My daughter woke me up at four a.m. Mind you, I didn’t realize it was my daughter at first. At my age when you wake up from a sound sleep to see a faintly glowing figure wrapped in flowing robes at the foot of your bed, you immediately assume that a Sweet Chariot is coming to Carry You Home. Nevertheless, it was just my daughter, wrapped in a blanket and clutching a flashlight.

She wanted to tell me that the power was out. I asked her what she thought I could do about it, and she went back to bed. When my (battery-powered) alarm clock went off, the power was on, but several LED clocks were blinking owlishly at me, evidence that the power had indeed been interrupted.

Was this a widespread outage? Or just my little corner of Beaverton? And does anybody have any idea what caused it?