I am not so good at selecting birthday and holiday gifts for Steven. His birthday is three days before Christmas, and as much as I try all year to come up with good ideas, I usually fail at one gift. This year I bought him a super cool birthday gift (he got to drive/race a formula car on a track for 15 minutes) and a super LAME Christmas gift (this solar gadget charger). I was way off the mark with that one.
So why I am talking about this today? There was a weird windstorm throughout Chicagoland this morning, and we are one of the lucky half a million ComEd customers without power. Steven drove around all morning trying to find a place to work (he normally works from home), but every place with power and internet was packed – and there were so many trees and power lines down it took forever to get anywhere. So he went back home, and has been using his iPhone to work. But that battery doesn’t last long…
It dawned on me this afternoon that he could be using that silly solar gadget charger I bought him (photo above). Hurrah! Useless gift is now somewhat useful. I hope it works well – I hear we may not get power back for a few days. Yay… I can’t wait to try to sleep without the AC on*. Did I mention it’s in the 90s today?!
*I shouldn’t complain. I haven’t even been home yet today to deal with it. Legitimate complaning will resume tomorrow. Ha! What am I talking about? I lived in Rome an entire summer without AC and it gets HOT there. This is not big deal. Right? RIGHT?!?!!
It was the weirdest freaking windstorm ever! See your gift isn’t so bad after all.
A few days without power? Yikes! We were lucky and our power wasn’t effected. Cool wishes for a less humid night for you!
Not so useless afterall!
I find men hard to shop for. Which reminds me, I need to work on getting Mr.D a bday gift. His is in a month.
I have such a hard time with gifts. Its sad really, I think I’ve just gotten too self involved to notice what other people are interested in. I probably shouldnt admit that though.
Well that seems like a pretty awesome gift! Hope you get power back soon! That is no fun especially when it is hot. My parents house has no AC but I sleep in the basement so it stays pretty cool!
Ugggh.. my friend’s AC went out at her apartment today… the hottest day of the year. We’re a couple of hours south of you and our heat index was 115.
My boss lost power AND there was a huge fallen tree at the end of the driveway! She had to walk to the library to work.
I’ve been SO lucky not to lose power the past couple storms. I didn’t even think of the no A/C. 🙁 Can you charge a window unit with that little gadget? 😉
Ha ha! I wish! Steven said he can’t even charge his computer off of it. But at least the iPhone is up and running 😛
Wow! I made it out of Chicago yesterday, and we’ve had some freaky weather here in Phoenix… rain! But I hear we had a little container garden catastrophe this morning… al the plants got blown over! I’m glad you guys and your home are all OK!
How well does that solar charger work? I’ve been intrigued by them for some time now.
Very slowly…
Thats awesome that you got him that and now it has a use 🙂 I must have been tired because I didn’t wake up to the storm and had no idea until I was driving to work. I was kind of sad that I still had to work because all the businesses around us were closed (I think because they didn’t have power)but not us! Oh well, I need the money 🙂
Hope you get power soon! If I lost power for a long period of time I think we’d have to sleep in the basement (it’s finished and WAY cooler than the rest of the house).
i am sooooo baaaaaad at thinking of gifts for chris. i can do Nifty Big Ones (like your racecar one – AWESOME!) but he buys all the little things he wants!! arrrggghhh.
good thinking on the solar charger! 🙂
At least it’s supposed to cool down to the 70s tomorrow … sigh.
Ahh I lived in Rome for a summer too and we didn’t have AC either! (Does anyone there? No idea.) Anyway, we had a three bedroom apartment with TWO fans. Talk about drama waiting to happen…
I shouldn’t laugh, but, hey, at least the thing is getting some use!