Gadgetry Amidst A Natural Calamity

The typhoon locally named "Milenyo" just passed by my place of work and my home yesterday. I prudently didn't go to the office because I was anticipating floods. Early in the morning as heavy rains started to pour, I remembered to charge all my gadgets (two cellphones, NDS Lite, iPod and laptop) and around an hour after I started "panic charging" my gadgets, a Geek's nightmare came -- the power company has cut the electricity!

Oh well, that means I have to live without TV throughout that stormy day. With my laptop charged, I decided to try to dial-in to my ISP, check my emails and send a leave notification to the office since I didn't go to work. Lo and behold, my landline (Digitel) has no dial-tone! Plan B -- I checked if SMART has a signal and when it still had, I connected my Treo 650's Versamail to my GMail account and sent an emergency leave notification email to my boss.

Later in the day, and bored out of my wits, I played games on my NDS Lite (which was fully charged, again thanks to my panic charging earlier in the day). A night fell, it was really dark. But thanks to the bright LCD of my Treo 650, I was able to find my way around when I needed to and I was able to catch up on my reading through my stored eBooks. I also played my NDS Lite and it also served as a TV-replacement for my kid who sorely misses his Cartoon Network fix.

I heard on the radio that electricity will be back to normal on Sunday(!) I just hope I have enough juice on my gadgets to last through that time.