When the lights go out

Shaggy September 5, 2008 0

Yesterday was not fun. Not fun at all. I had to go through an experience that I’ve dreaded before and that is when the power goes out – for an entire day. When I arrived at my store at about 10AM I noticed that the office light didn’t turn on. I checked the breaker and everything was in order so I call the power company up, thinking they disconnected the power even though I am current on my bills. It turns out that due to an ‘equipment failure’ the power was off to most of the tenants in the mall and we’d have to wait it out until 1PM. 1PM came, then they promised 3PM, that came and went then they promised 6PM and when that came and went I just went home. Apparently the power has been restored according to a phone call I got at 6 this morning but it really had me thinking of what is going to happen in the winter. The mall is completely unwilling to give any of the tenants a break on the rent by lowering it a little for incidents like this and for an arcade there is no way to do business without electricity. At least I managed to get some housekeeping things done, including some painting and I’m happy that this didn’t happen on a Friday or a Saturday as that would have been a disaster. Are there any of you who own an arcade who have had the power out for several days in a row and how did you deal with it?

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  1. editor September 5, 2008 at 5:01 pm - Reply

    Time you sent a email round to all of the tenants in the block affected and see if you should invest in a external power unit? They cost about $500,000 but if you all chip in it would give you 48h support.

  2. neil brimelow September 16, 2008 at 1:44 am - Reply

    Hey,

    You might want to check out this cool “lite brite” eque thingy from Japan. I’m sure you could make some awesome signs for your arcade. From what I can put together, it’s like an “HD” lite brite, but the catch is that each “pixel” can be controlled, so you can do stop/go animations to a certain extent.

    http://www.luminodot.jp/movie/

    http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/15/bandais-luminodot-1-600-glass-pegs-for-your-child-to-swallow/

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