone feels a lot better about power outages once you get chocolate involved..
Glow Sticks for the Kids: A few minutes in the dark will show you how completely useless glow sticks are for just about anything (something I learned during an actual power outage!) but kids love 'em and are endlessly entertained by them. A fine distraction since they're cheap and don't last that long anyway.
Family Photo Album: A nice quiet time to flip through family pictures by the lantern/EDC light.
Stargazing: You'd be amazed how much better you can see stars just by having your own local lighting out, and not everyone has time/realizes you have to sit out for at least ten minutes before your eyes truly adjust. Be sure to keep count of satellites and shooting stars.
One out of every seven people on Earth in 4,100 cities will be taking part, join in!
