The electricity is off all day today, again (gripe post)

When I was growing up in USA, I don't recall very many instances where the power ever went out for long periods of time. Maybe it would flash for a second or two and you needed to have a 9-volt battery in your plug in alarm clock for backup purposes, but for the most part it wasn't really a part of your life. With my computers I didn't even have battery backups (UPS) at all and I only recall a few times through the 27 years that I lived in that country where this was ever a problem. Actually, I don't even recall uninterruptible power supplies even being for sale at most computer shops. We just didn't need them because out of all the things that USA does wrong, their power grid is extremely reliable.

There was one time when I was in college that the entire town lost power for a very long time but this was during a massive flood and martial law was actually declared in the town and some areas (one of which was mine) had forced evacuation. This was the only time in my life living in USA that I recall the power being out for more than a few minutes.

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Vietnam on the other hand, as well as anywhere else in South East Asia that I have ever been other than Singapore, has a real mess of an electrical setup. If you go outside your door in any urban area and look up there is an almost certain chance that you are going to see something similar to what is pictured above. It is just a mess and I can't even imagine how the people working on it even have any idea which wire does what.

When I lived in Thailand we would see new electrical or data lines being set by a guy simply walking on top of the lines and laying a new one. This was outside of the business that I owned and I speak Thai extremely well for a Caucasian so I asked the guy what do all of the wires up there do. He told me he doesn't have any idea and most of the other techs don't either. He told me that they believe, but are not sure, that most of the lines don't actually do anything anymore, but they can't remove them out of fear of accidentally cutting someone off from power, phone, or data connections.

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The proper high-tension wires that are the ones that truly matter are done in a professional manner very similar to the west (as far as a layman like me can determine) but once it gets down to the residential level it appears to be a free-for-all. I had a friend in Thailand that told me that it is exceptionally easy to steal electricity because the wires are such a mess on the local lines and the people working at the electric company don't really have any idea where any of the lines go. The person who comes to give you a bill simply checks the meter that is on your house, whether or not you have another sneaky line going in the back door doesn't really seem to matter to them.

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So today, just like many other digital nomads, I find myself in a VERY BUSY coffeeshop that has a generator since the power is out, so I have been told, for something crazy like 25% of the entire city of Da Nang.

Da Nang is not some country village folks, this is a relatively major metropolitan area with a population of over 1 million people.

The most inconvenient part of all of this isn't that I have to work in public, I actually tend to get my work done a lot more efficiently in public because I am less likely to do stupid shit like go down a Bitchute rabbit-hole and instead get the job done and get out. The most inconvenient part of all of this unfortunately falls on my doggo, because she doesn't get to go out for her morning poopy-walks.

The look of dejection on her face when I leave without her hurts my heart a little bit but I bribe her with what I call a chewy chew and of course her desire for this chicken-wrapped chewy thing keeps her occupied for a little while and then I know exactly what is going to happen after the 10 minutes or so that it takes her to dispatch that treat.

She will likely sit like this, staring at the door for the next 4 hours or so, wondering when it is that the door will open back up and I will come back. The good news about this situation is that I don't really think that dogs have much of a concept of time: It doesn't seem to make much of a difference if I am gone for 4 minutes or 4 hours, her reaction to my return is the same.

Buildings in Vietnam that have elevators (like mine) are required by law to have a generator backup system, but for some reason and by some means my building has managed to bypass this law. I can only imagine how inconvenient and perhaps terrifying this situation could end up being for someone who just happened to be in the elevator when the power went out.

_{I'd like to imagine she does this while I am away}

This is a scheduled power outage, but my landlord sent a message AFTER it had already switched off at 7am. I somehow managed to stay in bed for an additional 2 hours after the power went out which is quite a feat considering the level of street noise that is omnipresent in this city. At least the karaoke will stop until the power turns back on, if we have to try to find a silver lining in this cloud.

So I suppose this is one of the downsides of living in South East Asia... one of the few actually. I would still rather tolerate this once every month or so than live in the West, that is for sure.

How's your day going? I have to sit at this cafe for the next 4 hours! I don't even like coffee all that much.