Almost immediately after I posted yesterday's remarks, we lost phone service here in Iola. Seems a cable was cut about 10 miles away, and repairs were under way. When would service return? Well, later in the day. (Just before I went to bed last night, my cell phone was operative again, so we were offline less than 12 hours.)

So no problem. Except that we don't yet know whether e-mails out or in have been lost forever in the aether. And we don't know who tried to reach us unsuccessfully. And, wow, it was frustrating trying to get our jobs done. (I'll just check this spelling via Goog ... Oh. No. Never mind. I'll just call my buddy ... Oh. No. Never mind. Maybe my cell phone? No. Never mind. And so on.)

Which brings up dark thoughts about what we could do if we had a real emergency. What ever happened to the Civil Defense system, anyway?