The Diary Game: 2020-Aug-20 - A Blackout!

It is 8/20/2020. I've managed to pop out a post every day for the first 20 days of #TheDiaryGame.

My pedometer reads 11,200. I also continued my streak of daily bike rides. This time I was just going up and and down short hills hoping to build up enough strength to be able to go up long hills again.

While I was cruising down the hill, I felt the liberating sensation of wind in my hair.

I realized that such a sense of liberation was unfitting. I ran my hand through my hair and realized that I had forgotten my helmet. So, I headed back home. I was out without a mask and no helment. I am happy the local health commissar didn't catch me. My cyclometer now reads 30 km.

The main chore of the day was the simple act of mowing the lawn. I decided to take a picture of the bright orange mower set against marigolds. It is a nice contrast of artificial and natural oranges.

I got the electric mower in 2016. It starts every year like a charm. Perhaps I should sharpen the blades, but the mower itself does not need the care of gas mowers.

I got a corded mower because we happened to have a long enough cord for the lawn.

Personally I prefer corded tools to battery powered tools because the batteries wear out and they create a toxic mess when they expire. I think there are enough toxic messes in the world. Other than the plastic shell and plastic wheels, the parts of the corded mower can be recycled.

We do have a batter powered trimmer, pictured below.

The Blackout

Electric Mowers create less pollution than gas powered mowers. Quite frankly, I think everyone should replace powered mowers and snowblowers with their electric equivalent.

There is only one catch. A corded electric mower requires the cooperation of the local power company. My neighborhood suffered a rare blackout while mowing. The blackout lasted for five hours.

It was a traumatic experience as my voting power regenerated to 100% during the blackout and I missed one upvote. That means no upvote reward and I am at a loss wondering how I will make up for the gap in my cyber budget.

The power company said that the blackout affected a thousand customers. That is twice as many people as there are participants in The Diary Game.