I did a couple hours of coding yesterday while thousands of Washingtonians waded through Fourth of July festivities. As I was finishing up and preparing to send email to coworkers, our power went off. I eventually sent the message but it would've made an interesting picture -- me sitting at a battery operated laptop, plugged into an ordinary phone line (instead of using my wireless network), and, next to the computer, two glass oil lamps illuminating my notes.