The cable was down too. I have a VZW card for internet access and setup internet connection sharing through my wife's laptop.

Just to give you our insight. We to were without power for 9 days and burned wood the first 2 days and finally got a generator on day 2. Our house has 8 circuits for the generator â" pump for the well and 2 light circuits and boiler (Hot Water Heat) and the fridge and the freezer. We also plugged in cell phones to charge and 2 laptops and one LCD tv and the DIRECTV box, the kids would alternate this out with the xbox and the Wii. We also ran an extension cord to the 56âDLP on the last day and it worked ok. All this on a 5000 Watt Generator. Used 5 gallons of gas about every 11 hours. Besides the generators get 4 or 5 â" 5 Gallon gas cans. Also I think it is important to note that all the light bulbs on the lighted circuits were CFLs. The big user was the Water pump â" there is a watt meter on the generator subpanel and it would go up to about 750 watts when the pump would kick on.