Jennifer Newell

I live in L.A., and it has been a bit warm here over the past week or so. While I live in the West L.A. area - not the baking hot Valley - it's still been hot and those of us who have air conditioners have been running them more often than usual. The electric companies have been warning us to keep it to a minimum because they run out of electricity, the details of which baffle me every year. Anyway, even though it was cooler today, we reached our power peak.

At 6:30pm tonight, our power went off. Poof. Gone.

Ummm, I lost all sense of my routine. No internet access. No power to recharge my computer or cell phone. No TV, which meant no news programs or poker shows.

I wandered outside to chat with neighbors, some of whom I had never met before. We gathered our liquor products and proceeded to sit in our usually empty courtyard. We lit candles and sat under the slightly overcast L.A. sky with a slight breeze, just chatting away. It was actually one of the most pleasant nights I've had in my 8 1/2 years here!

And just before 10pm, the power came on. Within moments, we scattered into our apartments and called it a night. I checked my e-mail and turned on the TV. (In my time away from the world, I missed the fact that Luciano Pavarotti died. Sad.)

All is right with the world again. Nothing will happen in the poker world - or the rest of the world for that matter - without me knowing about it. Ahhhhhh.