No Power For 7 Days, Millions In Shelters, My Car Wash Is Open

I'm at 163 Hours 27 Minutes without electricity. My son has strep-throat. My daughter is going stir-crazy. It's 40 degrees in the bedroom at night.

Worst of all is that my F30 is dirty, hasn't been washed in 10 days. The car wash that I trust just re-opened. No line. I want to wash Luxy but feel guilty.

What should I do?

BJ

Originally Posted by boltjaM3s

I'm at 163 Hours 27 Minutes without electricity. My son has strep-throat. My daughter is going stir-crazy. It's 40 degrees in the bedroom at night.

Worst of all is that my F30 is dirty, hasn't been washed in 10 days. The car wash that I trust just re-opened. No line. I want to wash Luxy but feel guilty.

What should I do?

BJ

If there's no line, negotiate a lower price. I can't believe you had to ask.

Originally Posted by boltjaM3s

I'm at 163 Hours 27 Minutes without electricity. My son has strep-throat. My daughter is going stir-crazy. It's 40 degrees in the bedroom at night.

Worst of all is that my F30 is dirty, hasn't been washed in 10 days. The car wash that I trust just re-opened. No line. I want to wash Luxy but feel guilty.

What should I do?

BJ

Why feel guilty? Everything else is completely out of your control.

Take your kids and make the "Washing of Luxy" a family event.
Then evey year celebrate the anniversary of the First Car Wash after the Event

At least it will signal to your kids that things are slowly going back to normal, after this long without their video games, phones and other power eating gizmos they might find the field trip exciting.

Originally Posted by boltjaM3s

I'm at 163 Hours 27 Minutes without electricity. My son has strep-throat. My daughter is going stir-crazy. It's 40 degrees in the bedroom at night.

Worst of all is that my F30 is dirty, hasn't been washed in 10 days. The car wash that I trust just re-opened. No line. I want to wash Luxy but feel guilty.

What should I do?

BJ

what happened to your plan of going to hotel? I thought you had that setup BJ. Man I can't even imagine being without electricity that long. Compared to you my issue is actually minor.

My CA is in NJ he was suppose to get the plates for my car by now. He just called he said he has the plates but not sure if he can get them to me by tomorrow. Temp plates expire tomorrow.

Hand wash it yourself. It's good exercise and mental therapy.

By the way, I am really sorry to hear about this and hope everythng works out...

But again, why feel guilty? Everything else is out of your control. Do it!

Agreed. Why feel guilty? You're paying for the wash, right? It's not like you're stealing some commodity that those affected by the storm need. Or am I missing something, here?

Originally Posted by beden1

Hand wash it yourself. It's good exercise and mental therapy.

+1. I did that Saturday, not least to give the neighbors an opportunity to have a much-needed laugh at the expense of "that nut who's always washing his BMW."

I am at 161 hours without electricity myself (and the mayor lives across the street, so you know it's serious ). A fireplace and a gas-fired water heater have, thankfully, kept the whole experience classifiable more as "substantial inconvenience" than "hardship." I am however eyeing the dwindling supply of clean clothing (or growing backlog of laundry, if you prefer) with increasing concern. In a few more days, steps must be taken, if only for the benefit of those downwind.

(Speaking of fireplaces: Are there none in the BJ estate? Is the hot water heater electric? Given recent temperatures I would have hoped you'd be a bit warmer. I hope service is restored to your area soon--I know some folks in Ramsey who came on line Saturday but the grid is such a patchwork right now, proximity is almost meaningless.)

Originally Posted by boltjaM3s

I'm at 163 Hours 27 Minutes without electricity. My son has strep-throat. My daughter is going stir-crazy. It's 40 degrees in the bedroom at night.

Worst of all is that my F30 is dirty, hasn't been washed in 10 days. The car wash that I trust just re-opened. No line. I want to wash Luxy but feel guilty.

What should I do?

BJ

You should not feel guilty at all. Spending money and consuming is an important part of the economy. If nobody goes to the car wash then the owner won't have any money to spend on the things he normally does. Its a vicious cycle.

If you have the means to get your car washed and they have the means wash your car then go for it.

On Sunday morning, we called the house from our hotel and found out the power was back up, since the phone machine started working. We checked Con Eds online listing, and it still showed outages in our area. We checked out of the hotel and came home, and it was a real pleasure just having electric and heat and stuff. Then, this morning, while my wife was out checking the mailbox, a ConEd guy in a van asked her if we had power.

My wife was not excessively polite about telling him that yeah, it came on sometime while we were away.

We are still awaiting the robo call that our power was back on.

Con Ed really dropped the ball up here in Westchester.

Why would you take a BMW to a car wash? Free swirl marks with every wash??

I've got a CR Spotless Water system, it deionizes the water. Just use a microfiber mitt, horizontal directional motion, one-way, like as if you were painting. Wash mitt while you're making passes, so no dirt buildup on mitt. No soap, just water to get dirt off with mitt, then the deionized water to spray off "dirty" water. It air dries with no water spots, any spots are from the "dirty" water that wasnt deionized, or you missed a spot cleaning.

I bought the system from Costco, but you can buy it straight from the company, as with the refills. Easily cheaper than going to a carwash, and I know some buffoon didn't scratch or **** my car up in the process.

Originally Posted by Zeichen311

I am at 161 hours without electricity myself (and the mayor lives across the street, so you know it's serious . A fireplace and a gas-fired water heater have, thankfully, kept the whole experience classifiable more as "substantial inconvenience" than "hardship." I am however eyeing the dwindling supply of clean clothing (or growing backlog of laundry, if you prefer) with increasing concern. In a few more days, steps must be taken, if only for the benefit of those downwind.

(Speaking of fireplaces: Are there none in the BJ estate? Is the hot water heater electric? Given recent temperatures I would have hoped you'd be a bit warmer. I hope service is restored to your area soon--I know some folks in Ramsey who came on line Saturday but the grid is such a patchwork right now, proximity is almost meaningless.)

Originally Posted by windsor027

what happened to your plan of going to hotel? I thought you had that setup BJ. Man I can't even imagine being without electricity that long. Compared to you my issue is actually minor.

My CA is in NJ he was suppose to get the plates for my car by now. He just called he said he has the plates but not sure if he can get them to me by tomorrow. Temp plates expire tomorrow. :

Originally Posted by krash

By the way, I am really sorry to hear about this and hope everythng works out...

But again, why feel guilty? Everything else is out of your control. Do it!

First off, thank you everyone for the well wishes. We are four hours shy of a full week without electricity now. Unbelievable.

We are fortunate that our 100-year-old house has gas. So we have a gas fireplace designed for power outages, gas to cook on the stove, and gas to heat the water. Overall or not as bad off some other people. That said, with four kids we are seriously getting on each others nerves crammed into one room around the warm fireplace. The rest of the house is below 40° at this point.

I can understand that the storms magnitude meant that we'd be without power for a while. And while not hit as badly as people in coastal areas, it's still rather ridiculous that it takes seven full days for even the first sign of our power company to pay our town a visit.

My license plate has an even number, so tomorrow I will try to get gas for the first time. Not looking forward to those lines. After the gas is in, I'll go get the car wash. Luxy deserves a visit to the beauty parlor after all the service she's provided this week.

BJ

BJ. Hit the bricks and move the family up to a hotel somewhere in the Hudson Valley. We have gasoline, and I am sure you can find a room someplace. It is getting cold, man.

This is why it is important to get the cold weather package. You can just sit in your car, turn on the seat warmers and heated steering wheel. Problem solved. hah

Hope you get your power back soon!

Originally Posted by Kamdog

BJ. Hit the bricks and move the family up to a hotel somewhere in the Hudson Valley. We have gasoline, and I am sure you can find a room someplace. It is getting cold, man.

Trust me, I'm going to give tonight's 28 degrees a try and make a decision tomorrow.

We own a beach house in Maine, can be up there in 5 hours, nice and warm, no charge. Problem is that the electric company keeps promising "tomorrow" as the restoration date and the kids go back to school on Wednesday.

Might do the Mahwah Sheraton if we can't take another night.

BJ

Living in florida I have been hit with many hurricanes and without power for days in 80-90 degree weather with the humidity high, we have never had the gas shortage or having to go on a certain day to fill up.I hope all gets better for all of you living without power in this cold weather.stay warm guys

Sent from my PG86100 using Bimmer App

Originally Posted by boltjaM3s

Trust me, I'm going to give tonight's 28 degrees a try and make a decision tomorrow.

We own a beach house in Maine, can be up there in 5 hours, nice and warm, no charge. Problem is that the electric company keeps promising "tomorrow" as the restoration date and the kids go back to school on Wednesday.

Might do the Mahwah Sheraton if we can't take another night.

BJ

Go to Mahwah, Maine is too far. It made a big difference to get the chill out of the body, and just be able to watch some stupid TV and lose the tension.

Originally Posted by Kamdog

On Sunday morning, we called the house from our hotel and found out the power was back up, since the phone machine started working. We checked Con Eds online listing, and it still showed outages in our area. We checked out of the hotel and came home, and it was a real pleasure just having electric and heat and stuff. Then, this morning, while my wife was out checking the mailbox, a ConEd guy in a van asked her if we had power.

My wife was not excessively polite about telling him that yeah, it came on sometime while we were away.

We are still awaiting the robo call that our power was back on.

Con Ed really dropped the ball up here in Westchester.

Maybe I'm dense, but I'm not quite understanding how they "dropped the ball". You, along with millions of other people just went through the storm of the century, leaving billions of dollars in damages, millions of trees downed, floods and all other sorts of mayhem. In spite of all of this, they got your electricity back in something like 6 days. That strikes me as nearly miraculous. We had a week long power outage here last summer caused by a 5 minute long severe thunderstorm accompanied by a strong microburst. It took crews from 8 states almost 2 weeks to fix all the damage. I can't imagine what they're dealing with on the east coast right now.

Originally Posted by jmsent

Maybe I'm dense, but I'm not quite understanding how they "dropped the ball". You, along with millions of other people just went through the storm of the century, leaving billions of dollars in damages, millions of trees downed, floods and all other sorts of mayhem. In spite of all of this, they got your electricity back in something like 6 days. That strikes me as nearly miraculous. We had a week long power outage here last summer caused by a 5 minute long severe thunderstorm accompanied by a strong microburst. It took crews from 8 states almost 2 weeks to fix all the damage. I can't imagine what they're dealing with on the east coast right now.

Your not dense. People are just plain frustrated. We lost power for 2 1/2 days in Clark,NJ and were very very happy to get it back on. Our beach house in Lavallette,NJ is another story,you can't get to it to see what the extent of the damage is do to road ca lapse and flooding. The only way we look at is it could be worse, some people don't even have a house.
cheers
vern

I'm in MD and we got hit by a severe storm in the summer and were without power for a week. Hope you get power back soon, BJ. It sucks not having power.

Originally Posted by jmsent

Maybe I'm dense, but I'm not quite understanding how they "dropped the ball". You, along with millions of other people just went through the storm of the century, leaving billions of dollars in damages, millions of trees downed, floods and all other sorts of mayhem. In spite of all of this, they got your electricity back in something like 6 days. That strikes me as nearly miraculous. We had a week long power outage here last summer caused by a 5 minute long severe thunderstorm accompanied by a strong microburst. It took crews from 8 states almost 2 weeks to fix all the damage. I can't imagine what they're dealing with on the east coast right now.

I couldn't have said it better. The only person who rips the ass of the service guy who has probably been pulling 14 hour days for a week and hasn't seen his family, is someone who has never done a real job in their f*cking life.

The techs and engineers are those companies are pretty much killing themselves and want this fixed as badly as the homeowners (if not more). People should be a little more appreciative. If those guys become frustrated and stopped working so hard you wouldn't have power till Xmas.

Originally Posted by voip-ninja

I couldn't have said it better. The only person who rips the ass of the service guy who has probably been pulling 14 hour days for a week and hasn't seen his family, is someone who has never done a real job in their f*cking life.

+1

Originally Posted by windsor027

+1

I'll go a bit further. While it's inconvenient to have to stay in a hotel, away from home, there are thousands of people who don't have that option and are crammed into shelters right now... or worse, are still in their homes with plunging temperatures and no heat or power.

There are elderly people who are terrified not because they "lost power" and had to go stay at a hotel but because their homes are going to be labeled uninhabitable and they don't know where they are going to go.

People should be a little more thankful for how "bad" they have it compared to how bad others do.

OK, off of the soap box now.

Originally Posted by voip-ninja

People should be a little more thankful for how "bad" they have it compared to how bad others do.
.

+1 My son in law works for the power company and is working 16 hours on 8 hours off. He doesn't have power in his own home and on his off time had to travel 3 hours round trip to get a generator for his home. On his trip he was in fear he would run out of gas and wouldn't get back to his job site. Everything worked out on that end now today they were told they had to evacuate there home because of the new storm thats coming in .The only positive, we get the grand children to come to our house.
cheers
vern