Who turned off the internets?

If it is one thing a geek needs, it is electricity.  I can pretty much turn any computer at my disposal into a workstation — but only if I can power it on first.  When the wind storms hit our area this month, I  first noticed at home.  No video games, no TV to watch, no video games(!!) — what was a computer geek to do?
Well, first things first, I broke out my iPhone and checked on our client sites that are hosted at Peak10 in Louisville (we have others in Dallas).  They were up and responsive, and an email from Peak10 confirmed that though they were without power, the facility was running on their massive generators.  With clients safe, I next found out that our HQ at Bakery Square was down.  So, my home was out and my work was out and we were sitting at the beginning of one of the busiest weeks of the year for us because of The Cup Experience which had a website that needed a ton of updates as events unfolded.
But we actually didn’t skip a beat.  Code can be written and even tested offline, so even without an internet connection I was still producing.  And when there was a connection, I could securely access any and all of my servers for day-to-day maintenance, backups, fixes and website changes with no problem.  In fact, my department was probably even more productive than normal simply because we didn’t have the distractions we normally do during the course of the day.  No walk-ins to throw us off our game so to speak.
All in all, the CurrentMarketing Geeks had no problems with setting up mobile work spaces.  Sure, not having power at home was the biggest pain, but with my trusty Linux laptop, some ethernet cables and a switch I was able to set up shop first at my parents’ house and another time at the apartment of one of the other programmers.  We just sat back and worked as normal — the field changed, but the game stayed the same.
4 work days with no power later, I’m the first to know our offices have power.  Peak10 gives me a call to let me know they see my internet connections (dual-T1s) come back up at Bakery Square.  I drive down to confirm and then I send out a mass text message to all the employees to let them know to show up Friday morning.
Even without power, we’re all still wired in somehow.