im still feeling a bit lethargic. yesterday's mildly messed up sleep is still having its effects. the morning is nice though, a slight haze lies over the world, and it is quite fresh outside. ive already gone for a walk. i hope i never stop this habit.

ive also already put some carrots into the stew and fresh wood onto the fire. really i have done basically all morning things. now is the time to start doing something else, but im not sure what... yesterday evening i said i wanted to try to restore the electric grid, or something along those lines. i now dont really feel like it that much anymore, but oh well. ill have a go. step one is going into the basement of a few blocks and seeing if the electrical panels are still fine and connected.

on the other hand: i do not want to pull in too much attention. if anything short-circuits, i am revealed, at least i might be. this is still illegal after all. but no. i want to do this. what else should i spend my days doing? ...

i think i will take my diary with me, that way i can write as i do. could be useful in case i need to remember anything.

okay so im now in the basement of the house where i have my fire and "center of operations" so to say. the air is especially humid down here, but it doesnt smell moldy. its pretty difficult to see as there are no windows, but i have a flashlight for the special occasion. its a solar-charged one, so its not too wasteful to use. unfortunately quite dim, but itll do. my eyes will adjust.

after stumbling around a few rooms of, well, rubble (why is there rubble here? was this used as storage?), i did find the electrical box. theres one small box and one big one. the small one has a big cable going outside, so this is probably the main one for the house. but since i do not want to risk shorts or anything of the like, before i check that out, i want to disable all breakers in the other one.

most were indeed still on. i disabled all of them except the one labeled "electrical room" which had a cable going right to a few outlets and the light switch it seems. i hope that should do as a test. now to see the smaller box. its not got an obvious way to get in it seems. the label actually says its a pure electrical fuse, so if this tripped it would be pointless to even try. but i doubt they manually tripped it by shorting the output, because you cant really switch those on and off. theyre either on, or broken.

time to look outside. there are distribution boxes, which are probably what is turned off.

im not sure how to get into this. luckily i do carry some metal tools with me and i doubt this old plastic will have a chance against that.

and indeed it does not. inside is a bit of measuring equipment with small data cables, and some sizable breakers. since this is a relatively small street it seems each building has its own. makes sense, given the building size. not sure why they put breakers at all, but oh well. comes in handy. there is also a much bigger switch next to the breakers and a glowing LED. first off, im taking the data wire out of the measuring device because i do not want to send any alerts to the grid owners... then turn all breakers off... big switch on... and now i need to find and flip whichever breaker is responsible for my building. ...arguably that is now done, lets see if it worked!

back in the electrical room, i was disappointed. the light was in fact still not working. but it turns out i forgot the light switch existing, and after acting on this revelation i did in fact see the dusty bulb spring to a short life, after which it started flickering and sizzling and turned back off. it seems the circuit board got too moist. doesnt matter, power works. question now is what did this get me? not much. i have no idea how to get it to the actually usable rooms, and if the rest of the building is as flickery and sizzly as the bulb, its probably pointless and more a fire hazard than the useful electricity i dreamt of. i may try tomorrow, but for now i am too demotivated to continue.

* * *

ill just fell a tree and work it into firewood. and then the day should be over and i can sleep.