Journal Entry
Conversely... this has been a really shitty day. And it's pretty much continuing on that track...
Couldn't sleep last night. Got up at 02:00, turned on the computer. Everything in the house went off.
Went downstairs with a flashlight and a voltmeter; determined that the problem was the main breaker. Not much to do about that at 02:00, huh. Played with it for a while, got some of the lights to come on, but no computer.
The fan and noisemaker in the bedroom worked, so I tried to go to sleep again. About 9/10s of the way there, everything went off again. Wide awake again. Damndamndamn, again.
One circuit now working... the bathroom. OK, leave it alone. Get some sleep. And I finally dropped off, about 04:00.
I woke up at 08:30 and nudged Karen. Damn... she's got one of her headaches again. Poor woman. Damndamndamn.
I got up and went to the hardware store to get a main breaker. For a push-a-matic breaker box... and they don't have any, nothing at all for push-a-matic. In fact, nobody has anything for a push-a-matic. They're out of business, have been for years. Might be able to order one through an electrical supplier...
Hell with it. I would bypass the damned thing. So... it's illegal, and actually pretty stupid. Breakers are there for a reason, and that reason is generally to keep your house from burning down. OK, fuck the house. I fashioned some buss bars to fit across the mains, but I had to drill some holes in them. I took them and a drill over to Kims, since I had no power...
I should've taken some vice-grips too, but I didn't. I managed to drill a hole in my finger and get several deep cuts when the bit jammed in the copper and the copper spun around... I left some sharp edges, I guess.
I brought them home and very carefully installed them. Very, very carefully... working with live electricity is pretty scary... a slip with the screwdriver could be fatal. What the hell, live dangerously. By this time I was getting angry and so I slowed down. Angry doesn't help, angry makes dangerous more dangerous.
But what the fuck, I couldn't even have any coffee!
So the buss bars should've made everything work... but it didn't. Half of the stuff was still dead. Back to the box with the voltmeter.
Incoming lines:
So I called the electric company, and got one of those damned recording things. Punched in the proper stuff, knowing that it'll take them a long long time to get anything done probably. In the meantime, I'm stuck with very little electricity. I go into my thinking/fuming mode, unable to do much else.
And the old light bulb comes on... I'll just move the circuits from the dead side of the breaker box to the live side! Once again, working live...
And, again, very carefully. And I now have electricity all over... but the problem is, I had to double up all of the circuits. Most of them are 30 amps, so it should be no problemo... but I'm going to be really careful about what's on anyway.
After all, I have no main breaker...
More later.
17:14...
Since then... nothing. Kinda watching the K-state game, it's close.
Very tired, just worn-out, I think, from the tension of working with live juice. So I'm gonna call it an entry and slack off the rest of the day...