Do you have a backup plan? This past Friday night, a powerful storm blew through here, wreaking as much havoc in downed trees and power outages as Hurricane Irene from last year's Labor Day weekend. The rain began falling hard around 11:30 pm in my 'hood, then the electric was gone a few minutes later. Verbose today? It's Tuesday and BGE won't even estimate when power could be on. So I brought the iPad with me to the Stoneleigh Cafe at the end of my street for a cuppa Joe and a bagel & schmear. Iced coffee - it's another Code Red day for extreme heat. Yesterday, I was able to connect at home using a UPS - an uninterruptible power supply, really a surge protector with a lead acid battery to give me time to shut down my desktop PC. I connected the cable modem & router to the UPS and logged on with my laptop. So I'm one-finger typing here, but I've got other work to do and the iPad's battery life allows me to leave a power cord at home; it's also much lighter than the laptop. It's nice to have a backup. I only wish that my neighbor with that real backup - a generator - would offer to run my 100' cord to my refrigerator! It's easier to win the lottery than it is to find ice in this town.