I've got the Power

I'll consider us one of the lucky ones.

In the last week we've lost power twice.

Sunday morning for 15 minutes, from 6 to 6:15.

Yesterday morning into the afternoon for 3 hours, from 11:15 to 2:15.

So, I'll not complain about the power monopolies service.

In the past 11 years we've lived here, it's been longer and we've wondered why?

Bright, sunny days? It's been gone for nearly 24 hours.

We've had summer storms where we've lost it for a week at a time.

Where they get me grousing is when they spend money advertising after they've had so many outages, like this week.

Flip around to all local stations during a newscast and you'll see a commercial.

It seems like they're trying to offset the press they're getting for outages.

I also think they need to streamline some processes.

I called Sunday morning and reported our outage to their voice response system.

As soon as I hung up, the power came back on.

I called back to try and cancel the report I just made, no option for that in their automated system.

On Monday, I received a call from a U.S. Cellular number asking if we had power back and a few hours later a call came from a MidAmerican number asking the same question...Wasteful.

Don't even get me started on how they send estimated bills 10 months out of the year and complaining to the Iowa Utilities Board doesn't matter!