Just now that the Krita sprint is underway there’s a power cut. Extremely local, though: our house (though not either of the neighbours, or the church), the shop opposite, and a handful of shops around the corner. The power went out at 9 and when we called the energy company around 10 they said “someone is on his way already, but it may take some time to clear up.”

In the next few hours, three vans and a small digger appeared with a total of nine men. Two came in to apply a voltmeter to something in our meter cupboard. There was already a hole in the road a bit further on, with two men in it and two others staring into it while the digger driver looked on with some interest. After taking measurements in our house and presumably some of the other affected houses. they started to dig a hole in front of the restaurant on the corner.

My other half took the hackers down to the church cellar, where they did have electricity, a kettle and a coffee machine, though no network because the server is out too, of course. (And anyway, nobody ever has any signal in the cellar, phone or wifi.)

When I went out to take some pictures, the workmen showed me the cause of it all: a burnt-through coupling the size of my forearm. As I’m writing this at about 15:40, someone is wrapping the new coupling in what looks like heavy-duty duct tape.

Epilogue: at 16:45 the power was back, minutes before I came in from getting more firewood. It’s not on the website of the local paper yet.

Most people will think this is the meat of the story, but I still intend to write a hotel review too.

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I’m splitting this into four parts because otherwise it’s too long; parts may still be boring. If you only want to read about FOSDEM, Part 2 and for my hotel review/recommendation, Part 3.

Note: It’s possible that some parts aren’t up yet. In that case, please try again later.

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