Power Outage Distractions

Today is the beginning of Eid al Fitr, marking the celebratory end of Ramadan, ilhamdulillah. I intended to use this day for catching up in my national security / joint operations classes I am taking through correspondence. The classes coincidentally mesh rather well with my IR classes at The American University in Cairo (AUC) that started this week. I had just gotten to the point where I found a more satisfactory explanation of the American promotion of democracy world wide (I am not looking at this topic at the moment from a moral or ideological stand point but purely utilitarian benefit...maybe I'll return to this in a moment) when the internet died, half the house began losing power and then regaining it, and I somehow felt like I was back on a 40 year old warship having an engineering casualty.

My office lair complete with dog

Cairo is always plagued power outages and this summer has been the absolute worst. The power goes out at my house around every other day, generally at night. It is so predictable I have candles scattered throughout the house for more than aesthetic reasons. The power often fluctuates whether it goes out entirely or not and these occurrences result in flickering light bulbs, blown appliances, and so on. I usually lose power when I am deep in concentration reading an article on the internet, downloading a video or podcast, talking on skype, or doing any other number of things in my life that seem to center around the holy wireless internet set up. I do admit that maybe the setup could qualify for membership in the “ghetto” category:

The Holy Internet Configuration

I am aware I won't be passing any electrical safety inspections if anything of the sort exists in Egypt, the land of ungrounded electrical plugs. But this is nothing when you look at the basic set up for the phone line and incoming DSL line that originates from the laundry room:

Incoming phone and DSL line

This looks like there should be something more than a phone and DSL line coming from all this doesn't there? Especially looking at the enigmatic Panasonic box...well, I am sorry to disappoint, there is no fancy home intercom system or anything of the sort.

Today was a different experience than my usual power drops because only the downstairs items lost power quite suddenly. I though it must have something to do with my breakers (all pretty much unlabeled excepting those having undergone my trial and error experiments a year ago when I was trying to understand why my bathroom lights kept blowing up and blowing fuses). This phenomenon has of course been addressed on three different occasions by an electrician who rarely even shuts off power when tinkering with wiring. But, yes, all is as God wills it. Enshallah.

Danger indeed...

What will be the right answer today?

Finding nothing overly odd with the breaker box I assessed the situation to be a building phenomenon and not an isolated incident for me to deal with. I also unplugged the internet configuration when I realized that my router was on but nothing else showed power. Odd...

I donned an extra layer of clothing to cover my scandalous shoulders and went to ask the trusty bo'ab if there was something wrong with the electricity. La la...mafish mushkela, el karaba diyeefa dil'wati ashan eshirka. In other words, no problem...the electricity is "weak" right now because of the electrical company. I promptly unplugged anything of value that might get fried from insufficient power. Ah Cairo...how you always distract me when I am working.

So while I intended to write and post something useful, reflective, and indicative of the time I am passing reading riveting material like previous QDR's, the 2010 National Security Strategy, and my IR readings I have produced a pointless journal entry rant on my electrical irritations in Cairo. I can't always be serious.