I’m glad you didn’t have to suffer for too long, but I really HATE it when the power comes back on and so do all the lights/other things I forgot to turn off! ;o]
I seem to have been fairly fortunate in the places I’ve lived here in the Valley, as I can think of less than 10 hours in 35 years that I have had to find alternate methods of heating/cooling, while friends of mine have had to deal with ALL the drama.
We need cooler nights and windier days for the leaves to fall from the trees properly. Right now, the trees are half nekkid. And we’re having 40/60 degree ranges.
It was five/six hours or so. Not like the five days we were out after Sandy. Usual outages here only last an hour, two tops so when the power first went down, I didn't shut anything down. I have three 'active' ups units and three more I keep charged but not connected to anything (well, one is connected to the laser printers on the non-battery side for use as a surge protector and thus stays charged but doesn't drain when power goes out - other than that annoying beep.. ;-)
I have a 1500va unit that only has the computer on it, a 1000va unit that has the monitor, the DSL modem/router, the second wireless router, the 8 port ethernet switch and my 13w fluorescent desk lamp on it, and a second 1500va unit that has all of my project computers and stuff on it (that would be my Linux box, the WinTenten unit, the 'new in the works' box, and the ethernet switch that feeds all the stuff on that project table.)
When the power went out I shut off everything on the 'project' table to keep that ups unit fully charged. When we reached the hour mark in the outage I shutdown the main computer and switched to my laptop. When the 1000va unit powering the networking stuff showed 40 minutes projected time left, I shut off the desk light (should have done that sooner..) Since I was keeping the networking stuff active eventually the 1000va unit shutdown so I shuffled a 650va unit over to power the networking. I did discover that I did not have any of the power packs for any of my laptops connected to the battery-supplied side of a ups so when the laptop suggested I might want to think about connecting the charger (about two hours into the event), I shut down rather than rummage around in the dark-tangle-of-wires-and-power-cords to find which ac plug went to which power supply for which laptop..
At that point I shut everything down and wandered outside for a look-see. With the glow of the nearby city suppressed due to lack of energy the sky was particularly spectacular. But it was also chilly out there..