tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5446503003267330108.post-14163904101689568932007-08-07T10:26:00.000-04:002007-08-07T11:13:52.618-04:00My home is without power at the moment. It went off yesterday afternoon and then again sometime last night.<br /><br />I first turned on the portable radio to see what was happening. If it was World War III, I have a bottle of booze I've been saving. It seems like it is only a few blocks around us that is affected, so I reluctantly put the bottle away.<br /><br />These things happen, but it's always kind of nice to know what's going on and if I should be eating all the frozen steaks in the freezer for breakfast before they go bad.<br /><br />Being a connected kind of guy, I decided to go to Toronto Hydro's website on my handheld for an update. After all, even my Internet provider has a live "system status report" page in case of trouble. Electricity has to be more important than not being able to download the latest movie trailer from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">iTunes</span>.<br /><br />Apparently not. On Toronto Hydro's website there is a button for "Wind Turbine Status", but nothing to let customers know about emergencies, work in progress or power outage status.<br /><br />You can send their customer care centre an email, which they will respond to "within three business days", or call their power outage service number (open 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m), which I did and got the general help line that referred me back to the website.<br /><br />You'd think that if Toronto Hydro wants to seriously get into the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">WiFi</span> provider business, they might think about becoming their own customer and joining us in the 21st century by providing useful emergency service information in real time on their website.Stephen Lautenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04386829588926959048noreply@blogger.com