700,000 Without Power
After an excellent weekend of family time (although Lorraine still says I spend too much time "playing" on my phone) we find ourselves in the grasp of another serious storms system, but I am getting ahead of myself.
One of the things we enjoy about the summer here in the US is the predictability of the weather (snort). Whilst it is true that the weather is generally more predictable and lends itself to planning outdoor activity, this summer in particular has made a mockery of that.
Firstly it was super late in getting started this year; with the rainiest April on record and May not being much better, whilst all the family were here; culminating in having to move Lorraine's birthday party indoors due to a last minute rainy day!
June started to improve to more normal temperatures, before it got crazy hot for a couple of days right after the family left. The last few days here have been in the 90s, typical July weather, and then the big storm today.
We have had a couple of pretty big storms this season, including a couple of tornado warnings, one that got pretty close, and a couple of severe thunderstorm warnings that have often left people without power, with flooding, etc; but we have always been lucky, barring a few tree branches and some flickering lights.
This morning however, we had a storm system blow through in a matter of about 15-30 minutes with winds in excess of 70mph. It got really dark, and extremely windy, the result of which was/is a lot of damage to trees and power lines. We are one of the original 700,000 without power and as of almost noon, are one of 576,000 still without power. The comed website is down, presumably overrun, or maybe they have no power :-) and we have no idea when it might be restored. It is all good right now, but it will be a tough night if we can't get any AC or fans to run, as they are predicting the temperatures to remain high.
Click here to read the news story, and I will try to go around the neighbourhoods later and get some pictures.
As for the weekend, we went to a couple of local town festivals and events. Based on my earlier statements about the weather predictability, there are always a ton of things to do every weekend during the summer. This weekend was the 1st Annual (I guess that statement is based on intent :-) Summerfest in Wilmette, and the Taste Of Lincolnshire.
Wilmette Summerfest was generally excellent. It was their first time and they clearly had not thought about parking, park 'n' ride or anything like that so it was a pain to find somewhere, but other than that they did a nice job. They had good things for the kids, some free, some not (but no expensive), they had a little bit of an art show, they executed it on the same day that the weekly "French" Farmers market runs, and they also had a sidewalk sale going on. We had a great time.
The Taste Of Lincolnshire is one of my favourite "Taste" events. All of the local towns around here do them annually. For those unfamiliar it is the concept of local restaurants bringing out sample sizes of their dishes to try to entice you to eat there in future. Given the concept, I would have thought they would approach it as a marketing excersise and offer good portions at a reduced price. In reality they bring out small portions and then just pro-rate the price, for example $4 for two pot stickers or $8 for a Mai Tai, etc.
Add to that, that you have to buy tickets and not just use cash, then you always end up with a few left over, which you have to ditch, I find the overall concept to be flawed from a consumer perspective.
That said, the Taste Of Lincolnshire has long been one of my favourites. NOT this year :-( the choice of vendors was poor, they were poorly prepared, running out of stuff at lunch time Sunday when they were due to operate through the early evening, and the quality of the food was average at best.
Considering this is supposed to be a showcase event I was left disappointed.
I have a bunch of pictures that I shot and even some video of Cooper dancing to the tune in his head, which I will post later.
In the meantime, here are the pictures of the kids from this weekend and the rest of this month.
Don't forget to check out my Photo 365 project link over on the right and also the ones that didn't quite make the cut in the reject pile.
One of the things we enjoy about the summer here in the US is the predictability of the weather (snort). Whilst it is true that the weather is generally more predictable and lends itself to planning outdoor activity, this summer in particular has made a mockery of that.
Firstly it was super late in getting started this year; with the rainiest April on record and May not being much better, whilst all the family were here; culminating in having to move Lorraine's birthday party indoors due to a last minute rainy day!
June started to improve to more normal temperatures, before it got crazy hot for a couple of days right after the family left. The last few days here have been in the 90s, typical July weather, and then the big storm today.
We have had a couple of pretty big storms this season, including a couple of tornado warnings, one that got pretty close, and a couple of severe thunderstorm warnings that have often left people without power, with flooding, etc; but we have always been lucky, barring a few tree branches and some flickering lights.
This morning however, we had a storm system blow through in a matter of about 15-30 minutes with winds in excess of 70mph. It got really dark, and extremely windy, the result of which was/is a lot of damage to trees and power lines. We are one of the original 700,000 without power and as of almost noon, are one of 576,000 still without power. The comed website is down, presumably overrun, or maybe they have no power :-) and we have no idea when it might be restored. It is all good right now, but it will be a tough night if we can't get any AC or fans to run, as they are predicting the temperatures to remain high.
Click here to read the news story, and I will try to go around the neighbourhoods later and get some pictures.
As for the weekend, we went to a couple of local town festivals and events. Based on my earlier statements about the weather predictability, there are always a ton of things to do every weekend during the summer. This weekend was the 1st Annual (I guess that statement is based on intent :-) Summerfest in Wilmette, and the Taste Of Lincolnshire.
Wilmette Summerfest was generally excellent. It was their first time and they clearly had not thought about parking, park 'n' ride or anything like that so it was a pain to find somewhere, but other than that they did a nice job. They had good things for the kids, some free, some not (but no expensive), they had a little bit of an art show, they executed it on the same day that the weekly "French" Farmers market runs, and they also had a sidewalk sale going on. We had a great time.
The Taste Of Lincolnshire is one of my favourite "Taste" events. All of the local towns around here do them annually. For those unfamiliar it is the concept of local restaurants bringing out sample sizes of their dishes to try to entice you to eat there in future. Given the concept, I would have thought they would approach it as a marketing excersise and offer good portions at a reduced price. In reality they bring out small portions and then just pro-rate the price, for example $4 for two pot stickers or $8 for a Mai Tai, etc.
Add to that, that you have to buy tickets and not just use cash, then you always end up with a few left over, which you have to ditch, I find the overall concept to be flawed from a consumer perspective.
That said, the Taste Of Lincolnshire has long been one of my favourites. NOT this year :-( the choice of vendors was poor, they were poorly prepared, running out of stuff at lunch time Sunday when they were due to operate through the early evening, and the quality of the food was average at best.
Considering this is supposed to be a showcase event I was left disappointed.
I have a bunch of pictures that I shot and even some video of Cooper dancing to the tune in his head, which I will post later.
In the meantime, here are the pictures of the kids from this weekend and the rest of this month.
Don't forget to check out my Photo 365 project link over on the right and also the ones that didn't quite make the cut in the reject pile.
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