I have been quite busy this summer working on my house in Michigan. Along with some new decorating performed per my lovely wife’s instructions, I also had four IP cameras installed so I can watch the deer and groundhogs decimate the vegetation around the Engebretson Van Buren County bunker.

One of the realities of rural living, at least where my house is in Michigan, is that AC power outages happen quite often, whether it’s a storm or some maintenance service that the local power company is performing. Although I do receive emails letting me know that my power has failed, I don’t receive notifications that the power has been restored. I can check with my alarm company, EPS in Grand Rapids, to see what signaling they’ve received. In some cases, if the power is off long enough that the backup battery in my Honeywell alarm panel goes low and sends in a signal to the central station.