I talked to the guys when they were working on the problem. He explained that one 110v leg came from one transformer and the second 110v leg came from another, on the next block. Nobody could explain WHY, and most people don't even believe that this condition existed, but the living room was dead, thus the power strip that feeds the TV and Direct TV box had no power. However, the cable modem and router, plugged into an outlet in the kitchen, were live because I was still online on my laptop, though it was on battery power because the living room was dead. When I ran an extension cord from a kitchen outlet to that power strip, I was watching TV. 2 hours later the room lights came on, the lights and fan in the living room came on.... it was truly THE strangest thing I ever saw. And it piqued my curiosity to a point where I walked around with a lamp during the half outage and tested every outlet, making note of what worked and what didn't. When the power was fully back on I went downstairs to the breaker panel, and everything that worked was on the the RIGHT side of the panel, where everything that did not was on the LEFT side of the panel. Now when my guy was in, he explained that he changed a few things around to simplify the wiring and eliminate any "crossing" in the routing, so it was clear to see that one leg feeds the left and the other feeds the right.

Now, to the power expert (is it John that is the electrical contractor guy?), should I be asking the power company people to change that or not? The way it is now I will apparently always have power to at least half a house..... Is there any actual danger or practical reason to change it? Since it was the whole lower end of my street that had the same condition, it would seem that it was wired that way on purpose. I don't even know how I would explain this if I called the power company.