OT and kind of long: I hate ice!

[JohnR]

Hi everyone. Well I have not been on the boards since at least Saturday. We lost power in the big ice storm that went through the Midwest. Still don't have any power and looks like at least a week to 10 days before we will. Luckily we do have a generator and that allows us to function pretty well as it is hooked up to the main line for the house and does a pretty good job of keeping up.

I did have to move my computers for work about 50 miles into a spare office at one of my clients due to the power not being clean enough for my UPS's to deal with. I have a line conditioner coming so hopefully that will solve that issue and I can get back to my own office in a day or two.

It was really nasty around here, we had at least an inch of ice on everything and lost lots of tree branches. About 4 miles form my house there is an area of high line with over 30 poles down in a 3 or 4 mile section. Looks like it will be a while as they have not even moved the power lines off the highway yet to the west of me. The electric company says they have 2500 poles and 500 miles of line down.

No airplane building here for a while. I am looking forward to catching up on the board as soon as I can. (might be a while) I just didn't want everyone to think I had disappeared!

[dons]

Yikes! Good thing you have a generator setup the way you do, otherwise it would really be rough. We missed the ice storm here, not that I mind, the one that went through eastern Ontario and Quebec a few years back did some real damage and left a lot of people without power as well. Hope you have lots of fuel containers so gas for that generator won't be a problem. Stay safe, I remember a lot of fires during the time people were without power.

We just got a call from one our clients, their e-mail has been backing up here since Saturday (office is in Iowa somewhere). They said they are expecting a generator today and should be able to start receiving e-mail again as they don't have power. One of our servers acts as a backup for their mail and I was wondering what was going on there.

[cjensen]

Glad to hear you and your family are ok John! Sounds like the ice storm we had come thru Illinois about a month or so ago. My in-laws were without power for a week!

Hope you get back to normal soon!!

[svanarts]

In California, ice is something you add to a mixed drink. Hope you guys defrost soon.

[captain_john]

John, hang in there!

Spring is coming!

CJ

[Womack2005]

John, that totally susck man! Hope your up and runnin again soon. I have only really experienced that kinda ice once in North Caolina. No fun and I feel for ya.

[RV9inIowa]

It was really nasty around here, we had at least an inch of ice on everything and lost lots of tree branches. About 4 miles form my house there is an area of high line with over 30 poles down in a 3 or 4 mile section. Looks like it will be a while as they have not even moved the power lines off the highway yet to the west of me. The electric company says they have 2500 poles and 500 miles of line down.

John - let me know if you need anything at all. We were out of power for a little over a day. Of course I've been neglecting my generator for 2+ years and it wasn't working (almost better now). This was certainly a bad one.

[JohnR]

Thanks for the encouragement everyone. It hasn't been all that bad, just a pain to deal with. I really feel for all of the people who don't have the resources we do.

This morning they had one of the 30 poles up. There is talk that they may be able to bring power in from another direction possibly. That would be okay with me.

Dave, my generator had the main jet clogged up and I had to tear the carb down and clean it out. After that it took right off. We've been running it about 12 - 14 hours a day. I've been having to pick up gas in Cedar Rapids as Williamsburg keeps running out. To many people running generators I guess.

[spikescopilot]

As an FYI, John -- nothing's off-topic in the hangar. Even crappy winter weather.

[RV9inIowa]

I think I may have a problem... I can't stop buying clecos. I started with only 300, but now look what has happened:

It was going OK until JohnR hooked me up with his connection and now I can get them to show up at my door the very next day (he is an enabler). Before I know it, there were like 1500 of them.

Where is next next Clecoholics meeting? "My name is Dave and I have too many Clecos"

Hope your power comes back soon John. BTW - the wings stands are awesome...

dave

[Spike]

I too am one, though I dont have the hookup and I need to buy some more. Care to share the info?

Spike

[cjensen]

Yeah, yeah!! Me too! Me too!! Hook a brutha up! I have almost 600, which was enough for the wings, but I may be short on the fuse...

[dons]

I seem to order a few hundred more with every order from Avery or Vans after reading all the comments and hearing from local builders that say you can never have too many. I was able to lend a few hundred to someone cause I'm not doing anything big yet, but I have to be close to 800 of the silver ones, so 1500, wow.

Live power getting any closer to your place John ?

[RV9inIowa]

Yeah, yeah!! Me too! Me too!! Hook a brutha up!

OK, it's an easy 4 step process.... but you may have trouble with the first part:

STEP 1 - move to Iowa (no, really, I'm serious...)

STEP 2 - when building and you need clecos, call up Cleaveland Tool (coincidentally, also in Iowa). Ask for more clecos, standard UPS ground shipping. It's best to buy them in multiples of 300.

STEP 3 - the very next day, a brown truck comes and you have more clecos!

STEP 4 - repeat at STEP 2 until you have enough clecos, or until you are too embarasses to buy more!



EDIT: - uh-oh... the next big storm is here and the lights are blinking....

[JohnR]

Power finally came back on night before last for a while then back out. Finally last night around 6:00 or so it came on and has been on since then with only a couple of blips here and there. Thanks goodness for UPS's!

I've been trying to catch up on work, for some reason my computers didn;t work very good with no power. Man, I'm ready for spring.

Dave, I think you'll have to replace some of those clecos with rivets or you'll have to much drag! Your going to look like Popeye when your done building that plane with that many clecos!

[dons]

Glad to hear you got power back John, really makes you think how much we depend on it.

[JohnR]

Glad to hear you got power back John, really makes you think how much we depend on it.

Boy, you have that right! I kept thinking I would od something and then would realize I couldn't because I did not have the power. Sort of sobering. People around here went nuts too. The gas stations that had power would sell out in just a short time after getting a tanker in. I know the generators eat some gas, but not that much. It was nuts! Hope we don't see that again for a while, I've had my fill.