Unexpected Hazards of Working from Home

For the past few months, I’ve been working from my home in southwest Ohio for a client in east Texas over a VPN line. Who knew that Hurricane Ike‘s reach would extend from its initial landfall in Galveston, Texas all the way to southwest Ohio? But on Sunday, the storm moved northward into Canada. Although the precipitation moved through Indiana to the west, strong wind gusts knocked out electrical power in large portions of northern Kentucky and southwest Ohio. Although our power was restored on Monday morning, as of Tuesday afternoon I’m still without Internet service in my home.

There are downed trees and power outages everywhere. Traffic is difficult with so many non-functioning traffic lights. And the few gas stations and grocery stores that are open are beginning to run out of supplies. Here’s the view from my neighborhood. And you can read more about the wider devastation from the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Region struggling with life in the dark | Cincinnati Enquirer | Cincinnati.Com
Posted using ShareThis

Most of my hometown of Oxford, Ohio, including the local Starbucks, is without power and therefore Wi-Fi access. With nothing to do and no easy access to alcohol, students at the Miami University campus decided to protest the fact that classes were not cancelled on Tuesday even though the power remained out. (see related Miami Student article, Students Finally Show They Care by Demonstrating)

I’m typing this on Tuesday from the Lane public library in nearby Hamilton, Ohio, which isn’t the most ideal location. Twenty-first century libraries are no longer the bastions of peace and quiet that I remember from my childhood. There are lots of out-of-school teens hanging out on the internet.

With any luck, I’ll be able to get back to work tomorrow. I’m half-way through getting some Data Integrator jobs running on my client’s servers.

Dallas Marks

Dallas Marks

I am an analytics and cloud architect, author, and trainer. An AWS certified blogger, SAP Mentor Alumni and co-author of the SAP Press book SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence: The Comprehensive Guide, I prefer piano keyboards over computer keyboards when not blogging or tweeting.