Hurricane update – 1:57pm Monday

What fun! The hotel lost power last night around 7pm. This wouldn’t be so bad except that the backup generators they said they had could only run emergency lighting. Not, say, the plumbing or the kitchens. Apparently a huge chunk of Tampa is without power – we’re guessing that a station got damaged badly. THe power came on at 2:30am for about 30 seconds, flickered, and went out. Probably Something Bad [tm] happened at that point, and the poor guys in the power company are rebuilding things from scratch.
The hotel stuck it out until noon today (I just went to bed early) and then they gave up the ghost and kicked everyone out. (It wasn’t much more pleasant than that, really). Through some fantastic help from Cat, we got the Fedex shipping arranged for my equipment, and I wrangled a room at a nearby place.
Arrived here, got the room, and lo! Power! Air conditioning! Running water! FOOD! Internet connectivity! (Yes, ranked that one last, it was getting that desperate). This is a ‘Chase Suites’ which is… shall we say, a step up from the Doubletree. This is a full studio apartment. Complete with kitchen. Really. Dishwasher, stove, over/under refridgerator, and microwave. Paradise!
Net connection is established, so I’m good there, now I’m gonna go scrounge some food.