ZAAAAPPPPP!

Yesterday (Wednesday, June 30, 2010) our electricity cut off for about 20 seconds.
.....Which is just long enough for all our digital clocks to lose their time-settings, including our VCR, which was claimed to have battery-backup, but obviously doesn’t.
There were no weather-related issues — a thunderstorm, for example. So probably some poor driver took out a power-pole.
20 seconds is also the start-up delay on our stand-by generator, so it kicked on as the power came back.
We don’t push everything with that stand-by, but everything was back on.
Okay, reset two clocks and the VCR.
I get my time from this computer, which gets it time from the NIST server.
I’m not that fussy, but I can get things pretty close.
My digital watch is a little fast, as are the clocks in both our cars.
Untended they get ahead of NIST.
I can’t get our van’s clock to agree with NIST time — no matter; it’s close enough.
What matters is the VCR, since it has to agree with the networks, which get their time from NIST, I guess.
All I record is the evening TV news, 6 to 7 p.m.
6 p.m. arrives; it’s not recording.
“I reset that thing the morning!” I cry.
I check the time on the VCR.
6:18 a.m., instead of p.m.
No wonder it’s not recording.
No biggie. We lose part of Alhart, a pleasure because he’s our generation.
More fiddling.
Reset a.m. to p.m.
Now it’s displaying the kerreck time.
We’ll see if it tapes the news next time.

• “Our” (“we”) is me and my wife of 42+ years, “Linda.”
• “NIST” is National Institute of Standards.
• Our van is a 2005 Toyota Sienna.
• “Alhart “ is Don Alhart, a longtime news reporter at Channel 13, the local (to Rochester) ABC-TV affiliate. He is now the anchor. —He’s our age; 66.