Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Looking to Get Back Online

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 02:03:58 -0400

Looking to Get Back Online
By Mike Musgrove
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 23, 2003; Page E01

When the lights went out in Bethesda last week, Clemens Kochinke fired up
his emergency generator and plugged in three things, in this order: the
fridge, the freezer and the computers.

Then he put a sign in his front yard to let any laptop-toting neighbors know
that if they wanted to check their e-mail, they could log on to the Internet
through his wireless connection. "Internet Access. Free Access when
Generator is on," his sign proclaimed.

"I felt if I were in somebody else's shoes that didn't have a generator,
that is what I would want," he said. Frustrated by continued power problems
in his neighborhood, Kochinke, a lawyer, started publishing a Web log, or
"blog," on Saturday reporting local cleanup efforts from Hurricane Isabel.

The power outages across workaholic, wired Washington sent many folks
scrambling for an Internet connection and a way to power up their digital
devices. In addition to worrying about food spoilage and lost
air-conditioning, residents of this wonky city went through digital
withdrawal as their laptops, BlackBerrys and Web-enabled cell phones ran out
of juice. Many became scavengers in search of Internet links, especially
those accustomed to surfing from their home office.

Marie-Louise Murville, a business strategy consultant, has been staying on
top of her projects by hauling her laptop to places with wireless Internet
connections -- Starbucks, the "Jamba Juice Cafe" at Whole Foods, a friend's
apartment in Georgetown. She normally works from her home office near the
Naval Observatory but has been without power since last week.

"It would be completely impossible to do my job without a Web connection,"
she said. Working at Starbucks is "much, much less productive than being at
my home office, but it's a lot better than nothing," she added. "It's also
an excuse to have better coffee than I have at home every day."

After his home lost power, Tenleytown resident Jim Lo Scalzo turned his car
into a makeshift office Saturday by hooking his notebook computer and cell
phone up to a power adapter that plugs into a car's cigarette lighter. Lo
Scalzo, a photographer, was working on a freelance assignment for National
Geographic Traveler magazine and ended up spending an hour and a half in his
car, parked in front of his house, writing photo captions.

"It was pretty grim," he said. "It's not a place that's conducive to work -- 
cars are whizzing by and people keep staring at you." When he headed to a
party in Adams Morgan later that night, he lugged his PowerBook with him to
recharge it.

In order to avoid such headaches, some tech workers opted to spend time
where the power was still on.

"The office building was unusually busy over the weekend," said Gary Arlen,
president of a Bethesda-based technology research firm, who spent extra time
at his office over the weekend because it had power and his house didn't.

After losing electricity at his Chevy Chase house, Patrick McQuown and his
family decided to spend a long working weekend at his mother-in-law's house
in New York. He stayed in touch with his office over her cable Internet
connection.

McQuown found he still had no power when he got back Sunday. He spent a
candlelit evening watching a movie and listening to music on his laptop,
which still had a little battery juice. He also stayed connected by reading
news updates and exchanging instant messages with his wife over his cell
phone.

McQuown, co-founder of a local firm that designs applications for mobile
phones, Proteus, said he found the evening "utterly depressing."

"I can do without light, I just need food and some sort of access to
information," he said.

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49741-2003Sep22.html

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