Well, That Was Exciting

Our office--and pretty much all of downtown San Francisco--lost power for a good chunk of the afternoon, apparently due to an explosion somewhere in the system (about a half mile away from us). The power went off, then back on, then off again a few minutes later...and so on for a couple of hours. After about a half hour of waiting around (the network was down, so we couldn't get any work done), a co-worker and I walked 24 floors down to street level to go to a place we call "the office". One Guinness later, when we heard that the network connection was up again (but the elevators weren't), we walked back up the 24 floors. Five minutes after that, the announcement came over the system: elevators were running again.

It could have been worse, though. For example:

Actor Torino Von Jones, 32, said he was filming a Fruit of the Loom commercial down the block at the time.

"We were standing over there waiting for the camera cue when we heard a big explosion," he said. "Flames came up taller than I am, and I'm 6-foot-2."

"Naturally, when you hear an explosion, you think the worst," Von Jones said. Nevertheless, he hurried back to work. "We're Fruit of the Loom -- we've got to make this commercial."

I'm sure those wimps at Hanes would have bailed.

Update: Yes, it really could be worse: yesterday the entire nation of Albania was blacked out. That's gotta suck.