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       Stardate: 20190210.20h52
       Last modified: 20190212.14h51 - added input device.
       Location: Living room, in front of the fireplace.
       Input Device: AlphaSmart dana.wireless
       Visual: Dying fire, Burning wood
       Audio: Crackling fire, sounds of flame
       Smell: Chestnuts and burning wood
       Energy: 50%
       Mental: 60%
       Emotional: Comfy, slowing down
       
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       At home enjoying a fire.  It is rainy and cold outside, 
       relatively speaking.  I've been enjoying the past hour  
       playing my guitar in front of the fireplace.  It's so 
       relaxing.  The last of the wood is smoldering with wisps of 
       flames every now and then.  I don't feel like putting it out 
       just yet.
       
       Today has been a really relaxing day..  Woke up late to the 
       sound of the rain, took the family to pig out at a buffet for 
       lunch, walked around a bit in the rain, listened to the Linux 
       Journal podcast, played a video game with my son, read a 
       chapter in the book I'm reading, watched an episode of one 
       of the series my wife is watching, played my guitar, and now 
       writing a phlog entry in front of my fireplace and eating
       chestnuts.
       
       Later on...
       
       OK, this has been interesting.  I was about to play some 
       Leonard Cohen on my record player when the lights started 
       flickering.  I thought, wouldn't it be neat if the power 
       went out?  All of a sudden, the power went out and it has 
       been out ever since, which was over 2 hours ago.  I thought 
       it was odd because that hardly happens here.  Must have been 
       something with the rain.  Now I am writing from the glow of 
       the fire and the poor, bluish-green backlight of the dana.
       
       I checked the family and they were going to bed anyways.  I 
       went outside and it looked like the whole neighborhood was 
       out.  All I saw were flashlights moving around in my 
       neighbor's houses.  I also looked up in the sky and was 
       amazed to see so many stars.  We get quite a bit of light 
       pollution here, so it was refreshing to see more stars than
       usual.  I stayed outside to admire it for a bit.
       
       Afterwards, I went inside, threw another log on the fire, and 
       played more guitar.  I got an extra hour of practice this 
       evening!  Bonus!
       
       After that, I spent some time fire gazing.  It was a nice 
       break from staring at a screen.  The situation got me 
       thinking more about disaster preparedness,  Edd Barrett 
       from Mastodon had mentioned that The UNIX Zoo had written a 
       phlog entry [1] in response to my phlog about the book, A 
       Second After and dystopian fiction. They are a fan of those 
       kinds of stories and recommended some books to check out.  I 
       definitely will.
       
       Those kinds of stories gets me thinking more about 
       preparedness and various scenarios that could happen, but 
       hopefully won't. I think that this topic is on my radar more 
       these days since I have a family.  It might not even be on my 
       radar if I were still single.  Well, maybe it would still be, 
       especially after the world changed after 911.  It's just that 
       having kids has totally changed my perspective of my 
       responsibilities and the purpose of my existence here.  It's 
       not all about me anymore..  I gotta do what I can to make my 
       family feel safe.  Part of that is being prepared.
       
       The disaster scenarios can seem a bit depressing but it 
       doesn't drive me to extremes.  I think of it as kinda like 
       how I deal with my personal data privacy. I am aware of the 
       possible threats out there and I try to practice safe data 
       protection habits and be informed, but I don't go to the 
       extreme of not using technology.  I actively keep it on my 
       radar and keep adding to my skillset/tool box.  For 
       disasters, I also try to keep an awareness and try to prepare 
       where I can, but I'm not going to have it affect me and
       my family from living our lives.
       
       OK, the power is back on now.  Time to go check on stuff in 
       the house.
       
 (DIR) [1] gopher://theunixzoo.co.uk/1/phlog/2019/2019-02-09-dystopian-survival-books/
       
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